Moose Hunting

I went moose hunting with Martin Owen this past week. The plan was for me to arrive in Dawson City and meet him there on the monday the 1st of September and then we would head out early in the morning of the 3rd and be there until the afternoon of the 7th. So early Wednesday morning we headed out before light and just as it was getting light we saw a couple of grouse so we stopped and got those for our lunch later on. We then stopped at one location but never saw any fresh signs and tried calling a bit but continued on towards where we were planning on hunting. About 30min drive away still we saw a Cow moose with a calf so we stopped and looked at them for awhile before continuing on our way. As we came around the corner and were able to look out over the valley we planned to hunt we spotted two moose about 1km away and we could see that one was a bull! We then started our hike into the valley and slowly getting closer and about 300m when we could see them again we realized they were actually two bulls and they were fighting! Just the one bull only had small antlers and we couldn't see them from far off. We were able to get to 150m with a large grassy opening in between so I shot from there. Then it was time to find a way across the river to them and we figured we would be able to drive an old road up the other side of the river fairly close so we hiked back out drove to the other side and realized the moose was actually on an island! The area around there was super muddy as well otherwise we would have driven through the river to get to it but with all the silt and quick mud we would probably lose the truck before we were half way across.

Once we had it all quartered and piled by the river we then drove back into Dawson (90km) and borrowed a canoe from Malcolm who also agreed to come along with us and help pull it out, Which was super nice of him! We had to paddle up stream for about 1.5-2km before we got there then load everything into the canoe and Malcolm agreed to paddle it back down the river since he had the most experience canoeing and Martin and I would hike back out. Anyways it all worked out and 22hrs after setting out on our hunting trip we were back in Dawson, very tired but also happy.