Well, IanF and myself have returned from our Alberta moose hunt with mixed feelings.

After troubles with the airline(AirCanada, I can�t find enough bad things to say about them) as they had lost my ammo, I was pissed. I had accidentally �smuggled� 5 rounds of my precious handloads in a cartridge holder so I wasn�t that worried about the hunt.

I met up with Ian at Edmonton, a day early to have a look around, till our outfitter came to pick us up on Halloween.
Arriving into camp around 15:00, we met some of the other hunters and sighted our rifles. At that point something else dawned upon me; That this didn�t look like the foothills of the Rockies, actually we couldn�t see the mountains, it was flat here.
We discovered that our only one of the guides was in camp, and he�d only just arrived as we had.
Only the outfitter had done 2 days of scouting between getting firewood ad setting up camp.
Still, we weren�t that worried, we could scout and hunt at the same time.
So in the morning we loaded ourselves into a truck and set off to take a look around. We ended up driving around for a full 8 hours that day. Seeing no moose.
We were told that the best way to see and shoot moose was by doing this. Road hunting.
So we drove around the next day sighting a cow and a calf for the day.
Another hunter brought in a paddle/spike bull, which did nothing for our confidence.
On the third day we jumped a young spike bull in the middle of the road that baulked and trotted into the bush.

We were expecting (hoping) to sight moose that actually looked like moose. I�m not talking about records, just mature animals. We believed that a 45inch moose would be a nice animal to take, even if we would never had bothered to actually measure his rack.
Another guide in the camp said we should have shot that spike we saw, as we may not see anything better.

The next morning our guide didn�t show. Car troubles. His truck had run out of fuel 4 times in 3 days, once on our way out to hunt, costing us the precious morning hunting. As well as blowing up the transmission case, leaving us with two and a bit wheel drive, he had been half an hour late the day before.

So we went out with another bloke, who also had never seen the area. One pleasant thing we did notice was that this guy was much more attentive and logical in his approach to road hunting. He would look for sign, if none was present in an area, he would turn around and leave. He also got out and did some �pushing� of the bush for us.

At this stage, we figured we were here, and seeing as this is how things are done, it would be the only way to get our moose. We spotted a spike bull up a cutline, but decided not to take him, as this guy seemed to be the man who was going to show us a decent moose. I got out and stalked in for some photos, while Ian watched from the road. While this was happening I flushed out another young bull, which Ian took a bead on. He decided not to take him but was very happy of at least having had the opportunity to take an animal and pass it up.
Neither of these bulls had more than two spikes on their heads, they were probably on their first rack, at 1 � years of age.

Our latest guide had to leave due to other work commitments, so we got yet another new guide, also new to the area.

This young bloke was into glacier climbing, mountaineering white water rafting etc�
So when he said he was sick to death of driving people around it was music to our ears.

Jim took us out later that afternoon, sat Ian down on a cut line 500m from the road and we set off to do some pushing, stalking along the way.
The going was pretty tough, with the uneven ground covered by just enough snow to make walking a chore, as well as hide frozen puddles and holes.

We must have walked for 3 hours, finding all manner of meadows, ponds and clearings in the bush. Riddled with deer and moose sign. My hopes were soaring and I was happy to be out walking, stripped off to just my thermals in �15� and really hunting.

After dark sometime, we realized that we had walked too far and not encountered the cut line that should have lead us back to where Ian was sitting.

We decided to back track rather than risk cutting through more bush and getting further turned around. After about 2.5 hours of marching we heard Ians� 3 shots into the air, and later found a supply of warm clothing, food and a thermos of hot coffee along with a note where the truck had been. He thought we may have punched out onto a road somewhere and went to look, explaining that he would check in every 20 minutes.

He drove back after 10 or so minutes and we drove back to camp and crashed into bed. At this time I had a slight tweaking pain in my right knee that was hard to define but I hoped it would go away.

The next day was similar, we did some stalking, pushing and early in the afternoon we spotted a cow with a bull down a cut line some 2km away. We set off, now my knee is really hurting, but we might get a shot so I push on.
Till dark we tried, until we had to give up, the moose browse much faster than we can walk, and with such a head start, maybe we would never have had a chance. But if we didn�t try�

The next day Ian had to leave and it was a Sunday (no hunting) anyways.

By this stage I am sure I have damaged something in my knee, I am in a world of hurt and walking is very slow. So Jim and I decide for the next morning, to sit and watch over a big open area we had previously.
It was just a 15 minute walk from the road and we were into position. No sooner had we sat ourselves down did we spot the first moose. Then another, another, another and another.
Five moose. There had to be a bull out there, but they were too far off to see through our binos.
Jim just turned to me and said, �you set the pace�
We began a long and quiet stalk, the one moose that looked like a bull had disappeared over a small rise so we headed around the base to cut off the wind and get into a position from where we could see him. Glassing to check on the position of the other moose occasionally, we couldn�t see this one we hoped was a bull.
From the top of the knoll, we stopped to glass again but could see nothing. As we set off to stalk closer still to where he should have been I spotted him moving and could clearly see antlers. Trotting along out in the open, appearing and disappearing through the light willow cover. He looked small through the brush, mostly covered by a screen of willows, so I wasn�t sure about the range, Jim said 200. I figured more like 300 so I split the difference. I was glad to be carrying the .375H&H having to shoot through that willow and I also figured I wasn�t going to get any other chances. The moose moved off once again, I was about to take him on the trot but he stopped, invisible behind more willow. He took just a few more paces and came out into the open to test the air.
I aimed high in the shoulder/spine had him come crashing down like someone had pulled the rug out from under him. It had only been 200m.

Man, I let out a yell like I haven�t done in a long times hunting! This was one of the best stalks I have done. I felt like I had been through a lot of hardship to get this moose, initially frustrated and irritated sitting in a cramped truck all day, hell all that was made up for in those last three days of hiking, stalking and hunting.

After a quiet pause with our moose we set off to go back to camp, get a quad and work on bringing him out.
Chainsaw, axe, ropes and winches came back out with us and it was just on dark when we sat down for a beer. Things had gone very well in the recovery, only butting through one major deadfall, and finding a cutline very handy that got us back to the road.
The moose was stuffed indignantly into the back of the truck with the quad squashed into and on top of him, his legs hanging out of the tailgate.
By midnight we had finished butchering and while caping him out, I recovered the 210gr Barnes X, perfectly X-ed under the skin on the off side.
By then it was truly late and time to go, it had been a big day, with a long wind down so all that was left was to say my goodbyes to the camp, cooks, helpers and outfitters, new found friends and climbed into Dan�s truck that awaited me to go to Edmonton, then later to the airport.

All well that ends well, I suppose, though I can imagine you must have had some dark thoughts along the way!

Outfitters in AB need to purchase "outfitter tags", a one-time expense, which gives them the right to guide in particular area for the specie that the tag is for. These tags get offered for sale on a regular basis by outfitters that quit the business, are fed-up by an area, or whatever reason.

It may happen that an outfitter has recently purchased the tag, for an unknown area (for him), that he's busy guiding in his other (traditional) areas, and that he figures "what the hell, I'll just send a client up there, find me a guide, and hope for the best". Your fee then pays for the purchase of the tag, the guide hire, and maybe a bit more. Not much gained the first year, but not much lost either.

I'm pretty sure that was the situation in which I ended up guiding, not so long ago.

Car trouble can always occur of course, it separates a good outfitter from a mediocre one, if he has immediate back-up available. I've been in that situation as a guide too. The headlights of my truck gave out, coming in after the first day. The guy that was supposed to be my back-up, according to the outfitter, was out of the country, the outfitter himself was guiding in Saskatchewan, and the nearest rental would have been in Calgary, we would have lost one morning of hunting. I managed to wire the lights in such a way that we had at least one light on high beam (replacement bulbs got killed during the effort), which had to be connected/disconnected from the battery, everytime I switched off the truck.

Hope the good memories of Alberta linger and the bad ones fade away!

Frans

Sorry to hear about the hunting arrangements. Sounds quite typical for some of the outfitters in this area. There are some decent bulls in this area, a friend shot a 50 inch bull in the area you were hunting probably the same week you were here. You have to know where to go. The outfitters will hire just about anyone and most are to lazy to do anymore than road hunt because they don't know the area and don't want to get away from a road. The outfitters pay very little and most folks that would make a good guide won't do it for that money, besides they would rather hunt for themselves. Things could have been different had you had a good guide. The area is known as the foothills, but is at the very extreme eastern edge of it. You are about 2/3 hours from the mountains. I think I know who's outfit you were hunting with, they don't have too many repeat hunters.

Well done in persevering - you earned that one. I'm glad you got a good guide in the end. Hope your knee gets better.

Sorry to hear Ian's luck. What are your thoughts for next year?