After much anticipation, preparation and planning, the 2022 Moose Hunting season has finally arrived! As mentioned in the Moose Hunt Preparation article, the season opens early (at least by traditional East Coast standards) for the 2nd year in a row on September 10, 2022. We loaded up Friday afternoon and headed down the shore to MMA 36 to situate our campsite and to do a little scouting for the following (opening) morning.

I was first to arrive so I set up camp which seemed to work out well, before hoping aboard the Argo for a run in the country while waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive in a few hours time.

The weather was beautiful, a lot warmer than we're used to for Moose Hunting, the season hasn't even changed to fall just yet.

French and Stroh were next to arrive and got the 2nd accommodations trailer set up as well. Unfortunately it looks like our opening weekend trip may be cut short as hurricane Earl is forecast to pass close by Saturday lingering through Sunday. There are wind and rainfall warnings in place but it looks like we'll get at least a Saturday morning hunt in before the weather ramps up.

Bassan and Matt French were the last to arrive this evening, Andrew French will be coming down early the next morning, and Roger & Bassan's father Peter had other commitments opening weekend.

With rain arriving earlier than expected we got a later than usual start to the morning hunt. Leaving camp we seen 2 animals on the road well over 900m away where they vanished into thick woods, we suspect it was one of the Cow Calf pairs we have seen on prior scouting trips.

We made the most of the circumstances but seen no further sign of moose activity all morning. By 8:30 heavy rain arrived so we headed back to camp to pack up and head for home. With storm force winds and 200mm of rain on the way we decided ride out the storm at home in case of storm damage, power outage or flooding.

Hurricane, now tropical storm Earl arrived with fury Saturday afternoon persisting into the wee hours of Monday morning.

Over 200mm of rain dropped on the region which encompassed the capital city and all the way South to our hunting area. Storm surge and incredible groundwater led to a lot of flooding, fortunately the entire crew escaped with little to no wind damage and no issues with flooding on our properties.

Other parts of the city were not quite as fortunate!

With clear skies and no reports of road washouts on the Southern Shore highway, Mark French, Matt French, Bassan, Roger and I headed back down the shore Monday afternoon to reconvene our opening week hunt.

Action was light on this part of the trip. French had his scope on a cow & calf a long ways off Monday evening, and Roger and Bassan walked up on a dandy bull on Tuesday unfortunately it ran into the woods instead of out towards me.

Rivers, brooks and streams are still very high due to water run off from Earl.

Wednesday evening supper consisted of Bassan's homemade pasta sauce using his grandmother's recipe. Matt French said it was almost as good as his own infamous Lasagne hamburger helper! LoL, in fact it was absolutely amazing.

Bassan, Roger and Matt French headed back to town Wednesday after dark, Mark French and I decided to stay another night to have one more crack at a morning hunt, which statically is our most productive hunting time.

Supper tonight was BBQ steaks, mushrooms/onions and rice.

Thursday morning once again netted us neither moose, we figure that given the wind direction and strength this past week, most animals are still deep in the woods, and slowly working their way back to open country. In any case, we loaded up and headed home midday and attended to home & work commitments.

This also gave me a chance to drain accumulated rainwater inside the Argo, and gave it a chance to dry out inside the garage.

I wanted to hunt Saturday morning but everyone else had other commitments. Not wanting to miss a hunting opportunity during prime Moose Calling season I hooked onto the trailer and headed back down the shore Friday afternoon. This would be another solo adventure akin to my last successful solo hunt in 2020.

I also better organized my accommodations unit with the purchase of some plastic totes to permanently store grocery dry goods, cooking gear, and misc. gear such as paper towels, plates, bowls, tin foil, etc.

After a quick scouting mission Friday evening, supper today consisted of my famous pan fried Moose/onion/mushroom mix served with French onion rice and a Caesar salad.

This is the first season with my new Sitka Hudson suit (the pants are actually Sitka Grinder as the Hudson bibs were out of stock) and I have to say I'm super impressed. The crew at Outdoor Pros were fantastic to deal with, and no neither OP nor Sitka are a sponsor of shed-headz or my hunting program, I love to promote local business and quality products. The suit is insulated, gortex which is weather proof & breathable, very well constructed, and very comfortable even in warmer early fall weather.

I'm also using a sling pack this year for daily carrying in the woods instead of my full backpack. This forced me to trim down unnecessary equipment I was needlessly carrying around all day long, now I'm taking just the basics. All my extra gear, especially that of which is needed for field dressing an animal is left in my larger pack in the Argo.

Saturday morning I arrived to my choice hunting area parking the Argo at the beginning of the trail and hiking in just as it became legal light one half hour before sunrise. I had high expectations, as I found fresh moose tracks in my Argo tire tracks from last nights scouting mission.

I hiked to my chosen spot, set up the caller and made just one round of calls with the FoxPro when a beautiful Bull Moose appeared right behind me. There was a decent breeze on this morning creating a lot of ambient noise, and wind direction was in my favour. I stopped the caller, mounted my Browning BAR 30.06 and connected a single shot to the vitals approximately 120 yards away.

The fatally wounded Bull walked a short distance and went just out of sight. I always wait 10 minutes before going to find the animal in case it decides to sprint on a shot of adrenaline. First I walked to where I shot the Bull, followed the trail and ended up walking right into this large cow! I got to within 100' before finally having to shoo her away. The bull was on the ground just to my immediate left peacefully expired.

My new Spypoint Flex trail camera, my latest and greatest cellular trail cam caught the whole thing as the Bull (left) walked in frame and lay down while the cow walked just out of frame to the right where she stayed until I shooed her away!

With the throat cut I made a few phone calls to Bassan, Roger & Dad who all got ready and headed down the shore to lend a hand. I hiked out to the Argo, rode back to the site and positioned it to help with field dressing. The crew will take at least 2 hours to arrive so I set about getting this large harvest ready to transport.

I positioned the machine side on, used the winch to first pull back the top front leg which I secured to the rear of the Argo with rope, then winched the top rear leg which held the animal perfectly for field dressing.

In no time I had the panch out, halved, head removed and ready for transport.

Shortly thereafter Dad, Bassan and Roger all arrived about the same time.

In short order we had the rear half on the back of Bassan's Honda Foreman, while the front half, head and gear were all loaded aboard Project 6x6.

The route I chose to the harvest site was pretty much ideal consisting of nice firm bog and low lying brush. This made for an uneventful ride out to the well worn ATV trail without any stucks or even so much as a tire spun.

The ATV path took us out to the gravel road and back to camp.

Back at camp we skinned out harvest, broke camp, loaded up and headed back to my house where we will hang, quarter and clean the quarters.

After sawing down the front and rear halves, we trimmed up the quarters removing bullet damaged tissue, fat and grizzle.

Next the meat was washed down twice using microfiber cloths with a mix of cold water, vinegar and salt. We've found this to be the easiest and most effective way to remove not only dried blood but also every single moose hair from the meat! The salt & vinegar also helps to kill any possible bacteria laying on the surface.

Hanging moose is always a friends & family affair with many dropping by including the whole crew, French's uncle Arch, and even Mark's daughters Piper & Avery!

Finally our harvest was bagged in cheesecloth and ran over to French's shop to put Moose Cooler 2.0 to the test! The four quarters were all over 100lbs according to the scale in Mark's shop, in total the animal dressed in at just over 430lbs when we put it in the cooler.

I've been using Hornady ammo since my start in Moose hunting (also not a sponsor!) and this 178grain round did the trick once again with a clean, single shot, ethical harvest in the books.

That brings the first instalment of Moose hunting 2022 to a successful close. There's lots of action still to come as we process my harvest into a finished product and follow along as Mark has a charity license and Matt his own either sex tags to fill.

I'm super happy with how the season played out, even with a hurricane on opening week (for the 2nd year in a row now!). My goal was to work and fill my tags early in the season to free up the rest of autumn without worry. Time punched in the woods during prime time (for this area) and hard work by the entire crew made that happen and I cant wait to see what the rest of the season brings!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith