Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Another Newfoundland Moose Hunt (photo heavy)

Folks,

Sorry for the giant pics - All my editing in Imgur didn't help and even photoshop didn't solve some issues.

Not an exhaustive trip report but certainly an exhausting hunt! Roof (joe) and from the campfire and two other friends hunted with Bob Effords Hunting Adventures outfit in Newfoundland in October and I wanted to pass on some of the story, some successes and some warnings. I’ve taken a bit to put this report up as a courtesy and you’ll see why at the end.

We did a lot of research after our last moose hunt in 2014 and decided for this one we wanted to do a fly-in camp with the thought being more game sighted and a more wilderness experience. Lets say we batted .500 on those goals. I visited at least a dozen moose outfitters at the Harrisburg outdoors show and built a matrix before we agreed on Effords.

Flew Dulles to Toronto to Halifax into Deer Lake on Air Canada and it went pretty well. Customs and taking care of the guns in Toronto was OK, albeit we stood there for 15 minutes and watched the Canadian customs having coffee and chatting and nothing happened but made the connection pretty easily. You do have to recheck your bags and they want to put new tags on it with ammo warnings in the bags (your ammo needs to be separate from the guns going into Canada. At least my 10-year-old Canadian currency got a nice “I miss our old money” comment from the cashier. Rifles made it to Deer Lake but the bags had to catch the next plane out and arrived at 0100.

There were many folks heading for the seaplane base and they had local taxis shuttle us the couple hours down there. Gratuitous Beaver shot from the fly-in



Flight in was perhaps 20 minutes to the lake down in the SW lobe of the island. Arriving at camp we met the guides and cook and found the first surprise. We were contracted to be one guide to one hunter. We had been very specific in seeking this out and it was clear talking to the guides that they had tossed the one extra guide out 5 weeks prior and there were no plans for replacement, let alone two extras to fulfill the contract.

Camp was a pretty standard north woods affair. Sledded in over the snow, woods stove, plywood bunks but it did have a propane hot water heater so a hot shower was a great luxury.

The first day dawned foggy and we didn’t get started until about 1200 when you could see your way across the lake. We split up and headed out across and started hiking for an initial jaunt. It is very different terrain from our last moose hunt. Much boggier and you feel it right away. There are no full steps and plan on ending up to your crotch in bog and falling over a few times a day. We hiked perhaps ¾ of a mile to a knob and settled in to glass a bit. We had picked the last hunt of the camp in the hopes the rut was on and we could call a bull in.

Camp from across the lake




We didn’t sight anything and strolled down another path and back to the camp about 1900, the latest you could really hunt and be able to see the rocks on the trip back across the lake.

The next day we started with the longer hikes. I won’t go into all the details but no moose were sighted until the third day for Sandy and me. At that point we were about 3 straight-line GPS miles from where we dropped the boat. Joe and William were much further and I’ll let Joe pipe in with his details.

Sandy and I hunted up behind the camp two mountains the third day. It started foggy and then cleared up a bit (but no bogs!). Sandy spotted a moose way below in a bog, perhaps 1200 feet below and 1000 yards. The guide called and the bull started our way. We hustled up the hill to a good rock. Within a few minutes I saw a dark shape moving in the very thick black spruce. It came out ¾ facing us at what I thought was about 75 yards but in reality was closer to 125. Sandy was up for the shot and on his shot the moose spun left and disappeared (.338-06) I had been watching through my scope and it looked like a hit between the top of the shoulder and the bottom of the hump. We looked for two hours, no sign of blood and no moose.

We hiked back down in 40 degree rain.



Back at Camp that evening one of us commented “well at least we have four days left to hunt” Um, No the guides pointed out we fly out of camp on Friday not Saturday. This was in direct conflict with e-mails I have from Efford’s that had us flying out of Camp on Saturday and departing Deer Lake on Sunday. We had not arranged any lodging for Sat pm and Deer Lake wasn’t rife with possibilities.

On to the hunt! The next day we hunted long and entered a new valley that no one had hunted before. Joe and William went the opposite direction and did the same but they were closer to 7 miles straight line where Sandy I hiked almost 4.

We took a post to glass on a knob spread out with us about 20 yards apart. We hadn’t been there for 5 minutes and a dark spot perhaps 1000 yards away moved. Through the 8X binos I had I thought I saw antlers and the guide was sure. He called (just using his mouth) and the wind was right. The moose’s head went up and he immediately started our way. Along the way he dropped out of sight a couple times. It was my shot and was sitting in some low black spruce and propped my pack up to get at least some rest. He popped out at about 200 yards directly facing me and stopped. I knew we had good cover and the wind in my favor and he would likely come closer but no reason to wait. I shot him in the middle of the chest (.300 H&H 180 gr AB at 3000 fps) and he spun right and took two steps. I shot him in the lungs and his back end sagged. He stepped behind some birch and came out the other side and I shot him in the shoulder. No reason to carry out ammo and I sure wasn’t going to stop shooting if it was on it’s hoofs. No bullets passed through and the shoulder shot hit about 2" below the ball and sheared the leg in half. The first shot took the top of the heart off and he still went 30 yards.

A pretty typical Newfie moose at 34” and the guide estimated a 2 ½ year old bull so some great eating to be had. I was spent and this moose was not going to get passed up I assure you.




Effords has contracted with a helo outfit so you break the animal down and it goes into white fiber bags. When you get back to camp you Sat phone the pilot and he comes and picks it up and then drops by camp to pick up your paperwork and cut sheet. Very efficient and apparently they have not suffered any depredation to bears.



Sandy and the guide continued to hunt up the mountain and I strapped the antlers to my pack and headed back to the boat. They did see a cow moose (we had either sex tags) but alas, Sandy squeezed on an empty chamber and she quickly decided enough of this foolishness and left.

Back at camp we found that Joe and William had scored on two very nice bulls. Joe’s was the same spread as mine but with much better palms and points and Williams was a monster 51” that was the biggest to come out of camp that year. They had earned them too with their phone mileage and GPS apps saying it had been a 14 mile round trip from the boat.



The next day was actually a loss with gale force winds and low ceilings so it would have been a no hunting day anyway. We did fly out on Friday as the guides said and found a couple hotel rooms in the Holiday in Express thanks to a cancelation. Alas there was some Canadian teenage Christian youth group in that decided that 0100 was time to have lots of fun in the hallways. I was nice the first time and the 2nd I used all my sailor words and shocked them into silence. This was an additional $1000 that we did not expect to have to spend according to the contract and my e-mail with Effords.

The next night were at the place we planned at Lush’s Cottages (https://lushscottages.ca) and they were excellent. Highly recommended and they included the shuttle to the airport the next day and were some really nice folks.

Some not favorable observations on the Effords Hunting Adventures.

Effords communication is awful. We were not the only group to comment on it. Getting ahold of them is hard and it took at least 3X times on every e-mail and phone calls did not get returned.

The lack of guides in camp was a breach of contract. It was clear they never had enough guides and after they sent the third one home they did not intend to live up to the contract.

The wrong date to fly out of camp was inexcusable. This resulted in us spending another $1000 and for that we simply got lucky to get a room.

We composed a letter documenting these issues and asked for a $1000 each back from the hunt. This would have put the cost of the hunt in-line with other 2 on 1 hunts. I sent this to Canada via registered mail and Efford’s received it almost six weeks ago. We all feel we have given them adequate time to respond and I wanted to do that before I posted anything negative. I appreciate all the hard work that goes into running an operation like this but these three aspects are unsatisfactory. I cannot recommend Effords if you’re searching for a moose outfitter.

Some good things about the camp.

The guides we did have were excellent and clearly had been in the business a long time. They worked really hard and deserved the tips and gratitude. This also applies to the cook. Great guy who had come into camp as a substitute and didn’t have near what he needed (we were the last camp of the year) but he did a great job feeding us. When you’re wet, cold and exhausted there is no substitute for a hot meal

Overall

Spectacular country. It’s wild and untamed with weather and terrain that is a challenge to hunt. We had expected a fly-in hunt to have game closer to camp and that was certainly not the case. Clearly the previous hunts had affected that. This is tough hunt and Joe commented that except for the climbing it was every bit as tough as his Canadian Mountain goat hunt.

It was very cool to see lots of Caribou. The woodland Caribou have been having some issues and they seem to be returning. A true northern animal I had never seen in person.

I took the wrong rifle. A pre-64 M70 super grade is not what you want to haul around in the bogs and mountains despite my strong romantic hunting notions. Next time it’s plastic and stainless.

The trip home.

US Customs at Toronto is a morass of incompetence and indifference. I spoke to the Major in charge. She did not care one whit and said “this is how we do it”. Two planes of hunter arrived and they only slowed down. I watched them roll multiple gun cases off the baggage belt and slam them to the ground It took more than 2 1/2 hours for the four of us to clear. She said plan on 3 hours. I will never fly commercial into Canada with a gun again and the shame is it’s not Canada it’s our own government doing this to 4 people who spent time and effort to have global entry cards. For shame.