Everyone has a secret if you care to look for it ... mine was that despite being an Alberta boy, I somehow never managed to shoot a moose. With draw tags taking longer and longer to get, opportunities are fewer these days, but that's really not the reason. Plain and simple, I've been cursed. I run into them when I'm tagless, I seem to have no problem calling them in when others have tags, but for whatever reason I managed to make it to the ripe old age of 48 without ever putting my hands on moose antlers of my own. Life's funny that way ... I've managed to get to Alaska once and Africa three times and collected every trophy I've ever dreamed of plus a whole lot more. But never, ever a moose. Go figure.
Deciding it was time to play the odds, I noted with interest back in 2003 that the best success ratio here in Alberta was at Camp Wainwright (limited entry tags on a military base). The catch was how long it took to actually get drawn for that tag. I finally got it this year, after waiting for a decade. Things were set -- I was finally going to get me a Bullwinkle when the Dec 1 - 6 moose season. I had a plan!
That plan took a bit of nosedive in late September when, during a martial arts class, I managed to break both my wrist and arm so badly that I had to get put back together with pins, screws and a metal plate. For most of the next two months, hunting was looking awfully unlikely. The moose, it seemed, had won again.
But day by day, the wrist healed. And while still painful as I type this, it's more or less working again. The biggest thing, though, was my hunting partner of 18 years telling me that come hell or high water, we were going to find a decent bull and bring him home. So I had help, which I desperately needed (ever try to gut, quarter and load a moose on your own when you can't lift more than 20 pounds with one of your arms?) My pal made it clear that he was quite prepared to carry my moose out himself if it came to that. The only catch was that he could only come out for the first half of the hunt, so we had to get this done in 3 days.
On day two, we did.
And man, oh man, did it ever feel wonderful!
This moose curse, at is turns out, is multi-generational in our family. While my paternal grandfather shot several over the years (both in his native Sweden and then later in British Columbia), my dad somehow never managed to follow suit, even when I called one in for him back in 2006. I guess the curse started with him. But it's over now
My dad has been gone these past 6 years, so it's too late to share the story or this photo with him. But how fitting that I managed to end the curse while wearing his old hunting jacket, carrying his hunting knife, and hunting in a military base where he himself served on training exercises when in the engineering corps of the Army in the 1960s. I'd like to think that during those days, he may have driven or marched down the same route from which we spotted that moose. It's hardly the biggest moose I've come across over the years, and we did see bigger bulls during the trip (albeit in very inaccessible spots that would have made retrieval extremely difficult on what is essentially a foot-access hunt). But he's mine, and my father's, and a hell of a memory.
Here's hoping each of you had wonderful, memorable seasons -- and that all of us have many more ahead. Cheers!
Deciding it was time to play the odds, I noted with interest back in 2003 that the best success ratio here in Alberta was at Camp Wainwright (limited entry tags on a military base). The catch was how long it took to actually get drawn for that tag. I finally got it this year, after waiting for a decade. Things were set -- I was finally going to get me a Bullwinkle when the Dec 1 - 6 moose season. I had a plan!
That plan took a bit of nosedive in late September when, during a martial arts class, I managed to break both my wrist and arm so badly that I had to get put back together with pins, screws and a metal plate. For most of the next two months, hunting was looking awfully unlikely. The moose, it seemed, had won again.
But day by day, the wrist healed. And while still painful as I type this, it's more or less working again. The biggest thing, though, was my hunting partner of 18 years telling me that come hell or high water, we were going to find a decent bull and bring him home. So I had help, which I desperately needed (ever try to gut, quarter and load a moose on your own when you can't lift more than 20 pounds with one of your arms?) My pal made it clear that he was quite prepared to carry my moose out himself if it came to that. The only catch was that he could only come out for the first half of the hunt, so we had to get this done in 3 days.
On day two, we did.
And man, oh man, did it ever feel wonderful!
This moose curse, at is turns out, is multi-generational in our family. While my paternal grandfather shot several over the years (both in his native Sweden and then later in British Columbia), my dad somehow never managed to follow suit, even when I called one in for him back in 2006. I guess the curse started with him. But it's over now
My dad has been gone these past 6 years, so it's too late to share the story or this photo with him. But how fitting that I managed to end the curse while wearing his old hunting jacket, carrying his hunting knife, and hunting in a military base where he himself served on training exercises when in the engineering corps of the Army in the 1960s. I'd like to think that during those days, he may have driven or marched down the same route from which we spotted that moose. It's hardly the biggest moose I've come across over the years, and we did see bigger bulls during the trip (albeit in very inaccessible spots that would have made retrieval extremely difficult on what is essentially a foot-access hunt). But he's mine, and my father's, and a hell of a memory.
Here's hoping each of you had wonderful, memorable seasons -- and that all of us have many more ahead. Cheers!
