Yukon Moose

[300wsm]

I got one!  It's 52 inches but has a a thick heavy rack.  I'll post more pictures when I get them from my hunting partner.  I'll post the story when I have more time..

[300wsm]

Here is the only picture I have

[PA BEN]

Nice bull, did you score it?

[PacificNWhunter]

AWESOME, look forward to hearing the story. Congrats

[boneaddict]

Outstanding man!

[tlbradford]

Nice and Heavy.  Congrats, now lets hear the story.

[Rufous]

What a dandy. I look forward to hearing more about your hunt and seeing more photos. Brian.

[WildlifeAssassin]

That is impressive, story, score...?

[300wsm]

Here is the story:

On Sept. 3rd we flew out of Fairbanks, it was a two hour flight that took us North of the Arctic Circle.  Flying in we saw a couple moose and a nice bull about a mile down stream of our drop off.  We finished the day glassing the hillsides for moose.  We spotted a small band of caribou(had a tag for caribou) with a decent bull but could not hunt the same day we flew.  We also spotted a grizzly not too far from camp.  We also fly fished for arctic grayling, you could catch one or get a bite on almost every cast. That evening we spotted the same bull moose out in a field with a cow.  That inspired us to float down and get a little closer the next day.  On day two we spotted four different grizzly bears and at the same time as the night before the bull came out showing himself off.  We thought this was going to be easy, he came out in the same field two days in a row, we thought we would wait until he does this tomorrow(opening day for moose) and introduce him to my 300 wsm.  Well we spotted him in the willows the next day but decided to leave him alone because he would be coming out in the evening just like before. Well that never happened I was upset at myself for not going after him in the willows, I recorded him on video the night before and I believe he was at least 60" wide.  We ended up floating out of there the next afternoon, mad that we missed an opportunity.  After floating for just a half an hour, I spotted a reflector about a mile away(anyone who has moose hunted knows what I'm talking about. The antlers on a moose are a dead give a way, it's a big reflector) We checked him out through the spotting scope and decided it was a legal bull. (50" or 4 brow tines).  We started traversing toward him watching him through the binos, when we were half way to him, he bedded himself down.  Everything was perfect, the wind was right and he was bedded down on the edge of the willows.  We stalked through a quarter mile of marsh , up the hill and through the willows expecting to be about 75 yards from where he bedded down.  We got there and could not see him, we slowly started working our way up(thinking he had moved out) when I saw the tips of his antlers.  He had laid down in a hole where we could not see him.  We were all of 25 yards away, I did a bull call and nothing happened, I did it again and nothing, after about five or six calls he decided to see what the heck was interupting his nice nap.  When he stood, we saw he only had three brow tines and so we had to guess his spread.  He looked wide enough so I took the shot (could have took him with my bow, maybe next time).  With a little more lead in him he tipped over and took his final nap.  This is when the work began .  The hind quarters weighed about 125 pounds apiece to set the mood for the pack out.  We got him quartered and all the meat off with the head moved a couple hundred yards away from the kill site and headed back to set up camp.  The next day it took us 8 hours to pack all the meat out down through the tundra, across the swampy area, through the willows and back to the river. A solid mile in all.  We then decided to start going down river with the raft all loaded up, the problem was that the river was a little lower than average.  The raft would float in 6 inches of water but every place the river dropped in elevation we had to drag the raft, not an easy task with all the weight of the moose and gear.  When we were flying in, we saw a section of river that was nothing but boulders and knew this was going to be a tough area.  We mutually decided that it was not a good idea to shoot another moose until we got pass that spot, It's was a tough decision but the right one.  So of course on the next day we saw two legal bulls, one was a monster the other we did not get a great look at but was also a nice bull.  We got them on video and floated on our way, when we got to the boulder garden, it took us 2 hours to pull and maneuver the raft 200 yards.  If we had another moose in the boat I think I would just be getting home today, maybe to an empty house?  I thought we would need 25 to 30 hours of floating to get to our take out, it took us around 40 hours.  If the river was a little higher like on a normal year we would have had both our moose.  Instead we got one moose and a lot of memories.  This was the most memorable hunting trip I've ever been on.  Lots of hard work, good company and great weather(only rained one day the rest were sunny).  As far as scoring the antlers, I have not.  They are at the taxidermist in Fairbanks.  The spread was 52" with good palms, 10 points on each side, the brow tines had 3 on each side but were long and very heavy.  The rack is very symmetrical so there would not be very many deductions.  If I were to guess(I'm no expert by any means and could be way off) I would guess just under 200

[wf70gonehunting]

Sound like a good trip, congrats on a nice bull. thanks for the story. I cant wait to go with my bro this year to get his bull.

[X-Force]

Great story, lots of hard work, memories and the payoff a big bull. I cant wait to have a trip up there.

[Wea300mag]

That is a very large symmetric chunk of bone, excellent job! Thanks for the story.

[PacificNWhunter]

Great story!

[WildlifeAssassin]

Thanks for putting that up, good story.

[miah]

nice bull, my lifelong dream is to go up and get a yukon moose. Just curious, what did it cost round trip?