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2023 AK Moose

13 hours after shooting mine we sit down flour street size tortillas with a scoop of mashed potatoes topped with loins and garlic. I’m wore ass out because we didn’t hydrate and eat enough all day. Should have taken breaks to do that. We are into skillet #2 enjoying the scenery and both just smiling that we knocked down a 61-inch bull in Alaska. Happy and very proud my son starts stutter mumbling something when I make out the word moose in the middle of the sentence. I look over at him and his eyes are as big as pie plates. I turn the other way in the directions he’s looking to see a moose that is no doubt legal on the other side of the river starting to walk across to our side. He is no doubt legal with four brows on one side and a massive 2 brows on the other that were sticking out way forward. He turned once in the river, and I got a good look at the big tines oh his left. My initial thought was you gotta be kidding me, we are going to have to butcher this son of gun. That quickly passed as I realized just how fortunate we were. This guy walked across and made landfall within 5 yards of the upriver calling station. Quite amazing and worth repeating, moose 1 came to the down river calling spot and moose 2 camp to the upriver calling spot. Jack grabs his rifle and I say “shoot him in the neck as soon as he is on solid land until he goes down” I wish I would have had a pic as I stood there I’m sure mouth wide open in disbelief. We let him expire, finished our dinner, and started to get to work on him. The mass on this guy was just insane 60 inches and a little wide but the mass at his bases and the split brow tines on the left were just massive. We got one side off; his head and neck then called it quits. Covered up the gut pile with his hide and got back to camp. It was getting dark around 10pm at night and we worked till 2 am. My situational awareness was low always looking over my shoulder and shining the lights into the timber all the time. I just didn’t feel like I could keep us safe in the dark. We didn’t run into a single bear the entire trip. Saw black bear scat once is all. Next am up at it again after some breakfast. Got him into bags then into the small raft to float him 60 some odd yards to our camp.

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WOW! What a trip. You were definitely lucky, but what is usually the case, you made your own luck. The luckiest part of the whole thing was that you didn't end up with a "Country Bear Jamboree" at your campsite. I'm jealous boys, as a trip such as this has probably run out of the end of my life cycle. Tim's float hunt got me all fired up several years ago, so I did a deep dive into research....but, I never did get there.
Slugz....go back, go back, do it again.
 
Great podcast, Slugz.
Anyone interested in a hunt with the same outfit- I have 2 spots I'm willing to sell at a discount due to unforeseen personal issues.
Shoot me a PM.
 
I just joined this forum today looking for Moose DIY trips in AK & Wow can't wait to look at this thread more! That Looks absolutely Amazing!! Congratulations!!
 
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