Before I tell my story, I just want to say thanks to several of the members here. I got some good advice on areas to look into, managed to meet up with a couple of great guys for some good one-on-one talks, and even got taxied around by one (and his wife) for a firsthand look at some "moosey" places.
At least one member who got a bull in the unit last year will know this marsh pretty well.
I've lived in Washington all my life, but had never been into the Kettle/Kelly areas until this summer. Suffice to say, I will be back! Really beautiful and interesting country. I was only able to put in a pair of scouting weekends in 101 before the fires started and the FS closed the majority of the public areas of the unit. I also spent another short weekend meeting another member and scouting some nice areas in 105. I didn't really ever find great "fresh" sign, but found sign almost everywhere. I did see two cows too, so I knew the moose were around. From what I could find on-line and from talking/messaging folks, it sounds like most of the moose taken (at least in these units) are either close to or right on a road. That's not where I usually like to hunt, but being solo, I figured the closer to a road the better and who can argue with the success of others. With their size, no moose is really "easy".
I had kind of figured I end up hunting the first week of October and if that didn't pan out, I spend as much of November as it took to find a bull. The way it was looking, I figured I'd be up in 105 for October, but the FS finally opened the whole area south of Sherman Pass, so I thought I'd start the first few days of the season there and then head north after that. As dry as it has been this year, I figured I should focus even more on water. I mapped out as many marshy areas as I could find and planned to visit as many as possible.
I was able to head north and set up camp on the 29th in a nice little spot just off Hall Creek road I spent the 30th checking out a couple of potential spots. One was a little lake and marsh that looked great on googlearth, but looked even better in person. When I first got to where I could see water about 100 yards away through the trees, I made a few cow calls followed by scraping a tree and then some bull grunts. I immediately had a bull grunt back and break some brush. I went through several more scrapes and grunts which got more return grunts. After just a short time the bull walked right up to within 50 yards or so before he heard my camera and walked off. I figured I'd better not pollute the area too much so I walked out. As I looked at other areas, I also had a calf trot across the road in front of me and a small black bear lope down the road at another. Did I mention grouse...they seem to be pretty thick all over that country this year and I managed to get a couple while scouting.
Opening morning I went into the lake again and started calling in the same place I'd seen the bull the day before, but after an hour or so, I moved on. I headed up the little ridge along the east side of the lake and marshy area further on.
Throughout the morning and early afternoon, I made several more stands with scraping/calling sessions, but had no responses. By the time I'd worked my way to the end of the second marsh and ridge beyond, the wind had switched, so I reversed direction and headed back along the west side. I had just made the turn when I heard a big crack in the trees ahead. I stopped to listen and heard another crack and short cow call, then more brush cracking behind it. I figured it was a bull following the cow, so I moved toward them to a spot where I could see into the timber below me pretty well. I saw the cow move through an opening and when I lined up on it, a bull moved through. He looked big enough for me, so I swung to the next opening as the cow went through it. When the bull walked through I grunted to see if he'd stop like all the whitetails do on those Saturday hunting shows...right! He just walked on through, so I swung to the next opening and as he came through at a slow walk, angling slightly away, I touched off the shot from my .338 with the crosshairs just ahead of the hip. With the recoil, I lost sight of him and everything went silent. After a minute or so, I heard quite a bit of crashing in the trees near the edge of the marsh in the direction they should have gone, so I hung up there listening. I heard the same crashing in the same location a couple of more times in the next few minutes and then some quiet crunching of sticks further away up the marsh. I thought it sounded like the cow walking away and then heard the crashing of brush in the spot just below me again. I wondered if it was the bull, down and thrashing, so I headed down to where I'd shot about 125 yards away through the trees. I didn't find any blood or tracks, so I just headed through the trees to the spot I'd heard the trashing. I moved out of the timber into the smaller trees surrounding the marsh and looked for sign, expecting the bull to jump and run at any moment. I didn't find anything, so I figured I'd better go back and find the tracks or blood, but as I turned, he was laying about 20 feet away, dead. I couldn't believe it. I poked him in the butt, but his eyes were already glazed. Man those things are big!! It was just after 3:00 when I shot him and my GPS showed just over a mile back to my truck, thankfully fairly flat around the two marshes with only a small ridge to cross before the road. I took pictures and then left for my pack, saw, bags, ropes, lantern, and all the other goodies I knew I'd need. I was back by about 5:00 and worked through the night on him. I don't have a clue how many times I tied legs back, twisted him, untied ropes, skinned, tied, and un-tied again, but I'm just glad there were trees around him. I couldn't even have budged him without them. Turning him over to get the off side was a real chore! I finally had all the meat bagged and headed back to the truck with the first shoulder. Two coyotes and a bear had come by while I was working, so before I left I "marked" my territory all around the carcass and left my wool shirt draped over the rack. I got to the truck at 3:00am and decided to head back to camp for a couple of hours of sleep. When I got up at 6:30, I headed down toward Republic until I had cell service. I called my wife and left her a message and then called a local member who had offered help packing if I needed. I didn't catch him, but left a message with directions and then headed back to the kill. I was headed back for another trip at 2:00 when he and his brother-in-law drove up to help. We hiked into the site and between the two of them they managed to cut the rack out pretty quickly. I know I'd have had a really hard time of it, without their help, especially with all the yellowjackets! We carried the rack and last two bags of meat out and were back to the trucks by 3:30.
The new Exo 5500 pack worked great!
It took several days to clean, cut up, grind, package, and freeze him, but I ended up with 312# of prime moose steaks and burger.
The bull was really just an average one with a 38"+ spread, but after nearly 40 years of putting in for tags, he's just fine in my book and I managed to pick up a couple of new friends in the process. Sorry for being so long winded, but I just love the longer stories with lots of pictures on the site, so I thought I'd contribute another. Thanks again guys!!
