30.   With the first month of hunting successfully in the books and 3 moose in the freezer, November arrived and with it our annual Remembrance Day weekend moose hunting trip to the Bassan Cabin in Trepassey.  It's hard to get a weekend where everyone is available, Troy was scheduled to work, Pietro couldn't arrive until Saturday evening, and Randy had to go back to town Saturday afternoon.

29.   During this time Sooley and his father completed their trip to Millertown and successfully filled their tags with a beautiful four point Bull.

28.   Although it was raining hard, Bassan and I loaded up the bikes, grub, and necessary hunting gear Thursday evening and hit the highway to Trepassey via Salmonier Line. Randy left from Bay Roberts and met us at Salmonier Line for the drive down the Southern Shore. This way we could be up and at 'em early Friday morning.

27.   Friday morning under clear sunny skies we headed in the country towards Doctor's Pond, we parked the bikes, Andrea and I went left across the bog and Dad went right. We heard a shot a couple minutes later, Dad saw a beautiful young bull but failed to connect a successful shot.

26.   We tracked the animal for quite awhile without success, the shot was a complete miss with zero sign of blood or fur on the ground.

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24.

23.   We spent the rest of the day hunting the country as far as Black Rock with no further sighting of animals and not a lot of fresh sign.

22.   We came out of the woods around supper time, Dad started preparing an awesome Turkey Dinner while Bassan and I headed to Eddy's to get a pickup load of firewood for the cabin.

21.  Saturday morning we hopped on the bikes and headed to a different area known as the herding grounds. Today the weather was overcast and extremely windy. Without frost we knew that animals would probably be deep in the woods and hard pressed to move.

20.   Bassan was in the lead when we arrived to the first bog and a beautiful cow was stood up on the far side. Unfortunately by the time he had his rifle ready the animal scurried up over the hill. We went in pursuit for awhile but she went deeper into the deep woods in a direction where we couldn't cut her off.

19.   This beautiful grassy meadow was/is a moose haven with piles of fresh moose sign covering the ground and nearby cutover.

18.   We drove further in the trail on bikes then walked for a few hours looking for animals and/or sign. Late in the afternoon Bassan found a pair of cows deep in the woods near the meadow,  made a shot to get them to move but they were having no part of it!

17.   Peitro arrived just as we got back to camp where we had another awesome home cooked meal, then Dad loaded up to head home to Bay Roberts.

16.   Sunday morning the weather was clear and sunny but still very windy. Again, without frost we knew animals wouldn't be on the move.

15.   Bassan, Pietro and I headed back to Doctor's Pond and set up in a few different places with Bassan driving the woods.

14.  

13.   Late in the afternoon the strong winds plaguing our hunt finally dropped out so Bassan and Peitro checked some cutovers on the way back to camp while I made a dash across country towards the herding grounds. Again, I parked the bike part way in and started walking. I could hear another bike further over in the country which turned out to be someone going to the same place from a different direction. Three quarters of the way in the trail the other bike stopped and I heard the all to familiar crack of a rifle as the boys made a successful harvest. Again, lucky timing is a large part of successful moose hunting!

12.   Monday morning I enjoyed the holiday by sleeping in while Bassan, Pietro and finally Eddy (who was feeling better after missing out the first 3 days of hunting) jumped in the Jeep and headed towards the old dump site just outside of town. The weather was perfect with sunny skies, no wind, and beautiful frost covering the countryside.

11.   The boys hunted all morning and were just heading back to the Jeep when Bassan spotted a pair of Moose far off to the East. He and Eddy took off around the back of the hill to cut the animals off. After a few minutes of sprinting across the open country Bassan was in position and made a successful shot with my Browning BAR 30.06 filling the Gun Club tags.

10.   The boys called me back at camp so I loaded up the two Honda Foremans and met them at the gravel road to head in and clean/retrieve our game.

9.

8.   The Moose boxes are very handy and definitely the best way to haul out an animal using a bike. We can fit one half in at a time securing the load firmly with a single strap.

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6.   Monday was the last day of hunting for Bassan and I as we were both scheduled back to work Tuesday morning. We got back to camp with the bikes still in tow, loaded up the rest of our gear and headed back to town just after lunch. Peter would be staying in Trepassey to try and fill his tags later in the week with Eddy. We stopped to Troy's place in St. Phillip's to hang the moose in his garage where it would be processed, bagged and distributed to groups within the Gun Club later in the week. The club uses meat from our Not For Profit license to make meals such as soups, stews and sausages which are served at various events throughout the year at the club.

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4.   Peter and Eddy and punched some hours in the woods and successfully filled his tags on Wednesday harvesting a young bull near the herding grounds.

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2.   Our hunting pool consists of myself, Andrea, Peter and Roger. With our pool's 2nd moose harvested we set about cutting up the animal at Troy's, this time opting to have sausage rounds and regular ground meat prepared at a local backyard shop.

1.  The sausages and ground are absolutely fantastic, and a nice change from standard sausage. With all but Dad's license filled we have had a very successful hinting season so far. If the weather cooperates we may get back in the woods in December or January for one last crack at filling Dad's tags.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith