Moose Hunting the Yukon 

As a small boy watching hunting films on our old 75-pound television, where you had to dial knobs to change the channels, I was exposed to hunting expeditions in the wild north country of the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada. Moose, sheep, grizzly bears, and caribou filled my mind, and I decided then and there that one day I would see those beautiful places and pursue their magnificent animals.

This fall, I was finally fortunate enough to see a dream become reality when the opportunity to hunt moose in the Yukon presented itself. Jason Phelps and I booked a hunt with Dustin Roe at Ceaser Lake Outfitters in the Canadian Yukon. As a bonus, we would have the option to take a grizzly bear too, just in case we saw one that tickled our fancy. Images of giant moose swaying stiff-legged coming into our calls and silver-tipped grizzly bears foraging on berries danced in our heads. We enlisted the service of David Frame to film and photograph this expedition as this would truly be a trip of a lifetime.

The plan was to be flown deep into the wilderness, into a remote lake, and be dropped off to hunt for up to 18 days straight if need be. Once we arrived, our transportation was a 14-foot Lund boat equipped with a 5-horse Yamaha motor. Per Yukon law, we would be accompanied by a guide. We packed one rifle to share between us (Christensen Arms MCR 300PRC) as only one of us could be a shooter until the tag was filled or that hunter tapped out. After a lot of conversation between Jason and me, we decided that he would be the first hunter/shooter. Which always sits well with me because often, the first shooter will tag out early and I will have a longer time to hunt and be a little pickier on what kind of bull I would take.

Our pilot was a cheeky fella from New Zealand and immediately started talking a little trash, bantering between him and Jason. We knew he was the right guy for the job.

It felt surreal looking out the windows of the plane as we took off and then flew over the wild Yukon wilderness. A smile came over me, and I felt emotions stirring deep inside of me. We were really doing this. The plane landed smoothly on the lake, and we packed our gear to the makeshift cabin.

The cabin was an all-metal structure. It was flown into the backcountry in pieces that had been assembled upon arrival. The 14’x16’ structure had two windows and a wood stove. It was packed to the gills with gear from previous years’ hunts, which we removed, sorted, and stored away outside, covering it with a tarp.

Our guide, Justin Beadow, was a resident of Alberta and a very experienced north-country guide, especially for moose hunting. Justin’s quick wit and sense of humor kept us laughing as we got camp chores done and made ready for moose hunting the following day. We all became fast friends. Justin would be camp cook, guide, and comedic relief for the whole trip (and he was damn good at all of them).

Our first day of the hunt began early, long before sunup, to make sure we had enough time to assemble all our gear in the boat. We woke to the smell of breakfast and strong coffee inside our little shanty. Justin got us fed and loaded into the boat and on our way to our first calling spot in the dark. We arrived at the spot and unloaded from the tiny vessel. The uneven ground was hard to walk on through the wet clumps of grass and mucky swamp mud. As shooting light finally arrived, Justin began calling. He began with the long, drawn-out bawling of a female moose, continuing for five minutes straight. He would slowly wander back and forth covering fifty yards in one direction, then the opposite. After about a twenty-minute break from calling, he would repeat his earlier performance. He did this repeatedly for about three sessions. Then he introduced a bull’s vocalizations, grunting and moving across the landscape as a real bull moose would, covering the same ground as earlier but stopping at a tree. He then began beating the holy hell out of the tree with a four-foot boat paddle. After a silent twenty-minute wait, he repeated the bull sequence in the opposite direction a couple more times. Being an experienced elk caller for over three decades, I was impressed by the audible illusion he was painting in the mind’s eye of any bull within earshot. We waited for over thirty minutes, listening intently for the telltale grunt of a rival bull, but received no reply.

Justin explained his style of calling and what he was trying to achieve. He said the bawling cow vocalizations were representative of a cow moose who is accompanied by an immature bull. She is trying to call out to any mature bulls in the area to come and run off the young bull, and then later mate with her. The bull vocalizations were the young bull trying to tend to the cow. Oftentimes, this scenario will infuriate a mature bull to the point where he will come in and drive away the young bull, taking the cow as his own. He also said this may take a day or two to work but calling from the same points will often pay off later.

There was a shallow outlet from the lake which we were barely able to navigate the boat through to the intersection of two streams. One running due south, the other running southeast. We selected the southward stream and began moving up against the current. Right away the stream was too shallow for us to ride in the boat. Justin, wearing his chest waders, began towing and dragging the boat through the shallows. Jason, David, and I walked along the stream bank on a trail moose and grizzly bears had made. After about a half mile, we hit navigable waters again and loaded back into the boat. Motoring along, we came to a swampy lake and then back into another inlet stream. Things were looking pretty good, and we were approaching an area we would like to call again, but the stream was dammed by beavers. We all unloaded and began dragging the boat over the beaver dam into the slack water behind it. We did this again at another dam within no time and decided to climb up to a good vantage point and call from there. Justin began his calling ritual again and we waited for the distant grunt of a bull moose. No reply. Looking at our OnX maps we could see there were more dams in the stream ahead, so we elected to turn around, as it was getting late in the day and we didn’t want to traverse beaver dams in the dark on the way out. With no moose encounters for the day, we headed back to camp. The weather was fantastic. With highs in the low sixties, it didn’t surprise Justin that moose had not been active. “We need a moosey kind of day” he said. “A cold, overcast, rainy, miserable kind of day.”

The next two days went like the first day. Beautiful bluebird weather felt nice as we traveled the southeast stream over and over as it wasn’t dammed by beavers. Our calling sessions were met with silence, but Justin’s words kept echoing in my mind. “We just need some moosey weather to get them moving.” Being an avid hunter all my life, I knew exactly what he meant and what kind of weather we needed. Down in the lower 48, elk and deer don’t move much during such nice weather. We needed cold rainy overcast days, weather perfect for moose hunting.

Day four we woke to the smell of breakfast and the sound of rain on the shanty. After taking a quick peek at the north end shoreline, we headed to the south end of the lake. It was cold, wet, and miserable. Perfect. Justin began his calling sequence and after about one cow bawling session, we could hear a bull grunting in the distance. Justin continued and the bull came closer, only to start working away from us. That’s when Justin hit him with bull grunts. Avoiding super deep and guttural grunts, he tried to emulate a younger bull’s grunts. He also raked a tree to complete the effect. It worked. The bull got back on track and was coming straight to us. I could see the bull with my Leupold binos through the tree branches and waited for Jason to take his shot. Finally, the bull presented a quartering frontal shot at sixty yards across the creek, and Jason squeezed the trigger. At the shot the bull stumbled and turned to run. Jason was quick with two more follow-up shots as the bull ran away. The bull collapsed on a small ridge after about a sixty-yard dash. We did it. Justin’s plan had worked. Jason had tagged his Yukon bull moose.

The creek was too deep to cross, so we grabbed the boat and crossed over to the other side. As we approached the bull, we were all in awe of the size of his body. His antlers spread over fifty inches wide and had a drop tine as well. Jason was happy with his bull, and we all chattered like squirrels as we first captured pictures and then broke down the bull for transport. Justin retrieved the boat and found a way into the little slough by where the bull had died, as we packed the meat to the edge of the slough. With how heavy the moose meat was, thankfully we were able to get the boat within about one hundred yards of the carcass. Justin, in his chest waders, towed the boat filled with moose meat, horns, and happy hunters back to the deeper water, then motored back to camp. Life was good.

The following days were beautiful again with hardly a cloud in the sky and zero moose activity. It was wonderful weather for our outings while traveling to both ends of the lake and the southwest stream, only calling to deaf ears it seemed. I was the shooter now, and all I could think about was getting more of that miserable weather.

On day seven we got our wish. We woke up to cold rain again. It had rained all night and was drizzling. Perfect. Dressed up in enough warm clothes and rain gear, we looked like Ralphy in the movie Christmas Story. Wind and rain droplets pelting our faces, I could only laugh to myself at the irony. Not one of us complaining about the miserable conditions, we anticipated seeing moose today.

As we motored down the creek Jason whispered, “There’s a bull.” Laying in the tall grass on the creek bank, there was a big bull with only his paddles exposed. We quietly made our way to the opposite shore and Justin and I exited the boat. With Justin in the lead, he placed the boat paddle across his head to emulate antlers. He began grunting as we struggled walking through the tall grass and sloppy, uneven ground. As we neared the bull he stood up with a large spruce tree blocking any shot I could take. We continued to call and walk along the bank to get a clear shot, but the wind shifted before we were in position. Our smell gave us away and the bull took off at a trot. I shouldered the rifle and centered the crosshairs, with only his rump and neck hump exposed. I didn’t shoot. I wanted a clean and ethical shot, and this grand bull moose deserved more than a cheap shot to the rump. I kept my rifle up in case he decided to stop, but it was to no avail. He escaped unharmed. We were all disappointed. He was a good bull with a widespread and impressive mass. But I reminded myself and the others we had come up here to call in bull moose, and we shouldn’t be too disappointed with missing out on a stroke of luck by catching him napping on the creekside. The best was yet to come.

The weather turned again, back to warm blue skies and zero moose movement until day nine. We woke to a very cold crisp morning. We had been spending time calling at the north end of the lake with one cow moose briefly sighted feeding along the shoreline. We hit our north-end calling spot again and exited the boat only to hear Jason say, “There’s a bull.” You have to be on your game moose hunting with him because he’s sharp-eyed and competitive. Nothing gets by him. There was a bull peeking out of the timber on the north shore. He had heard our boat motor and was taking a curious peek. We tucked into the trees and Justin began calling. Within no time the bull was walking along the shore grunting and began crossing the shallow waters of the lake, coming right to us. Unfortunately, he was a medium-sized bull (one you would shoot on the last day for sure), and we decided to just watch the show. He grunted his way into about 60 yards from us before he decided something wasn’t quite right and headed back to disappear on his side of the lake. As we drove away he popped out one last time hearing our motor for a second look. Moose are too funny.

We didn’t get another break until day eleven. Cold, wet, snowy, and yes, oh so miserable. A perfect day to find a moose. We checked the north end again, then headed down the southeast fork of the creek. We called in our favorite spots without hearing a peep. Justin said, “We have to hit that spot where the big one got away again.” For the last three days we had tried to hunt that spot, but the wind was always bad. Today the wind was borderline good, and with our days ticking away we decided to give it a try. We climbed up the little ridge to a small, secluded meadow surrounded by tamaracks. It was a beautiful place to call in a bull. Justin began his ritual like he had countless times during the hunt. This time when he began grunting he traversed a much wider path when raking the trees. Signaling to any bull within earshot that he was laying claim to this ground. It worked. In no time we could hear grunting and hoofbeats thundering like galloping horses. We had the bull’s attention. The bull walked out of the timber then behind some brush so tall all we could see was his rack and occasionally his nose when he tested the air. The shot was doable. I could shoot through the brush at just under 100 yards and break his neck. But again, we were here to do this right. A clean kill. One we could proudly show on film. One that any of our peers would be proud of. And most of all, one that I would feel proud of. I waited. It felt like an eternity and risky business because we were playing on the edge of having bad wind. But Justin doubled his calling efforts, and the bull broke out of the thick brush into the open, presenting a broadside shot. At the crack of the rifle, the bull reacted and I knew the shot was good. Justin said, “Put another one in him if you can.” And I did. Both shots were perfect and the bull began to falter, then collapsing within sight. He was down. Justin collapsed as well in his excitement. We all hugged in celebration. We had done it again.

We approached slowly and I made sure he had expired. He was beautiful. I fell to my knees embracing the old bull’s neck, hugging and thanking him for his life. I buried my nose into his coat and inhaled his wild scent. He smelled of pine needles, citrus, and hops, not unlike an IPA beer. I was beyond grateful. We captured photos and video of the old warrior and broke down his body into clean and manageable portions. With the boat being a bit further than Jason’s bull, we boned out the quarters to save weight.

The trip up the creek went well as we only had to unload a couple heavy packs from the boat so Justin could drag the boat through the shallows. Arriving back at camp we hung the meat on the opposite side of the lake in case a grizzly wanted to visit, he wouldn’t be in camp.

The plane couldn’t come get us for a couple days, so we checked my moose and Jason’s moose carcasses for a grizzly, but none had bothered them. Given the duration of this hunt and the earlier ones this fall, we had been separated from our families for an extended period. Therefore, the arrival of the plane was a welcome relief, and it felt good to finally load our gear for the flight home.

Looking out the window as we flew back to civilization it still felt like a dream. What a great trip with my good friends Jason, David, and new friend Justin. Even though this hunt was almost done, I couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t over. This wild north country had more moose hunts in store for us in the future.

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