I'm Your Huckleberry

[WAcoueshunter]

Here he is.

[724wd]

Excellent!!!!   

[jrebel]

Very nice moose!!!  Lots of great meat too.   

[Tapp8277]

Awesome bull! Congrats! I love that unit over there.  Can't wait to be back this Sunday 

[Roobugsdad]

Very nice Bull. And a great story as well..

[elkrack]

Great bull!

[pianoman9701]

Boy, what a crusher! He's great. Congrats!

[WAcoueshunter]

My phone charge, along with my OnX map, died in the cold.  So I figured I better just follow my tracks back out to the truck, recharge, and then figure out on the map if I could find a new way back in.  On the way out, I crossed multiple fresh black bear and coyote tracks.  I either wasn't paying attention on the way in, or these were fresh in the last 4-5 hours.  My three day pack out plan wasn't going to work well if the bears and coyotes are chomping away on the carcass.

I got back to the truck, got a phone charge, and went to work on finding a new route in.  My 75 year old dad came to join me - he can't hike or pack, but he can help find routes and cut trees!  There were two old roads that got relatively close, but both were snowed in and had many blocking trees.  We took the better of the two and cut our way as close as possible.  I got to within a mile or so of the bull over rough terrain that evening, but no closer.  I was prepared to just cut him up and hike out that mile - probably 7 trips that would not be fun, but it would be doable over two days or so. 

We went back to camp that night with that plan in mind.  But about 8pm that night my dad gets a call from the son of an old friend, who happens to live near Spokane.  He had heard about the moose, and was able and willing to come help pack the next day.  !!!     Even better, his neighbor could also come, and they had quads.     I wasn't sure the quads would help much if we couldn't get closer than a mile, but at least I had two extra hands to help.  Things were definitely looking up!

The bunch of us headed in the next day, we had to do plenty more tree clearing to get their truck and trailer in, but ultimately got back to the same road as the night before.  From there, we explored a series of drag trails to see if we could get closer.  After a few false starts, we found one that took us all the way to the draw where I shot from.  From there, we were within a couple hundred yards of the bull.  We went to work, and about four hours later had him bagged up and sledding downhill to the quads.  No predators had showed up, we were out and back to the truck by sundown on Thursday.  What a relief that was!  In case they read this, a huge shout out to Jeff and Casey for coming to the rescue!  Can't imagine doing all that by myself, thank you again!

[pianoman9701]

Great ending to the story. It's wonderful when people step up like that to help out others.

By the way, did you make that bed extension? That looks pretty handy.

[jrebel]

Excellent ending to a great story.  Glad you found help.  How wide is he???  Looks like a dandy. 

[bornhunter]

Great bull. Congrats!

[WAcoueshunter]

Great ending to the story. It's wonderful when people step up like that to help out others.

By the way, did you make that bed extension? That looks pretty handy.

No kidding, so glad those guys were able and willing!

Bed extension comes from Toyota.  It folds back into the bed, so I pretty much just carry it with me all the time.  Definitely comes in handy!

[WAcoueshunter]

Excellent ending to a great story.  Glad you found help.  How wide is he???  Looks like a dandy.

Thank you!  He is 48".

[pianoman9701]

Great ending to the story. It's wonderful when people step up like that to help out others.

By the way, did you make that bed extension? That looks pretty handy.

No kidding, so glad those guys were able and willing!

Bed extension comes from Toyota.  It folds back into the bed, so I pretty much just carry it with me all the time.  Definitely comes in handy!

Cool. I'll check one out.

[Craig]

Awesome bull