Two backcountry Bullwinkles? You guys are insane!
Knowing yours and Coleys passion for floating nearly inaccessible rivers, I'm surprised you didn't do the hunt in boats?
I've had the pleasure of being part of a moose harvest here in WA, and it was a hell of a lotta work. I'm estimating you three packed out about 1,000 lbs or so? Isn't there some old Alaskan adage something to the tune of "Never kill a moose over a mile from a vehicle, and never downhill"?
Did you bone them out before the pack out? What packs did you all use and which packs performed the best and worst?
I'm extremely impressed...thanks for the excellent share and write up Steve.
Moose tenderloins are by far the best wild game I've ever eaten...period.
Ike
Ike, our original plan started out as a drop off float trip and I was all in, then Pete slipped us the golden ticket to his camp and we never looked back (I think he burns out partners
)
As for the distance and hill....? I guess we were there to kill moose so we just had to go where they were, the miles and hills were just something to deal with, I'd spent the last couple of years getting into good enough shape to not embarrass myself and actually did fine.... could have even gone a bit further and almost did, on our way down to this guy we spotted a monster moose about 3/4 of a mile further up on the hill beyond where this one was bedded, a true specimen, but we would have had to blow up this moose and about 4 cows to get to him and I had made the decision to take the first legal bull I got a crack at....maybe next time a 70 plus inch bull will have more of a draw for me but this time I have no regrets.
My pack was a Sitka Hauler 6200, I'd decided on one pack to carry all the time, this one is not an ideal day pack and it is not an ideal packboard, a bit big and noisy for a day pack even when totally shrunk down and a bit of a pain to load bags of boned out meat into even with it's meat sling, though that is probably true of any internal frame pack, Coley had something bigger and better and knew how to use it, I honestly don't know what it was but it worked for him, (it may have been a Kifaru) Pete had a external frame pack that he just unpinned his bag from and had a packboard, each moose was three trips apiece for three guys, probably around 600 lbs for each moose as they were big and fat, lightest load was the antlers but dragging those things through the willows is harder than carrying more weight it seemed
I just got my moose back down here late last week, had a shipper that specializes in hunting haul it down through B.C. for 950.00, it was frozen and is now at Olsen's for cutting and wrapping.
Anyway....thanks for all the kind word from all, it was as good of a trip as I could have imagined, kinda sorta hoping that maybe I can get back up there next year and go after the caribou.
'cause....that would be a real cool deal.
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