In late September our group of four set out from three different locations for Toronto, Ontario and on to Deer lake, Newfoundland to pursue Canada moose with Bough Wiffen Outfitters. Our group was supposed to be 5 but unfortunately my good friend Mike Bryant had to cancel do to family issues. He was missed.

Here I should say the Toronto airport is a zoo and Air Canada is way disorganized. I'd much rather go into any of the eight African countries I've been privileged to hunt than enter Canada through Toronto. I would do it again and will but it is an ordeal and three hours on both ends is a minimum you'll want to allow between Toronto and your connecting flights.

Eventually we all arrived in Deer lake where we stayed overnight for two nights. The flight generally gets into Deer lake very late as in 1 AM. you can stay only one night if you can get by on a 2-3 hours of sleep as they want you to be ready at 7 AM in the morning to drive the 2.5 hours to the float plane base and then get flown into camp. We all opted for two nights as to be fresh the day we arrived in camp. Next year if all goes well it will be a 4 hour ride but only a few minute flight via helicopter to any of Bough Wiffen's various camps.

The hunt itself was very good and there are moose everywhere. All of us saw moose and bulls every time we went out and everybody was tagged out by the morning of day 3. The issue was that the moose where just not in the rut. We of course booked what was supposed to be the prime week and the bulls showed zero interest in the call. I saw two big well palmated bulls and they paid no attention to the call. One was down wind with no opportunity for a stalk and the other was only out in the open for a few minute and disappeared back into the timber. I have to believe we all would have shot nice bulls had the rut been on but such is hunting.

The bull pictured that I did shoot we had seen before and he showed up in the same area on the morning of day three. I could see the writing on the wall with no rut so with only a slight amount of encouragement from Norman Pilgrim the owner of Bough Wiffen we made a stalk. I was not optimistic as the wind was wrong but with some stumbling and fumbling mostly on my part through some nasty tukamore we managed to circle around and come up about 150 yards from the moose. All we saw fist was the cow and yearling bull that had been with my bull but after a couple of cow calls the bull popped up out of a little hole offering a direct frontal shot. The 210 TTSX from the 338-06 hit him dead center in the chest, took out the heart, penetrate the rumen and lodged in the right hind quarter. The moose stumbled back maybe 20 feet into the hole and died.

The retrieval was like nothing I've ever seen. When Norman and I got to the moose I saw what a nasty place it was where he had died. After a couple of pix I'm thinking this is going to be a bitch getting him out of here. He was not a big moose but probably still weighed 700#. Norman gutted him like deer which surprised me and we just left him there. Norman sent two guys with a 6 wheeler in a boat back to the kill site. They winched the moose up out of the hole with the 6 wheeler and gently towed him back to the boat where they loaded 6 wheeler and all onto the boat and brought the whole thing back to camp for processing. These guys have this shit dialed.

Bough Wiffen is extremely well organized and they went the extra mile to make everyone happy and comfortable. Everyone in the group was happy with there hunt and we're talking about going back for a black bear.

I can't thank Norman and his wife Marsha who tirelessly answered my stream of question enough for all they did for my guys.

If your interested in a good moose hunt at about 1/3 the price of an Alaska hunt give me a call.

MarkUPDATE

Looked like a fun trip. I have always wanted to do moose in Newfoundland mostly to just experience Newfoundland! Thanks for the write-up...

Russell,

Newfoundland is special. The culture and country are quite different from anything I've experienced on a hunting trip before. I want to go back just for the fishing. 8# brook trout, cod so thick you can hardly get your lure down and the icebergs! We had drinks cooled by iceberg ice that is full of air and sounds like Rice Crispies in your drink. Add the snow crab, fresh cod, scallops and you have a completely unique adventure.

Mark

Guys,

What I should of added to me report is that bringing part of or the whole moose home is completely doable. The field care of the moose is done exceptionally well and Norman gets the moose to a processor at hunt's end of even during the hunt if a plane comes in or a trip to town on the 6 wheeler is warranted. The meat is butchered, vacuum wrapped and frozen in 50# boxes until a refrigerated truck picks it up for distribution to numerous spots in the Eastern and Midwest states. If those pick up points are too far to drive for the pick up you can arrange for another company to pick the meat up at the distribution point and deliver it to your town. I live in Vegas and the total bill for butchery and freight is about $1,200 for 300# of boned meat and my horns. That's not cheap but if you go to the grocery store and start pricing beef you'll see that $4.00 a pound doesn't sound that bad. If I could have driven to Fort Worth to pick the meat up as my clients are doing the bill would have been closer to $700 total and that is really starting to make good economic sense.

Mark

That's about as easy a pack out as I've heard of. Sure beats miles on the back up hill.

Glad you enjoyed the hunt and everyone filled up.

George

George,

Next year with the helicopter they will retrieve the moose whole when possible and take it straight to Roddington for processing. All the crew on the ground will do is hook up the cable to the moose!

Mark

Sounds like you had a great hunt. I handled the meat the same way and worked perfectly.

debone the meat, grind into 1 pound packages. Freeze then eat red without cooking

Mark:
That's almost like cheatin!

Near as I've come doing that with elk. Killed one 200yds up a hill above the p/up in 18" of snow. She slid down about half way and stopped.

Too steep to gut it out there. Tugged an ear twice and she slid down and hit the rear wheel. By then six guys had come along and I asked them to help load her up. No room on the road either.

Big herd was up there. 7 had took off to the S. I drove to head them off. When they stopped I went up the bank about 20' to a rock rest and shot. I had been driving down the road headed back to camp.

Good thread, thanks for sharing.

George

must be about 30 years since i was in newfoundland hunting the woodland caribou and i still remember the fresh lobster etc. yum yum

Butch,

All of that is still there.

Mark

quote:

must be about 30 years since i was in newfoundland hunting the woodland caribou and i still remember the fresh lobster etc. yum yum

Myself, my wife and my youngest step daughter drove from Fort Worth to North Sydney Nova Scotia in 1996 and took the ferry to Channel Port Aux Basque Newfoundland.

They were going to Sight See and I was going to be hunting in the Crabbes River area for Moose/Woodland Caribou and Black Bear.

The night we spent at the hotel in North Sydney, the menu special in the hotels dining room was 2 for 1 on Lobster, lots of folks cast side long glances at the 3 Texans that all ordered the special.

When I did that hunt, the cost for the combo Moose and Woodland Caribou was $4200.00, not including license and there was no additional charge if I took a bear.

I don't think the prices stayed that way.

i think when i was there the cost was about half of that. but one of the better parts was that we would fly in and out of sept isles and take a ride in these old station wagons to corner brook. on the way back we had 2 bous (2 of us) and so we got a ride in a van. The lady told us not to mention french cause the driver was really anti french and his daughter married one. So of course that was the first thing we did. That hour drive was something. every other word was cuss and in between them was french. we laughed so hard we literally fell out of the van when it stopped.

I hunted with Leo Hammond out of Grand Codroy and Lora and Tina spent the time I was hunting touring that part of the island.

We had reached the island 4 days before my hunt, so we drove all the way up to Lans aux Meadows where the Vikings had landed and settled in 1050 I believe.

To reach camp we drove to a logging road and that transferred our gear to what I think they called Weasles a tracked vehicle that the Air Force had used when the base was open at Stephenville and sold off or gave to the locals when the base closed.

Guys,

I think there is a lot to see and do in Newfoundland. Next time Sadie and I are going for a spring bear (actually late June-early July) and are taking some time to be tourists.

Mark

quote:

I think there is a lot to see and do in Newfoundland. Next time Sadie and I are going for a spring bear (actually late June-early July) and are taking some time to be tourists.

There really is and should you put together another such hunt I might be able to get my act together and be part of it.

There was so much stuff that we did not get to see and it would be great to see what has changed.

One advantage of living where I do is drive up to the ferry ride across drive to fly in spot kill moose then reverse the trip bring moose meat home on ice. Door to,door all in $6000. I do it every other year .

The way we transported the meat from my two animals back to Texas was on a two wheel trailer a friend helped me build that we mounted a chest type deep freeze on, placed over the axle.

The freezer was none operative so I drilled drain holes in the bottom and we would stop every so often and buy more ice and keep the meat covered till we got back.

Guys,

We stayed at the Deer Lake Motel on our way in and out and the parking lot was loaded with pickups from the NE and Midwest with at least half of them having a freezer or a load of big coolers in the back.

Newfoundland is a very popular destination but Western hunters don't know much about it.

Mark

Couple of us built a plywood box with a double layer of 2" foam board all the way around that is the size of my 8'truck bed...three quartered moose fit in with 200# of ice most trips we do not need to refill ice at all ...the melt runs out the seams. It gets off season use as my camp frige.

This has always been a hunt I have been interested in. It would be a chance for a nice drive and see some new country.

Thanks Mark.

Tom

It has been 21 years since I hunted in Newfoundland, but it was one hell of an experience.

between 1991-1993 I spent over 9 months on "The Rock" as a missionary. I absolutely loved it. Did stints in Cornerbrook(my favorite area), Stephenville and St. Johns. The rest of those 2 years I was in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. I still haven't made it back to hunt Moose, Woodland Caribou and black bear, but I definitely will.

I was able to do LOTS of fishing though.

Sounds like a cool hunt. Thanks for posting Mark.

UPDATE: Bough Wiffen will be ferrying into camp via helicopter all clients this year making the flight times very short with no waiting around for float planes. They also will be retrieving the the moose whole with the helicopter for processing and freezing in Roddington saving a lot of time for the crew on the ground.

I received my moose meat a few days ago.(295#) It was worth every penny I spent on shipping. The butchery and vacuum sealing was beautifully done with zero hair or dirt and each cut is labelled just as a beef would be. The best part is that its delicious and some of the best game meat I've ever eaten.

Some prime rut dates for'18 and '19 are still open.

Mark

Mark if you opted for one of the remote camps there what is a size of a big Newfoundland bull? Just in general terms. I know they arent Yukon moose. Thanks.

Expectations should for a bull 30"-50". If the rut is in full swing as it should be late Sept-Early Oct you stand a much better chance of taking a bigger bull. That moose pictured that I shot is 31" and a young bull about 2.5 years old. Given another 2-3 years he'd be big big bull. The rut was not in any way on during my hunt.

Mark

Any of you that hasn't eaten a Moose steak before are missing out on some of the best wild game on the planet. Comparable to some of Africa's larger antelope species.