Idaho Moose Tex Creek 69-2

[seeth07]

Did anyone else on here draw this tag? I'm open to working together and sharing scouting/hunting notes. This I suppose would also apply to anyone planning on hunting elk or deer in the same area. I'm sure with the 25 days I currently have scheduled for hunting this tag, I'm bound to find a few bulls and bucks!

 

[Desk Pop]

If you have 25 days you'll find a bull. Rut is first week of October. Visibility is better when leaves fall in November.

 

[seeth07]

My current hunt dates I've taken off of work for are with hunting days of 20-27 of Sept and Oct 22-31 and then the final 8 days of season if needed. Coming from Wisconsin, I have a lot of travel time around those hunt dates.

 

[LopeHunter]

Welcome. Try search function if have not disappeared into the wind already. That unit can be a mess if rains. Do you have a UTV?

 

[seeth07]

Lopehunter,

I did read your well documented story of your 69-2 moose hunt. Honestly it was the best forum hunt story I've read in a long time! Sounds like you had quite the challenge on this hunt based on the conditions you faced and I was glad to read it finally worked out for you!

Yes, whenever I head out west I always travel with my beavertail to sleep in and use the Polaris Ranger for all driving around. Much easier to get the Ranger out of trouble then the Truck!

 

[seeth07]

When it comes to planning a hunt, I often follow the same general e-scouting strategy that I have found to be quite successful in the past. I figured with this hunt, it wouldn't be a bad idea to share what I do and catalog the progress made in this forum thread. I hope you all enjoy and maybe learn a thing or two or perhaps maybe even I'll pick up a hot tip!

So the very first thing I do is obviously pick the general area and target species. I'm not going to start there as that has already been done. In this case, it is an Antlered Moose Tag valid in Unit 69-2.



I live in Wisconsin and all the trips my wife and I take out west are DIY public land hunts. We do occasionally knock on a few doors and every now and then it pays off and we get access to some private land as well.

For scouting trips, I'll be able to fly into Idaho Falls. The plan is to do at least one scouting trip and so I started there looking at a few flight options.

For the actual hunt, I'll be driving out with a beavertail trailer equipped with bunkbeds I installed for sleeping and will be used to haul my Polaris Ranger. Knowing how most gravel/dirt/clay roads are out west, I always prefer the Ranger for main travel on these roads unless the conditions are perfect. So...with that bit of back knowledge, this is where the actual e-scouting begins. Where can I drive?

What I do to answer this question is to always go to the county road maps. Every county that I have looked into has some sort of county road map with each type of road labeled. Most are easy to access and a quick google search will lead me right to the PDF. Some are much more difficult and only available by contacting the county office. The reason why I chose to use this source is because I'm guaranteed that if the road is shown on the county map, its legal for me to drive on it with my Truck. This is because their map shows the roads that the county maintains with your tax dollars. Every single one of these roads is open year round for public use unless there is a seasonal closure to the road due to weather or construction.

Most of this unit lands in Bonneville County (there was a tiny bit in Bingham as well). Thankfully, their county website has a link to a very high resolution county road map with both paved and "graded" roads all labeled. I didn't include the whole map here, just a snip to give you an idea.



The next step I like to do is very time consuming but since I rely so heavily on ONX maps these days, I take the time and actually trace every single legal travel road in the unit into my ONX map. One thing that I avoid doing is tracing any other non-county road that the county map might have on it (such as a forest service road). I'll get into this in a little bit. During this exercise, it is amazing how many roads show up on ONX as a "legal" road (solid road lines) and how many don't (dashed trail). This really helps me avoid that moment of confusion when in the field. Here is a prime example of what I'm talking about, you can see only one of the dashed roads is actually legal:



During this process, I also drop an "access" waypoint anytime anyone of these roads crosses public land so when I'm in the field, its easier for me to know when I have legal access to public land and when I don't. I'm not going to go too much into detail on this step because there is a lot that goes into determining what is public land and what isn't. I'll just say that I do some research on each property I mark the access waypoint with to ensure that its legal to hunt. There are the obvious public and private lands that little to no research is required and also some properties that require a lot more digging to determine. It took me probably 10-12 hours to complete this step and when it is done it looks like this:



I'm not used to so many roads and access points for public land hunting, lots more research is required to narrow it down!!!

More to follow...

 

[wtrfwlhunter]

Very cool.

 

[seeth07]

Next step: Identify additional roads/trails for legal travel. Remember how I left out those additional roads during the first step with the county road maps? Well now is the time to properly get them added in. The reason why I don't put them in during the first step is because I want to change the source I use for verifying legal travel since the county road maps don't always seem to be up to date with the authority having control over these roads (i.e. the national parks system maintains and regulates travel on their roads). For this unit, I have identified two main tracts of land that I want to investigate for possible maps and information regarding roads/trails. They are the Tex Creek Wildlife Management Area and the Targhee National Forest.

The Tex Creek Wildlife Management Area has a very nice map showing all established roads and trails in the area. My focus is just going to be on the additional Truck roads and also add in the one ATV trail (I used the same color but added an ATV waypoint so I remember. Most of these additional roads are noted as seasonal meaning they close Dec. 1st. No worries since the hunt closes before then however, if there is a nasty early snow storm in November down in this area, I need to know that some of these roads won't be cleared (and possibly even gated off for access). You can see the added roads in yellow.



Next up is to look at the Targhee National Forest Motor Use Map. The National Forest system does a great job of keeping these maps up to date and I have in the past found them to be fairly accurate. The one thing of caution with the National Forest is that they like to close roads down on short notice for logging and weather. O yeah...and government shut downs. I always check the National Forest website the day before I leave to see if they have anything posted on there about closures. Even that sometimes isn't enough though as I've on numerous occasions went to access a road that travels 10 miles back into a unit only to find a close gate with the sign - "no motorized access". One time I even called the ranger to ask him and he didn't even know the gate was closed. There are a lot of seasonal roads on this map but they all are open thru Dec. 14th so just like before, unless a storm hits, these should all be open while the hunt takes place. There were also quite a few 50" or less roads that I again marked with the ATV symbol where they start. In the end, basically all the yellow roads that I add to the map I'm assuming I'll likely be traveling without the Truck.



I'm not quite finished with the road/trail portion. In doing this process I have a few questions/clarifications I need to look into. They are the next step and so far my list is:
1) Some forest roads end on the national forest map yet it appears they extend to main county roads but they do cross private land. Need to ask county/national forest ranger if they are indeed accessible roads.
2) Access to a portion of Tex creek appears to be from a forest service road but its really close. Need to ask and find out if I can use that road to access that little piece of public.



3) ATV trail at northern end of National Forest ends with a tiny piece of private between the ATV trail and the main county road. Satellite image shows a truck and trailer parked there. Verify this is public access thru an easement with national forest ranger/county official.



4) There is some state land with all kinds of trails/roads shown on ONX. I can't seem to find information on these state lands yet and more research required.

 

[T Bone]

e-scouting is sometimes effective.

The best way to find a moose in that unit is to find a dead cat and swing it by the tail.

It's been said many times of that area that "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a moose".

My info is out-dated, but that place was thick with moose in my day.

 

[seeth07]

The best way to find a moose in that unit is to find a dead cat and swing it by the tail.

It's been said many times of that area that "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a moose".

My info is out-dated, but that place was thick with moose in my day.

HAHAHA while that may be true, I take every opportunity I get very seriously to help increase my odds of success. Even if you say the success rate is 99.9% because there is a moose around every corner, I'll prep to fill the gap of that last 0.01%

 

[seeth07]

Well I guess until corona ends, so does my current step of finishing verifing legal roads and trails to travel via a motor vehicle. Ranger station is closed and the Tex Creek contact is out.

Guess I'll just have to move onto the next step of identifing places where I can park my trailer for overnight camping...more to come on that soon.

 

[brymoore]

I’ve hunted tex creek before for other animals. It’s not a complicated area. I’d skip the scouting trip and add a day or two to your first hunt. You should time your hunts to cover peak rut time period.

 

[LopeHunter]

e-scouting is sometimes effective.

The best way to find a moose in that unit is to find a dead cat and swing it by the tail.

It's been said many times of that area that "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a moose".

My info is out-dated, but that place was thick with moose in my day.

I hunted in 2016 when had large burns early that summer which created issues then a big rain storm happened as the rut was kicking off so the roads were not fit for anything but horses for a few days and some of the roads were a rutted, soupy mess until things froze. Thick with moose though I had trouble finding upright moose until the leaves fell in the riparian zones. The beef cows, most of which seemed black like a moose, were left moseying around well past the deadline to get them out which did not help either when the leaves were still on the trees.

I decided to cut the rut hunt short then drove back (12 hours each way) in November and about had Tex Creek to myself. I could spot moose a long way off unless they retreated into the timber away from the riparian zones. The internal roads will jar your teeth out at about 15 mph. Best to carry some extra fuel as the closest gas stations are not in the unit and you can cover a lot of miles if drive around to the southern edge and up north again. The closer you get to the center of the unit then the rougher the roads seem to get and the paved roads do not even go all the way around the unit's border.

 

[TheTone]

Muddy roads in the area are no joke. Like has been said it’s not a hard place to find moose.

 

[seeth07]

When I first traveled to Wyoming, I kept reading there was antelope everywhere...you guys are making it sound similar, don't be tricking me!!!

 

[brymoore]

When I first traveled to Wyoming, I kept reading there was antelope everywhere...you guys are making it sound similar, don't be tricking me!!!

There are antelope everywhere in Wyoming.

 

[seeth07]

I would have to agree...will I agree with Moose lol

 

[brymoore]

I would have to agree...will I agree with Moose lol

I never saw any moose but I was bird hunting.

 

[seeth07]

Back to the planning and research:

I did get some answers today.
1) Yes, these forest service roads are maintained to the county road system and are public access. It was a total of 3 roads that I was able to clean up and show on my map.
2) Yes, this road provides legal access to that 300+ acre piece of Tex Creek.
3) This is actually a forest service road for a few hundred feet before turning to ATV only.
4) No other roads on state land are open to vehicle traffic.

I did find out something I somewhat paid attention to but didn't fully educate myself on. This unit has a special vehicle use law during hunting season. Only truck traffic is allowed on main roads. This means that the ATV trails I marked for possible use are off limits to use to hunt moose unless I'm using them only as a means to pack in a base camp. Hunting needs to be on foot then from the base camp. This affects just a few trails but it is a few areas I need to remove my map to remind myself not to use them.

 

[seeth07]

Next step: Finding a legal place to park the trailer and be able to spend the night.

Some of this is going to based on personal preference and the fact that we start out with the trailer for our campsite. My wife and I always travel with our backpack tent and full backpacking gear just in case. Most roads have only 1-3 miles between them with the worst case being around 6 miles. Might spot a bull in an area 2-3 miles away from the road and getting in there with the tent and focusing efforts on him could be a possibility but I'm guessing its quite unlikely for this hunt.

First thing I like to do is locate the established free to use campsites. If possible, it often is nice using an established camp area as opposed to just pulling off the side of the road on BML/National Forest Land. Tex Creek has 6 camping locations noted by the orange camping symbol on the map:



I'll mark all of these on ONX for now. I looked closely at the satellite image to try and get it marked right at the spot to avoid confusion while there if I'm trying to find the spot to use.

There are no other established camping areas I could find on public land in this unit. If logistically it makes more sense, I know I can pull off the side of the road and out of the way of traffic on any BLM land or National Forest Road and disperse camp. Here is the regulation from the National Forest booklet stating so:



And from the BLM office in Idaho: