Moose hunting

Hunting At 80

Hunting At 80

I guess a more appropriate title would be no hunting at 80.  I celebrated my 80th birthday this past August and it’s the first year in 59 years that I didn’t go on a single hunt, not one.  That is really hard for me to believe.  If you read my post from last January, “Don’t Let The Old Man In,” you would have seen that I was hoping to go on at least three, maybe four hunts.  There were many good reasons for not going, grandkids couldn’t take off work, bad weather and for me my old age anxiety.  The only hunt that the family went on was our annual moose hunt.  I told everyone last year that if we were going back to the same area, I wasn’t going to go.  Most everyone thought I was kidding but I just couldn’t deal with the water level dropping daily in that area.  That was all that I could think about when I was there.  I found myself praying for rain.  What idiot does that on a hunt.  That just took all the fun out of it if you happen to think moose hunting is fun.  Most of you know that moose is my least favorite animal to hunt.  So, I can only blame myself for not going on the family moose hunt.

Moose

Moose

Of all the animals that we have to hunt in Alaska moose is my least favorite.  I harvested my first and last moose back in September 1967.  It was my first fly-in hunt.  I was a young 23-year-old G.I. up for any hunting adventure and it was truly an adventure.  My friend Gary Wadkins and I harvested two moose and three caribou.  Lots of packing!  At the time it was no big deal but as I grew older, I found out that packing moose quarters in swamp country was the norm and it wasn’t my favorite activity.  When I became a hunting guide, packing out moose was nothing but hard work for me and the packers.  In addition, hauling out the heavy loads from marginal strips with the “Super Cub” was some of my most dangerous trips.  That being said, I wouldn’t have missed being with my grandkids when they took their first moose for anything.  Always, fun and excitement!  On the family hunt this year my grandson-in-law, Nate Johnson, harvested his first moose.  He never hunted growing up so this was a big deal.