still no moose

[Dand]

Well started hunting 8/26 and we stayed out 7 days hunting hard. No luck.  We went 3 days without seeing cows even. Did find plenty of bear sign and saw 7 brown bears.  Most I've ever seen on the river. 2 pair of sows with yearling cubs, one small sow with a little cub and one lone bear likely about 3 yrs.  There are a few wolf tracks along the sloughs too but I never heard any howl this time. Quite a few other folks hunting the river hard and finding no moose either.  Weather is in a warmish damp doldrums pattern, bugs aren't very bad and it makes for no reason for the moose to move around.  A pilot friend said he flew for several hours and saw no moose until about 30 min before dark. Then "they were popping up like popcorn but all far off the river and too far to pack".  The bear and hunter activities are probably keeping the moose chased back off the river too.  I did my part by hiking back along several dry or near dry sloughs.  Finally started seeing a few cows.  But after seeing the 3rd sow / cub pair while hunting a slough I decided I didn't want to be jumping bears off their beds in head high grass and only hiked more open sloughs. Now the good tides are in the dark and weather is still warm and rainy so I'll wait a few days to try again. I hear the moose are rubbing off the velvet so if we get a little chill in the air we might see some movement.  Hope so. After passing up 3 nice bulls in the last 3 seasons for various reasons, I need the meat.

[Dand]

Well unless I get lucky tomorrow it looks like the first winter in many years that I don't have some wild meat in the freezer. I went out for another  3 hard days, in between downpours and found no bull moose.  One evening I was scraping the brush and whacking trees and attracted 4 cow moose. At one time 2 were browsing within 10 -15 yards of me, the other 2 might have been within 20-30 yards - down wind of me all feeding hard.  They would look at me now and then but my camo must have worked as they never seemed alarmed. A fifth animal never showed itself and might have been within 50 yards upwind and feeding hard too. Every time the cows would move out of sight I'd scrape the brush and whack branches and they'd drift back close to me. As it got nearly dark I tried to sneak over toward the 5th animal for a look but one of the close cows caught me and ran a few yards in a huff. I tried again but it was too dark and I really spooked a second cow just trying to return to my original stand so bagged it for the night.  I figure #5 was probably another cow - I doubt a bull would have let his girls hang so close to a "rival" without coming over for a look - maybe?

The rest of the time I could only find a cow or two and one more brown bear. I had a tag for it but  he didn't give me a chance for a shot. Don't know if I'd have tried as I didn't want to be stinking like a bear while moose hunting - or deal with a hide in the warm and rain - forgot my salt.

Conditions are still so warm and now very wet with very few bugs.  Nothing to get the boys moving much.  Though one friend called in a 55 incher and a few other folks have found animals.  Overall the success rate sounds low for local hunters.

Guess I could try for a caribou but they are scarce these days too.  Shucks I was hoping this year was my turn. None of my partners connected either. Better work on my hunting skills I guess.