Highground
Well-known member
Three Months of "Moose Brain" is the best way to describe my summer and early fall. I figured I'd finally sit down and write this hunt up while it's still fresh.
I drew a Montana moose tag this spring, and from the moment I realized I actually had the tag, moose pretty much took over my life. I'm not a wealthy guy with unlimited vacation time or a hunting budget that lets me disappear into the mountains whenever I feel like it. I work full time. I have a wife, a senior in high school, bills and all the normal responsibilities that come with them. So making the most of this tag was going to require some juggling, and, as it turned out some questionable financial decisions. I probably spent about every dime I could reasonably afford on this hunt - and a few I probably couldn't. I rearranged work, carefully used PTO, burned a ridiculous amount of diesel and severely tested my wife's patience.
For about three months I had a pretty serious condition that could only be described as "Moose Brain." I thought about moose at home. I thought about moose at work. I studied maps until my eyes were tired. I setup and moved cameras. I worried about access issues late season and I stressed endlessly about finding a good mature bull moose. And from the time I drew the tag, I scouted every single weekend except one.
The Scouting starts
I started by covering as much country as I reasonably could. I drove roads, rode ATV trails, hiked drainages, glassed openings, bush-wacked creek bottoms and started hanging trail cameras anywhere that looked promising. At first the cameras mostly confirmed that I was finding places wildlife wanted to be...
I still wasn't finding any large Bulls, but I was slowly putting the puzzle pieces together. There were plenty of adventures along the way. I managed to get a flat tire on one scouting trip. Another evening I stayed on the mountainside glassing until dark and hiked back to the SXS only to realize once I got there that I had lost the key somewhere back on the mountain. Using OnX maps and the tracking feature I was able to retrace my steps and eventually find my key. I wasn't home until 4am and had to work at 7am. These are fairly accurate representations of my summer.
All that scouting took time from somewhere. There were weekends I could have been home with my family, getting things done or doing any of the hundred other things normal people do when they aren't completely obsessed with finding a moose. Fortunately, on occasion I was able to combine the two.
I was so happy that my daughter was able to come along for a scouting trip. She had fun driving the SXS on the CC divide and up around Mt. Bushnell. Looking back now, those days are as much a part of this hunt as the day I actually pulled the trigger. Sometimes I was alone. Sometimes Darlene (my wife) came and sometimes I had a good buddy tag along. Whether they came or not, though, everybody in my family spent about three months hearing entirely way too much about moose.
One thing that shaped most of my summer scouting was what is called the CC divide. It essentially divides this country into a north and south side. There's a trail running along the high country with most drainages generally running down and away from the top either North or South. A lot of my scouting concentrated on the south side, toward the I90 and the Savenac/DeBorgia areas. And there was good reason for that. That is where I kept seeing moose. With only a few exceptions, every single moose I had seen before September 5th was on the south side of the CC divide. Maybe 20-30 moose spotted on the south side and only a few on the north side. I had to make decisions based on what I was actually seeing and virtually everything I had learned this summer was pointing me south of the CC. I was pretty convinced that is where I would eventually kill my Bull, but I was wrong.
September finally arrived
I had originally intended to hunt the tag with my bow, and after an entire summer of scouting I certainly wasn't going into the season blind. But knowing where moose live and actually killing one are two completely different things. I hunted the areas I'd spent the summer learning, continued checking places where I'd found activity and kept looking for the bull that would make me want to commit. There were moose around, but I still hadn't found "him." Then one day the entire hunt changed. And strangely enough, it all started with a bear.
I was hunting a powerline cut on the south side of the CC divide early that morning. There was a lot of moose sign there, and I was hoping to catch a bull moving through the area. Instead, I spotted the biggest black bear I'd ever personally seen. For a couple hours, my moose hunt became a bear hunt. I very slowly worked my way into 350 yards and took a steep uphill shot. Looking into the sun, not having a good base to shoot from and rushing things caused me to leave a nice little semi circle mark on my forehead. Scoping myself after decades of shooting was certainly humbling, but missing the damn bear was even worse. I spent a couple hours looking for blood, fur, anything. Finally I convinced myself I had done the "impossible" and completely missed the mark. That hurt. Even worse, I had just fired a rifle in the area I was hoping to see moose. I figured anything nearby had probably gotten the message, so rather than continue pounding the same area I decided to let it settle down and explore somewhere else.
About a week earlier, I'd talked to a logger who mentioned that he had seen moose the previous year in _____ creek. I'd filed that information away and now seemed like a pretty good time to go check it out.
_____ creek drops north from the CC divide just below _____ pass. There's roughly a 5 mile trail through there limited to 50 inch and under machines. And it is steep in spots with a ton of deadfall and blowdown. It had already been a long day. I'd started near Plains on the SXS and covered a ton of ground glassing timber cuts first thing in the morning and eventually ended up on the north side closer to TFalls after the bear miss. So I headed down the trail without much expectation. I wasn't looking for a particular animal. I was basically exploring a drainage a logger had told me contained moose and trying to salvage a day that had already included missing a bear and getting a bloody forehead.
Out of nowhere I spotted something black WAY across the drainage and immediately could see white from his antlers and knew it was a decent bull. Not a spike or younger bull like I had seen. A big bull!
I ranged him at 490 yards and thought I could get him to come closer by calling and raking. That caused him to stand up and move about 30-40 yards but then turned around and bedded back down.
He had a cow with him and I was losing light. I don't think he was interested in crossing all that country to fight when he already had a cow with him. Instead of educating him, or taking another questionable shot, I decided to let him sit and come back in the morning so I had a full day to stalk in on him. Next morning he was nowhere to be seen. I called and didn't hear anything. I raked with no response. My heart sank. I thought for sure he had left the drainage with his cow. I continued to glass, convincing myself there was still a chance he was bedded and just out of sight. That was a Saturday/Sunday. I left camp to return to work Monday but I hadn't shaken that bull from my mind. I knew based on research that a cow is only going to stand for a bull for about 48 hours and that if she was in that window I better get back after it. I didn't want to regret not giving this hunt everything. Luckily, my boss let me leave work on Wednesday to get after him.
I had found the moose I wanted to hunt, and I locked on. There was just one problem. He was across an extremely deep canyon and the western side of the drainage, in country where I couldn't simply ride an ATV over to him. The question I'd spent the summer trying to answer- Where should I hunt? - Was suddenly replaced by a much harder question. How in the hell am I going to kill that bull?
I drew a Montana moose tag this spring, and from the moment I realized I actually had the tag, moose pretty much took over my life. I'm not a wealthy guy with unlimited vacation time or a hunting budget that lets me disappear into the mountains whenever I feel like it. I work full time. I have a wife, a senior in high school, bills and all the normal responsibilities that come with them. So making the most of this tag was going to require some juggling, and, as it turned out some questionable financial decisions. I probably spent about every dime I could reasonably afford on this hunt - and a few I probably couldn't. I rearranged work, carefully used PTO, burned a ridiculous amount of diesel and severely tested my wife's patience.
For about three months I had a pretty serious condition that could only be described as "Moose Brain." I thought about moose at home. I thought about moose at work. I studied maps until my eyes were tired. I setup and moved cameras. I worried about access issues late season and I stressed endlessly about finding a good mature bull moose. And from the time I drew the tag, I scouted every single weekend except one.
The Scouting starts
I started by covering as much country as I reasonably could. I drove roads, rode ATV trails, hiked drainages, glassed openings, bush-wacked creek bottoms and started hanging trail cameras anywhere that looked promising. At first the cameras mostly confirmed that I was finding places wildlife wanted to be...
I still wasn't finding any large Bulls, but I was slowly putting the puzzle pieces together. There were plenty of adventures along the way. I managed to get a flat tire on one scouting trip. Another evening I stayed on the mountainside glassing until dark and hiked back to the SXS only to realize once I got there that I had lost the key somewhere back on the mountain. Using OnX maps and the tracking feature I was able to retrace my steps and eventually find my key. I wasn't home until 4am and had to work at 7am. These are fairly accurate representations of my summer.
All that scouting took time from somewhere. There were weekends I could have been home with my family, getting things done or doing any of the hundred other things normal people do when they aren't completely obsessed with finding a moose. Fortunately, on occasion I was able to combine the two.
I was so happy that my daughter was able to come along for a scouting trip. She had fun driving the SXS on the CC divide and up around Mt. Bushnell. Looking back now, those days are as much a part of this hunt as the day I actually pulled the trigger. Sometimes I was alone. Sometimes Darlene (my wife) came and sometimes I had a good buddy tag along. Whether they came or not, though, everybody in my family spent about three months hearing entirely way too much about moose.
One thing that shaped most of my summer scouting was what is called the CC divide. It essentially divides this country into a north and south side. There's a trail running along the high country with most drainages generally running down and away from the top either North or South. A lot of my scouting concentrated on the south side, toward the I90 and the Savenac/DeBorgia areas. And there was good reason for that. That is where I kept seeing moose. With only a few exceptions, every single moose I had seen before September 5th was on the south side of the CC divide. Maybe 20-30 moose spotted on the south side and only a few on the north side. I had to make decisions based on what I was actually seeing and virtually everything I had learned this summer was pointing me south of the CC. I was pretty convinced that is where I would eventually kill my Bull, but I was wrong.
September finally arrived
I had originally intended to hunt the tag with my bow, and after an entire summer of scouting I certainly wasn't going into the season blind. But knowing where moose live and actually killing one are two completely different things. I hunted the areas I'd spent the summer learning, continued checking places where I'd found activity and kept looking for the bull that would make me want to commit. There were moose around, but I still hadn't found "him." Then one day the entire hunt changed. And strangely enough, it all started with a bear.
I was hunting a powerline cut on the south side of the CC divide early that morning. There was a lot of moose sign there, and I was hoping to catch a bull moving through the area. Instead, I spotted the biggest black bear I'd ever personally seen. For a couple hours, my moose hunt became a bear hunt. I very slowly worked my way into 350 yards and took a steep uphill shot. Looking into the sun, not having a good base to shoot from and rushing things caused me to leave a nice little semi circle mark on my forehead. Scoping myself after decades of shooting was certainly humbling, but missing the damn bear was even worse. I spent a couple hours looking for blood, fur, anything. Finally I convinced myself I had done the "impossible" and completely missed the mark. That hurt. Even worse, I had just fired a rifle in the area I was hoping to see moose. I figured anything nearby had probably gotten the message, so rather than continue pounding the same area I decided to let it settle down and explore somewhere else.
About a week earlier, I'd talked to a logger who mentioned that he had seen moose the previous year in _____ creek. I'd filed that information away and now seemed like a pretty good time to go check it out.
_____ creek drops north from the CC divide just below _____ pass. There's roughly a 5 mile trail through there limited to 50 inch and under machines. And it is steep in spots with a ton of deadfall and blowdown. It had already been a long day. I'd started near Plains on the SXS and covered a ton of ground glassing timber cuts first thing in the morning and eventually ended up on the north side closer to TFalls after the bear miss. So I headed down the trail without much expectation. I wasn't looking for a particular animal. I was basically exploring a drainage a logger had told me contained moose and trying to salvage a day that had already included missing a bear and getting a bloody forehead.
Out of nowhere I spotted something black WAY across the drainage and immediately could see white from his antlers and knew it was a decent bull. Not a spike or younger bull like I had seen. A big bull!
I ranged him at 490 yards and thought I could get him to come closer by calling and raking. That caused him to stand up and move about 30-40 yards but then turned around and bedded back down.
He had a cow with him and I was losing light. I don't think he was interested in crossing all that country to fight when he already had a cow with him. Instead of educating him, or taking another questionable shot, I decided to let him sit and come back in the morning so I had a full day to stalk in on him. Next morning he was nowhere to be seen. I called and didn't hear anything. I raked with no response. My heart sank. I thought for sure he had left the drainage with his cow. I continued to glass, convincing myself there was still a chance he was bedded and just out of sight. That was a Saturday/Sunday. I left camp to return to work Monday but I hadn't shaken that bull from my mind. I knew based on research that a cow is only going to stand for a bull for about 48 hours and that if she was in that window I better get back after it. I didn't want to regret not giving this hunt everything. Luckily, my boss let me leave work on Wednesday to get after him.
I had found the moose I wanted to hunt, and I locked on. There was just one problem. He was across an extremely deep canyon and the western side of the drainage, in country where I couldn't simply ride an ATV over to him. The question I'd spent the summer trying to answer- Where should I hunt? - Was suddenly replaced by a much harder question. How in the hell am I going to kill that bull?
Attachments
Last edited:
