Our Moose Hunt 2011

Moose Hunting 2011 | The Story

Our archery moose hunt 2011 was without a doubt a challenging year. We learned a number of valuable lessons this year, ones that I hope never to repeat.

This year bow hunting moose was going to be great, the weather was looking favorable, we were heading up north a week before the season opened to do some scouting and moose calling; hopefully with the end result of getting some video footage and pictures.

Well, the moose had other ideas! I was up early and stayed out late every day before the season and I only had one opportunity to take a still of a cow moose. It was going to be a great shot too. She was looking straight at me, her face framed with willows in the splendid fall colors. I had to use the manual focus because of the brush around her... no problem. Focus, depress the shutter and preview the awesome picture. Everything went well except for the preview... no moose. At the very instant I took the picture she turned and left... all I got was a nice close-up of willows!

Flat Tire	ATV Will Not Start	All About MooseTruck Loaded and Ready to Go
Ice on the Beaver Pond	Cow Moose Tracks in Camp	A New ATV Bridge

This is how the week of scouting wound up. The moose completely shut me out; however, I did find some new areas and took some fabulous pictures even though the moose were not co-operating. I was hoping that once the season opened our moose hunt 2011 was not going to continue like this!

Our moose hunt 2011 coincided with the rut for a second year in row. We have never had the opportunity to hunt this prime time until last season, so in some senses we were still trying to figure out exactly how to hunt this timing of the season.

All my previous experience was from earlier seasons up to the beginning of prime rut time or after the main portion of the rut had completed in British Columbia. We were looking forward to moose being more vocal and moving into the openings more than they are during early or late season moose hunting.

Hunting Partner Arrives in Moose Camp

The night before opening moose hunt 2011, my partner arrives in camp. With just over an hour of daylight to unpack the balance of the hunting gear he brought on our trailer, we got started.

The first thing I notice is the flat tire... fortunately it is a tandem axle trailer and the tire had not gone completely flat yet so at least the rim was not damaged. No worries, we have a spare.

Next up his ATV will not start. Try as we might, Dave's machine will not start and we run the battery down trying. We put the charger on and that evening we let the generator do its thing. We'll try again after tomorrow mornings hunt.

Opening Day Moose Hunt 2011

We split up. Dave without his ATV goes to a small lake he likes to hunt at. I on the other hand head to a different lake. I prefer to hunt alone, this way I can be as quiet as necessary and not have to worry about anyone else.

I rode my ATV to within a 1/2 mile or so and chose to walk the balance of the way. I wanted to sneak to the lake edge on this cold and frosty morning and do some cow moose calling. With air movement at a standstill my calls should carry throughout the valley; I was expecting good things.

Before I made it to the lake... I had only walked about 200 yards when suddenly a wolf howled. Here I was, out in the center of a cut block, with nowhere to conceal myself. So I just sat down beside a small dirt pile to listen... Wow, what a show they put on. Barking, howling and carrying on. Eventually I even tried to howl back at them. Oh, did I ever sound bad.

I have heard that it is possible to howl a wolf in close enough to get a shot at one. I had to try! Even though I don't think I sounded that good, it sure did not scare them off, actually to the contrary I believe the wolf who had been the closest actually moved closer. They never did show themselves though.

I did manage to pull out my camcorder and record the sounds... check out the video below from our moose hunt 2011.

Needless to say there were no moose to be found there on that morning.

The ATV issue continues at lunch time. Frustrated Dave starts wiggling wires; low and behold his machine fires up. Nice, now we have both ATV's running.

We both head out in opposite directions for the afternoon hunt. Nothing!

That night over a cold beer we exchange information about moose sign and decide on a plan for day two.

That afternoon I hunted without seeing or hearing any moose.

By the end of the eight day season I will have called in 7 bull moose and had responses from several cows. A very successful trip in my books!

Follow the Links to Each Day of the Hunt

• Day Two – Bull Moose: Thirteen Yards Close
• Day Three – Call like an Aggressive Bull Moose
• Day Four – Two Bulls Coming In
• Day Five – Lose One and Get One.
• Day Six – Is spent retrieving the moose from bush, hanging and skinning.
• Day Seven – Bone Sour!
• Day Eight – Last Day… No Moose Action, Breaking Camp
• Day Nine – Heading Home… not without more troubles though! Another flat tire, a tree blown down across the road and a support rod under the trailer broke loose. In all these only added a couple hours to our journey home.

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