Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Hold for air....

I'm a mite busy and internet is all funny again...so this will be in installments. Stay tuned. Re: the title- my rifle is zeroed for 300 yards...

Last week of Oct we got snow- well a few inches- enough for tundra running on snow machine. Moose season reopened Nov. 1, either sex sans calves or cows with calves. Caribou had been stacking up across the Sound for weeks, ;but not yet crossing the ice (How the hell do they know????) So I went moose hunting via snowmachine. Plan was to run 10 mile down the Norvik trail and hang a left into the rough country, then work back toward town.

3 miles out I begin glassing every half mile or so. At 6 miles out, I spotted 100 or so caribou 2 miles off the trail. They were crossing! Worked my way around thru low ground out of sight until I topped a ridge about a half mile
away. The bou I'd first spotted were on an adjacent ridge - down below in the flats yo the left were a mere 900 or so more... Not wanting to spook them with motor noise, I motored a couple hundred yards farther down, sky-lined, until I chickened out and abandoned the machine, still out of range of the Leopold 800si rangefinder - good to 500 yds or so on animals - my shooting range. I picked a prefered shooting position farther down on the crest of my ridge at a patch of brush (hopefully for a rest, and cover) so I walked a ways bent over, rifle overhead vertically simulating a caribou, I hoped (still sky-lined) down an existing snow machine track until the rf registered 397. Do-able ( I'm good to 500 ), but I figured on closer- to the mentioned brush. So I dropped off to the right the into a swale below- which still left me exposed to those 100 or so first sighted animals. In position, I started back up-slope toward the brush patch and was halfway there when the bedded animals all got up and everything began milling. Then a group of 60 or so (on the right of the pic) broke into a run toward me, passing on the crest of the opposing ridge across the swale to my right at about 150 yards - mostly just backs exposed, some openings, but all running. No shot.

The remainder started moving more slowly toward the left, and down toward the main group on the flat below. I hustled up to the crest, but still short by 50 yards or so of my brush pick, and assumed a sitting position, estimated range 300 yards to the nearest animals.

Keep in mind I'm using an iphone here- my Stylus pocket camera having been stolen/lost at a June wedding and not replaced.. distance shots have to be cropped/enlarged, etc. (Long range rifle, short range camera.... )

I'm in the money now internet-wise- the local "Rumble in the Arctic" wrestling tournament ( I scored a sweatshirt) no longer being live-streamed to all the surrounding villages, and possibly Homer, and the other invites. And you thought village life was "simple" .... .

So I picked out a near-side seemingly lone cow and bang/flopped her chest shot to POA, all the bulls in range either moving or obstructed. That moved the critters into a higher gear. I backtracked to the machine and motored down to the kill. 100 yards or so out, I saw an animal working back thru the brush line toward me and stopped. When she came clear at about 200 yards, using the windscreen of the machine as a solid rest, and holding for air just under where the jaw joins the neck, the bullet took her spine at the base of the head. Later, four slashes of the knife and the head was off! About that time, two snow machines came over the ridge from the opposite direction I'd approached from. Them caribou have better hearing than I do, obviously! The second kill was 2/3 the size of the smallish cow, but with 7 inch antlers. Neither F&G biologist nor I am certain whether this was the cow's yearling calf, an adoptee, a friend, or a large calf of the year that grew antlers. I'm leaning toward the latter, considering the return... Or maybe she was just terminally stupid. I can live with any of the above...



One snow machine peeled off to chase the first bunch that came by me, the other came down to me and I pointed him in the direction most of the bunch had gone. I'd finished gutting the first I'd shot when he showed back up dragging another cow, taken with his .22 Mag. I loaned him a knife. (I really have to get me a card!)

I do wish (some of) these guys would learn to stalk and shoot, rather than run and gun! Some claim "it's the only way you can get them", but I kinda wonder how their folks managed to kill caribou for 10,000 years before the advent of 100mph snow machines...

I was home by 3:30, and the 'bou skinned out by dark, the meat stashed in my landloard's makeshift greenhouse, away from the village fox.

My initial dress up before leaving home.



Too warm at 5 degrees and >5mph wind, so I traded down to a medium weight fleece jacket here



topped by medium wt breathable parka, not shown, with the snow cover off the Eskimo Parka above. Stripping to the fleece for the dressing-out still worked up a mild sweat. 11 degrees when I got home.

Well, with Saturday a bust for moose, and weather on Sunday about the same (4 degrees when I left about 9, before the sun came up- and daylight saving change, I planned on much the same.

More or less retracing Saturday's route, but hitting the high spots for glassing, I hung a right at the kill site, pretty much paralleling the coast of what locals call Kobuk Lake, but shown on maps as Hotham Inlet, and a mile more or less inland. Where the previous day's run had shown few tracks, now there was a mile and half swath which looked like a cattle drive had gone through. Obviously not made by a mere 1,000 caribou.....

Topping a ridge without seeing a thing, I found a lone caribou calf standing 60 yards away on the snow machine track I was following (it was going in the right direction, and I figured maybe SOMEONE knew where he was going! ).

He was lonely, lost, forlorn looking, obviously an orphan from all the shooting I heard the day before. Solved his subsequent survival probabilit) problem, forgetting to holding for air/hair intersect low at jaw/ head juncture first shot. The second shot thru the chest blew a spray of blood for 20 feet on the opposite side, with a nerf-ball exit wound. Good thing I didn't have to blood trail him....

Taking him gutted but unskinned in the interests of time, I continued working deeper into the rougher, higher, more deeply ravined and brushed country, soon running out of caribou tracks, but encountering more moose trails, all of which petered out in impassible to me brushy areas. I was no longer seeing snow machine trails either. I'd come over a ridge, glass the opposite slopes, cross over, then back-glass. Lots of winding about, with not much straight line country traveled.

Patience is a virtue they tell me. I'm gonna have to try it sometime, cuz I sure didn't spend an extensive amount of time glassing any one stretch! 5 or 10 minutes, and I was on the move again.

And then I came over a ridge and what looked like moose Shagrai-la spread out below me - a 1/2 mile wide by mile or so long valley - obviously swampy in summer, with scattered brush across the bottom, 600-1,000 ft. high hills all around, well wind protected from all directions, all slopes willow- brushed, with numerous side ravines, also densely brushed with willow.

Glassing from the crest showed nothing, so I dropped down to a spur ridge maybe 30 feet in elevation above the floor, brushed on the down, sunny side into the valley floor. The plan being, after glassing from here, to run the bottom of the valley, stopping & glassing every few hundred yards. On the end of the spur I shut the machine off and didn't even have the glasses out of the parka front before a cow surged up out of the brush over the edge unto the open top of the ridge just 30 or so yards away, and stopped broadside to look at me. She was friggin enormous! Probably the biggest cow I have seen in 46 years in Alaska- I'd guess she went at least 1300 lbs. We went into stare-down, while I chambered a round and slid off the far side of the machine so I could use it as a rest. (I know, I know!) But never pass up the opportunity to stabilize your shooting platform. I in fact know a guy who missed a whole moose at 35 yards.... Me, I've only missed a whole moose at 50 yards once, but that's another story.

Of course the cell phone/camera was still on the charger at home.

Probably 10 minutes later she moved off the edge/crest by 20 feet or so, putting her out of sight from below and out of the brush and over the edge came her calf, who proceeded over to her. "Cool, I thought - sure glad I didn't push the envelope on that one!". There was no need, as she, if calf-less, was dead meat for 200 yards in any direction...

"HOLY CRAP - THERE'S A BULL!", followed the calf up and over, stopping broadside to look at me right where the cow had.

Before I could get the scope on him, "HOLY CRAP- THERE'S ANOTHER BULL!" which had followed the others up onto the crest/edge. The whole top of the spur here being maybe 30 feet wide...

The second one, even smaller antlered than the first, stopped with his front end behind the first. Both appeared to be just a tad larger body sized than the cow - I give them up to 1500 lbs, probably around 1400, allowing for bug-eye. .

If I remember, I'll weigh a hind tomorrow - that should give me an estimate based on past weighs.

Those Interior bulls haven't a thing on body size with these Baldwin Peninsula moose, IMO. BP bulls have a rep as being small antlered for their age/size, unlike those up the Noatak/Selawik/Kobuk Rivers, but large bodied.

Trust me - a Leupold Vari-X 3.5 x 10 set on high works just fine at 30 yards!
even if you do have to hold a little low. Bullet entered an inch under his right ear. So too did those Hornady Superperformace 150's work fine, on all above animals mentioned.

I made it home a half hour after sunset, pretty damned pooped, to be sure, with no "adventure". Well except for that up-slope out of the moose kill. I followed my back trail, since I had no idea of where I was really, or how else to find the marked trail from where I was if I was to "shortcut". Then too there's all those dead-end creeks and ravines..... I KNEW I could get out the way I came, even if a few miles longer.

Just before cresting out on that first opslope, the lugging-down machine spun out and I spent 20 minutes unhooking the borrowed sled (my POS ain't up to this kind of thing!), backing it down and around, rehooking, then taking it back almost to the kill site to get a 200 yard run at the slope with that 800 pound towed load. By the time I hit the base the second time, I was smoking! Why, that maxed out Bravo must have been doing at least 20, maybe 25! I have a feeling they ain't exactly made for that kind of thing. There were a couple other marginal hills, but by that time I was on hard-pack trail so no prob, tho some question....

Oh yeah. I GPSed that valley, wherever the hell it is.

[IMG]http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c87/sterlingak/kotz%20pics/IMG

So she won't let you have a wall mount? ( I had to thaw this out to get tongue and lower front teeth (for aging) out.

[URL=http://s25.photobucket.com/user/sterlingak/media/kotz%20pics/IMG_0301.jpg.html]

That's as pretty as that's going to look!



I missed one! Actually, those are all bone scratches from dressing out. Honest!
This hand had little problem staying warm in the body heat. Got smart this time and took a neoprene "wet suit" glove for the knife hand, which is a bit more sensitive having frost bit finger tips a couple years back. Worked good!



Just ignore that giant jackrabbit up front.....

I'm going to bed now, with half a moose thawing out on the counter to be butchered over the weekend.

Just for the record, I measured the hind, taken off at the pelvic girdle, from there to the tip of his hoof. 74 inches. And a lot easier to carry into the house frozen, than those 15 feet fresh to the sled! In fact, I had to drag it to the sled, it being all loose.... I'm getting old... er... never mind.

Forgot to mention- when i left sunday morning it was 4 degrees, when I got back, it was 5. Seemed warmer- in fact, I comfortably came back the whole way with my outer parka open. Can't imagine why.....

Here's a better? shot - he was 41 inches- I'll measure ear-tip to ear-tip distance tomorrow for a future field reference in judging rack width.

I'm really tired.... good night.

Great story Las! You been busy and must be pooped!

I like the Eskimo Parka!

Thanks for recounting your hunt.

Great story and pics.(especially since they are cell phone pics. )

Thanks for sharing your hunts with us.

Ed

Las,

Thanks for that! Glad you got that all done prior to the (possible) big blow headed that way.

If it blows, keep yer head down!

Great write-up and adventure. (And what aren't out there? )

(I am seriously missing the "get out and go" of life farther out. I'm presently hanging out in the 'gold camps' around Barnette's trading post.)






BTW, we called those hooved 'rabbits' �..dogs.

Naw - I just missed "adventure".

Monday I drove the Bravo several blocks to work and back, then took the harvest report over to F&G. Where I ran out of gas. Normally I get about 70 miles on a tank with that little one-banger, if I'm just riding cross country runs. Pulling that load, ( I've never done more than a couple caribou before) I got 32 and those several blocks.

To quote comedian Ron Smith, "That's a valuable piece of information!"

Ear tip to ear tip went 30 inches. As with every other bull I've measured, each ear is 11 inches from head to tip, and 8 inches between ear bases. Haven't weighed a hind yet, but did weigh front and hind lower legs, hair on a not precise bathroom scale. Front went 5 lbs, hind went 7.

Here is something I want some feedback on if you all will.

This is my 21st? moose- but my first winter kill. The others, all taken in August or mostly in September, I hung for several days, depending on temp, as I do with caribou taken in the same time frame. Not aging Aug/Sept caribou has resulted in tougher meat, but not on the winter, quick frozen ones.

I've taken more winter caribou than Aug/Sept ones, and never had a tough winter 'bou. Kill 'em, gut 'em, let 'em freeze hide on or off, then butcher a few days/weeks later. No prob with tough.

On Wednesday, I thawed out one of the moose back straps and cut a few steaks.

It was seemingly tough even under the knife, so I quit. The rest is still in the refrigerator, aging. The rest of the moose is going the same route - thawing for a couple days, then several days of aging (right where I skinned out those caribou on the living room floor last year... ) before I process.

Your comments/experience on similar conditions/species?

And yeah, I am aware this moose is just post rut - but so were those 5 bull caribou I killed last November. So i have some questins about the whole situation.

Driving the only machine still around with a reserve tank and you didn't take advantage of same, what?!

Hmmm that's what a lot of smart azzez call our tx deer too. Grins

Always enjoy your hunting posts, and this is no exception. Thank you for sharing.

Front leg went 62#, Hind leg off without pelvic girdle an even 100 # on the bathroom scale. So I was only a little bug-eye - I KNEW that cow was as big as those bulls! I'll give the bulls 1300, the cow 1200.

Finished up the moose processing tonight, having already down the cow/calf. Still have to bring the second calf in, skin it, and process it. Been working on it evenings and weekends since the night of the 3rd...

I think I remember now why killing caribou is more better.....

Interesting. I cut a hind off a bull this fall, kept the skin and leg on, and a flap of skin to protect the inside of the meat/ball joint. IE disjointed like you did( why would you do it any other way..)

I could NOT pick the thing up. I"m not huge, but I carry 2 bags of corn around quite often feeding our dog deer here.

I have no clue what my bull weighed, or what the hind without the leg and hide weighed, but I do know it about killed me to stand on the polaris and pull it up into the bed finally. Twice.

I suspect my bull must have been 1200 at least then.

38 inch neck around the meat part since I"m going to mount it, that measurement I know. AT the base of the skull.

I helped carry out two moose, one cow and one bull, from the Copper River Delta back in the late 80's. The bull's RF leg, with hide & hoof on weighed 125# when we got back to the house. One of the hind legs weighed 150+.

Ran into a sow brown bear and her twin two-year-old cubs on the way to the airboat while carrying that front leg, but that's another story...

Ed

HAIR!!!

I disarticulate but start a game bag down over the top of the quarter from the very beginning to make sure virtually no hair is on the meat and it cools as quickly as possible.

I was thinking I could manage 125 pounds off the ground. 150 might not be quite so easy. I was flat amazed when I went to try to use the hind leg for leverage to put over shoulder, it would not budge... LOL I guess. Then tried to flat pick it up... nope, close but not quite. I was thinking 150 or 175.

I can barely pick up our 200 pound fire training dummies...