Epic Shiras Moose hunt 2015

[H&Hhunter]

As I"ve posted earlier after 15 years of applying I finally drew a coveted Colorado bull Shiras Moose tag. The Shiras Moose is arguably one of the toughest North American species to draw a tag for. The odds are right up there with a Desert Bighorn or a Rocky Mt Bighorn as far as difficulty to draw a tag. I’ve desperately wanted to hunt a Shiras for several decades and my time had finally come. I spent the entire summer in a euphoric state of glee. Running back and forth 200 miles each way on various scouting trips to the unit and I was seeing moose along the Laramie River all summer long. I had my camp picked out and I had my hunting area picked out. In my mind this was going to be a simple matter of being in the right place on opening morning picking out the right bull and then having to deal with the logistics of packing out the bull. Easy peasy, no worries I got this, right? RIGHT………………………………………….

Problem (if you can call it that) number one. My two daughters and I drew antelope tags in our favorite unit again this year. We have use of a huge ranch and it has become our father daughter hunting tradition for three years running. Moose season starts on the October 1st, antelope season starts on October 3rd. It’s a 250 mile drive from moose camp to antelope camp. No worries, like all serious hunters and dedicated dads I would simply make this work and that is what I did. So begins the story of the epic Shiras/antelope hunt of 2015. Oh I forgot to mention problem #2. I had traded, begged, borrowed, stolen and threatened my boss to allow me to take all of my vacation in October so that I had the whole season off plus several days pre hunt and several days post hunt. He is a hunter too and made it happen. Three weeks prior to the hunt I was transferred to a different division and my vacation was cancelled!! With a liberal application of charm, begging, pleading, making false promises and generally being a pest I was granted several days pre hunt until the 10th of October off. Moose season goes until the 14th. Not the primo situation that I had previously arranged, but good enough. It did add an element stress and compression to the hunt however. That being said, let’s go hunting!!

My wife, my youngest daughter and myself pulled my dilapidated old hunter’s special 5th wheel camper up to base camp on the day before season and set up in my pre scouted, awesome, moose filled area. Confidence flowed from every pore as I happily set up camp and started to cut fire wood for the 10 day stay. As I was setting in the guys camped down the way come over to say hi, we introduce ourselves and both establish that we are both hunting moose. Bill, my camp neighbor was supporting his 75 year old best friend on his cow moose hunt. I asked him if he’s done any scouting and he replies that “he’s been up every week for the last three months”. “Cool” I say, “have you been seeing any moose on the river”? “Not in the last three weeks” he replied. “There hasn’t been a moose seen down here since the rut started”. I felt my confidence start to ebb a bit. “Well, have you been down the West Fork”? “How about up to Browns Park”? Yep he said “There just ain’t any moose on the river, they have simply moved away”.

I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut I was speechless. This was the only portion of the unit I had scouted. I had made a HUGE mistake by assuming that the moose summer range was the same as their fall and winter range. What a bone head maneuver! I offered Bill a cold beer and we started talking. Bill was full of good info and showed me on a map where he had been seeing Bull Moose and what areas to try. I also got some very useful tips from one of our staff members here on THR that turned out to be very useful information. Thank you Dr. Rob!

That night we cooked some tacos and talked about the upcoming hunt then turned in for the night full of excitement and enthusiasm for opening morning. It turns out that my perfect camp was actually located about 20 miles from where the moose hang out during the rut. We had a bit of a drive to get from camp into moose country. It also turns out that Bill was exactly right, we started seeing moose within 10 miles of camp and they were all in the high country. They had left the river valley.
First Shiras Moose of the 2015 season was a gangly young bull. Here he is…(Video)


After watching the young bull for a bit we proceeded into the heart of the unit and were immediately pleased to see two mature cows hanging out together in a marsh. We were back in moose country. We spent the day exploring this new part of the unit and found many great looking spots to hunt. During the course of the day we met another long time local and previous hunting guide from the area who also was very helpful. Later that evening we saw multiple moose on our drive back to camp. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure…
Cow in a marsh

Cow on the hill

We got up early the next morning and hunted our way across the unit. We had to pull out of the unit to attend our antelope hunt. We saw no moose that morning. While I know I promised you an antelope hunt story I’ve decided to make it a separate post. We all three shot nice bucks in the course of two days and returned to the moose unit on the afternoon of the second day of the antelope hunt with enough time to make a quick afternoon moose hunt. Haste was the name of the game Sunday afternoon. Have you ever noticed that when you are in a hurry there is ALWAYS something in your way? Well it was one thing after another on the drive back up into the unit. The weather was misty and rainy the roads were horrible and there was a huge herd of cows blocking the road.

Colorado road block.. Moooove it over Besy! (Video)

 

[H&Hhunter]

We saw one young bull in the rain and mist that afternoon.
The mist bull.



We hunted hard Monday morning, covering lots of ground but saw no moose at all. That afternoon my wife had to head home and I was solo form here on. Tuesday morning I was up the hill and into moose country at day break. I saw one big old heavy cow on the way to the area I wanted to hunt….

The night before I had poured over the maps and had found an area that I nick named Moose Nirvana. It was a series of streams and marshes surrounded by stands of timber and had limited road access. The area looked as though it provided food, cover and limited access. I decided that it was a place that needed further investigation.

The next day started out sunny but soon turned dark and cloudy. I had found multiple areas that looked like they should hold moose. Several exploratory hikes proved that my hunch was correct. The area was full of sign including one interesting clue. I was finding moose beds and fresh sign in the transition areas between the marshes and the timber. The moose were lying in the thickest willow brush where they could easily retreat into the timber and just as easily head out into the willow marshes to feed. I was starting to see a pattern to the country and the moose behavior. As I went deeper and deeper into this area of the unit I found more and better areas to hunt. Finally I found a very small creek that crossed the road and I thought to myself that I should hike up that creek and see if it led to a marsh. I grabbed my gear and started hiking. The creek went up a steep cut valley for a mile in thick timber. And sure enough at the top of the valley was a large willowy marsh that was surrounded by tall timber. I immediately knew that I was in primo country. Moose sign littered the area and it was fresh. My senses told me that this was the place I was going to find my big bull.

I started still hunting and went into that hyper aware state that a hunter goes into when they know that they are amongst the critter they are after. I can’t say exactly how long I hunted this area but it just kept getting better and better. It was a huge chain of marshes that went on for miles and miles it looked even better in person than it did on the maps. I was finding beds, fresh scat and big Bull Moose tracks everywhere. I had been going for at least several hours when out of the gray misty sky I heard the first rumble of thunder. It sounded distant at first but soon it was getting closer. Within minutes I was in the middle of a world class lightening storm. I got down in the middle of a marsh and willed myself to be small and not too electrically conductive. The storm raged on for quite a while then went from a crazy violent electrical storm with driving rain to hailing pea sized hail that stung like the dickens. I’d had enough of that and decided to head back to the truck. It was a long miserable, wet, soggy, cold hike in the rain and hail back to the truck. I got to the truck at dark and drove the hour or so back to camp.

When I got back to camp Bill told me that he had heard a bull grunting and a cow scream in reply down in the river that morning. I decided to go and have look. The next morning I crossed the river and hunted the marshes along the river until late morning. Sure enough there was some fresh moose sign along the river but I couldn’t find a moose. I knew that I needed to head back up to Moose Nirvana that afternoon.

On the way in I stopped by a camp that turned out to be an outfitter with his moose hunting client. We chatted for a while and he informed me that like myself he had not been seeing any big mature trophy moose. He had no idea where they had gone as he had also been seeing them all summer long. He told me that he had hunted around the area that I was headed and had seen nothing. I felt a bit dejected after talking to him and thoughts of not filling this tag started to drift into my head. The chances of ever drawing a second one were slim. This was probably my one and only shot at a Shiras moose in this lifetime. For a moment I considered heading into a new and yet unexplored portion of the unit that some people had previously reported seeing moose. A little voice in my head insisted that I needed to head back up to Moose Nirvana like a moth to the flame I could not make myself hunt any other place. I set course for the hidden marshes.

I got into the prime area at about 4:00 PM and immediately strapped on a pack, rifle, binos and started up the creek. This time as soon as I broke out into the first marsh I immediately noticed a moose antler shed. It was small but perfectly formed and beautiful. I admired the antler, running my hands over it and feeling its weight. I started to tie it to my pack but suddenly felt a strong sense that I needed to leave it there. I can’t explain it, but I felt like that antler belonged in the marsh and that it would be greedy and wrong to take it. I quietly placed to shed antler back onto the marshy ground and began still hunting along the edge of the timber, carefully glassing into the transitions and timber as I went along. I’d been hunting along this way for several hours and had just about finished walking and glassing a long secluded marsh, the sun was setting and the sky was a brilliant orange. I sucked in a lung full of mountain air, I relaxed and took in my surrounding. I realized that right here, and right now, that I would have rather have been here in this place taking in the sights and the smells than anywhere else on earth. The brisk mountain had an aromatic scent. Full of pine, grass, willow, marsh and a faint musky odor that I assumed must have been the remnants of a passing bull moose. The air felt healthy and refreshing against my skin and the gentle breeze was invigorating. It’s not like me to do so but I felt that I needed to say a little prayer and thank our maker for giving me this wonderful gift. I did so and after felt even more at peace and comfort than I had before.

 

[H&Hhunter]

With that morale booster strongly implanted. I decided that I would hunt until it was pitch dark and only return to the truck after looking at every possible piece of country that afternoon. I continued on for another 200 yards or so and over a small rise. When I broke over the rise I was treated to a brilliant orange sunset, a vast long wide willow marsh and there, just in the transition line, across the marsh was a set of white, long, wide moose palms gently waving back and forth like a set of radar dishes. Below the moose palms the huge old bull that owned them was gently browsing on willow. My heart skipped a beat as the reality of what was happening registered in my brain. This was it I was looking at a trophy Shiras moose.

I took one look at him with my binos and confirmed that this was the exact quality Shiras bull I had been looking for. I ranged him at 269 yards, dropped my pack and snuggled my old, weather beaten, short barreled, Model 70, 375H&H into a solid prone rest over the soft part of my pack. The bull was almost straight on to me and I didn’t have a shot, his bottom half was covered in brush. I waited for him to turn but he just stood there looking in my direction. I think he knew something was up but he couldn’t identify what it was. I waited and waited for him to turn. I was losing shooting light and was just thinking about trying to move to get an angle on him when he turned his head and looked to his right. My cross hair was settled solidly on the junction of the base of his neck and his chest. I let my breath half way out and started to put pressure on the trigger.

The peaceful evening was momentarily shattered as the short barrel spit flame out the muzzle and sent a 270 gr Barnes TSX towards the bull. At the shot the bull gave absolutely no indication that he was hit. The break had been clean. I watched the bull through the scope as the rifle went into recoil. I instinctively jacked in another round and waited for the bull to either go down or give me another shot. It seemed like an eternity, in reality it could have been 30 seconds it could have been 2 minutes. I don’t know I was too locked into the moment to tell. The whole time all I had to shoot at was moose head and antlers. So we waited. The bull was just standing there looking straight ahead. I started to think that I missed him clean. Ever so slightly, through my scope, I noticed that the bull was shrugging his left shoulder and trying to pick up his left leg. He started very slightly waving from left to right. His paddles started to sway, looking like a pair of sails gently rocking on a shallow swell at sea. Without warning he spun on his hind quarters like a cutting horse turning after a calf. For a split instant I had a clear shot. Just as his shoulder passed through my crosshair I let another TSX fly his way. This time I was rewarded with a healthy CRACK as the bullet met his hide. And with that he was gone into the timber. The last thing I saw was a flash of white paddle just to the right of where I’d seen him enter the tree line. I flipped the rifle to safe, turned my scope down to 2.5 magnification.

I breathed in a deep breath and replayed the shots over in my head. He didn’t act like he was mortally hit, but both trigger breaks had been clean, unless the rifle had gone haywire I was sure I had put two vital shots into the old bull. It was getting dark fast and if there was a blood trail I wanted to find it before I lost the last of my light. I got up and jogged quickly across the marsh to where he had been standing. On the way over I was starting to feel some self doubt. Had I missed him? I thought, worse had I wounded this grand old bull? I as soon as I got to where the bull was standing I found his tracks but no blood. I followed his tracks; there was not one drop of blood. Darn it, I was starting to think that something had gone horribly wrong! I might have just screwed up royally here, but I had two solid trigger breaks and I know I heard at least one shot hit, I think. What could have gone wrong? I was thinking to myself. I continued on in the thick willow brush following his spoor. I looked to my right; there was a long leg with a hoof attached I followed the leg and in the brush lay the outline of a stretched out, very dead bull moose!

The first round had taken him cleanly, surgically, exactly where I was aiming punching a lung, driving through the length of the bull and coming to a stop in the opposite hindquarter. The second had cut the top of his heart off. It hit him precisely where I had pictured my cross hair when the trigger broke both times. After admiring the bull I was able to snap some shots with a camera and an iphone with the help of the self timer, a shooting tripod and some electrical tape I had with me.
The old Shiras moose bull




I did the old slit up the spine and skinned off the top half trick making cuts for shoulder mount cape and got to the arduous business of reducing a bull moose into packable sections. Which for me are four leg quarters, two rib halves and the soft meats, neck, back straps and the inside tenders. Sometime after dark, and it was a black moonless night, while I was working on the first half of the bull I heard something moving in the brush above me. I stopped, took my watch cap off and listened. Yeah, sure enough there was something in the brush above me just out of head lamp range. I barked a short guttural bark. It responded with a WHOOOF and whatever it was crashed off. It sounded like a bear but I couldn’t be sure. I walked over to the tree where my rifle was hanging and brought it closer. About 20 minutes later I heard movement in the brush again. This time I stood up, rifle in hand and in a loud voice told whatever it was to “GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE OR I’M GONNA PUT A HURTIN ON YAA!!!!” Whatever it was took off and never came back.

I got the bull all prepped for pack out in several hours. Before leaving the kill sight I put down a "pee fence" around the kill. I don’t know if it worked or not but several hours later when I returned neither the meat, nor the gut pile had been disturbed. I then went back to get the truck as there was a road much closer that I had passed while hunting. Seven trips later I had the bull loaded in the truck and was headed back to camp. I arrived in camp at about 02:00. Before collapsing into a deep dreamless sleep, I cracked open a mini of Jagermeister, thanked the bull for his life and the nourishing meat that he provided for our family and the experience that he had provided. I poured half the bottle onto his snout, toasted the great beast and took the other half for myself. That was the last thing I remember until waking up to the sunlight streaming onto my face later that morning. It had been one heck of an epic hunt.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Great trophy and a magnificent story! Thanks!

 

[H&Hhunter]

It was truly my pleasure Larry!

 

[Robert]

I can not wait to get back in the woods with you for another Elk hunt. We need to start planning for next year.

 

[jim in Anchorage]

Great write up as always H&H. You can pack out a whole moose quarter? I can barely pick one up. Did you bone it? How wide was that rack? I guess 48"? That's a legal Alaska
moose BTW with the 3 brow tines. Good work!

 

[H&Hhunter]

Great write up as always H&H. You can pack out a whole moose quarter? I can barely pick one up. Did you bone it?

No sir bone in. But remember that I am a man among men, strong, handsome, pure of heart and modest.

(Either that or a Shiras Moose bull is "only" about 1,000 lbs on the hoof as compared to a 1600 or 1800lbs Yukon Moose.) But I am going with option number one!

 

[H&Hhunter]

How wide was that rack? I guess 48"? That's a legal Alaska
moose BTW with the 3 brow tines. Good work!

Great guess his main frame is just at 46" but he's got a cupped right palm with a weird little cheater that officially puts him at a 50" spread. He scores really well for a Shiras.

 

[H&Hhunter]

I can not wait to get back in the woods with you for another Elk hunt. We need to start planning for next year.

I was just talking about that with the family. YES we do!!!

 

[Geno]

Thanks for the awesome write-up! Reading it, was like being there.

Geno

 

[NickEllis]

Wonderful write-up, as always. H&H is one of our great hunting writers, on this forum or any other. Fantastic story, great hunt, and a shiver-inducing narrative. Awesome! Hope to share the field with you one of these days soon.

 

[grampster]

What Geno said. My little computer office faded to a rough and beautiful country. I heard the crack of the rifle. I think my heart quickened a bit as you headed down to where that prince of the mountains stood.

 

[NickEllis]

Did you recover that TSX? I'd love to see it.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Did you recover that TSX? I'd love to see it.

I did not. I remember feeling it in the meat of hind quarter then forgot to retrieve it. Hopefully my butcher found it.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Thanks grampster. That means a lot to me!

 

[H&Hhunter]

Wonderful write-up, as always. H&H is one of our great hunting writers, on this forum or any other. Fantastic story, great hunt, and a shiver-inducing narrative. Awesome! Hope to share the field with you one of these days soon.

Thank you sir.

 

[Art Eatman]

Glad it worked out in spite of the civilized world's efforts to restrict your hunting time.

I used to get all grumpy when the good hunting weather was during the week, and I could only hunt on weekends and so often the weather was all wrong for decent hunting.

Employment is a curse levied on the dedicated hunter.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Glad it worked out in spite of the civilized world's efforts to restrict your hunting time.

I used to get all grumpy when the good hunting weather was during the week, and I could only hunt on weekends and so often the weather was all wrong for decent hunting.

Employment is a curse levied on the dedicated hunter.

Jobs do get in the way of the important stuff like hunting!!

 

[jim in Anchorage]

Great guess his main frame is just at 46" but he's got a cupped right palm with a weird little cheater that officially puts him at a 50" spread. He scores really well for a Shiras.

See- I am good. I split the difference You've got some good eating ahead of you. I like moose meat the best. Oddly the rut doesn't seem to effect their taste.

 

[H&Hhunter]

See- I am good. I split the difference You've got some good eating ahead of you. I like moose meat the best. Oddly the rut doesn't seem to effect their taste.

We ate one of his tenderloins last night. It was delicious!

 

[jerkface11]

I have a friend from Finland who's father makes a kind of meatloaf from moose liver. Want me to see if I can get her to give me the recipe?

 

[jim in Anchorage]

I have a friend from Finland who's father makes a kind of meatloaf from moose liver. Want me to see if I can get her to give me the recipe?

Moose Braunschweiger?

 

[Patocazador]

Well, you certainly earned that moose. He is a real dandy. I would have shot the small bull you first saw but that's why my Shiras is a dink.

Taking care of a moose by yourself, after dark, is also more than I could do. You are, indeed, a man among men. However, the handsome BS after your statement is maybe stretching it.

I had an Indian tell me once that, "Moose, he hurts a lot." He was explaining the difference between how moose react to a shot as compared to elk. I have been in on the kill of 4 Shiras moose and they all just kind of stood there (one bellowing) until they fell over or ran a very short way.

Congratulations on a GREAT Shiras bull.

 

[H&Hhunter]

I have a friend from Finland who's father makes a kind of meatloaf from moose liver. Want me to see if I can get her to give me the recipe?

I hate to admit this but I left the liver in the field! What was I thinking?