I’m just now recovering from “almoost” succeeding in taking a bull moose in a northern Alaska hunting unit where I had won by lottery a coveted “any bull” tag for the 2017 season which ran from September 1st to the 25th. Several obstacles conspired to thwart my success.

First, the rich guys fly into this  particular area with airplanes to the hottest spots for bulls and the smart guys have pack horses they ride in 15+ miles to set up camp. That left us poor dumb guys to hunt on our own hooves. I’ve never walked so much in 4 days of my life. 10-12 miles per day, uphill both ways, dodging muddy trails that the horses tore up. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was a good deal of walking for certain, in a completely new hunting area.

Making things even more challenging was the reality that for the first hunting season in many years I didn’t have my normal “Twin” horsepower — my 16 year old twin sons TJ & CJ couldn’t make the hunt due to school commitments as their junior year kicked off. Without my boys, and determined to still try and fill our freezer with precious moose meat for the winter, I recruited my friend “Stew”, new to hunting, but fit and enthusiastic with a back he didn’t mind breaking if necessary to succeed. He was all in for the adventure and like-minded in so many ways that he really made for a great hunting partner who I hope to have many hunts with in the future. As his sons grow up, together with my almost full grown sons, we could have quite the hunting team.

Stew and I set up with an RV as our base camp out by the highway, and proceeded to hunt the unit on foot, walking 10-12 miles a day, for the last 4 days of the season. My right foot pad is still healing from the blister. It was truly beautiful moosey country. Snow capped peaks, reasonably good weather (we were never cold, were we Stew?)

On the last day we could hunt, at about 1:00 pm, after taking a brief rest near a grassy meadow at the furthest distance from the trailhead we had travelled so far in the trip, I spotted the partial brown side of a moose as we we were walking along a nearby ridge line that had been calling me to explore for over an hour. I stopped in my tracks, backed up, raised the binoculars and confirmed it had a rack, of decent size even, to my surprise and amazement. I raised up my scope and it was gone. It had evidently been walking as well, in the same direction, across a slope of a knob in the small valley below, about 150-200 yards across from us. I motioned for Stew to stay put as I went down the slope, careful to keep cover, quietly as I could through dry grass and scattered brush, coming to a point where I had decent visibility of the whole area halfway or so down the slope. I scanned with my eyes, I scanned with my bino’s, nothing to be found. I adjusted my position, down the hill, across left and right, slowly, quietly, scanning. Nothing. Where could he have gone I asked myself with a frustrated voice in my head. He was right there moments before. He’s too big to be hidden. I thought for a moment to go back up to rejoin my partner, then I let out a couple grunts, as deep and guttural as I could manage. Nothing at first, and just as I started to walk away I heard a distant grunt, or at least thought I did. I grunted again, just once. Two grunts came in reply and they sounded closer. I grunted twice. Several more grunts returned, and in what seemed like seconds I heard him sloshing through the swamp at the bottom of the hollow below. Several big spruce and some high brush obscured parts of my view, but I continued to scan below as I felt his imminent approach. The safety on my Weatherby was off, I was ready for this bull to charge up the slope right into my lap. Then the sloshing stopped. The grunting stopped. I stopped. My heartbeat didn’t. He was right there, yet I couldn’t see him. Later I’d deduct that he was at the very bottom of the slope I was on, hidden by brush, the big spruce, and the curve of the hill which was sharper than I had calculated. Silence was all around. I tried moving to gain a different angle, and this was probably what spooked him. He silently slipped away, probably to my left, concealed by the curve, but I’ll never know. After an unbearable time of silence, I grunted again and heard his soft single grunt reply from what seemed like miles away. His final farewell. I was devastated. As I rejoined my partner Stew, we would spend the rest of the day working that hillside above the valley, forest, swamp and distant lakes–ever glassing, sometimes calling, and praying the bull would reappear. He’s still out there.

Later that evening, laying in my bunk, I reviewed some video I took in the field along with photos from the day. In an effort to capture video of his prolific grunting, I seemed to have captured a dark image of this bull down at the bottom of the very slope I had been standing on. I couldn’t make out the whole animal, just his dark hid, no antlers, just the dark profile of his body, just below the curve of the hill. The camera had caught what my eyes couldn’t, just 50 yards below me, as the lens must have been just above my eye level.

It was perhaps my most successful calling session ever, and the closest I’d ever come to shooting a moose while not succeeding in doing so in the end. It has and will haunt me for some time. At least until next year, when I go back to the same spot and reconstruct the whole event and maybe, just maybe, find success. If I’m not lucky enough to draw the “any bull” tag, I’ll just hope that he grew big enough to have 50″ wide antlers or 4 brow tines on at least one side.

The biggest lessons I learned? Pursue more aggressively when you’re that close…had I walked around the big spruce tree, instead of using it as cover, I might have had a split second to get a shot off. Stay together: had I motioned for Stew to follow me closely and quietly maybe his eyes would have spotted the bull. Also, don’t forget to cow call. When he went silent, or even when I heard that distant farewell grunt, I might have had success if I started cow calling with abandon. Remember though, it was 1:00 pm, not a time that we’d normally think about cow calling which we generally do at dawn or dusk. And the most important lesson, which I heard repeated instantly by the voices in my head which sounded an awfully lot like TJ & CJ….never mess around with your camera or phone camera when you’re about to shoot a moose! Hindsight is 20/20 and I plan to have an eye exam this winter.