Well this hunt started at draw time. We have been tired of putting in for 10+years around home to hunt moose. But yet we dont feel like driving 6hrs to get into the north country either. I looked at draw stats and such and found a mountain zone a few hrs from home that had very low priority to get drawn. With the wife and my 12yr old son both only having a point or two we decided they would give it a try. Well it ended up they both got drawn for the 2012 season.
My son and I were only able to get into the zone once around mid summer so our scouting was pretty limited. We saw a couple moose tracks so at least we knew there was a slight chance.
We ended up leaving home on Oct. 3rd. We drove 3hrs to the spot we would use as a staging area. We had left home with an inch or so of snow and had roughly 3 inches where we parked the truck. We unloaded the Ranger, the Quad and our tub trailer. It was then a 22km ride into where we would camp through some rugged trails. We made it to the camp spot with just enough time to set up one wall tent before dark.
The next day dawned clear and bright and once breakfast was finished we finished setting up the second tent and the remailing camp. We hunted hard the 4 and 5th with the snow on the ground. We only saw a couple moose tracks and they were traveling.
On the 6th I headed to the truck as we had wrecked a valve stem on the Ranger and needed to get it fixed. When I was 2miles from the truch mu ball joint on my bike figured that was enough and decided to split in two. So here I was with a bit of a prdicament. Well I decided to walk to the truck but only went 20yrds and decided there had to be a way to get the bike out. I winched the quad sideways to a tree and aligned the ball joint back up. I then used ratchet straps to pull the A arm up and hold the bal joint in place enough to get out. It worked and I was able to get the bike out and loaded.
No my second delema of the day. Broken bike on thanksgiving weekend equals no parts. I did what I could with my bike but ended up borrowing a Honda 350 from a good friend of mine and headed back up to the family. I made it back into camp at around 11pm and the hunt continued.
We hunted hard with minimal sign of the animals moving. We never saw any moose and only a couple deer as well as one 5pt bull elk(6pt zone).
The area has a ton of old sign and looks as if the wolves have raised hell and the populations are really hurting there. We hunted until the night of the 7th with no luck. On the 8th we packed everything up and headed out as the forcast was bad and we didnt want to have to fight the rugged trail with a large amount of snow on it. We made decent time going out and had no further issues with machines.
Even though we didnt get a moose on this trip we had a great time. We hunted in some awesome country and found and explored some neat historical stuff around the area we were in.
I get days off in another 10 days and if all works out we will be hitting the area again. May be tough hunting but that will just make it all the sweeter when we do connect on a bull.
Some pics from our trip,
Heading out,
"WILD" horses on the way,
Almost there,
Unloading,
Ready to hit the trail,
Stuck,
22km later we made it to camp,
First time in hunting camp,
One veiw near camp,
Scenery shot,
Veiw of camp with Jasper Park in the background,
Chicken hunting was good!!
Camp,
MMMMMM breakfast,
Relaxing in the evening,
Oops,
Very old trappers cabin way back in the bush,
The crew on a hike into the park,
More scenery,
An old stove found near camp out of a parks cabin that is now gone,
Heading Home,
