October 2019 Moose Hunting (59 Photos)

59.   As you may have read in my previous post Moose Scouting 2019 we have been working hard prepping for this years Moose Hunt. Opening day is right around the corner which is Saturday October 5th here on the East Coast of NL. An exciting new addition to my hunting gear is a new Streamlite Protac 1000 lumen head lamp (which will later prove very beneficial!) Streamlite (not a sponsor) make fantastic flashlights, I have the Protac HL & Stinger HPL units already in stock so I was confident their headlamp would be wicked bright!

58.   Like most things in life preparation is key, today it was making sure our firearms are in proper working order with scopes accurate and on target.

57.   Since the St. John's Rod and Gun Club was booked up for an event French and I headed to unofficial range Z. We fire some rounds in this safe environment making sure our 30.06 shooting rufles were on the money.

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55.   Anticipation was high as opening morning finally arrived. We left town at 4:30am to make sure we were the first ones in and set up in our desired hunting area on the Southern Shore long before daybreak.

54.   Today we had a large crew on deck and four licenses to fill. Stroh and I would head to the clearing at top of the big hill, Bassan & Roger to the north pole line, Mark & Matthew the South pole line, while Harry & Arch stayed at the road overlooking the bog. This would effectively cover all bases.

53.   French's enclosed trailer is super convenient for transporting two Argos while also providing a clean dry place to change into and out of our hunting gear. Under darkness we drove in the road in my Project 6x6 and French's 2017 Argo Huntmaster, Stroh and I drove right up the big hill parking the machine in the woods at the top. We geared up and walked in the trail and up across an open dry tundra where I previously filled my own Moose license back in 2017.

52.    We were 3/4 of the way across when our kickass new headlamps illuminated some mildly reflective objects about 100 yards away. It was the eyes of at least 2 moose looking at us in the darkness, I presumed one was a calf straight on and the other a cow side on. Fortunately the gentle breeze was in our favor and they didn't stir, neither did we. I took out my phone and checked the weather network for their official sunrise listing, we then waited 10 minutes for it to become legal to shoot (one half hour before sunrise).

51.   When the clock struck I took aim and successfully connected one well placed round from my Browning BAR 30.06 rifle. Turns out the animal I thought was a cow in the pre-dawn light was actually a bull which is why I only apply for either sex licenses. The other animal was indeed a calf which ran off upon the report of my rifle, while the cow (which had been lying down) got up and followed along right after. This harvest successfully filled the either sex charity NFP license I was hunting on.

50.   The rest of the crew continued to hunt while Stroh and I set about field dressing our harvest and getting it ready for transport.

49.   With no other animals in site all hands arrived and helped load the dandy bull into the back of French's Argo while mine was loaded up with knapsacks and gear.

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47.   French's uncle Arch hitched a ride out the rough ATV trail and down over the big hill back to Harry's truck.

46.   Back at the road we loaded the moose into the back of Harry's pickup so he and Arch could head back to town and get the meat hung, skinned, quartered and washed down.

45.   Harry has a great moose hanging setup here in his old garage, this will soon be trumped by an all out epic setup at his new home!

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43.   With two of the byes headed back to town excitement renewed almost immediately just as we were enjoying a coffee on the road. About 600 yards away a large Cow and Bull crossed the road heading North into the woods between the pole line and a pond! We rapidly put a plan together with French and I sprinting down the road to the point at which they crossed. Bassan crossed the pole line and went in the woods where the animals were headed, while Roger headed to an overlook position further up the pole line.

42.   French and I arrived to the crossing point, waited on the road and watched both animals emerge from the woods climbing a steep tundra covered hill about 100 yards away. French took aim and fired knocking the Cow to the ground but she surprisingly jumped back up and sprinted after the Bull who just crested the hill headed down the other side. Bassan was in the right place and cut off their advance toward the pond steering them toward the pole line directly to Roger where he connectd a successful shot on the Bull.

41.   We tracked the cow right from the point she dropped following every track, but never found a drop of blood or hair anywhere. We now surmise that if Mark hit her, it had to be in the hump which shocked/stunned her but did no lethal damage, could be a coincidence that she stumbled at the same time. Sure enough she showed up on our game cameras a few days later completely unfazed and obviously unharmed!

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39.   Roger connected a clean shot but the stubborn, adrenaline fueled Bull ran into thick woods which at first glance appeared to greatly complicate the upcoming extraction process.

38.   Once field dressed, Mark, Bassan and I left Roger and headed back to the road to get the Argos, and I'll be dammed but another bloody big bull moose crossed the road this time headed South! Mark, Matthew and Stroh jumped in his Argo and headed up country to try and cut him off, meanwhile I broke out Google Maps and planned a route to get my Argo as close to Roger's animal as possible.

37.   The route the moose ran off the pole line was a huge mess and would require an hour or two of chainsaw work to get through. Instead I went around the back way and looping up across rough open tundra, crossed a small bog to this point of tall bushes above. Bassan followed for awhile on his 1997 Foreman 400, when it got real rough he left the bike and walked in the rest of the way.

36.  I travelled another 500 yards or so through dense tall brush and got the machine to within 20 feet of Rogers moose, entirely avoiding the heavy forest between here and the pole line. This thankfully avoided chain sawing a path through the woods to get the animal out! The beauty of the Argos is their ability to crawl across very rough ground with ease and do no damage to the terrain. Here my machine is turned around pointing back at the route I just travelled in and it still looks untouched.

35.   We quickly knocked the limbs off a few saplings and in no time had an awesome path to carry the young bull, half at a time over to Project 6x6 for its first moose extraction in many many years.

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33.   I decided to take the animal out half at a time to Bassan's truck out on the road. My machine is older and only has a few easy shakedown rides under its belt since the major rebuild earlier this year. On top of that the terrain was very rough. Tundra is dry consisting of ancient granite boulders buried in lichen, moss and low lying shrubbery. Coming out with the load was slow and steady with the last bit of open riding crossing a marsh before finally hitting the well used ATV trail back out over the big hill.

32.   I only managed to get bottomed out once and that was on the first trip out, a quick call to Bassan and he arrived with his Honda Foreman to give me a quick pluck backwards.

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29.   We unloaded the first half onto his trailer then headed back to retrieve the second half.

28.   Bassan got some decent video of the second trip out after we hit the ATV path.

27.   By this time the two French's and Stroh returned after unsuccessfully tracking down that 2nd big bull moose. We got Bassan & Roger loaded up and on their way back to my house in Torbay to get the animal hung, skinned quartered and washed down.

26.   With two licenses filled we were now down to a crew of 4 and we finally got a chance to boil the kettle for coffee and have a quick lunch.

25.   French, Stroh and I found these awesome silicone/stainless steel Dr.Si collapsible kettles (similar in design to my Sea to Summit collapsible X-pot) for a clear out special on Amazon so we all bought one each. Like the x-pots they are designed solely for use on gas stoves, today I tried out a new single burner stove this GSI Pincacle. I wanted/needed a second compact stove in addition to my MSR Superfly to cook more items at once, I chose this unit as it has a removable windscreen to protect the flame in windy conditions.

24.   The evening of opening day brought a few rain showers which never lasted long clearing off beautifully just before sunset.

23.   We headed south on the pole line and came to a mount which overlooked a beautiful big bog. Despite our best efforts with the moose caller we were unsuccessful in making opening day a Hat Trick.

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20.   When I got home Saturday evening, Roger and Bassan had the meat hung, skinned and cleaning well underway.

19.   After skinning and quartering we always wash the quarters down with salt water and vinegar to clean off blood and kill off any bacteria. Using a microfiber cloth aids tremendously in hair removal, the whole process makes for a top quality finished product especially important as we'll be processing the meat ourselves.

18.   The following Thursday morning was good and frosty, French and I headed back down the Southern Shore with his Argo in tow in search of an animal to fill his either sex tags.

17.   Once again we were in the woods well before daybreak in a clearing at the top of the big hill where I successfully harvested the young bull opening day. We got the caller going and the woods came alive North of us, the racket continued to circle right around. Two cows finally popped out of the woods right where the cow I harvested in 2017 came out. French pulled the trigger on his Tikka 30.06 and connected a successful shot.

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15.  With just two of us on hand today we once again used French's Argo as an anchor to tie off the upper legs so we could get to work field dressing with ease.

14.  In no time we had the animal paunched, halved and loaded into the back of the machine.

13.   We drove back to town and onto Harry's garage where we got the meat hung, skinned, quartered and cleaned up.

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10.   On this trip the replaceable blade in my Outdoor Edge Razor-pro knife jammed and would not release, the tip broke off trying to get it out with pliers. I ended up sending it back to Colorado for warranty where Outdoor Edge honored it with ease and mailed me a brand new knife! These knives are fantastic, literally razor sharp and the blade can be swapped for a fresh one in seconds. One blade will stay sharp for paunching and skinning a moose no trouble!

9.   The following Saturday was Thanksgiving weekend French, Stroh, Rob and I headed back to Ferryland to try and fill Rob's either sex tags and close out our hunting season.

8.   As usual we headed down very early and were greeted by real pretty fog formations as the sun came up. Stroh and setup on the big hill while French and Rob went south down the pole line.

7.  It was a remarkably beautiful fall morning as the sun rose meeting with clear skies.

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4.   The weather stayed absolutely perfect. It was crisp, just a gentle breeze of wind and quite frosty. Despite and idyllic day the moose had other plans and never showed themselves all morning.

3.   The day was not a complete loss as we stopped around noon for an epic boil-up.  I prepared my infamous Infamous Backwoods Fried Moose paired with onion & fresh mushrooms (prepped at home and marinated all day). This was served on top of beef flavored white rice and coffee to boot! It was great finally having two compact stoves toady. I broke out the MSR Superfly to slow simmer the moose concoction in an X-pot and used the higher power GSI Pincacle to boil rice and later my Dr.Si kettle.

2.  This is one of the favorite meals of the whole crew to make in the woods. The day was cut short as Rob had family commitments that evening, we packed up and headed back to town mid afternoon.

1.   This trip pretty well finished out our 2019 hunting season. We spent time processing our harvest as we got to work cutting/bagging roasts, grinding more and making a load of sausages all on our own. All in all it was a very successful and most importantly an extremely enjoyable hunting season from the pre-season prep right to the last sausage coming out of the stuffer!