We floated again last night. Right off the bat, 60 yards from where we put in we ran across a Mama and Baby. We slowly drifted by without spooking, them and tied off about 100 yards down stream. From where we were sitting we could see the first Mama and Baby. then down stream we could see two more cows with calves farther downstream. About 150 yards and 300 yards. Then as we sat there another cow with calf came out of the woods just 40 yards away. I was holding the raft between two old snags out in the stream, so we blended in pretty well. The cow paid no attention to us. She came out into the water and started eating the plants off the bottom in two to three feet of water. The calf stayed on the bank. At first it was no problem, but the cow started working her way up stream. Soon she was getting close about 15 yards and baby was moving up the bank. This would soon put us between the two, which is not a good thing. I started squeezing a rodent squeaker which did not upset her too much, but made her take notice. Then we moved around a little so she could see the movement. She ran back to baby and headed into the brush. We cut loose and continued to drift. We saw a total of nine Cow and Baby Moose last night. We saw what we thought was a lone bull, but it did not come out of the brush till after it was too dark to shoot. We drifted on down in the dark and came home. We will give it another try Monday or Tuesday night. In addition to the Moose we saw one Coyote, one Beaver, three Bald Eagles, and two Mink. And the Grayling were jumping all around us the entire trip. It was cool enough last night that a wool jacket felt good, and finally no Mosquitoes.
My partner is just blown away with how many Moose we are seeing, this close to our homes. Every cow has a calf as well, which means there has to be bulls in the area. And right next to the highway, and the sound of traffic pretty much cover up any sound we make. There is a screening line a spruce trees that hide the slough from the highway, people on the highway don't know there is a stream that close. My partner has driven this section of road every work day for the last twenty years and never knew this stream was there. The Moose always come from the opposite side of the stream, so the proximity to the highway is no problem.
