33.  The annual Trepassey Moose Hunting Trip usually falls on the Remembrance Day holiday weekend in November but this year we opted to go down early as Moose are pretty scarce and we had two licenses to fill. Unfortunately I had a last minute work commitment come up that I just couldn't pass up so I had to opt out of this four day adventure. Bassan, Troy, Blaine and young Duncan loaded up the bikes and headed down the shore Thursday evening to meet Peter and Eddy who were already in Trepassey.

32.  Friday Morning the boys left the house under cool temps and later in the day beautiful sunny skies hitting up all the usual hot spots, Neddy's Marsh, Doctor's Pond, and the Herding Marshes all to no avail. This year Bassan and Troy both had either sex licenses to fill.

31.   Bassan got to repeatedly test out his 2500lb winch equipped Foreman 400 hauling Troy and Blaine out of the soft boggy trails.

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28.   Earlier this year Bassan finally picked up a good pair of binoculars. These Vortex Diamond Back binoculars came from Outdoor Pros in Mount Pearl and are absolutely awesome.

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26.   Saturday morning the crew headed out to Cape Mutton over very narrow, steep drop off adjacent, rough trails hunting all the way to the head.

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23.   This time luck was on their side and Bassan made a perfect shot harvesting this beautiful big cow!

22.   Young Duncan even helped Eddy with the clean up by cutting out the liver.

21.   Peter's Honda Fourtrax 300 sure got a workout on this ride out of the country carrying Eddy, Peter and half of the large moose all at once!

20.   The black plywood moose-hauling boxes continue to work awesome and make carrying fresh meat very easy on an ATV.

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18.   The guys got out of the country without incident other than getting stuck a couple times and headed to Eddy's shed to hang, skin and quarter the animal.

17.   Sunday morning the boys hit the trails once again and spent the day heading in the country behind the gravel pit, unfortunately to no avail.

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8.   Sunday evening Troy headed back to town with Duncan while Bassan and Blaine stayed behind to pack up and headed back the following day.

7.   The following Saturday we all headed over to Troy's garage where Bassan had the moose hung to start cutting up and bagging our harvest.

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4.   The four of us had the job complete in no time finishing up mid afternoon.

3.   When I got home I decided to try out my new meat grinder which is an attachment for Sandra's fancy heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer. I picked up this grinder after seeing how well French's similar grinder worked last month. I cut the pieces of moose into 1.5" squares and discarded the heaviest of the connected tissues and ground up 3 x 5lb bags in about 20-30 minutes.

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1.   2018 has been an awesome Moose Hunting Season, I had a lot of fun with the French's helping harvest George Andrews moose on opening day and Matthew French's a few weeks later. I'm disappointed to have missed the Trepassey hunt as it's always a fun trip in absolutely beautiful country. However we may get back down for another crack at filling Troy's tags before the end of the season.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith