Morning, day 5 there is snow everywhere this morning, but I'm a bit late to doing this
so it's all cleared off the mountains. Sun's out September the 1st, which is
moose opening day in this area of Alaska and yesterday we did a bit of
glassing, we saw a couple of moose, but they weren't legal and we're to struggle
to get across the river so we're gonna leave them and we're going to hunt this
way this morning. We're gonna try and get up onto that ridge and look down into
that valley behind us. Cole came in yesterday and fetch both caribous out.
Mark left us to go back into town, so that was it me and Ian and James making
the best of the job at the minute. We've just had breakfast and everything is
hunky-dunky and we're ready to rock, so we'll catch in a bit.
Well, good morning yesterday was a reasonably quiet day I think its
exertions of the pack out, they're really revisiting me. Now, we lost Mark
yesterday, he headed out into town with Cole along with his caribou. We've got
another day here, it's the first day of moose season, so we're hoping to get up
here have a look at this some of the ridges out behind us, ground that we've
not covered yet and see if any moose pop up. Now, we did see three bulls
across the river yesterday, so we know there are moose here. But, there was
nothing shootable, there's nothing more than 50 inches so we've got to keep
looking. The one thing that is on our side is the weather, so if you kind of
have a look around, you know beautiful bright skies sunshine starting to break
through, which bodes well for today. Of course we want to try and hold off on
the rain if possible because that can make things pretty tough particularly if
we do get a moose down and go to pack it out.
Big, day ahead of us, we're all feeling a little bit sore the success of
the caribou a couple of days ago seems like a long time ago now. We've had a
good breakfast, we're going to pack out and had up onto a ridge just the other side there
see if we can have a look at the valley blow. Hopefully we can spot some moose, so it's going to be a busy day.
So, we're about to head out again, it's the first day of moose season. We shot
the two caribou over on the far ridge, that's gonna be all covered in scent and
dead carcasses and probably grizzly bear chewing away on the carcass. So, wind is
blowing down the airstrip from behind us this way.
Our best bet is to get up on that ridge, see what's across from the valley on the
other side and then make a plan from there. Just quickly going to go through
and taking out today. Just the bare essentials really, you can
see we've put back on the fabric pack onto the pack frame that's because we
want to be taking clothes, food, spotting scope that sort of thing. If we do manage
to get a moose down we'll come back and then go back in the morning
and pack it out. Starting at the beginning, got my water and then I've got
this Deerhunter Track waterproof anorak, this is my favourite for walking in when
it's raining. I've got a uPVC one, the hurricane version for my glassing, but
this allows you to move and breathe. That goes there in the bottom along with the
water. In the front pocket here all the essentials, got my hunting licenses, my
tags, my photo ID I've got my OKC knife, as a sister to Excalibur, the smaller
version I'm not safe to have a long knife, Steve has to have that. Six spare rounds
of ammunition, I've got four in the mag already. Head torch, paracord,
mosquito, repellent and tape take for the end of the barrel. So, that's all the
basics in there. Into the top of the pack Deerhunter Avanti fleece jacket for when we're
was sitting on the side of the mountain for when we're glassing. A spotting scope, now
there is a spotting scope pocket on the side of the pack, but because it's empty
I want to try and balance the weight either side, so that's gone inside and then a
pack fly, so waterproof cover just in case it rains, but that is all that's in
the main body of the pack and then in the side we've got lunch, now a split is
between us. There's three tortilla is the big one there is Stevens, he likes extra
meat, so we've put a big one in there and then two small ones and myself and Jim.
Napkins of course because we are civilized when we're eating and then in
the bottom here emergency bivvy absolutely, essential wherever you go on
the mountain that you take this thing with you, you never know when you're
gonna get caught out in a storm or worse still if you get injured and then you
need to cover yourself ready to be rescued and then of course any other
thing we've got then is Garmin In Reach. Now, I'll switch this on now this will
track every two minutes, our location on the mountain that's not only good for
retrieving you if you get into an emergency situation, but it's also good
for my wife, Clare, she can have a look online at home and see where we're at so
she gets part of the adventure too. So, as you can see pretty lightweight and
basically going up into the mountains, enough food and water for the day, but
not too much weight carrying around unnecessary equipment.
We're hunting new ground today and take the opportunity to follow the river up the valley.
Not only is it a beautiful walk, but the route also allows us to
take advantage of the relatively flat terrain before heading up onto the plateau.
So, we're only about half an hour outside camp, but it already feels like we're way
up in the mountains, it's absolutely spectacular this morning isn't it?
Stunning, the sun's just break through the clouds and reached over the top of
that mountain, you wouldn't wish to be anywhere else on this planet, I reckon.
We've been quite lucky this trip, you know last time we came out it pretty
much rained every day, we had brief glimpses of the sun, but this trips been
completely different, the weather gods are definitely been with us. This is
pretty warm and if I was a moose in this weather you're gonna be led, I'd be lying
down. We have seen some moving around on the cliff up behind us, we're heading in
the other direction at the moment, so see what's out there but you couldn't think
of any way you'd rather be than here. No, definitely not.
Couple of river crossings down, couple more ridges to traverse and then we
should be in position, so let's get on then.
The rolling tundra gradually slopes upwards inexorably as we get further and
further from camp. We hope to find an elevated vantage point that will give us
a comprehensive view of the valley. However, as we cross each ridge another
appears in front of us.
We must patiently scour the ground we can see from each ridge before moving on the next.
It's a continuous cycle that we're confident will produce the results we're looking for.
So, we're about a mile and a half outside camp. Now, we've come up the elevation up
into the plateau in between the two mountain ranges just to see what we can
see. Now, this is about as far as I'd like to kill a moose with 500 pounds of meat
to carry back, it's quite a trek. The great thing about killing a moose at
this sort of elevation is obviously as you're going up the pack is empty and
gravity is helping you on the way down. The caribou that we packed out were
just under a mile from camp and that was pretty big task. We've got plenty more
time so with a moose we'll have four or five days to pack it out there'll be no
rush but, there is only two of us Steve will mainly do the knife work and I'll
mainly do the packing to start with and then we'll try and get it all back to
camp. That's another thing when you're out wilderness hunting, if we saw a
80 inch bull moose couple hundred yards away it's fine knocking it down,
but you still got to get it back and got to get it out of country. So, what we're gonna
do now, we've got a great elevated vantage point up here, so we can see
quite a lot of them adjacent mountain sides. We're gonna head over to a ridge
just over there about two hundred yards away and that lets us look into the
valley and across. Now, the wind is not in our favor at the moment, but at least if
you can spot something we might be able to move down and get a shot at it a
little bit later on, but this is kind of as far out as I think we want to go.
Every time we get to a ridge it's a false plateau and then there's another
ridge that comes on. We'll go and settle down give it a glass thing have some
lunch and then make a steady trip back to camp again. We know that there's no
animals at the moment in this valley, now we can either sit it out or ask Cole to
drop us somewhere that we've seen some more activity, so still got a moose and a
black bear tag, still plenty of time so it's just a matter of being patient and
just having a look at the country in front of us. The scenery is fantastic and
just being here is a privilege, so yeah actually feeling pretty chipper.
This is where it's handy to have an experienced hunter like Steve alongside
you to discuss the optimum strategy.
Our skill sets are slightly different but complement one another making as a formidable team.
As usual patience is the essential ingredient.
If we keep scanning the tundra, something will eventually show itself.
So, while we sat down having a look out in the valley in front of us I suppose
now is pretty good time to go over the optics I'm going to be using. As you've
probably seen before I'm using my Hawke Endurance 12x15 binoculars. These came
with us last year, they're looking a little bit the worse for wear now, but
they're still performing really, really well multi-coated optics. Good solid
rugged design, I like 12 mag because it gives you that extra long range
particularly you're picking apart elders and willow from some distance because
that's where the moose like to get into the thick stuff. Probably wouldn't use
them for deer stalking in because that magnification can work against you, but
in this sort of environment it's absolutely perfect. The real hero this
time has been this Hawke Endurance EDI Spotting Scope. It's 20x60 85
millimetre configurations, so I've got that 20 mag which is quite a wide field
of view for scanning the hillsides, but then you can also dial it right into 60
when you're getting it right in close. Doesn't cope too well with heat shimmer
and there's a lot of sunshine out in the hills at the moment. It does have
dielectric coatings in the optics, so powers increase like reflectivity it's
also got back four pyro prism, which gives you really good colour contrast, they can
turn this knob and it's tools left and right which means you can get
comfortable and pretty much any position and what's quite handy is also this dual
focus, so you can get reasonably close with this one and then you can find
focus with this one in front. So, once you get yourself set up I'm using a Vanguard
VO2235 AP tripod, incredibly lightweight, but still very stable and
get it to exactly the height you want, as you can see I'm starting a bank here and
everything's nice and level. You can tighten everything up keep it loosely
can believe it, but tight enough that doesn't get blown around in the wind and
you can just sit here and comfortably glass. All day the important thing is
really to get that detail and for that you need a solid base good quality
optics and plenty of light. It's also compatible for digi scaping, if you have
an adaptor, as you've seen when we've been taking video footage of animals
I've just used the Hawke camera adaptor, which slot straight over the eyepiece
here and you can just use either your iPhone or got my Olympus camera. So, I
can't see anything at the moment, first things I tend to do is try and scan
quickly with the binos and if I see anything, which looks a little bit
unfamiliar and go right in there with a spotting scope. But, for now I think
couple more hours this afternoon see if anything else comes and if it doesn't
we'll head back to camp, but I think the just about perfect setup for hunting in the mountains.
Having reached the edge of our parking radius, we begin to circle our way back to camp.
We take a slightly different route that offers an alternative view of the valley.
It's entirely possible that animals have crossed the valley behind us during the
day, we want to make sure we have all bases covered.
After changing out of our hunting gear we had able to investigate an abandoned hunting camp further up the airstrip.
We gather a few pieces of old firewood to create a camp fire for later this evening.
It's been a lovely day out on the mountain, got over a couple of hours ago
been scanning these slopes around us we've seen a caribous, another moose
cross the other side of the river, unfortunately nothing over here, but as
the suns gone down we've got the opportunity of going out again seeing if
we can get a ptarmigan. So, we've got the Air Arms S510 TDR, got my sticks and a
steely resolve. Widleys going to running tail gunner for us in
case any grizzly bears come and try and jump out the bushes at us. The guys are a
bit sick of sausage, so going to see if we get some fresh ptarmigan for dinner, right? We can try.
I follow the same route as before scouring the brush for our little feathered friends.
Unfortunately, they are far too clever for me and it's sausage once again for dinner.
As the shadows lengthen, Wildly sets about building, our farewell campfire. I
set up the chairs and get myself comfortable. Once the Wild Man works his magic.
I can't imagine a better way to spend our final night in caribou country.