the "days off" moose hunt

"Take him, Nick!" The bull moose had winded us, looked our way, and turned from his route toward us to walk the creek bottom parallel to the ridge where we waited. Nick whispered something about not wanting to drop the bull in the creek bottom.

He had his rifle ready and was following the moose's progress a hundred yards away through his 2x7 power scope. The bull walked about 20 yards, turned, and climbed up our ridge!

Nick waited until the moose reached the ridge top and stopped before he centered the crosshairs on the bull's broadside chest area and fired his .300 Winchester Magnum. The moose staggered from the impact but remained standing. Nick's second shot had the same response. The third shot through the lungs with the 220-grain factory load brought the animal down. We had guaranteed meat in the freezer, or so we thought!

Less than a week before, I had arrived in Homer for some time off from work when I ran into Nick Dudiak at the Fish and Game office. Nick was a fisheries biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Homer. I was working as a fish culturist for Fish and Game's remotely located Tutka Lagoon Hatchery, across Kachemak Bay from Homer.

That 1978 season, Nick held one of the eight bull moose permits for the area we were hunting in the Kenai National Moose Range. I was surprised to see him working since he was supposed to be gone on a moose hunt. That's when Nick sadly told me that his hunt was over.

Nick and his friend, Karl, had planned this hunt for almost a year in anticipation of drawing one of the limited permits for the Kenai National Moose Range. Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manage these areas for controlled moose harvest levels and to provide an opportunity for a quality hunting experience. Aircraft and mechanized vehicles were prohibited.

When Nick and Karl were notified that they had won permits, they started serious planning. They spent hours pouring over topographical maps and wildlife survey information, establishing check lists, preparing gear and setting up a pack-horse outfitter to haul out the meat.

The previous Saturday, they had launched Karl's 16-foot flat-bottom cabin boat at Tustumena Lake, situated on the western boundary of their hunting area. They had a 20-mile trip across the lake to reach their permit area. After anchoring in a small channel on the other side of the lake, they set up camp and hunted the lower aspen benches and muskeg swamps near the lake.

Shortly into the trip, however, Karl became ill with the flu. Nick broke camp and brought him back to Homer.

Hearing this story and knowing I had several days off from work, I offered to accompany Nick back into the area. We stopped long enough to assemble my gear and we were on our way back to Nick's hunting unit.

We boated across the glassy fog-covered surface of Tustumena Lake early Wednesday afternoon in Karl's borrowed boat and, after leaving a note for the horse wranglers that we were back in the area, backpacked about four miles to a base camp near a little lake. We spent the rest of Wednesday scouting the upper aspen benches and doing some calling.

Thursday morning, we jumped a bull moose with about a 50-inch antler spread on the ridge behind our camp where we had been calling the previous evening. I was carrying Nick's rifle and he had his compound bow. Because the wind direction favored us, Nick decided to try a stalk with his bow. The large bull was standing broadside more than 50 yards away. Just as Nick started his stalk, the bull suddenly crested over the ridge top and disappeared.

Nick hurried to the ridge crest but still could not see the bull. After several seconds of scanning the area, he spotted a cow moose heading up the far side of the meadow, about 200 yards away. In hot pursuit was our bull, with love on his mind.

Nick frantically searched for a stout, dry branch and started scraping the side of a spruce tree while simultaneously trying to imitate a bull's grunting call. The bull stopped, turned, and took a few steps back in our direction. I chambered a round in Nick's rifle. Just when we thought the bull would continue toward us, the cow gave a "come hither" call and the bull resumed his pursuit of love. The last we saw of them, they were headed over the far ridge.

We shook our heads and laughed. The cow was more competition than we could offer. We were disappointed, though, for passing up a shot with the rifle -- the end of the season was fast approaching and this might have been our only chance "to make meat."

It was still early in the day, so we continued on to scout a swamp and ridge about six miles from camp that Nick had been told was a good rutting area. We found plenty of sign but didn't see any moose. Nick began to worry his permit might go unfilled.

We slept in Friday morning. After studying a topo map, I figured we had covered at least 18 miles the day before and the extra sleep was welcome. We ate a hearty breakfast and packed enough gear to bivouac overnight if Nick got a moose that afternoon or evening. We headed the six miles back to the rutting area.

The beautiful fall day was sunny and crisp. Nick carried his bow and his .44-Magnum revolver as a backup weapon while I carried the rifle. Both black and brown bears inhabited the region and we had found plenty of fresh brown bear sign near our rutting ridge the day before. When we reached the ridge where we had observed all the rutting sign, we selected a spot to glass the area where we would not be silhouetted against the skyline.

The experience was breathtaking -- sitting there in the late afternoon sun searching for moose in the nearby fall-colored slopes and willow-chocked drainages. In the distance, the sun sparkled off Tustumena Lake and farther to the west, the deep blue of Cook Inlet contrasted dramatically with the snow-covered mountains beyond. In between, the multicolored patchwork of spruce, aspen, willow, and alder with interspersed grassy meadows combined in a most spectacular panorama. Both Nick and I felt a mixture of thankfulness and humility while sitting there amid Alaska's natural splendor.

Our blissful enjoyment was disrupted when I spotted the bull. At first, he appeared larger than he really was, with the sun's rays reflecting off his golden ivory palmated antlers. We soon saw he was not a true trophy bull, but knowing that the season closed the next day, Nick decided to try for him with the rifle. The bull was approaching us from downwind, and Nick didn't expect to get a close shot.

After Nick shot him, we inspected the 1,000-pound bull and found that all three shots had hit in a 4-inch circle in the heart/lung area. The vitality and strength of these massive animals is impressive. We also noted that apparently a bear, probably a brown, had recently attacked the bull -- the hide on his back had three parallel slashes extending from his hump to his hindquarters. They looked like razor cuts through the hair and in some places penetrated to the backbone. We both catalogued the apparent claw slashes as another healthy reason to respect Mr. Bear.

We started butchering at about 6 p.m. and eventually were working by flashlight. Darkness forced us to select a small stand of trees only 100 yards from the kill site in which to hang the meat out of brown bear reach. We then moved another couple hundred yards up the ridge and set up our bivouac camp. It was 11 p.m. and we both were tired. Nick started a small fire and I gathered enough firewood for the night. We ate a late supper of boiled moose heart and freeze-dried vegetables. As we lay in our space blankets near the fire, we heard sounds in the distance.

"Did you hear that, Howard?"

"Yeh, there's a bull snorting and scraping his antlers just over the edge of this ridge."

More grunting echoed toward us. "Another bull over here," Nick commented. We wondered if a fight was in the making. Nick added: "Have you ever heard anything like it?"

The faint howling of wolves sounded forlorn in the chilly night air as northern lights danced lightly in the sky. The night felt almost magical as we dozed by the fire.

With the warming sunlight of Saturday morning, we broke camp and returned to where the meat hung. We finished caping the head and cut off the skull plate. We also rehung two hindquarters a little higher in the trees. In bear country, meat can never be too high in a tall tree.

We arrived back to base camp at about 2 p.m., climbed into our sleeping bags and slept soundly for several hours.

The note Nick had left in camp for the horse wranglers was undisturbed. We both wondered if word had reached them about our return to hunt. Nick had left a note with a map for them near where they had left horses to rest by the lakeshore. We had also asked the few other hunters we had encountered to tell the wranglers where we were. But with sundown on Saturday and no packers in camp, I was the first to suggest that we just might have to pack the moose out on our backs, about 10 miles to Tustumena Lake, one way!

Sunday morning Nick hiked to the lake to see if the wranglers had found the note he had left on the boat. Fortunately, he met them at the lake. They had to pack out a moose for another hunter and were running a day late. To say Nick was relieved was an understatement. The wranglers and Nick were back in camp by noon with six horses and, after lunch, we were on our way to get the meat.

When we were still about 300 yards from where the meat hung, one of the wranglers gave me his .444 Marlin lever-action rifle and Nick drew his revolver. Nick and I were to approach the site first and check for any bear sign before the wranglers brought the horses up. A surprise by a bear now would turn the pack string into a world-class bucking bronco event. From our bivouac site, we could see that the gut pile, hide and scraps were all gone. Even the blood had been "licked" from the flattened grass. Nick started talking loudly and we moved in with weapons ready.

The meat and cape hanging in the trees were untouched. Nick saw some ravens flush from the willows and thought he heard the "teeth-popping" noises associated with aggressive brown bear behavior. Sure enough, while I was standing 10 feet from the "meat-pole" tree, I looked down the sloping ridge and saw a large brown bear sow and two second-year cubs. They were about 80 yards away and heading toward us!

Both Nick and I yelled. The sow stood up to try to locate the source of the disturbance while the cubs kept approaching. Nick fired his revolver twice in the air and, luckily, the sow dropped to all fours and ran off with the cubs closely following. I kept the rifle handy while the wranglers brought the horses and loaded the meat, antlers and cape. We all left quickly for base camp.

That night, over a dinner of moose liver and what remained of the heart, one of the wranglers allowed that in a few more hours the bears likely would have gotten serious about trying to get at the meat. With enough pushing, digging and clawing, the three bears could have knocked over the trees. We felt lucky to be eating moose and were glad we had taken the extra time to hang the quarters high in the trees.

Monday morning we walked ahead of the pack string down to Tustumena Lake, where the backpack gear and meat were loaded in the boat.

Nick's year-long planning of the hunt and his attention to details had paid off. He had a respectable 44-inch-spread moose rack, the winter's meat supply and a pretty good bear story to boot. He was already looking forward to trying for a moose with his bow next season. I had enjoyed good companionship, the color of autumn leaves, and had begun to formulate plans for my own hunt the next season.

What better way is there to spend some days off?

Howard Delo is retired from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and lives and hunts in the Valley.