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Hi all,
I lifted this article I wrote on the AHN site. Hope you enjoy the read.

I will get Nitrox to post pictures soon. (Edit: Done )

Well people I just got home Wednesday night from my long anticipated moose / elk hunt in northern B.C. WOW, what a trip!!! (appart from all the air travel)

Left on the 8th from Sydney airport on the weekend of the APEC meeting after flying down the day before from NW Vic. 2 days later I was picked up from Ft. Nelson airport and taken 2 hours along the Alaskan Hwy to a ranch near Toad River. Early next morning I was told to grab my gear as they would try to fly me into the hunting camp if the wind was calm enough. It was.

Arrived in camp after a short 10 min. flight down the valley in a super-cub airplane. The camp consisted of a log cooking cabin as well as three canvas tents for sleeping quarters.

Meeting up with the young but pretty experiencd guide I was told of his unfortunate dealings with a charging grizzly 2 days before where he and his hunter had to defend themselves from the charging grizz after it had taken a liking to the hunters elk that had been shot 2 days before and not recovered until the birds were seen hovering above it. It was blasted by both men at 10 ft and was persuaded to leave after 3 shots connected somewhere?

This left the guide in a pretty wound up state that lasted for 5 days until we shifted camp up the valley. I must say that at this stage I was all of a sudden coming to terms with hunting in grizzly territory pretty quickly.

That first night in camp we watched as the cow elk started to congregate on the hillside opposite camp. About 18 - 20 cows were spotted across the face. The nexy morning was cool and raining which really got the bulls going and 3 or 4 were bugleing. Jesse the guide grabbed me as I left my tent and said quick, grab your rifle there's a good bull on the runway. After eyeing the bull at 100m in the dull morning light, I was told to get shooting. Every time I tried to get a bead on the wondering bull, he moved a few paces out of the field of view until he was swollowed up by the poplars and out of sight.

Not to be put off, there was another bull up on the opposite face that had about 6 cows and finally assessing him as a taker we grabbed the horses and head up a trail that would hopefully cut his path as they headed, firstly accross and down a gully then up and over a small ridge. The plan worked to a tee and after finally spotting the bull again and getting into a position that would allow a shot, I took him at around 160-170m with an angleing shot through from behind his ribs to resting under the skin forward of the opposite shoulder. To my suprise the bull never falted as the 338 accubond pill hit him just right. A second shot rang out as my guide had warned me that while he's moving just keep shootin'. Then after about 5m he just fell down dead. Later we found that the second shot, to my suprise, hadn't even connected

So that left the rest of that day and the next to pack out the meat and take care of the cape.

I must say that when your used to a good Aussie guide or hunter get in and cape out and cut up an animal, to see these fellas work on this seems pretty slow

The bull turned out to be more than I hoped for. It had 6 even pts a side, 41 1/2" long and good weight. A top trophy on the first hunting day of the trip. (the outfitter considered that this will be one of, if not the biggest bull for the season)

The next hunting days were directed at trying to find a good bull moose as this was the reason this trip was planed (dreamed of) in the first place. Hunting by horseback up into other valleys the hunting was tough as the moose rut hadn't begun and there was definately a lack of bulls going around. At this point I must say that the bears continued to be a problem for me as this was a totally new evironment that I was finding uncomfortable (call me a sook if you like, but even the guides were sleeping with pepper spray as they had never felt the need for a back-up rifle before).

Finally it was decided to pack up the horses and head up further into the valley to another hut and try to locate moose there. If the moose continued to be scarce then we would turn our attention to my goat or caribou tags. This camp, when we finally arrived after a 3 hour packhorse ride, turned out to be in a fantastic setting just above the treeline and hopefully away from the bears. We hunted up the valley as far as any of the guides had been before and glassed the surrounding mountain sides as we went seeing goats, caribou, stone sheep and a lone cow moose with her calf.

We continued to hunt up in high basins and the surrounding valley for the next day or so until I decided that maybe moose wasn't going to be on this trip after all. The last full day I had to hunt, we decided to cut our losses on moose and try for a mountain goat or caribou instead. The goat seemed the obvious as we had located quite a few over the last couple of days. The problem was that after riding up the valley for an hour to glass the mountainside for goats, I was stating to go blind trying to find a white goat with black horns on a mountain that was covered in snow and black rock.

After about an hour of this I decided to comb below the snowline for a caribou or just maybe, a moose. At about 2 miles distant I finally locked onto shape on the side of the valley. I watched this shape for about 20 minutes waiting for it to move. It didn't. Finally I said to Jesse, the guide, that maybe he should look at this rock through his spotting scope. He said it was a moose. I couldn't believe him. He said there was a cow and calf as well as a bull bedded 20m away (the one I had seen). So we headed off to at first see if this was a legal bull. Jesse thought that he would be able to judge the bull from a fair way off but the bull just wouldn't hold his rack the right way to judge. What he could tellme though was that if the bull was legal, he woudn't be the 55" model I was after. As this was the last chance for a moose, I said that if the bull was legal it was coming home with me.

Finally at about 250m the words came from Jesse that it was a legal rack. As the bull was content to stay bedded where he was, Jesse gave the moose a call that made the cow, calf and finally the bull get up and move around. When the bull finally turned side on I had the Ruger 338, with the scope set on 6x, ready to go. The first shot was a hit but seemed to me to be low as I thought the distance at about 200m so taking aim a bit higher the second time around Ifired again. This time the shot felt better as the bull wandered behind a small ridge allowing me to see just the tops of his antlers. After about 10 seconds the big animal wheel standed on his back legs before toppling over dead as a doornail. The next day was spent recovering the cape and meat which was an all day exercise.

Finally my time had come to be flown out of the mountains at the end of my hunt. The only problem was that it snowed on and off for 3 days and the super-cub plane couldn't get into camp to get me out. At that stage I thought that even though I had allowed 3 days after my hunt to get back to Ft. Nelson for my connecting flights home, I wasn't going to make it in time. Then at the last opportune time the weather finally clears and there was a window of clear weather for the outfitter to get me back to the hwy.

This trip was taken with Stonemountain Safaris and after a lot of searching and researching (with the help of some great people at the AHN site) I finally have taken my trip of a lifetime, so far anyway

I would also like to note that I took my own rifle with me and had no hassles during all of my flights appart from filling out more paperwork at the check-in counter of each flight.

Cheers,
Mark.

Edited by NitroX (28/09/07 03:06 PM)