I shared this hunt on the "other" hunt place, before I was banned for sports forum and a disagreement about three years ago. This hunt made my desire to move to Alaska equal to sliding down a coconut oil slide with two super models. And since I have moved here it has been a struggle. it is hard to start over at 54 but what the heck.
I had my dream job before this hunt. Was working for a good friend and over night, done. So I was already going to Alaska to moose hunt and when I was fired I talked to the folks I was hunting with in Alaska. He told me to come up early, so I rebooked and arrived in Fairbanks early August. And with in two days I was in the Northeastern Brooks!
The second day there went for a hike through the "cross training" tundra with black spruce patches spread about. Was with a friend and his ten year daughter who marched through the tundra in her tuffs in between us. Suddenly my friend on point stopped us and I caught up to him and looking on the the tiny hill about 75 yards was the head of a grizzly bear! The bear had no interest in us no matter how hard we tried to make her interested. We wanted a picture. His daughter never saw the bear but was still a bit "freaked", and this pertains to later in the day. Four hours later I shot my first carribou ever. 1000 yards from camp, and five hundred yards where that grizzly bear was bedded. His daughter in her tuffs came tearing up on my rear through the tundra without fear of that bear to get to that carribou before us.
He is not huge but I have never been around carribou. So he seemed big to me. The next day that silver colored grizzly showed up and layed on his gut pile for three days. And chased two other bears away from the gut pile. After this I got dropped at another place and spent eight days by myself with a little jack russell.
I saw five more grizzlies and over three to four thousand carribou and a few wolves. Then when my friends decided to see if I was still around, showed up and we went to a new camp. This camp was magical. We are there four days before moose opens so we are watching carribou. One afternoon a mile south of camp we are watching 100 or so boos and suddenly they are scattering everywhere! I wish I was a photo dude. Running up the river was a huge interior boar, swatting, clapping and generally smiling at the cayous he was inflicting. (I was probably 75 yards up wind of him).
So moose opens on the 5th. Two days of constant down pour and then we are moving to find moose. The moose I am going to talk about we found five in half miles south of camp. We spotted a bunch of moose on a bend in the river bottom. We decided that we needed to find a place to land a cub. While doing this I saw a sow with three cubs wander into the bend of the river where we spotted the moose. I told the friend what I just saw and he instantly snapped back, "guess you're on your own!" Glad he was joking. We marked out a place a cub could sneak into and then went down stream to find these moose.
Didn't take long. Around three hundred yards from the river bend four cows walked out and a bull followed. Not the bull we had been watching. The next two hours we watched this bull tear a bush apart, take a nap and have two cows pee on him. If I was smart enough I could share the action video. Finally he rose after his nap when six cows started nagging him. I ended his life quickly and full of regret. The older I am getting the less I care about killing. He was delicious, but it was so amazing watching a bull be a bull.
He was only 54 inches but scored real well, 675 pounds processed, and the heaviest individual thing i have ever carried on my back.
We celebrated that night and three months later I was living in Fairbanks, with my first memories of the lights from that hunt! And the size of that back strap......... what else is there.
I had my dream job before this hunt. Was working for a good friend and over night, done. So I was already going to Alaska to moose hunt and when I was fired I talked to the folks I was hunting with in Alaska. He told me to come up early, so I rebooked and arrived in Fairbanks early August. And with in two days I was in the Northeastern Brooks!
The second day there went for a hike through the "cross training" tundra with black spruce patches spread about. Was with a friend and his ten year daughter who marched through the tundra in her tuffs in between us. Suddenly my friend on point stopped us and I caught up to him and looking on the the tiny hill about 75 yards was the head of a grizzly bear! The bear had no interest in us no matter how hard we tried to make her interested. We wanted a picture. His daughter never saw the bear but was still a bit "freaked", and this pertains to later in the day. Four hours later I shot my first carribou ever. 1000 yards from camp, and five hundred yards where that grizzly bear was bedded. His daughter in her tuffs came tearing up on my rear through the tundra without fear of that bear to get to that carribou before us.
He is not huge but I have never been around carribou. So he seemed big to me. The next day that silver colored grizzly showed up and layed on his gut pile for three days. And chased two other bears away from the gut pile. After this I got dropped at another place and spent eight days by myself with a little jack russell.
I saw five more grizzlies and over three to four thousand carribou and a few wolves. Then when my friends decided to see if I was still around, showed up and we went to a new camp. This camp was magical. We are there four days before moose opens so we are watching carribou. One afternoon a mile south of camp we are watching 100 or so boos and suddenly they are scattering everywhere! I wish I was a photo dude. Running up the river was a huge interior boar, swatting, clapping and generally smiling at the cayous he was inflicting. (I was probably 75 yards up wind of him).
So moose opens on the 5th. Two days of constant down pour and then we are moving to find moose. The moose I am going to talk about we found five in half miles south of camp. We spotted a bunch of moose on a bend in the river bottom. We decided that we needed to find a place to land a cub. While doing this I saw a sow with three cubs wander into the bend of the river where we spotted the moose. I told the friend what I just saw and he instantly snapped back, "guess you're on your own!" Glad he was joking. We marked out a place a cub could sneak into and then went down stream to find these moose.
Didn't take long. Around three hundred yards from the river bend four cows walked out and a bull followed. Not the bull we had been watching. The next two hours we watched this bull tear a bush apart, take a nap and have two cows pee on him. If I was smart enough I could share the action video. Finally he rose after his nap when six cows started nagging him. I ended his life quickly and full of regret. The older I am getting the less I care about killing. He was delicious, but it was so amazing watching a bull be a bull.
He was only 54 inches but scored real well, 675 pounds processed, and the heaviest individual thing i have ever carried on my back.
We celebrated that night and three months later I was living in Fairbanks, with my first memories of the lights from that hunt! And the size of that back strap......... what else is there.
