Our first two days would reveal two not so good signs to us. First off, no fresh sign what so ever. This seemed to be what everyone was experiencing, so much so, many camps pulled out mid week they found it so bad. The second was there were far too many ATV’s running around. I had mine but I like it to get me where I want to go then I like walking into swamps etc. My neighbor, who always joins me on his bike, likes to ride more, he is 65 after all but, I think it was detrimental to our original goal.
About day three things started to get much cooler which we liked. We were hoping it would get the moose moving more. It seemed to help but not quite enough. The whole week saw no one in our group seeing anything until the last morning. My neighbor and I decided to get out early as we did every morning so we were ready to trailer the bikes the 35 kms to the spot we would unload the bikes then continue to a nice spot I had found with some of the freshest droppings and tracks we had seen all week. This area also proved to be fruitless.
Anyway on our way down about half way, the neighbor decides he wants a smoke so we stop the truck for 10 minutes and he has his smoke then off we go. We get about 30 yards and this huge cow roars across the road at full trot. You didn’t have time to pop the door open. It was across that fast.
We stopped the truck and bailed out, shut the truck. You could hear her leaving and as it wasn’t light enough, couldn’t see 20 feet into the bush. Oh well at least we saw our target for the week, albeit on the last day. We had a cow tag.
We spent the entire morning trying to encircle her; just the two of us as the others were all back at the camp, sleeping off the night before.
The birding was great as I had the hot hand shooting 22 of the 45 or so taken. Most were Ruffies with a few Sprucies thrown in, no Sharpies this year. Here’s one of my hauls.
Now seeing the moose was nice but this was super cool too! It was about 15-18 feet from us. I fumbled far too long to get the camera but managed to get a couple seconds worth. My knapsack was strapped down for the first time all week as we were on our way out of a cut the very last night, heading to camp to pack for home. It's a Lynx.
On the way home, we come over a hill and the whole highway is blocked with a trailer, Police cars, MNR trucks, Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Transport vehicles and one other group I can’t remember. Of course our truck, of our 3 vehicles got selected as “the one to check†which delayed us a half hour but was quite interesting to stand and watch them do their thing with others as we were searched.
Hope some of you fare better in the Moose dept.
