Here is the story...
We headed out, Friday Oct. 25 and made it to the trailhead at 9:00 that night.
When we made the corner, right before the spot, where we park the trucks, a big sow grizzly with 2 large cubs were in the road. They raced off down the road ahead of my truck. What a rush to see those grizzlies!
And man, can they move! You would not want that sow coming at you!
I stopped and jumped out of my truck and ran back to tell Sheldon about them, as he was not able to see them, and I said,
"That is an omen..."
We slept in our trucks Friday night, made it to camp the next day about noon. On the trail leading right by our camp, there was fresh grizzly tracks, of a "medium" size grizzly.
After we set up the tent, we walked out behind camp to take a look over the cutblock and damn!, we could smell a bear right there! I bet it was that same damn grizzly, that had left the tracks by our camp.
It took us all day Saturday to set up camp.
Sunday we did a ride throughout the areas we were interested in hunting, to scout the sign. There was good sign in a few spots, lots of rubs, stink pots etc... we did no hunting or calling anywhere.
One of the prime moose areas, is also the area where some guys from Lloyd hunt every year, and we met them at their camp, on the way out, which meant we could not hunt there. Too bad.
Monday we had a wicked wind storm that hit us. It started sometime in the middle of the night. There was no way we could hunt in it, and we had to stay at camp to make sure the damn thing didn't get blown away.
It was so bad, we had to fall a couple of trees that were near our tent, in order to control the direction they might go, if they snapped off. At one point we had to put the ATV winch on our ridge pole and suck the tent back down and straighten it up; re-secure everything, to keep it form getting blown away.
Just in the area of our camp... like I mean, within a hundred yards of our tent, easily a hundred trees fell. In the larger area, there were thousands of threes that dropped.
Tuesday morning we went north of camp to an area where we had seen some decent sign and Sheldon called in a nice bull; about a 38" bull.
After we saw that bull, we then saw a sow black bear with 3 cubs.
Tuesday afternoon we sawed our way into 'the River'. It took us 7 hours of hard work on the chainsaws, to travel 12 kms. It was unbelievable how many trees we had to cut. There was really good sign there and we knew there was a big resident bull living there. I knew if we stayed in there and called eventually he would show up. So that became our focus area.
Saw another sow black bear and cub.
Wednesday the weather was crappy. Called a bit with no success, but you are 'planting the seed'... saw a big, black faced boar blackie, along the trail back to camp, but had no chance to get a shot...
Thursday morning was kinda the same and I had to leave to head home due to doctors appointments Friday, for my kid.
Friday was a wasted day, in Edmonton, but I managed to get back from Edmonton and got back into moose camp at about 9:30 that night.
Sheldon told me what he had done Thursday and Friday and he said he had called again at 'the River', before dark. So we would go in there again, Saturday morning.
As we walked in to the calling site, Sheldon was really intent on looking for any moose that might have come to the calls, from Thursday night, and sure enough, this bull was bedded there waiting for us.
The bull was about 300 yards out. I couldn't get a reading on him, but the trees just behind him were 327 yds.
Along the trail, there was cut off stump, that made a perfect rifle rest. It was Sheldon's tag, so he set up there, and I stayed up the hillside, about 25 yards from Sheldon, where I could see the bull clearly.
Then Sheldon proceeded to call. It only took a couple of calls and the bull was up and walking.
I wanted to video longer but damnit my camera battery was too low!! Damn battery ran out!!
Anyway, the bull came in steady and at 150 yards, Sheldon decided to take him. The moose woulda come closer, but was heading into some trees, which would have been a p.i.t.a. to get him out of, if he had continued.
Sheldon's shot was head-on, so he hit it in the front left-side of the chest, with a 250gr Nos Part, from his .338WM M70. It likely would have killed the bull, but then he couldn't get another round to feed!
The bull turned to his right, which exposed his left side and I center-punched him in the lungs with a 200gr Nosler Partition, from my M1895.
Shooting with the irons was cool!
The bull stepped forward and was partially blocked by some pines. I fired twice and missed both times; maybe the trees soaked those up, I dunno...
But then he took another step forward which exposed his front end and I nailed him in the neck, which made an unreal "Whack" sound, and he folded in his tracks.
The bull is just over 49", not the monster that we were hoping for, but pretty decent.
His rack has a lot of character, broken and chipped points, plus he had some battle wounds from fighting. Big puncture wound on his flank and another right in the middle of his forehead, right to the bone.
So nothing much happened the next couple of days, 'cept for getting the bull out, cleaning up the cape and rack (Sheldon may get it mounted), and resting up a bit from all the work.
Monday, we decided we had better break camp, so we packed all the non-essential BS and made a trip out to the trucks, in the afternoon. When we got back to camp it was dark; about 8:30. As soon as we got to where we could see the meatpole, I saw trouble (our meatpole is north of our tent a ways, at the intersection of the cutlines, where turn to drive to our camp). One of the quarters was pulled down, just about to the ground. I rode straight up to it, and jumped off the quad. Sure enough, a bear had hit.
It had pulled one hind quarter down nearly to the ground, and had taken a swipe off a front as well. So we knew we had to get the meat out of there. We made the decision to break camp that night.
The meat that had been chewed on, we cut off and we placed it on the cutline, where we could watch it from camp... 40 yds. We parked Sheldon's quad on the cutline, running with the lights on, to watch that. We had the M1200 Defender and rifles out. It was spooky and urgent, working in the dark knowing the bear was still right there and we knew, once he has tasted that moose meat, he wanted more of it. So we knew he was lying up very close.
And damnit, if that son-of-a-##### didn't sneak in and grab some of that meat, as we were packing stuff! Just all of a sudden I looked and could see the pile had gotten smaller!
So that bear had some nerve! It sure had us on edge, as we worked.
And it was a bloody marathon. It was something like 2:30 in the morning, when we finally had everything loaded and were on the trail. It took us 'til 4:30 to get to the trucks (26 kms).
After we loaded everything and were set to drive off, Sheldon discovered he had a flat on his trailer, so we had to change that. We only made a few miles up the logging road, and his f**king spare blew!
So we had to limp our way down the logging road. By 7:00, Sheldon pretty much couldn't pull his trailer anymore, it was getting beat up, even at the snails crawl we were moving at. We were both utterly exhausted! But I took the tire that had the nail in it, into Swan Hills and got it fixed and then we were finally able to make some speed.
We called a buddy in Swan Hills and he helped us clean and wash our meat on his game pole and then we drove to Fort Assiniboine, to drop the meat off at the butcher. Then we completed an unbelieveable 36 hr day by returning to Swan Hills to reload our stuff and finally headed to Whitecourt. We had to stop a couple of times to get some fresh air, to keep awake on that drive home.
Epilogue:
On examining the moose quarters that were hit, there are 4 or 5 long lacerations in the meat and they were spaced evenly, but widely apart. They look like they were done with a knife, they are so cleanly cut. Now I will never know, since we didn't see the bear, but I am damn sure it was likely the same grizzly that had gone by our camp, that had left the fresh tracks we'd seen on our way in, and that we smelled later that day, just south of our camp. I don't believe a black bear could make the same type of cuts in the meat, because how clean the cuts were, plus the spacing.
I figure that grizzly had left the immediate area of our camp, after we set up, but then after we got that moose hung on the game pole, he had smelled it and come back to hit our meat.
And damnit! Were we ever lucky! It was BS luck to return to camp, basically, just on time to save our moose. Any longer and he'd a done a lot more damage, took a lot more. The bear must have just hit that minutes before we returned. And of course, if he hadn't hit it before we got back, then he'd a done it while we were in the tent, and we'd a never heard him, down there at the meatpole... he'd likely have gotten it all...
