We drove 90 minutes from Prince George to a place where we left the trucks. Then we rode quads back into the bush at least another hour to reach the cabin. One of the quads never would start and the guides, Shawn and Tom, spent over an hour trying to get it to run. That pretty much set the tone for our hunt.
Margaret Lake
Home sweet home for the next 8 days
Roughing it
The closest I got to a moose
A typical day of hunting for me went like this: Shawn and I would get dropped off at the east end of Margaret Lake just after daylight and we would walk out to one of the cut blocks of timber. From there, we would glass, call, and walk back to camp sometime around noon. That was usually a 6 or 7 mile loop. That afternoon, we would drive the quads back out to the cut blocks and do the same thing only from the back of the bikes. Shawn was big on road hunting. Setting up a bowhunting ambush was not in his toolkit.
Bret Shaw ready to hunt
A typical day for Bret and Tom went like this: They would motor around the lake trying to spot a moose feeding. If they saw nothing then they would park on the shore and bust brush all morning trying to find a moose. They would repeat the procedure in the afternoon. I guess the guide, Tom, thought they would somehow miraculously sneak up on a bull within bow range while doing this. Oddly enough, they did come the closest. They saw two immature bulls; one at 75 yards and one at 40 yards. Tom was upset that Bret didn't borrow Tom's rifle to seal the deal.
My guide, Shawn.
One evening, Shawn and I actually had a real moose hunt just like you see on TV. It was almost dark and we were walking back to the quads to go back to camp. A cow was standing near the bikes so we stopped and Shawn called. A bull immediately answered about 100 yards away and started coming in. We had about 15 minutes of shooting light left and I told Shawn that the bull was going to have to be close. The bull was still out there but it got too dark to shoot. The cow had left so we walked down to the bikes. Shawn started calling to the bull again. I thought this was foolish because it would make the bull call shy and I told him so. He said he wanted to see what the bull looked like and continued calling. The bull came in, tearing up brush and grunting. He stopped about 50 yards away. Through the binoculars we could see he was a monster. He finally turned and went back the way he had come. We never heard or saw him again.
Scenery
The silver haired hunter
Last day at camp
Darren
