My Moose story and Caribou and Lynx pictures

I never did put my moose story on here so i guess i will now.

We hunted 5 days in a row and ended up about 80 miles from Tok at the end of a three day float trip. I hitched a ride back to our truck and then drove back to pick up Charity, Wrangell, and the caones. We ate dinner in Chicken with Stretch, Sara, and Tucker. We were on our way home and had about two hours of day light left when we decided to drive up a trail where we had seen a nice moose in the earlier caribou season. When we got to the spot we had seen the moose before we couldn't beleive our eyes when we saw him again in the same exact spot! He was on the opposite side of a saddle on the side of a mountain about 1/2 mile away.

Wrangell was asleep in the truck so we quickly grabbed the .30-06 and headed toward the moose to try to get charity a shot. When we got to the bottom of the saddle we couldnt see up the next side because of the trees and we had gone futher from the truck than planned. Charity headed back to the truck to make sure Wrangell was still asleep and I headed after the moose quickly as it was getting dark. Charity said she could see the moose when she got back up the hill near the truck but couldn't see me to point which way for me to go. I couldnt see back up to the truck either so i just headed to where about i thought the moose were.

I found thier tracks in the soot (it was a3 year old forest fire burn) and started around the side of the mountain after them. I kicked the moose up about three times and the wind was blowing from the top of the hill to the bottom so they never picked up my sent. Finally after about the 4th time i kicked up the moose he ran through an open draw and i got a quick shot at his back/neck. He stopped and staggered and i shot two more times at him before he went down. I ended up hitting him right next to the spine in the neck on the first shot and just below the heart on one of the other shots.

I walked up and found him about 5 minutes after the last crash and the full moon was up by now, which aided me in seeing the moose while it was getting dark. I ended up about 3 miles from the truck by the time i tracked down the moose and got him. I didnt have my knife or anything with me as we jumped out of the truck and took off after the moose in such a hurry. So after quickly looking over the moose i headed back through the open draw toward the truck.

When i was in the middle of the waist high brush i heard loud crashing in the bushes below me and kinda figured i kicked up the other moose that was with the moose i had shot. By the time i realized that a bear was lunging over the brush headed my way i had hollared at it six times... Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hey! Hey! Hey!... and shot the 06' from my hip in his direction. The bear stopped at about 10 yards and then stood up on its hind feet to stare at me.

I hollared at it once more and then, with the aid of the full moon light, put my crosshairs on the whitespot on its chest and fired again. This time the bear went down on all fours and was still moving toward me. I was walking backward through the jungle of bursh and felled burnt trees trying to keep my eye on the bear and not take my eye off of it. It was night time now... the only light coming from the moon. I backed up on a hump where i was now higher than the bear and spotted his ears, top of his head, and his back in the brush pacing about 8 yards away. I put the crosshairs of the scope against the sky above his head and lowered it down to his ears and then a few more inches to his face and bam!

The third shot at the bear blinded me, because of the 3 foot of flame coming out of the end of the barrel, but i knew i had hit him on this shot as he started making an awful ruckus. He whined, and moaned, and roared, and crashed about through the brush like crazy. I took advantage of this and went backwards... about 20 yards really fast. I found a crooked tree and climbed about 5 feet into the air so i could see down to the bear. I saw him rolling and then he stopped moving. I was going to try to shoot him again but i wasnt sure how many bullets i had left at this point and i still had 3 miles to go to get back to the truck.

The bear rolled further down the hill and i went further up the hill and when i got to about 200 yards i listened good to make sure he was still going down hill. Then i made my way...mighty fast and mighty loud... back to the truck. When i got about a 1/2 mile away i had to hollar for charity to turn on the truck lights so i knew where to go. That was a heck of a night as i shot my first moose and was charged by a bear in the dark. We never did find the bear the next day. There was a really good 100 yard blood trail with pieces of bone/tooth in it and then a 10 foot area covered in blood and 6 piles of bear scat. Then there was nothing more. We couldnt find any more blood and we never found the bear. But with all the blood it left on the ground i would say it didnt live too long after that.

Here are some picutures of the Caribou Charity got and the Lynx I got on Nov 5th.

On the way out that morning we saw a nice 50+ inch bull and a spike/fork. On the way home that night about a half mile over the hill we saw two 40+ inch bulls chasing a cow.

This is Charitys Caribou. She made 3 good 250 yard shots with the .30-06 to take it down. We cleaned out the caribou and went a little ways further so I could look for a Caribou to take with my bow. When we got back to her Caribou there was fresh wolf tracks and one of them crapped on the caribou to mark it. I guess we should have watched the caribou and could've taken a wolf too.

I spotted this Lynx on the way out right before dark. I made a very good shot on it and didnt blow up the fur or meat as we only had a .30-06 and a .300 win mag. I shot it wih the .30-06 at about 75 yds and it put a nice small hole in it. Lynx meat tastes very good and resembles pork and or chicken. Charity made a really good soup/stew out of it. I am working on life size mounting this Lynx with a freind of mine who used to practice taxidermy in Maine.