Moose Hunt: February 10, 2007; Alaska Unit 20A; Little Delta River

(Isaac and Hud)
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These first four are not moose, of course. We encountered several herds of caribou this day on our way to find the moose. We must have seen four or five herds in all, maybe six. These herds were small, between three and six caribou in each herd. According to the 2006/07 hunting regulations there appears to be no open season for caribou in this unit. What an unfortunate situation as this unit was closer to home and easier to get to than the area out beyond Eagle summit on the Steese Highway where we took two caribou earlier this winter.
We parked at the trail head located near Birch Lake along the Richardson Highway and headed out across the Tanana River and then southwest along the west side of the Little Delta River. We made it close to the foothills of the Alaska Range and had seen no moose, only caribou.

After running low on fuel and daylight we decided to head back to the trail head when Isaac spotted a cow just off the main trail. I took one shot (about 150 yards) and hit her but she did not go down. I walked in towards her as she moved off further away. We spotted a second cow off to the side and then spotted the first one again. I took a second shot and she went down. First shot went into the lungs, second shot into the head (120 yards)
We were fortunate enough to bring her down in an area where we could drive the snowmobiles right up to her. We used my wood hauling sled to pack her out. We back up to her head and used Isaac's come-a-long to wench her into the sled. One end of the come-a-long attached to the snowmobile and the other end around her head. This was a full adult female moose but, hauling her out only felt like hauling about a half a load of dry spruce logs.

The trip home was uneventful except that the suspension in Isaac's snowmobile seized up so it was somewhat of a rough ride for him. Additionally, he had to ride home in the dark because the headlight on his machine stopped working.

Arriving back at the truck we left the moose on the sled and pulled it up the ramp onto the flatbed trailer (sorry, no pictures). When we got home we pulled the sled into the shop and hoisted her right off the sled, hind quarters first. The point here being that compared to other moose hunts, we did very little work to get this moose loaded, hauled home and hung up. We did not have to quarter her until we had her hind end hanging.

We praise God for this harvest and give Him all the glory for this fun and successful hunt.

We left Fairbanks at 7:00 AM that morning and had the moose hung and skinned by midnight that same night.

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Map of the approximate route taken. The actual kill location is, of course, not going to be made public at this time.

This route is only an approximation at best. The actual route taken was not GPS'ed except for the furthest most point where we turned around and headed home.

To those of you familiar with this part of Alaska, this trail head is located near Birch lake which is on the road from Fairbanks to Delta.