Horniac
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Following in Hoopscoach's footsteps, after two separate trips to Wyoming's Unit 26 and 19 days of hard hunting, I was finally able to put a tag on a respectable Shiras moose!
I started hunting on the 28th of September with a bow and finally killed my bull on the 25th of October with a rifle. From hot weather in the high 70's early in the season to being unable to hunt and stuck in my trailer for two days due to the major snow storm that hit on the 6th of October, my emotions ran the gamut along with the weather. Here is a photo of my camp during a brief lull in the storm:
I was finally able to get out of the trailer on Saturday afternoon October 8th. The following photo is from Sunday the 9th and there was still alot of snow.
According to my hunt log, I saw 123 moose during the 19 days of hunting, but this figure is misleading because I was only able to find moose in two basic areas. I found a few others here and there, but always seemed to keep drifting back to the same areas hoping "Mr. Big" would show up. So, of the 123 moose, many of these were just the same cows, calves, and bulls being seen again and again.
My hunting strategy was to glass likely areas early and late from a high vantage point and then if a shooter bull was found, get into position to make a stalk. During the middle of the day I would talk to deer and elk hunters, explore new areas, learn new roads, and look for other concentrations of moose that could be hunted. I tried a Montana moose decoy in conjunction with calling, brush raking etc. as well a few times without much success. Note the Montana decoy is too light in color in my opinion. The Shiras moose appear almost jet black.
I glassed up a shooter bull one morning tending a cow during the archery hunt, and marked where they entered the aspens to bed. I stalked in and when the cover got to thick to move any further without excessive noise, I tried to brush rake, but blew them out. I could hear the bull grunting but never saw him.
Most of the bulls seen were young like these in the following photos so needless to say I didn't make many stalks:
There are a few that I wished I could have got a better look at:
Moose sightings were on the upswing after the snow and the rut seemed to be going strong but unfortunately due to family commitments I reluctantly chained up my pick-up and the trailer, and made the long drive back to northern CA on Oct 10th. I wasn't able to get back to the unit until the 20th and feared that the bulls were going to be hard to locate now with the rut winding down. I decided to relocate my camp from Dempsey Ridge to Hamm's Fork road to try some different areas Hoopscoach had told me about.
Much to my surprise, the moose seemed to be herding up and now where I had been seeing 8 or so moose a glassing session, I was seeing sometimes 14 or more. Some bulls still appeared interested in the cows, some were indifferent, and some bulls were starting to run together. I wasn't finding any moose in any new areas, so I kept going back to the spots that I could consistently find moose hoping to catch a break.
On Monday, October 24th I glassed up a decent bull and worked in on him to get a closer look. I stalked in to 60 yards of him, a 5x5 with decent palms but just couldn't pull the trigger. He just didn't seem to have much width beyond the ears. He was with a cow and calf and two other small bulls who were sparring. I backed out and decided to check out a group of 7 moose way down the ridge. I found the group and confirmed what my spotting scope had already told me, just a few young bulls. I decided that I should go find the 5x5 again and see if I could get a better look at his width. I found him in his bed but could never get a good look at his horns due to the trees. He rose around noon and I followed him over the ridge into the next draw. He caught me moving and proceeded to go up the mountain and over the ridge. When he topped out he looked very good (as they always do) and I thought I had made a mistake not shooting him when I had the chance. While I didn't want to shoot a small immature bull, I knew that this would most likely be my only chance to harvest a Shiras moose. Although the season didn't end until the 31st, I was trying to get home by Friday because my daughter was coming home to visit. I decided I better shoot something tomorrow soon since I was hunting by myself, and I needed to allow a day to get the moose out, another day to pack-up camp and get on the road, and another 14 hours or so to make the long drive home. I decided I would shoot the 5x5 if I could locate him again.
It snowed an inch or two Monday night and the Forest Service road was slippery as I drove the 28 miles in the dark to my glassing location. It usually took me about 50 minutes to make this drive in my RZR but I had to take it much slower this morning due to the icy conditions.
Arriving at my spot at shooting time, as the hillside began to light up I started finding moose. I found 14, but all the bulls were small and I couldn't locate the 5x5 from the morning before. I decided to take the two track right below the ridge and maybe there would be a bull down in one of the draws that wasn't visible to my optics from my glassing location. As I came up over a rise, there were 4 moose in the draw below. I had already seen these moose, but since they were now within 300 yards, I decided I would get a better look at the bulls. The biggest bull, a 5x5 with elk like antlers was tempting but I already knew I was not going to shoot him. I started to get a sickening feeling that I was going to go home empty handed.
On a whim, I raised my binoculars to glass some aspen pockets to the north a couple of miles away. I had glassed this area extensively in the past and had done some calling there but had never seen a moose there before. To my surprise, I immediately glassed up a moose in the snow and even with my 15X binoculars at that distance I could tell it was a decent bull and he was wider than all the small bulls I had been seeing. I got excited that I found a respectable bull to finally try and tag and just maybe I wouldn't go home empty handed after all if things worked out. I put my spotting scope on him he looked to have a decent paddle on one side while the other side didn't look quite as good. However, with my hunt winding down, I was excited to get this opportunity but knew I needed to hurry as the moose would be heading to bed soon as it was already past 9 AM. I marked the bull, threw my gear in the RZR and raced down the ridge. I stopped periodically to check on the bulls location and he was on the move. Luckily, I knew a two track that would get me close without spooking the bull and knew how to get into shooting position from there. I also knew I would probably be faced with a cross canyon shot as he was up high in a sage covered basin. As more of the basin opened up to my optics as I got closer I discovered that there were at least 2 other moose in the same basin and they looked to be contently feeding.
I got to the spot I wanted to park at and grabbed my Kimber Montana 300WSM and trigger sticks. I had my muzzleloader as well but there would be no way to get in close to this bull so I left it in the RZR. I headed up the backside of the steep ridge and eased over to where I could see in the basin. My pulse quickened as I spotted the bull. He was with a cow now and another smaller bull. I got a range on him at just under 300 yards. The sage brush was too high for me to shoot over from a kneeling position and the smaller bull was on alert for some reason looking into an aspen pocket down the ridge I was on so I didn't want to risk standing. The cow started walking up the canyon and the big bull followed. I got a sickening feeling again that I had missed my opportunity. The bull followed the cow as she topped out over a rock outcropping and disappeared out of sight. I decided to stand slowly and get my gun on the trigger sticks. He was now at 390 yards and one step from disappearing with the cow. He was facing straight away and I couldn't see the cow so I didn't want to risk taking a shot. If the bull continued up the canyon I figured I would go after him once the smaller bull cleared and with the snow I thought I would be able to track him though I knew with every step any pack out was getting exponentially more difficult. The smaller bull continued to remain motionless so I decided I had nothing to lose at this point and slowly kneeled back down and did a 4 part cow call and raked some brush. Several minutes passed and the big bull turned and started walking back down towards the smaller bull. He would take a few steps, stop for a few minutes, and then take a few more. I got back on the trigger sticks and knew he was within 300 yards. Since he was getting closer I would hold off shooting knowing that with each step my pack job was getting easier. However, if he made one step back the other way I was going to shoot him immediately.
The bull started to angle down the mountain with a more quickened pace and was going to eventually intercept an aspen patch on the ridge I was on. I figured he was going to his bed. I dropped out of sight on the back side of the ridge and paralleled his progress. I would periodically peek over the ridge to chart his progress as he continued to get closer. I got to a spot on the ridge and where I could set-up and decided I would shoot when he got past a lone pine tree. I didn't want him to get to the aspen trees even though it would have been a closer shot. I decided 200 yards would be close enough and that would allow me with a follow-up shot or two in case I missed or he didn't go down before he made it to the tree line.
He stopped and I took the shot. He immediately dropped in the sage, kicked a few times, and that was it. Another small bull busted from the quakies and ran up the basin. I figured that the smaller bull must have been watching this smaller bull. I notched my carcass tag and decided to go back down to get my pack, camera, and gear and to try and get my RZR closer to the kill site. I was able to take the two-track to within .17 miles of the kill site. I shot the bull at 10:45 AM. By the time I got to him and took photos it was noon.
I used the gutless method and boned out the back quarters, neck, rib meat, brisket tenderloins and backstraps. I took the front quarters off whole. I also removed the kidneys as requested by WG&F. It took me 6 loads on the pack frame to get him off the mountain plus one more trip to retrieve my pack. My last couple of loads were in the dark but I got everything to the RZR by 7:30 or so. I rearranged everything and was able to get the whole moose loaded so I could get back to camp in one trip. I had to take it slow but got back to camp around 10 PM.
It was still spitting snow in the morning so I slept in until 8 and then made a huge French toast breakfast to celebrate my success. I rebagged all my meat and checked the meat temperature and all meat was between 30 and 40 degrees. I caped the head out and cut-off the antlers, removed the two incisors, and retained the skull and brains in case they were needed for testing. I broke camp and hit the road around 4 PM and drove all night back home stopping a couple of times for some power naps.
You can see the bull in this photo up and to the left of the lone pine tree. I shot him just above and to the right of this tree.
I glassed the bull up from about a mile left (south) of the timber on the far distant ridge in this photo. I am standing on the ridge I shot the bull from:
I recovered my Barnes 165 Grain bullet just under the hide on the off-side:
The view from camp on the Hamm's Fork Road:
All in all, it was a great solo DIY hunt experience and I couldn't be happier with the bull I ended up shooting. He is basically a 3x5 and is just under 38" wide. Although he is not the 40" double brow tine trophy bull I was hoping to find, I think he will still look great in my trophy room and bring back lots of memories of my hunt experience for many years to come! I also met and talked to a lot of nice people from Wyoming including some employees of the WG&F department (sorry for stopping on the road by your bull elk decoy for so long but I thought the guy in the van had an elk tag and there was still 5 minutes of legal shooting light left and I didn't want to mess up his chance). I even got to meet Hoopscoach one afternoon on the mountain. Thanks to all that helped me on this hunt including BuglinBilly, Hoopscoach, DWalton, Mulecreek, and Littlebighorn. It is greatly appreciated and hopefully I can return the favor someday!
Horniac
PS - sorry for the long post but I discovered that you can copy and paste your post to Microsoft Word including the pictures. Print it out and put it in your file and you have a great memoir of your hunt!
I started hunting on the 28th of September with a bow and finally killed my bull on the 25th of October with a rifle. From hot weather in the high 70's early in the season to being unable to hunt and stuck in my trailer for two days due to the major snow storm that hit on the 6th of October, my emotions ran the gamut along with the weather. Here is a photo of my camp during a brief lull in the storm:
I was finally able to get out of the trailer on Saturday afternoon October 8th. The following photo is from Sunday the 9th and there was still alot of snow.
According to my hunt log, I saw 123 moose during the 19 days of hunting, but this figure is misleading because I was only able to find moose in two basic areas. I found a few others here and there, but always seemed to keep drifting back to the same areas hoping "Mr. Big" would show up. So, of the 123 moose, many of these were just the same cows, calves, and bulls being seen again and again.
My hunting strategy was to glass likely areas early and late from a high vantage point and then if a shooter bull was found, get into position to make a stalk. During the middle of the day I would talk to deer and elk hunters, explore new areas, learn new roads, and look for other concentrations of moose that could be hunted. I tried a Montana moose decoy in conjunction with calling, brush raking etc. as well a few times without much success. Note the Montana decoy is too light in color in my opinion. The Shiras moose appear almost jet black.
I glassed up a shooter bull one morning tending a cow during the archery hunt, and marked where they entered the aspens to bed. I stalked in and when the cover got to thick to move any further without excessive noise, I tried to brush rake, but blew them out. I could hear the bull grunting but never saw him.
Most of the bulls seen were young like these in the following photos so needless to say I didn't make many stalks:
There are a few that I wished I could have got a better look at:
Moose sightings were on the upswing after the snow and the rut seemed to be going strong but unfortunately due to family commitments I reluctantly chained up my pick-up and the trailer, and made the long drive back to northern CA on Oct 10th. I wasn't able to get back to the unit until the 20th and feared that the bulls were going to be hard to locate now with the rut winding down. I decided to relocate my camp from Dempsey Ridge to Hamm's Fork road to try some different areas Hoopscoach had told me about.
Much to my surprise, the moose seemed to be herding up and now where I had been seeing 8 or so moose a glassing session, I was seeing sometimes 14 or more. Some bulls still appeared interested in the cows, some were indifferent, and some bulls were starting to run together. I wasn't finding any moose in any new areas, so I kept going back to the spots that I could consistently find moose hoping to catch a break.
On Monday, October 24th I glassed up a decent bull and worked in on him to get a closer look. I stalked in to 60 yards of him, a 5x5 with decent palms but just couldn't pull the trigger. He just didn't seem to have much width beyond the ears. He was with a cow and calf and two other small bulls who were sparring. I backed out and decided to check out a group of 7 moose way down the ridge. I found the group and confirmed what my spotting scope had already told me, just a few young bulls. I decided that I should go find the 5x5 again and see if I could get a better look at his width. I found him in his bed but could never get a good look at his horns due to the trees. He rose around noon and I followed him over the ridge into the next draw. He caught me moving and proceeded to go up the mountain and over the ridge. When he topped out he looked very good (as they always do) and I thought I had made a mistake not shooting him when I had the chance. While I didn't want to shoot a small immature bull, I knew that this would most likely be my only chance to harvest a Shiras moose. Although the season didn't end until the 31st, I was trying to get home by Friday because my daughter was coming home to visit. I decided I better shoot something tomorrow soon since I was hunting by myself, and I needed to allow a day to get the moose out, another day to pack-up camp and get on the road, and another 14 hours or so to make the long drive home. I decided I would shoot the 5x5 if I could locate him again.
It snowed an inch or two Monday night and the Forest Service road was slippery as I drove the 28 miles in the dark to my glassing location. It usually took me about 50 minutes to make this drive in my RZR but I had to take it much slower this morning due to the icy conditions.
Arriving at my spot at shooting time, as the hillside began to light up I started finding moose. I found 14, but all the bulls were small and I couldn't locate the 5x5 from the morning before. I decided to take the two track right below the ridge and maybe there would be a bull down in one of the draws that wasn't visible to my optics from my glassing location. As I came up over a rise, there were 4 moose in the draw below. I had already seen these moose, but since they were now within 300 yards, I decided I would get a better look at the bulls. The biggest bull, a 5x5 with elk like antlers was tempting but I already knew I was not going to shoot him. I started to get a sickening feeling that I was going to go home empty handed.
On a whim, I raised my binoculars to glass some aspen pockets to the north a couple of miles away. I had glassed this area extensively in the past and had done some calling there but had never seen a moose there before. To my surprise, I immediately glassed up a moose in the snow and even with my 15X binoculars at that distance I could tell it was a decent bull and he was wider than all the small bulls I had been seeing. I got excited that I found a respectable bull to finally try and tag and just maybe I wouldn't go home empty handed after all if things worked out. I put my spotting scope on him he looked to have a decent paddle on one side while the other side didn't look quite as good. However, with my hunt winding down, I was excited to get this opportunity but knew I needed to hurry as the moose would be heading to bed soon as it was already past 9 AM. I marked the bull, threw my gear in the RZR and raced down the ridge. I stopped periodically to check on the bulls location and he was on the move. Luckily, I knew a two track that would get me close without spooking the bull and knew how to get into shooting position from there. I also knew I would probably be faced with a cross canyon shot as he was up high in a sage covered basin. As more of the basin opened up to my optics as I got closer I discovered that there were at least 2 other moose in the same basin and they looked to be contently feeding.
I got to the spot I wanted to park at and grabbed my Kimber Montana 300WSM and trigger sticks. I had my muzzleloader as well but there would be no way to get in close to this bull so I left it in the RZR. I headed up the backside of the steep ridge and eased over to where I could see in the basin. My pulse quickened as I spotted the bull. He was with a cow now and another smaller bull. I got a range on him at just under 300 yards. The sage brush was too high for me to shoot over from a kneeling position and the smaller bull was on alert for some reason looking into an aspen pocket down the ridge I was on so I didn't want to risk standing. The cow started walking up the canyon and the big bull followed. I got a sickening feeling again that I had missed my opportunity. The bull followed the cow as she topped out over a rock outcropping and disappeared out of sight. I decided to stand slowly and get my gun on the trigger sticks. He was now at 390 yards and one step from disappearing with the cow. He was facing straight away and I couldn't see the cow so I didn't want to risk taking a shot. If the bull continued up the canyon I figured I would go after him once the smaller bull cleared and with the snow I thought I would be able to track him though I knew with every step any pack out was getting exponentially more difficult. The smaller bull continued to remain motionless so I decided I had nothing to lose at this point and slowly kneeled back down and did a 4 part cow call and raked some brush. Several minutes passed and the big bull turned and started walking back down towards the smaller bull. He would take a few steps, stop for a few minutes, and then take a few more. I got back on the trigger sticks and knew he was within 300 yards. Since he was getting closer I would hold off shooting knowing that with each step my pack job was getting easier. However, if he made one step back the other way I was going to shoot him immediately.
The bull started to angle down the mountain with a more quickened pace and was going to eventually intercept an aspen patch on the ridge I was on. I figured he was going to his bed. I dropped out of sight on the back side of the ridge and paralleled his progress. I would periodically peek over the ridge to chart his progress as he continued to get closer. I got to a spot on the ridge and where I could set-up and decided I would shoot when he got past a lone pine tree. I didn't want him to get to the aspen trees even though it would have been a closer shot. I decided 200 yards would be close enough and that would allow me with a follow-up shot or two in case I missed or he didn't go down before he made it to the tree line.
He stopped and I took the shot. He immediately dropped in the sage, kicked a few times, and that was it. Another small bull busted from the quakies and ran up the basin. I figured that the smaller bull must have been watching this smaller bull. I notched my carcass tag and decided to go back down to get my pack, camera, and gear and to try and get my RZR closer to the kill site. I was able to take the two-track to within .17 miles of the kill site. I shot the bull at 10:45 AM. By the time I got to him and took photos it was noon.
I used the gutless method and boned out the back quarters, neck, rib meat, brisket tenderloins and backstraps. I took the front quarters off whole. I also removed the kidneys as requested by WG&F. It took me 6 loads on the pack frame to get him off the mountain plus one more trip to retrieve my pack. My last couple of loads were in the dark but I got everything to the RZR by 7:30 or so. I rearranged everything and was able to get the whole moose loaded so I could get back to camp in one trip. I had to take it slow but got back to camp around 10 PM.
It was still spitting snow in the morning so I slept in until 8 and then made a huge French toast breakfast to celebrate my success. I rebagged all my meat and checked the meat temperature and all meat was between 30 and 40 degrees. I caped the head out and cut-off the antlers, removed the two incisors, and retained the skull and brains in case they were needed for testing. I broke camp and hit the road around 4 PM and drove all night back home stopping a couple of times for some power naps.
You can see the bull in this photo up and to the left of the lone pine tree. I shot him just above and to the right of this tree.
I glassed the bull up from about a mile left (south) of the timber on the far distant ridge in this photo. I am standing on the ridge I shot the bull from:
I recovered my Barnes 165 Grain bullet just under the hide on the off-side:
The view from camp on the Hamm's Fork Road:
All in all, it was a great solo DIY hunt experience and I couldn't be happier with the bull I ended up shooting. He is basically a 3x5 and is just under 38" wide. Although he is not the 40" double brow tine trophy bull I was hoping to find, I think he will still look great in my trophy room and bring back lots of memories of my hunt experience for many years to come! I also met and talked to a lot of nice people from Wyoming including some employees of the WG&F department (sorry for stopping on the road by your bull elk decoy for so long but I thought the guy in the van had an elk tag and there was still 5 minutes of legal shooting light left and I didn't want to mess up his chance). I even got to meet Hoopscoach one afternoon on the mountain. Thanks to all that helped me on this hunt including BuglinBilly, Hoopscoach, DWalton, Mulecreek, and Littlebighorn. It is greatly appreciated and hopefully I can return the favor someday!
Horniac
PS - sorry for the long post but I discovered that you can copy and paste your post to Microsoft Word including the pictures. Print it out and put it in your file and you have a great memoir of your hunt!
in that second to last Pic of you with your moose?
