finally figurred out how to post pictures (I think) so I will give this a try.

http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/GordonSchmok/Hunt2002.html

Just got back from taking my 9 year old son Richard on a moose and elk hunt in northern BC. I used to live in this area and know it quite well, it was fun to show my son the old hunting haunts. We saw more game than I am used to. We saw eleven elk, 5 bulls three were 5 point but 6 points are required. Saw more deer than we could count, at least a couple of hundred, most of these were off the hi-way driving but never the less a lot of deer. Also off the hi-way we saw about 150 bison, they are an amazing large animal. Next year I will be eligible for the draw on them but with odds not very good for me I will probably have to wait a few years.

We also saw 14 moose, mix of bulls, cow and calves. The bulls have to be immature (spike or fork only on one side) or a mature bull with 3 brow tines or more on one side. After 9 days of early mornings and late night and not seeing any legal bulls. One more try on a great spot where we had called a couple of bulls but got busted before we could see if they were legal. Richard had decided to sleep in and did not come this last morning. We were both a little frustrated after 9 days. Spent three hours spot and stalking, calling lots with no answers, it was time to call it a hunt and go home. Had a great 10 days but will have to go home with only the memories and great time had by father and son. On the way back to town we see two large bull moose standing on the hi-way. One has THREE brow tines, the other has two on each side, but they have to be a quarter mile from the road to shoot. I figure if this is my only chance why not. I bail out of the truck and head into the bush and chase them. They head off and the hunt is on. I see a large area of blow down ahead of me that I have to go thru. I give a loud bull call and charge through the blow down. The moose I can see fleetingly through the bush about 75 yards ahead and to my left. I head down a game trail to the right and try to keep parallel with them. I keep calling and running with them for almost 10 minutes and only seeing them once in awhile. I climb a little hill and when I top out there is one of them about 60 yards away in a clearing the other one I have no idea. I am still in the bush and stop and look for the required brow tines. I can only see two on the close side. Bump the scope up to 9 power and look again. Two on the close side for sure but he won�t turn his head, just keeps facing me about 3/4 straight on. Finally he swings his head and there are three tines on the far side. I drop the cross hairs and gently squeeze the trigger ( wishing my son was here to do this part of the job). The 300 gr bullet enters a little high on the close shoulder, breaking the shoulder and penetrates all the way through and takes out the top of the near lung and enters the diaphragm and disappears. The moose lunges forward several times towards me and past me down the trail stopping about 50 yards breathing very heavy but still standing. I aim for the back of the neck over the hump and he drops like a rock. He has dropped right on the trail in the middle of a power line. We are able to drive the truck right to him and load him up after dressing him out. 90 minutes from shooting until hanging at the butcher shop. Dressed out at 625 lbs and the rack is 42 inches wide.

I am disappointed that Richard was not there with me. He did learn a lot this trip and we were able to spend a lot of quality time together. He will be able to try for a caribou this winter and I feel really confident we will be able to get a few of them in the new year.

I joined hunting-picture.com but have a problem with the pictures being VERY large and don't want to post them here that big. Can someone help me? Instructions on how to make them smaller and more appropriate for posting.

I will TRY to post a few pictures of the game we saw and of the moose. I have more pictures if anyone is interested. Smokey

[ 11-06-2002, 20:49: Message edited by: Smokey ]

Great story, Smokey. To bad the little pike wasn't there for the climax. I actually took my 7 and 8 year olds on a moose hunt last year, and we were lucky enough to have a nice hike, and get a nice moose.

As far as the pictures go, I use a freeware program called "irfanview", which is very, very easy to use, free for the download. Check it out at: http://irfanview.tuwien.ac.at/. HTH, Dutch.

Smokey, before you download your pics to Hp.com adjust the size on your pc. I use photoshop 7.0. In it all I do is define the area I want, copy the area, go to file, and click on new. The new file asks for a size in pixels or inches. When it does that you can define your file dimensions. Re-name your newly sized file and "save as" the new name and change the file extension to jpg, close your original with no changes. download your modified version to hp.com.Hope this helps. It takes about a minute to do and about ten to learn it the first time. Here is a link to some of mine. http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/Carnivore/ I had the same problem as you did. each of the photos has been cropped and the size changed to fit better. Good luck and congratulations on a successful hunt.

Sounds like you had a quality time there with your son. Take a kid hunting & you won't have to hunt for the kid !!

Hey there Smokey.
Where are you hunting near? Sounds like north of Ft.Nelson somewhere. I was just up there last week. I was on a check ride with a helicopter company up there that I'm going to work for in the new year, and flew from the airport, north up the Ft. Nelson river. I counted 35 moose along the river and on the sandbars. 5 were cows and the rest were bulls. There were a few small legal bulls, and about 6 legal tri-palm bulls. One was a big non-typical with 5 tines on the extended palm on one side. Next year I'll have to be careful when I hunt since you are not allowed to hunt within 12 hours of flying in the area to be hunted. I'll have to make sure I make a big detour around my hunting spots when flying or otherwise I'll never be allowed to hunt evenings etc.....

What a ridiculous rule about the tri-palm bulls, eh? All that ruling does is contribute to wiping out one particular genetic strain. In our present moose hunting area near Dease Lake, mine, and my cousin's camp, have shot 6 bulls, none of them tri-palm, and two of the bulls were 55 and 54 inch racks! Yet they would not be considered legal mature bulls in some other regions of BC.
These bulls had 3 inches of fat on there asses, were obviously well fed, with superb antler development. They just didn't carry the genetic information for tri-palm development, and never would even if the lived to be a hundred years old. I wonder when the "professional" government wildlife biologists will finally get this figured out???

Woodrow

Woodrow, We were in the Chetwynd area. I believe the tri palm idea came about because it was only legal for imature ie spike or fork only. To recognize a mature moose they had to come up with some sort of rule, the best they came up with was the tri palm. Better than nothing I guess. Which company are you flying with? I work out of Yellowknife as FSS. Smokey