The Hunter's Alaska

by Roy F. Chandler

  You don't like my broomed horn? Too bad. Shoot somebody else.

  22 - Moose

  This Lordly Moose is the 1962 Boone and Crockett world record shot by Bert Klineberger.

  First times are usually remembered as something special. They have ways of burning deep into the memory. First love, first car, and first hunt all have special places in the human heart

  My first moose hunt was like that.

  There was some prestige to getting the first moose in our area. Art Rausch, Jerry, and I located a cow accompanied by a bull whose antlers were in their first year of palmation. We wanted meat, so the young bull was just right. My experienced friends gave me, the novice moose hunter, the opportunity to take the bull.

  The range was about a hundred yards over flat ground with some low brush that prevented assuming a rest position. I remember how disturbed Art became when I chose to shoot offhand. Never having seen me shoot on game, he was perhaps justifiably nervous about my performance. He was all for quartering around until we found a spot from which I could shoot sitting.

  In those days, I shot constantly. My arms were unusually muscled and hard (I have been a weightlifter since before it was popular), and I held a rifle rock steady. I am naturally left handed but have learned to shoot a rifle right handed. That puts my strongest arm out forward under the gun. I have always believed that a strong left arm holding up my rifle helped me to be an unusually effective offhand field shot.

  I held on the bull's spine just at his shoulder and touched off the .300 Weatherby Magnum. Getting out of recoil, I peered about and saw four moose feet sticking up in the air. We walked to the downed animal and had to shout and wave to drive the cow away (probably the young bull's mother). My shot had hit just where aimed and had smashed the bull's spine. He lay utterly paralyzed, but possibly still alive, and I quickly drove another bullet through his head.

  That simple hunt demonstrated a number of never-to-be-forgotten points. It was, for instance, nice to arrive back in civilization with the first moose. Everybody gathered around to admire and comment on the kill.

  More important from a hunter's standpoint, I relearned the devastating effect of a hit at the juncture of spine and front shoulders. Even on a huge animal, the shot is a complete paralyzer. There is no following of blood spoor or waiting until a wounded animal stiffens. There is certainly no charge! In my opinion, it is the most effective spot to put a bullet on any animal in North America.

  Another point I immediately absorbed was that Alaskan game is godawful BIG. Standing next to that smaller than average moose I began to realize the importance of having a way to pack out such a thing. You do not hitch an old clothesline around an antler base and man-drag a moose out of the fields—the way you might a whitetail deer. That moose carcass looked like a dead horse and just about as movable.

  Finally, I began to think more about the practicality of getting shots from a rest when hunting flatland game in Alaska. I looked at the terrain with a more critical eye and noted that a lot of it has brush or a roll to the ground that leaves the hunter shooting from his hind legs.

  A moose hunter should expect to support his rifle with only his arms. There are not many convenient trees, fallen logs, or grass hummocks to rest over. Of course, there are exceptions, but I have been sufficiently impressed by the amount of offhand shooting required to continue to recommend special practice to develop and maintain a strong standing position.

  I add the thought that if a hunter develops a powerful offhand he has also perfected trigger control and cool nerves so that he need practice other positions very, very little. Except for zeroing, my friends and I rarely practice shooting at positions other than standing and occasionally kneeling, which is also a shaky position at best.

  Generally speaking, hunters (from any state) are poor shots. Oh, off the benchrest they make nice tight groups. Impressive! But all that kind of shooting demonstrates is the rifle's inherent accuracy.

  In the 1949 Gun Digest, Claude Parmalee wrote …

  Not one out of one hundred deer hunters (a moose is a deer, remember) could take a standard hunting rifle as is and hit a buck twice out of ten shots at 200 yards in the offhand position. Not even with the deer standing broadside.

  I think Claude was thinking of iron sights, but his point is important.

  Benchrest shooting does not show a hunter's ability to hit game animals from offhand or even when braced against a tree trunk.

  A hunter should practice the type of shots he will normally encounter. Most hunters ignore that logic and are therefore rotten field shots. Many do nothing more than fire a few preseason rounds into any convenient target. Those may be the jazzbos who shoot poor groups into road signs. Some hunters fail to do anything more preparatory than to make sure the bore is clear and that the action works. Many do go to a benchrest, check their zero, and believe themselves prepared. Appalling! They are not ready.

  Here are three easy ways to improve your ability to hit wild game animals.

  After zeroing at the bench:

  Shoot offhand in ALL practice. If you can hit standing (unsupported), you will be all the better if a rest does materialize.

  Shoot at various ranges using irregular hunks of cardboard for targets. No bulls eyes allowed; moose to not have them. Decide on where you wish to hit the cardboard, and shoot a three shot group (standing, of course). If the hits are close together in the right spot you are doing something.

  This is Guide John Rhyshek (on the left) with hunter Jeff Rahn and his .338 Winchester.

  Shoot swiftly in practice. From seeing to shot must not exceed a count of three. Moose may not wait around for you. A simple way to practice speed is to stand before your TV set, choose a target, and dry fire at it You will find the scenes shift so quickly you will learn to be swift.

  Dyton Gilliland with his 1953 world's record moose. A change in measuring rules gave this mighty rack 1st place after it lay in Dyton's yard for nearly six years.

  Same rack on display.

  The Alaskan moose is a browser. He feeds on the leaves and twigs of nearly any kind of tree. The moose pulls food into its mouth using its long tongue. In addition to goodies from the trees, the moose is inordinately fond of grasses that grow on the bottoms of shallow Alaskan ponds. The great animals are regularly seen wading in water to their necks and dipping their heads out of sight to reach the long grass growing beneath the surface. A moose grazes from pond bottoms for about half a minute before surfacing to munch and gaze around.

  Because of its long legs, a moose does little grazing other than in ponds. I have seen moose kneel to munch tender shoots from clump grass, but that is not his custom. Moose do not appear to be frantic food searchers—like domestic cows for example. They seem to eat a little and loaf a lot, but anyone cleaning a moose finds a full belly waiting for him. How the moose is able to fill his immense stomach each day remains a mystery to me.

  Willows—moose food.

  Moose country is meadowland dotted with shady groves of both deciduous and evergreen trees. The animals feed from both. They enjoy shifting from sunny glens to shaded hollows as the mood strikes them. Nearby shallow ponds add to a good moose country, and recent burns where young trees are growing over the ravages of fire are bonuses.

  The Granite Mountains east of Big Delta, where for many years I preferred to do my hunting, has all of those things. It is a decently dry area, so the hunting can be comfortable without the necessity of rubber boots and slogs through marshland. There are marshes, but these can be skirted. There are numerous shallow ponds and a dozen or more significant streams, one of which (Granite Creek) disappears underground to surface again as a feeder of Clearwater Creek many miles away.

  This is a moose meadow, and passing moose made the tracks. Now, if you could catch your giant bull wandering across here … Wow.

  The slopes beneath the Granites are perfect moose country and run all the way to the Delta River and in the other direction to the Tanana River. (See in
cluded map of Hunting Area 20D.)

  Across the Delta River lies a large game preserve that helps seed the hunting country when herds grow thin. Moose, caribou, and bison withdraw to the preserve, and the buffalo regularly calve there.

  Since the 1970s, the Game Department has clamped down hunting in the Big Delta/Delta Junction area. These days, too many people live close by. Still, even obeying the current regulations, a great hunt is possible. Moose are still there although not as numerous as they were thirty or forty years ago.

  A moose is an immense animal. By far the largest of the deer family, he is also bigger than almost anything else around. Mature bulls of the Alaskan Peninsula are said to go up to 1800 pounds on the hoof and can stand seven feet tall at the shoulder. Their magnificent sweep of palmated antlers is inspiring to gaze upon, and the thought that the moose grow those giant appendages each year overwhelms the imagination.

  During the first part of the moose season in Alaska the bulls may be in velvet. The antler covering called velvet is actually a blood supply and protective layer over the growing antlers. As the velvet dies it dries and decays. The bulls are irritated by its itchiness and rub it from their racks by polishing on tree trunks and scrubbing their antlers in the earth. A hunter that shoots a moose still in velvet and desires keeping the trophy should strip the soft velvet material away from the antlers immediately, or it will become hard and arduous to remove.

  While there are four distinct types of sub-species of moose in our hemisphere, by far the largest is the Alaskan moose. And, of the moose in Alaska, the largest seem to inhabit the Kenai and Alaskan Peninsulas. But, good moose live all over Alaska, even in the far and barren North Country.

  The native Alaskans claim a human can live well and healthy on nothing but moose. Conversely, it is claimed that the caribou has weak meat and man cannot subsist on it alone. To me, the difference in animals seemed small, and I wrote here and there requesting opinions.

  Response was vigorous, but evidence supporting those opinions was thin. The consensus seems to be that to live entirely on moose, one had to eat ALL of the moose, and that included, fat, brains, and other even less enticing portions of moose anatomy. There were no satisfactory explanations for the caribou meat weakness concept.

  Whether moose is the dietitian's dream may still be in doubt, but anyone who faults moose as a tasty dish has let his imagination overrun his palate.

  Art Rausch used to feed visitors moose steaks wrapped in Super Market wrappers. The visitor picked his cut of "beef' from Art's freezer, and after he enjoyed the tender and tasty "beef' he was informed he had just eaten moose. Art did this both for chuckles and to end unfounded grimacing and whining about "wild taste."

  It is not to be denied that any meat can be ruined by improper handling after an animal is shot, and unknowing souls have been permanently turned off wild meat due to exposure to some vile slab that was hung in the hide, fender draped, or gut shot and run for half a day. The most prime and marbled beef would be equally bad tasting if it received such treatment.

  This is moose manure. The spoor looks like oversized "bunny bullets" (rabbit manure). People actually dry this stuff and sell it to tourists as souvenirs called Alaska Jewelry.

  There was a time when I was intent on entering the archival records of Boone and Crockett and other such listers. Therefore, I headed for "Big Moose" country when I trophy hunted.

  In more recent years, I have reasoned that the biggest moose in my area is as much of an accomplishment as is going to a neighbor's territory and shooting the biggest one there.

  Really, what is the difference, other than ego expansion, whether you hunt diligently and take a grand specimen of what is available in your part of the world or travel great distances and do the same thing?

  In the Granite Mountain area, a moose that goes over fifty inches is a big fellow, and sixty inches is a giant moose. I would estimate that typical bull moose in Alaska would average about a 45 inch spread. Despite the lack of really huge bulls, our Alaska Range moose probably still average about 45 inches.

  A bull grows only short stubs of antlers during his first year of life. The second season he is a fork horn. The third, he can boast palms and might go 28 inches in spread. Thereafter he will wear a full antlered head of at least 40 inches and possibly move into the mighty moose class of 60 plus

  This is moose country, and the next photograph demonstrates the improbability of shooting other than offhand. Arthur B. Troup is the hunter.

  I have never encountered one of the "Old moose" that hunters describe—the ones that have begun to wither and have seriously lost antler size. Maybe there is a moose graveyard, such as legend claimed for the African elephant, and as they are about to die the old moose go there to expire. It is more likely that, although I have seen a hellacious number of moose over the years, I just haven't learned to identify an old and shrunken-down bull.

  Alaska has in the neighborhood of 140,000 moose. The numbers vary significantly with how many wolves are harvested because if wolves are numerous, they will kill nearly all of the second moose calves. A cow moose typically has two calves but can usually protect only one. If you want a lot of moose, keep the wolves down.

  Annual hunting harvests run about 25,000 to 30,000 moose.

  The Game Department recognizes both the moose's problems and value. They keep a close eye on the moose herds. Department closures to hunting and other restrictive rulings make us groan, but I suspect they are more often right than wrong.

  Moose possess the innate curiosity of the deer family. While you cannot lure a bull by waving a rag, as you might a caribou, moose demonstrate their curiosity in other ways.

  I recall a spike camp on the Tanana River flats where I woke from a nap in the warm fall sun to find a band of moose, including two bulls, ranged in an arc examining me. We watched each other for some moments until they tired of the game and wandered away.

  Perhaps a classic example of moose curiosity lies in the observation of moose droppings on the very summit of Donnelly Dome. The dome is a prominent landmark overlooking the Richardson Highway and rears some hundreds of feet above the surrounding land. I have twice been to the highest point of the dome. It is not an easy climb, the sides are steep all the way around, and the top of the dome is barren—except for the moose droppings, more than a few piles, some ancient, others quite recent.

  What reason other than curiosity (to just look around) could a moose have for laboring to the summit of such a mound?

  A logical question would be, what was I doing up there? The answer is, curiosity, of course—just like the moose. Hey, I left a bottle with my name and date in it on top. One seeks fame where one can, I suppose.

  There is an ancient Japanese saying that everyone should climb Mount Fuji once, but only a fool climbs it twice. I climbed it twice.

  Donnelly Dome

  As interesting as the dome is the lengthy beaver dam in the foreground of the photograph. The dam is very old and has become a permanent feature of the terrain. The beavers were gone when I arrived, and I have never noted their return. The dam is about a quarter of a mile long.

  Curiosity can get a moose into trouble. On a hunt along the Salcha River, Art Troup and I heard the grunting and struggling of a nearby moose. We eased into shooting positions but withheld our fire when we saw a mature bull tangled and bound in the remnants of an old military double apron barbed wire fence. The bull was down on his side, so entangled he could no longer rise. His side was ripped in a hundred places, but still he fought the ever-tightening wire.

  All thoughts of hunting left us, of course. How could we execute an animal with a heart obviously as big as a house? Conferring, we agreed the moose should live, providing we could get him loose. As I had once before tried to release a cow moose from a similar predicament on a military rifle range, I expected the bull would fight us as hard as he did the wire. In fact, we finally had been forced to put the cow out of her misery.

  We drew lots, an
d Art headed for our truck a mile or so back to collect our rope and our only tool—a pair of side cutting pliers. I sat down to evaluate the situation.

  Art drove the truck a lot closer, and with his return we decided to lash the bull securely to a heavy pole so that he would be immobilized while we worked at the tough wire.

  We tied the bull's head and legs to a log using an array of slip knots. Then we began cutting wire. It was necessary to roll the eight or so hundred pound animal over several times as we wrestled the rusted but still strong wire. The bull's struggles had imbedded barbs deeply into his hide, but his soft underbelly was free of serious tears.

  Our hands blistered as we took turns on the rapidly dulling pliers and belatedly realized that we should have cleared away a considerable area of wire around the bull lest he blunder into it again.

  It took over an hour to remove all the barbed wire. Bushed, we sat on the bull's ribs and contemplated freeing him from our own lashings. The bull's eyes rolled at us, and his snorting and panting was anything but reassuring. I have never seen a bull moose charge and have serious reservations about the frequency of such attacks, but this did not seem the time to test any passive moose theories.

  We rigged four release ropes that would jerk all knots free at once—we hoped. The bull's head was freed ahead of time, and we stayed clear of it thereafter.

  With all ready, we hauled mightily on the ropes. The knots fell free as planned, and … the bull simply laid there looking at us. Maybe he could not believe it.

  We took advantage of his relaxed attitude and hauled all the lines we could away from him.

  Suddenly, he gave a snorting heave and was on his feet almost instantly. His hide rippled the way a horse's does when irritated by flies. Then he slowly strode away. His flayed body trailed bloody rivulets, but he walked strong and sure. We feel he made it.