Moose in the freezer

Lynn and I have moose meat in the freezer now. I wasn’t able to get someone to go with me this year so I opted for a solo moose hunt. Might think twice about that next time. I left last Sunday morning for my moose camp in a light rain. My camp is a little over 60 river miles from Galena so it takes a few hours to get there. I don’t have many options for hunting closer to town since most of the land around Galena is controlled by the local native corporation and I am not allowed to hunt that. My boat isn’t big enough to haul an adult moose and my moose camp at the same time so harvesting a bull requires two trips back. I don’t mind camping by myself or even hunting alone but as you can see from the picture moving this animal is best done with at least two people, preferably more and at they should be a little bigger than I am. Alaska law requires all of the edible meat to be brought out attached to the bone to minimize the chance of wanton waste. Waste laws are very strictly enforced here but that isn’t a problem as meat is the primary reason I hunt these animals.

I shot the moose Monday morning and spent the rest of the day quartering it and getting it ready for the pack to the boat. I have cut these animals up in the field before but always with help. I realized that I was going to need help if I was going to move it to the boat in a timely manner so I used my satellite communicator that I carry for emergencies to contact Lynn at work. A good friend who is an experienced hunter was gracious enough to come out to my camp and give me a hand. We finished the field work that night and carried it back to town on Tuesday. One of the fortunate aspects of the 2013 flood is that our house has been raised even further off the ground than it was previously leaving me an ideal place to hang moose while I am cutting it up. The air temperature was between the low 40’s and mid 30’s Fahrenheit, (about the temperature of a refrigerator) so we don’t have to rush. Since there are no commercial processors in Galena we do all of our own work at home. I have a big vacuum packer and a 3/4 hp meat grinder to help but it still takes a lot of time. After I had the meat hanging and out of the game bags I went back to camp to get the rest of my gear. I cleaned my rifle and sidearm that night and spent the next couple of days cutting and packaging.

I am still cleaning up my hunting equipment but I got the boat all washed yesterday. The temperature here is still in the mid 30’s so it makes washing down things outside a little chilly.

I had planned on staying out for up to two weeks if necessary so I had a lot of gear with me. I am glad I got this one early in the hunt as it has been raining almost constantly and the weather forecast is for this pattern to continue for a while. Every year I keep telling myself I am going to put a windshield on my boat but for some reason I have been putting it off. No longer, this boat doesn’t go back on the water till I have one installed. I have already been looking online and found a couple, I am going by the boat shop next time I’m in town and get a price from them as well. I don’t take short trips and for some reason I am always driving in the rain, wind and cold rain really takes a lot of energy out of you. Other than that I have to do a few updates to make it more convenient to operate but these shouldn’t be too expensive.

I got back into my workout routine this morning after taking a weekend off to recuperate. However, in addition to my normal training I am going to add an additional strength training day every week. I keep a hunt journal with detailed information and my original plan was to use it as my post but it is currently up to six single spaced pages and I haven’t even got to the pack out yet so unless someone requests that information I will not bore you with that level of detail. I go into town this weekend and I’ll be looking to pick up some of the small things that I decided I need. I do need to look at a different bullet to use. This is the second moose I have killed with my .30/06 using a 180 grain pointed soft point. It obviously does the job but not as well as I would like. Might go to a heavier bullet and I will definitely go to a better quality one as well. No complaints about the rifle though, this shot was around 180 yards and it hit right where I was intending. I spent quite a bit of time at the range getting it dialed in perfectly and making sure I could hit with it at distance. I had it sighted in for 100 yards but the last couple of trips have convinced me that a 200 yard zero would be more realistic for this area.

Well, back to cleanup. I wanted to get these pictures out to anyone who might want to look at them. I wasn’t in camp long enough to take many pictures this year.