Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Its official, hunting is dying..

Depends on where you are, probably.

I have never seen a moose hunter at my remote cabin,15 miles up a tributary from the major river until this year. In that 15 miles there were maybe a dozen camps this year over the space of 3 weeks, and we had 7 boats come booming by the cabin. Coming out, 5 days before season's end, there were another half dozen "hunt from boats" that we passed on the lower 3 miles, which amused me.

We have been running that river for over 40 years, and from the boat, in all that time, I have seen exactly 4 moose up on the 20' high banks, from the boat.. Almost rammed a cow and twins once time (posted about before), and 2 years ago, jumped a nice bull laying on a gravel bar next to the river on a hot June or July day. We tried for him in season and he was coming in until Honey Half Lab "warned" us with a soft yip.

Wife saw a bull one other time, as I was watching the river, driving... We did see a cow with twins in the oxbow behind our cabin this trip, but they were well off the river itself. Scouted several old oxbows/sloughs this trip- will maybe hunt them sans dogs next year.

True, we had high water on a normally more shallow/narrow problematic river. I had to cut 2 trees out on the way up, and one on lower water 3 weeks later between mouth and cabin. It gets worse above my cabin.

2 years back, we went exploring upriver as there had been some big burns up there 10-15 years ago, making I supposed then for good moose habitat. We were blocked by a big log jam in a bluff gorge several miles upriver - which I posted about...

Apparently eyes in the sky also noticed my supposition as true...

The log jam is apparently still there, because all those bozos came booming back down river an hour or two later. :}

Just wish they wouldn't wake gallons of water into my boat as they go by on full throttle. I'm 72, but if I was at least 10 years younger, I'd find a way around that jam (I have it figured, I think, sans TNT, but would need a little more investigation and some doing /equipment...).....those other fuggers are apparently too lazy/dumb. Or too smart.... And I'm not about to open it up for a bunch of other people with their $20-40,000 boats anyway.

Wife was hot to shoot a moose herself, and wants some moose meat- we have been several years without any. With 2 caribou, 30 salmon, and some halibut in the freezer, I wasn't all that enthusiastic, but went through the motions for her anyway . "Hunting" with two dogs who warn of "things out there!" (twice!) doesn't bode well for success, but we did have a cow (I think) come noisily across the river 30 yards from the tent in the dead of night after I'd called before dark. No antler sounds anyway, and that bank brush is thick there! Still, it's amazing how 60" bulls can come thru thick brush, never making a sound!

Given the above, I didn't have all that much fire in the belly. I had to catch myself several times to keep from slipping into the mode...... A moose is a lot of work, and we already had plenty groceries for just the two of us. We would have had to buy another freezer.

Top shelf left is halibut, right is caribou polish sausage freshly made from '19 kills.
2nd down is salmon fillets
third down, left box is freshly smoked '19 salmon, more polish sausage as above, right box and blue and white door packages are freshly made caribou ('19) breakfast sausage.
Left milk crate is '20 caribou roasts and stew, right one is steaks and stew from two cows we killed this year

Bottom shelf is ground '20 caribou.

We be livin' alright off the hunt.