Alaska. As I fly away from Fairbanks, I'm starting to understand why some people never leave. I just completed a 12-day dream adventure chasing bull moose in the Brooks Range followed by two days helping pack up my brother, Will's moose camp north of Fairbanks. It's been a long time to be away from home, and I've been homesick for days now, but part of my is still intertwined in the mystique and thrill of the Alaska bush country.
My adventure started just 6 weeks ago when I got a call from the Huntin Fool magazine to congratulate me for winning a guided moose hunt in Alaska. If it wasn't for Facebook (because everything there is true!), I'd have probably discounted the call as a prank from one of those enemies I call friends. Amber and I were in the midst of finishing our new house, moving, and getting Harley started in Kinderarten. It wasn't exactly the most ideal time to take a three week hiatus to hunt moose. But, it was the opportunity of a lifetime, so we figured out a way to make it work.....okay, Amber actually did most of the figuring, I was too excited to think straight.
To add to the adventure, I would be hunting with Gregg Ritz, from the Huntmasters TV show and two of his cameramen. So in several short weeks, I found myself leaving our sunny new home in northern New Mexico for the wilds of Alaska.
After several flights and a short nap from 1 am to 6 am at Will's cabin in Fairbanks; I met Gregg Ritz and our lead guide, Henry Tiffany, at Wright's air service. Gregg had chartered a 5-seat plane to get us and 2000 pounds of food, hunting gear, and camera equipment to Bettles, Alaska.
From Bettles, we took three float plane trips (two people per trip), to Henry's base camp on the Salmon River. On the 60 minute flight, my cameraman, Jared, and I saw 4 bull moose and several cows! After we splashed the plane down into the river and met back with the rest of entourage, we found out we saw the most moose of anyone! Luck was already on our side.
At camp, we met my guide, Mike, and got our gear settled into the camp. Hunting is not allowed the same day as flying in Alaska, so we spent the rest of the afternoon sighting in rifles and bows and getting to know everyone. Gregg would hunt with Henry, a twenty-year Master Guide veteran, with a graying stubble beard and a stormy kromer hat pulled smartly down to his brow. Alex would round out their hunting party as chief camera and story board editor. Alex was right at home in hunting camp, but fit the part with oversize wool pants, a witty sense of humor, and a look more of a movie director than hunting film extraordinaire. However, with his resume of working on Discovery channel projects along with being with the Duck Dynasty productions prior to them hitting the big time - he had an air of confidence about changing hunting tv from hook and bullet to a mainstream experience.
My guide, Mike, was also 36 (my age) and had moved from Missouri to Alaska to chase the dream of big game hunting. Coming off 3 weeks of fall sheep hunting - Mike was in cut shape and fit his Sitka guide gear like a magazine model. He was modest and quiet, but 100% confident that we would bring home a bull by the end of the trip. Jared, our cameraman, was several years younger than Mike and I, but we had all grown up in the Midwest hunting whitetails and had a common bond pursuing our dreams in the outdoor industries. Jared had been a cameraman for 5 years filming for Realtree outdoors and Huntmasters, and had knack for getting called on almost every week of the Fall. He'd been on so many hunts, that he hardly even knew what parts of Alaska he had hunted previously, but he knew what made a successful video story.
We would be in two teams of three for most of the hunt. Gregg, Alex, and Henry would film footage for the Huntmasters TV show and Jared, Mike, and I would be filming for the new HuntinFool TV series. Turns out, I had a lot to learn about making tv shows!
Our camp consisted of a canvas cook tent complete with woodstove and four sleeping tents; One for hunters, one for cameramen, and one each for guides. Since we hadn't eaten lunch, everyone was pretty hungry by dinner and Mike and Henry didn't disappoint when they grilled hearty helpings of Southeast Alaskan salmon, sides of rice, and pie for dessert. Who knew Alaskan guides doubled as gourmet camp chefs!
Anticipation was high, and we planned a mid-morning departure from camp so we could get breakfast and avoiding navigating the river in the dark. Henry explained that every year it took awhile to re-learn the constantly shifting sandbars so that our freighter canoes could traverse to and from glassing knobs without running aground.
Our game plan was to chug our 15 hp Yamaha outboards up and down a 15 mile swath of river to several well-worn vantage points. Each vantage sported a guide coined nickname and varied from 1/4 mile to almost a 1 mile from the river. Once on the "spotting knobs" we would use our binoculars to search for bull moose traveling the river corridor. During the breeding season, the normally solitary bulls migrate down from the mountains and use the river to search out receptive cows. In our section, the Salmon river basin necked down to only a mile in width. The actual river was less than 200 yards across, but it made wide meanders across a low gradient section of bog/tundra dotted with black spruce, aspen, birch, willow, and alder. When we first arrived, the birch and aspen had turned a stunning yellow in stark contrast to the dark green spruce and dark brown meadows/alder thickets.
We learned relatively quickly that although bull moose routinely surpass 1500 pounds, they could easily slip through the dense undergrowth undetected. Hence we were relying on the ever searching nature of the bulls in the rut to draw them into the open meadows and river banks. Once a bull was spotted, Mike would attract his attention with a cow moose call. Call is relative, the sound is made by half bellering/half moaning into a fiberglass funnel and the resulting wail is reminiscent of an unmilked Jersey.
The next morning we awoke to a mix of rain/sleet/wind that made the slow start and a warm cook tent even more inviting. Mike drove our freighter canoe downriver about 6 miles to "old camp hill". I was thankful not to be standing up running the motor lift and throttle as the driving sleet made navigation miserable. Instead, I retreated into the warmth of my rain jacket hood and wondered what the rest of the day might bring.
Old camp hill was a mile slog that gained about 1000 feet of elevation and overlooked miles if river. The elevation gain helped turn our sleet over to snow, and Jared and I settled into the leeward side of the knob to wait it out. When the flakes got even bigger, Jared sighed and pulled out his camera to "capture the moment"; I think he was actually capturing the misery, but about that time we wandered back over to Mike and realized he had set a rain fly for us to beat the wind and snow. Hallelujah!!!
We endured the rest if the afternoon with limited visibility and hope, but we were comfortable enough and the lack of action gave us a chance to get to know each other.
Our patience was rewarded when Mike caught a bull "flashing" almost two miles away in the thick black spruce. "Flashing" was the term coined when a bull's stark white antlers were practically the only thing visible weaving through the thick brush. Even from a long distance, Mike could tell he was a good bull, although it was too late and too far to make a stalk that night. Mike surmised that the bull probably wouldn't move very far and we would set up on a closer vantage the next day.
And so our days started to run together. We generally drove south and Gregg's entourage chugged north. The wind, rain, snow, and sleet continued to test our resolve of the endeavor and made the warmth of the cook tent a welcome rendezvous place for long mornings of coffee hour. My journal entries of the first five days of hunting commented more on our gourmet camp dinners than the hunting, since visibility was lousy and we were spotting very little. We dined on ribeye steaks, pork loin, and spaghetti those first several days, and I was convinced Mike and Henry had packed our food menu knowing that we needed a constellation prize for the tough weather. Both groups spotted several small bulls one evening, and Mike even caught the attention of one young bull with the cow wail. But, by the next day, both groups went bust on sightings and our hope that breeding season was ramping up was dashed.
After five days, our combined efforts had spotted 2 cows, five small bulls, one "ghost" bull (2 second unconfirmed sighting), and the day one big bull. Good thing we were eating well! Our camp departure times had slipped to early afternoon as morale had dipped from enduring endless hours of bucking sleet and we settled into "Alaska time"; something akin to the weather dictating you schedule, or as Jared described it, everything is two times longer or delayed than expected.
The weather broke at the end of day 5 and we finally had enough visibility to see some of the snow capped peaks surrounding our valley. However the precipitation had been replaced by a 15-20 mph north wind that was certainly bringing even cooler temps with it. The views were spectacular and Alex was able to get some awesome overhead footage of our camp using an unmanned drone. We had strict rules about the drone around the hunters or guides since they can't be used to aid hunting, but they sure gave a neat perspective of the landscape.
Every morning brought renewed hope that the weather would break and the moose would descend from the mountains. Day 6 of hunting was no different. However, this morning our parties switched; we went north and Gregg's group went south. My assumption was it was mostly a ploy to keep the boredom from breaking us down. In any case, when we arrived at the famed "triple bar" at 2 pm, Mike immediately spotted a bull about a mile away headed northward.
After watching the bull flash through the timber, we knew he was worth a closer look, so we dropped some elevation his direction. Jared and I were anxious to drop all the way to the river since the bull had been cruising at a fast clip, but Mike advised that we not lose our overlook position. It was a good call, because we lost the bull in the undergrowth for almost an hour when he hung up and switched directions.
When he reappeared he was still almost 1/2 a mile away, but with a break in the wind, Mike quickly got his attention with a cow call. At that point, the bull was on a mission to find the lonely cow wailing. He came on a steady march on a string and then hung up at 400 yards in the brush.
Mike had been judging the bull at better than 55 inches in antler spread (mid size for that area), but when he showed me the video of his paddles, they looked huge to me! This was the bull we came to the Brooks Range for!
When the bull stopped at 400 yards, Jared and I jockeyed for shooting positions. I had specific instructions not to fire until Mike gave me the green light and then coordinate the actual shot with Jared. Not quite as straightforward as hunting by yourself! I ended up laying prone with my rifle rested over Mike's pack and Jared was just behind me with the camera tripod. In fact he had one tripod leg practically between my knees and kept hissing to watch that I didn't bump the footage as we shifted towards the bull.
Mike let out another cow call, and the bull continued coming towards us from his hang up spot at 400 yards. At this point we could hear the bull grunting and he wasn't far from our first meadow at 316 yards. Unfortunately, when he hit the first meadow, neither Jared or I had a clear shot.
He was coming in fast, but straight at us, and offering no reasonable shot for either rifle or cameraman. Jared started to fret that he would disappear into the tangle of black spruce below us before we got an opportunity. Mike kept whispering, "any time" and "let me know when you want him to stop". As if on cue, the bull stopped marching to search for the lonely cow. Mike whispered a range of 150 yards, but the bull was quartering too us, and I didn't see a clear shot from the angle Jared and I had. Now, we were starting to worry about the wind which was blowing almost directly towards the bull and the lack of openings that he was headed into which wouldn't offer a clear shot.
We stayed in a stare down for almost 5 minutes, and I thought we might get a shot when he turned to start walking again, but by the time Jared and I were both on him, he disappeared into the brush again. Suddenly, he popped back out in an opening, but this time stopping broadside. Jared gave me the greenlight, and I got off a clean shot. At the shot, Mike hollered "shoot again!" But by the time I got another bullet loaded, the bull had fallen just 20 yards from where I shot.
I jumped up and tackled Mike - happy that after six days of endurance it had all come together! All the long daily interviews for the tv show were over (at least that's what I thought at the time), explaining that we hadn't see anything. Even Mike was jumping and hollering - truly excited and ignoring Jared's constant camera work which had become a nuance for Mike trying to "do his job", while Jared was just trying to accomplish the same. We had done it!!
Jared had some extra camerawork to do - as he explained he and Alex normally work as a team to get two camera angles simultaneously. Since we didn't have that, we had to reset the stalk, set-up, and shot, but at this point we were all so excited it didn't matter.
After about an hour of camerawork, we headed down the mountain to look at my bull. Amazingly, when we got down there, we couldn't find him. Eventually Mike walked back up on the hill and walked Jared and I too him - amazing how we could keep walking right by something the size if a moose!
The moment was bittersweet as always - I was elated to have taken such an awesome trophy bull, sad for taking a life, concerned that we had coined this a "once in a lifetime opportunity" that was now over, and sharing the moment with new found friends who were as much a part of this success as me on the trigger. Now, I usually have a lot of pictures I like to take at this point, but Jared was at a dilemma point. The bull had hung up for so long just prior to the shot that we had used most of his memory card space with the HiDef footage that he normally uses for shot sequences. We discussed running back to camp to download the footage, but that was a minimum 2 hour round trip proposal, so we opted to field dress the moose and hope to get photos/video the next morning. Judging by the amount of grizzly bear tracks we had seen, this could be a risky move for the meat and carcass. Just before we left, Mike put the tape measure on the antlers and got 59 3/4" - just shy of the holy grail 60 incher! Can't argue with ground growth!
In any case, we were already running out of daylight (10 pm) when we left for camp. Back at camp, there were lots of high-fives and congratulations and review of the camera footage. The shot was impressive and Jared captured it perfectly, even seeing the vapor trail from the bullet sizzling through the air at over 3000 feet per second. Red Rock (the 28 Nosler rifle from Red Rock precision), was the talk of camp, since many bulls this size require multiple follow-up shots.
It had been an exciting day and we followed it up with grilled rib eye steaks - wow, delicious! It was a hard night to fall asleep, but we had a lot if work ahead of us in the morning!
The next day, we returned to my bull and walked above on the overlook to make sure no bears had beat us back to the carcass. Fortunately, everything looked good, but before we headed down we spotted a smasher bull raking down willow trees along the river. With no more tags, all we could do is watch and hope he headed towards Gregg's group.
The rest of our day was devoted to camera work and breaking the bull into manageable pieces. Manageable is relative, since each quarter weighs well north of 120 pounds! We stashed the meat pile for the night, since our freighter canoe couldn't haul 3 dudes and 750 pounds of meat at once.
When we got back to camp, We found out that Gregg's group had seen the big bull, but it was so late in the day that they had to make a huge move in the canoe and lost track of him in the process. However, camp morale was increasing as trophy bull encounters were on the rise.
The next several days also started to run together. Jared and I spent an entire day in camp while Mike ran upriver to retrieve meat. I spent some time fleshing the moose hide and starting a video episode of "camp life" a running joke with the cameramen that the hunters were spending more time in the cook tent than hunting. We also shot several scenes of Mike driving the boat, which was a great way to ride around in circles until your toes felt like they would physically freeze off your body!
The moose sightings slowed to a trickle - and our group had shifted gears to grayling fishing and looking for bear sign. However, for the first few days, our group seemed to have some moose karma left,as we spotted most of the bulls while Gregg's group was coming up empty. But, we didn't see anymore "legal" bulls - those with an antler spread greater than 50 inches.
And just like that, we were faced with the final day of the 12-day hunt with one moose and zero bear sightings. We decided that both groups would sit on the "lower burn" glassing spot since upriver travel was blocked by dropping river levels as the feeder streams were freezing solid.
We had a feeling something good would happen, and sure enough, at 4:00 pm we spotted a bull across the river that would meet the minimum legal antler size. A little later, two small bulls appeared near the first bull and started shoving each other around to establish a dominance order. However, their location was inaccessible and we were forced to watch the show unfold a mile away with little hope of closing into crossbow range that Gregg was using. And that is how our moose trip closed, with a feeling that just one more day might verge us to success, but still coming up empty on Gregg's tag.
We awoke the next morning, "extraction day", to the sounds of ice sheets colliding on the river. Henry used the satellite phone to call the pilot and warn that float plane landing would be impossible. So, while we packed our gear, Mike and Henry used their range finders to scope out a sandbar runway and called for a tundra tire equipped plane to do a fly by.
Of course, Alex and Jared wanted to get more drone footage of the plane flights and none of us really understood what "fly by" meant. Apparently it meant to fly so low that Alex's hat nearly left his head as he dove for the sand to avoid the plane wing. Even extractions are exciting in the Brooks Range!
Greg and I took the first flight to Bettles and even though it was late, he was able to book a charter flight to get us back to Fairbanks. After 2 weeks in the bush - getting to showers and civilization was a priority! In Bettles, we caught up to Henry's third hunter, Kevin. Kevin had been hunting out of another camp about 20 miles downriver from us and they also struggled. He went home with fond memories, but no moose antlers this time.
We made it to Fairbanks and I temporarily parted ways with Jared, Alex, and Gregg when I found a ride back to Will's cabin from one of his friends. However I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a celebration cocktail at the Marlin bar in Fairbanks.....back with the moose crew. That turned into a story unto itself....I'll save that for another time.
Of course, Will had planned to have some sort of outside communication from his moose camp, but it didn't work, so I cut moose meat most of the next day and kept an eye out for Will. He showed up in the afternoon with a nice moose rack and a plan to pick me up for a quick turnaround back to camp.
We made record time up the Elliot Highway, but realized that our communication problems still existed. So at 9pm, no one from camp had showed up in a boat to pick us up - so we settled in to sleep in the truck. Luckily, we brought sleeping bags but didn't grab any food, so we'd be warm, but hungry.
On the way up, my brother told me moose camp tales - they had a rough start with two boat motor breakdowns which required an additional trip back to Fairbanks to repair.
In any case, Matt and Josh showed up the next morning with the last working boat which happened to have a 1/2 dollar sized hole plugged off with duct tape to keep it afloat. We spent a fair amount of time bailing with a 5 gallon bucket, but we made it to moose camp with the two happy hunters that had both scored great bulls. Josh had gotten his early in the week and Matt got his the night we arrived!
At camp Alaknak Village (nicknamed for the 25 door long gigantic cabelas Alaknak tent) we started smoking a rack of moose ribs over an open pit fire. It takes a lot of food to feed the Alaknak villagers!
I headed out with Will in the morning and the evening. We called in one small bull but nothing else. That was okay, Will and several others in camp had passed bulls trying to get Josh, Matt, and Russ opportunities - since they had travelled from the lower 48 for a chance at a bull. It was a beautiful day with no wind and no clouds, however, camp rumblings were suggesting that a snowstorm was bearing down on the greater Fairbanks area. In any case we had a great night around the camp fire, eating moose ribs with our hands, Viking style. Will polished his rib so clean that you could have used it plane signaling device.
The next morning, we awoke to Will complaining of stomach cramps between bouts of vomiting and 5 inches of wet snow accumulating over camp. It was going to be a fun breakdown. We figured it would take 4 trips to extract 8 hunters, another moose, and an endless mountain of gear with the one leaky boat the 5 miles back to the boat ramp. However, after the first trip hadn't returned after 3 hours; no one in Alaknak Village was quite sure when we might leave. Our checkered radio communication suggested that the motor had died, but we had no idea where or if another plan had been hatched. Since Alaknak Village had been founded in an island, the remaining 5 members weren't going anywhere!
Fortunately several more hours later, the original boat drivers had returned with a new boat and driver that they had hired for a rescue mission. Three trips and 3 hours later, all of Alaknak Village was back on the shore.
The ride back down the Elliot Highway in 5 inches of ice/snow was another 4 hours of fun, but we eventually all made it in one piece to Fairbanks.
What a trip! I somehow got my baggage unchecked in Seattle last night, so I slept in the airport with a moose rack at my feet. Certainly a conversation piece here in Washington state. With any luck, I'll be in my way to Albuquerque shortly - although I'm not holding my breath yet!
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