When my Son and I got a Moose draw this year we were pretty stoked about it, we don't travel to far from home to hunt, so draw was near our home.

First, we were hunting Mule deer.
We were out from the camper before daylight moving into our spots and my Son realizes his d-magazine is missing from his Tikka...bummer....we regroup, he uses the spare rifle which is along for such things. The first day out with my 300 win mag, he shoots a dandy Mule deer at about 75ft, this buck is a tank and we can't drag it more than a few ft, good thing I can get the quad almost to it, an absolute hogg.



Then it is time for our Moose hunt to begin.
I scouted the area within the draw region, located good Moose, we were prepared for several 4 day hunts.
The first 4 days was some of the most extreme weather I have hunted in, blizzard conditions and when we came out of there on the last day (2ft of snow) it was with 4 chains on my 1 ton dually with the 454 just howling and we barely made it out of there. 2 years ago the same thing happened to me when I was alone , I went to bed with 6" of snow, got up to 2ft with heavy drifting, it took 4 hours to go 4km



We knew we were in trouble when we couldn't get into the area for the snow, so I bought a snow mobile, hunt back on.

We saw Bulls the first time in there, but no shots were presented to us. Both my Son and I see real nice Muley bucks we just observe, were after a Bull.

My Son gets another mag for his Tikka, so he is back on with his 30-06, he is an exellent rifleman. In this very spot we are hunting about 15 years ago he shot a Mule deer buck, he came across a small herd of Deer, the buck runs, my Son shoots it dead...a guy standing over near the timber yells.."nice shot" LOL.

I am hanging up on a high ridge spending several hours each day, I see sign, but see no animals. My Son decides to go there while I go somewhere else nearby.

We are sledding in 12km, 30in of snow. 3rd day of a 4 day hunt, we sled up there, he go's in there where I had seen a Bull the evening before, I saw a Cow in there too. I see so much sign it was incredible.

We part ways, he is walking the sled trail, I will follow his track 15 minutes after he leaves, we are just going to hang here all day because you can't walk anywhere else.

I wait 15minutes then start walking, I hear.. boom, boom...Moose down

My Son saw the Bull, the Bull see's him, he sat down in the snow put 2 bullets within 8" both lungers, the Bull only go's maybe 30ft.

I can get the sled right to it, good thing for that.


We decide since its early in the day, to process as much as we can in the bush, we skin, quarter, load and get it all in 2 trips back to camp, barely.



It is interesting how Mule deer seem to not be bothered by 2-3ft of snow, Moose thrive in it and when they are moving through several ft of it, there is hardly a more graceful and beautiful animal than a Bull Moose clearing blown down tree's with grace.
Not so for me, at 60 I'm not done yet, but the end is near for these extreme conditions.

A pic from one of our perches, the Country we are hunting and where my Son was standing when he shot the Bull. There were a number of nice bucks in there too, I had a friend who was camped below us after a big Mule deer he had seen previously, he was unable to continue to hunt the area for the snow.

Congrats on a very successful Hunt. Nice pic's, They show the extreme conditions you had to deal with.

Congrats!

Great story, awesome pics and beautiful animals 673, congratulations and Bon Appétit

673;
Top of the morning and hearty congratulations my friend! Well done!!

It appears you've got some snow up there too. We've received more than normal for this time of year for sure and honestly more than we've got for the entire winter sometimes.

Unless one has a snowmobile it's shut down our late season whitetail and moose hunting as we can't get a truck into there anymore. Wild year weather wise for sure.

Thanks for the photos and hunt story, congratulations on the huge mulie and the tasty bull too for sure.

All the best.

Dwayne

Yeah, I was in a T shirt one day, the next week it was snowing hard up high, early November was incredible.
I was going to add...my Son was shooting handloaded 165gr hornady's from his 30-06, his shots were roughly150yds.
Here is a target he hit with his first 3 bullets when we were shooting earlier preparing for the upcoming hunt @100meters.


I was shooting my M-70 338 win mag, 225gr grand slams..

Here is one of the bucks that hung around while my Son took a pic through his scope with his cell phone LOL, sometimes I wonder if they like getting shot. I can't change the size, don't know how.

That will do it! Especially with the good ol' .30-06 lol

The boy.

That is a great story and pics. Congrats.

Nice!!

Git R done, 673!

Congrats.

A friend of my late horseback hunting pard used to say, “don’t shoot anything you can’t ride up to”!

Great job and great write-up. Congratulations all around. 👍

Good stuff! Looks like some beautiful countryside. Some darn good eating there that has been hard earned.
Jeff

Hey Jeff, did you get to hunt any Mullies in southern Alberta this year?

Awesome story and pics, 673!

Wow! Well done!

Outstanding! Especially considering the less than stellar weather.

Thank you all for the kind words.

Our Pleasure, I am pretty sure we are all jealous lol

Happy eating my friend!

Not this year. Between building pri points plus awaiting surgery on my shooting shoulder, I'm hunting birds with a light shotgun.
One of my boys killed a fantastic 6x6 elk just east of Suffield though.

I'm taking advantage of my "year off" to scout some new territory for next season. The areas I normally hunt have been ravaged by CWD now. Not seeing many large bucks in the areas around Medicine Hat like we used too. Sad state of affairs. My last mulie, a doe, taken 3 years ago came back positive. White tails for somer reason haven't been hit as badly, or so it seems. No monster bucks though, just little guys, maybe the odd 4x4. Population rebuilding maybe??
Jeff

That's just outstanding. Well played!

Well done you 2 !!!

Gotta love that.

Hi Jeff,

Suffield area has some tremendous Elk opportunities, probably the best in the province, don't know if it's as good as it was prior to the culling program a few years ago? Great to get a 6x6.

Just curious to know if the Government irradicated the Mullies in the zones you hunt in?

They did in the zone where I hunt with helicopters and shooting them, I was told, then two sever back-to-back winters further decimated the Mule Deer population. Where I use to see well over 100 Mullies a day, now you're lucky if you see more than 10.

I have had every deer tested for CWD since the testing became mandatory many years ago, not 1 tested positive.

Sad situation and poor deer management IMO.

Cheers ~

Well done on the moose hunt. Still on my bucket list. Haven’t shot one since I lived in Alaska in the 70s. I could have killed a spike bull when I went to Alaska about 10 years ago but I let him walk. Edk

Yeah, an immature Bull.......here it is open for immature Bulls from Nov 1-15. We had a draw for "any Bull", but one of us could of shot an immature Bull (spike or 2pt on one antler) he would then have to sit out while the other hunter continued after the "any Bull".

So...if you see 2 Bulls and one is big and the other is an immature, it would be wise to pop the little one and continue after the "any Bull", the draw was for Nov 1-30. The little Bulls are hard to find, but they are out there. I have seen them quite large and at other times they seem small.
The Moose here are smaller than the ones up North and East of us here.

Atta boys !! Got to love them Tikkas---I've got one in 30/06----they're just good shooters

Hey KB,
I actually work on the base as a contractor to the Canadian Armed Forces.
There are still some excellent elk opportunities on the base and, with the right owner access, around the perimeter too. The early years of the base hunt saw some very good animals taken for sure. The whole idea was to bring the numbers to a sustainable level. Now the hunt is in place to hold the numbers as stable as possible.
Yep, my son is quite happy with his 6x6. Got it exactly where I told him to look. Wish I had a tag.......lol

One of the areas I hunt mulies was where the initial CWD positive was killed. It was also on the AB gov list to cull heavily, which they did. Unfortunately, but, not unexpectedly either, the cull didn't work. Go figurer.....
The last time I hunted a certain property, there were skeletons of deer in many spots. It was eerie to say the least. This property was producing good numbers of large, 4x4 and up, bucks. The does were large and healthy as well. Now it is a graveyard. This was a year ago. I doubt I'll hunt deer there again as the land itself is CWD contaminanted. Damn shame the way it has played out. I fear for the entire eastern side of the province. Hopefully the elk will dodge the CWD bullet....
Jeff

I hear you; the whole situation disgusts me!

Maybe we should talk? I can put in for Suffield draw next year and if I win, you can join me and have half of the elk?

If you are interest, feel free to shot me a PM :o)

Cheers ~

Interesting idea for sure. I know the area quite well. I think I have enough points to draw a cow, would have to check though. Still building bull points after a unsuccessful hunt a few years ago off the base. LOL, before I knew about the place I sent my son to.
I'll shoot you a PM later on.
Jeff

This has been a bad year for the elk, mine and a lot of my friends and family can say that their freezers are full too...

Man Shrap….


You found a freshly dead elk and a bow in the same place !!!


Man what a day !

673 - big congratulations on the successful hunt and family time with your son. Great memories.

A question on the snow - is that volume typical for that area this early?

You guys are so lucky to have sooooooooooo many elk in the USA, our herds are dismal in comparison :o(

Congratulations on a great hunt, nobody is going hungry in your home this winter lol

Hey Shrap, Looks like a great season for sure! Congrats.
Jeff

Thanks Hugh.

The snow.......about every 3-4 years it will really snow hard in early November, I have seen no snow at this time of year too. You never really can know for sure, but a guy could get snowed in if your not careful, which would be a disaster requiring a Cat, skidder or similar equipment to move a high volume of snow.

It is not just the volume of snow, rather the drifting of the snow that is deceptive...there may only be 12-16" but 3ft on the road somewhere, and if its on a hill then your in trouble, which is what happened to me 2 years ago. You gotta have chains and use them.

That Country will typically get 4-5ft by January, the elevation is around 5,000ft.

Shrapnel
Nice haul of Elk, reminds me of when my FIL and myself came home with 3 bucks in the trunk of a Torino.

The Elk here are really starting to take off, hopefully it will continue too, if I don't hear gunshots at night there may be a chance.

Greg,

That was an awesome hunt for you and your son! Nothing like having weather conditions add to the fun by making more work for you.

Looked like you hard everything sorted in advance by trailering in the snowmobile. Preparation, preparation, preparation. 😆

Congrats!

🦫

What, no camo while bowhunting, but camo everywhere for rifle hunts.? Looks like a good season.

A lot of good eating there. Congrats.

Bow hunters know that you leave the elk for an hour or so to make sure they die and don’t get pushed. So during that hour, you have breakfast and get out of your camo, so it doesn’t smell like food when you do go hunting…

Congratulations, outstanding hunt in real rough conditions. This is a great picture and says it all. 👍👍

Thanks again for the kind words.

Personally, I am very proud of you 673, keep up the good hunts as well as your excellent posts!

Darren

LOL Good to know.

673 -- any thoughts on what you got meat wise for weight off that MDB.

We just got a large bodied Prairie WT that boneless steaks and burger wrapped weighed in just below 90 lbs. Adding in an allowance for heart, liver and clean up wastage (I remove all silver skin and interior fat), then using the calculation method this deer was in the 200+ lb range. As yours has a large body it would be interesting to know.

I suspect the buck weighed around 300 lbs.
I do the butchering, so I figure around 150-175lbs of boneless meat, I take the trim in for sausage etc.

I have shot larger bucks that were around 300lbs without any fat at all, but this one had about 2" of fat on its back, which I get rid of, and is surprisingly good eating for a rutting Mule deer. I attribute that to a late rut, perhaps because of the warm weather we had earlier...maybe I am off, but this year was different.

I just picked up a meat bandsaw so I can now do "bone in" with less effort now...gonna cut up the Moose tomorrow.

After boning out and butchering probably 200 animals I finally bought a meat bandsaw, should of had one along time ago, $629.00 at peavey mart.
The instructions for set up...about 100 parts....couldn't see the pics, I just went with trial and error and it took about 6 hours to assemble LOL.

The grinder works good, gotta cut the pieces up smaller than I thought, clean them better too. Mixed up 20% pork trim to make about 50lbs of hamburger.

On the job of cutting....had to work a few bugs out ie: the saw blade slid off the guide...there is a tension adjustment for the blade, also for the motor, I think it is working as it should now.

My Wife, son and myself, put 2 full days in on the Moose cut and wrap, I figure about 450 lbs of mostly boneless.
It is best to put pieces of meat in the freezer for a few hours to stiffen it up for sawing, that takes planning. The trim go's to the sausage maker, I would like to make my own sausage, I never have done it before.

Any tips on the saw?

673;
Top of the morning my friend, I hear you're maybe getting some snow up there?

We're not so far down here, which is fine with me since it's still not melted off yet by any stretch here in the yard.

Holy smoke both the moose and the mulie were heavy!! Well done again - very cool!

While we do hear about some mulies going beyond 200lb dressed, I'm fairly confident I've seen and helped pack only one that big. Similarly our whitetail are smaller bodied too - not that I'm complaining or stopping hunting them either.

On the bandsaw question, yes for sure over the years I've worked on several woodworking bandsaws of different sizes and did help a buddy maintain his meat cutting one a couple times too.

Broadly speaking, the larger diameter the top and bottom drive pulleys are, the less trouble we'll have keeping the blade from breaking.

They'll be a rubber cover on the pulleys which is sometimes referred to as the "tires". They're sort of a consumable item, depending upon how much the saw is used, what it's used on, how true the pulleys run and how much blade tension.

We tried to find the sweet spot for blade tension, sort of the Goldilocks approach as there absolutely seemed to be a "just right" spot for good cutting and not inducing excess wear on the pulley tires and bearings.

When I'm setting them up I'll usually tension the blade enough so it stays in place, then if possible with that saw, I'll adjust the blade tension and listen to the thing run. It'll "usually" tell you by ear when you're putting too much pressure on the system. The same way you tune a chainsaw by ear really - if that makes sense?

Bleach solution for cleanup of course with them. It's really not recommended to use a spray bottle with bleach solution as the atomized particles get into the lungs way too easy then. If you're like me - well lets just admit my lungs don't need any further exposure to cancer causing chemicals after a lifetime of working in and around finishing areas in a cabinet shop and then doing a bit of automotive spraying as well. It's sort of amazing I've made it this far when I think about how we sprayed without masks for years....

Anyways I want to say that a cup of bleach per gallon of fairly warm to hot water is what I'd use to clean it.

There's likely sealed bearings on the pulleys so nothing to grease most likely.

If it's a huge motor on it, then of course the usual caution of running either a big extension cord or as short as possible one to keep the thing happy.

I think that's it off the top of my head for now sir. Hope that all made sense and was useful?

Give me a shout here or by all means text if you think I can help with something else.

All the best.

Dwayne

Hi Dwayne
On the weight...I am guessing, but think it reasonably accurate...a friend of mine shot a 2 point Mule deer just north of me here, it was weighed at the hanger...365lbs just dressed. Having hunted the area I saw the Mule deer were larger than anything I was used to seeing, my son shot a doe up there that was massive lol.
I measure a Mule deer by using the length of my forearm, from the end of my fist, to my elbow, across one hind quarter to judge size, without a scale, it is accurate.

Also accurate is...when 2 guys gotta figure out how to lift, roll, drag and roll a buck into the truck LOL

The Moose....I packed a hind quarter into my shop by myself, 20ft, it was all I could lift without blowing a nut, which I have done before.

On the saw....I think it wise to have a spare blade in case of breakage?.. and thanks for the bleach tip, that is what I am going to do this afternoon.

The blade tension....thanks for that tip too, go with the ear, I was wondering about that.

673 I had a saw like that . keep an eye out on the table slides they will get lose when in use and the blade will hit the table when you move it. get a spare blade if it hits the table it will dull quick. the set up works good if you are easy on it . my hard head brother tore ours up quick

Thanks for that, I was wondering what could go sideways.
I think a spare blade is a good idea.
Can I get it sharpened?

I see the ingenuity of the saw after I began to clean it, all the stainless stuff comes off for easy cleaning.
The instructions are ridiculous and put them away after I realized they were the problem LOL

673;
Good afternoon thanks for the reply.

Yes absolutely on a spare blade.

These days if you can swing a couple spares I'd do that actually. Never know anymore what shuts off where, right?

We used to have a place that used to sharpen sawblades down here - was called Cut Technology last and Western Saw before that.

They got bought out by an outfit in Salmon Arm and moved all the equipment up there.....

Meat blades are a little different and your saw is smaller than the big blades, but yes if you can find someone who is inclined to sharpen them, they're able to be sharpened several times.

Likewise they can be welded back together if they break - we had a bandsaw blade welder at the cabinet shop in fact, but where it would be anymore I've no clue and my goodness did it take a bunch of electrical juice to run. Worked wonderfully though 673.

Hope that helped again.

All the best.

Dwayne

PM Sent.
Jeff

673 cut meat to be ground in long strips not chunks . strips are easy to feed in to the grinder good luck

Absolutely 100% correct 44mc!

I do an entire Big Moose in one day. The shoulders go into Course Grind, the rest are steaks and roasts. I Love Moose burgers and Moose Spaghetti Sauce!

I cannot even imaging bringing my moose to a butcher, butchering correctly is part of the hunt, and I look forward to it :o)

KB I am with you no body is touching my meat . I enjoy doing it too

Nice going you guys

We are both wise men lol Nobody has touched my animals for over 30 years. My dad said to me one time "If you want AAA Red Game on your diner plate take care of it yourself from the field to the diner plate. Was he ever right, AGAIN! :o)

KB

I hear you guys.
The only time I ever took an animal to a butcher......I shot a nice Whitetail in late Oct, got back something we couldn't eat, that was 40 years ago.
When you do your own game, you clean it better, (super important if its trim for sausage) cut it the way you want, package it the way you want, and save $$$.

My problem is finding and retaining a quality sausage maker, in 45 years I have only had 3, now #3 is retiring, he was the best I have had.
I just found # 4, he seems pretty good and will proceed with caution lol. I put all my eggs in one basket once and got back 250 lbs of rank sausage that was horrible, still pizzed about that.
We may begin to make our own if we build the smoker we keep talking about.

673 - nice set up with the saw.

Personally I bone everything out including a bison I shot a few years back. On the grinder I have a Cabelas 3/4 Hp and when I am cutting up the animal I try for longer strips vs chunks. If I have time and am organized I keep pieces with sinew (shanks) separate and try to freeze them a bit before grinding. This batch goes through twice.

I just started on my third deer tonight (MDB) and have a processor that will do sausage in 15 lb batches - jerky 10lbs per batch -- so weigh, bag, vacuum seal and freeze. Take it in a few times during the year which makes for fresher product.

One more tag -- late season anterless moose. I am hoping I can find a yearling or calf.

On the MDB I was in a draw zone and came across a large forkhorn with a broken back leg. Rather than looking at it, walking away and leaving it for the coyotes I closed my tag on it. Long time to get drawn but no issues on my part doing this - felt right at the time and still does. The back leg was broken right at the knee --- puncture wound and the bone was shattered. Fight or long distance shot --- either way would be speculation as there were no bullet fragments present. Cut and cleaned this quarter today -- no smell, some yellow fluid down the leg to the lower joint where there was another injury (so perhaps pointing to a fight). I had a steak tonight from this deer and it was excellent.

Season so far has been very good --- good number of ducks, huge number of white geese (all processed into ground formed jerkey), 3 deer (I have left 2 additional tags unfilled) and a moose hunt left.

All the best to you in finding a processor

Good idea to take the injured Buck Hugh!

The saw worked good, I need to fine tune it and my technique, but otherwise a good deal all around, grinds exellent.
Back when I first started cutting my own meat, the old timers just used a hand meatsaw, then I just started boning everything. We had Moose ribs tonight, they were exellent, I cut them on the saw about 4in long, took about 5 minutes to cut up both sides.

This freezer is a 15cuft and the Moose filled it completely, I suspect accurate with my original guess at around 450lbs.
80 packs of steak (2)
25 packs chops (4)
46 roast
Select stew meat (primo)
55 packs of hamburger, 20% pork, exellent.
40lbs trim to have sausage made, ribs and miscellaneous cuts. Then we have 2 deer as well, Mule deer, they are exellent too. I really like Mule deer as I find them consistently good if taken before the rut. or early.