Well, after 4 unsuccessful seasons I thought surely this would be me or my son's year. We hunted 15 days of the 26 day fall season without luck. First day we saw 13 cows and my buddy found a little bull right next to the river. Second day we saw 7 more cows. It had rained most of July and August so the river was quite high and many many sloughs were easy boating. Man, I boated through sloughs that I have partially walked in most years. I really learned the layout of a lot of sloughs - but no moose. Happily no bear problems tho - never even set up the bear fence. Only saw one bear late one evening a long way from camp. We made 3 short trips in the rain and poor weather. After the first week the moose were a lot harder to find tho a few bulls were getting found. Finally the weather broke and we spent the last 6 days of the season enjoying sun and even hot weather. But it was so hot I didn't think calling would work and didn't try until the second to last day. I learned too late that I should have been calling and scraping that whole last week.
Found some cows way off the river and on high ground - WAY too FAR to even consider shooting a bull out there so got back down on the river. While we were on the high ground we watched a cow moose go crazy from the bugs. She starting raring up like a horse and stomping the water and marsh she was standing in. Water flew everywhere and she danced around like she was crazy shaking her head - I think bugs were getting into her ears real bad - it was a super hot day "for us" maybe hottest of the whole summer. Never saw a moose do that stuff before.
With my 12 yr old along I didn't get going quite as early or run quite as late as maybe I should have. He's tough but I didn't want to over do it too bad - he gets real hard to manage when pushed too hard. Wrecked 2 props and went through about 60 gallons of gas - love my Honda 40. If I had taken my jet boat I'd be totally broke feeding it gas.
Watched some martins one day, beaver, several otter families, porcupines, ducks, grouse, and other birds. We have lots of osprey and eagles here.
One day drifting around a corner we saw a cow and calf caribou. It took me too long to realize we could shoot them and they got away from us. I tried a couple running shots but no luck. Darn. I would have been real happy with caribou too. Overall between the rain and hot sun, bugs didn't bother us much the whole season - one for the + side of the ledger. Still, its pretty frustrating to have to add a 5th unsuccessful season to the list. Well, we may have a winter season and I did draw a buffalo permit. So I still have a chance.
