Part 3 of our crazy 2020 Moose Hunting Extravaganza began the next afternoon following Stroh's successful harvest. With two licences filled, French and I held the last remaining sets of tags. Since we put in a late night cleaning up the last harvest French and I opted out of a morning hunt and headed down the shore after lunch for another crack at it.

Funny enough we discovered a set of Moose tracks crossing French's driveway while loading up our gear!

French and I had a great afternoon in the woods stalking a bunch of ground and finally setting up on the long skinny bog with my Foxpro caller. It was coming on dark when French spotted a moving dark spot at the far end of the bog, sure enough it was a beautiful bull moose. I measured the bog with my range finder at 400 yards, the moose was leisurely walking towards us and we still had 10 or more minutes of legal daylight left so we waited.

When the animal got to about 300 yards he suddenly turned and headed perpendicular towards the tree line travelling from left to right from our vantage point. Mark made three shots but the big bull didn't even break stride and disappeared into the woods. We spent the next two hours diligently and thoroughly looking for the animal with our high power flashlights and later the big light bars on our Argo's. We found the tracks but there was absolutely no sign of blood. Not good for a moose hunter but we're very happy that we didn't have a wounded animal on our hands.

The following afternoon I was back at the SJRGC rifle range this time with French and his new shooting rest to make sure his Tikka 30.06 was on....which is was.

As French is also a club member we could both shoot together at the range, so this time I took my Grandfathers .308 Remington and once again my trusty, cheap to shoot Stevens .223.

The following morning French and I headed back down the shore for yet another crack at filling a license. This year most coffee shops have been closed during the early morning hours when we leave town, due to restrictions stemming from the Covid Pandemic. Therefore we've been making our own coffee for these early morning drives, today's beverage of choice was this amazing Siren's blend from Starbucks (not a sponsor). 100% recommend.

As usual, French took his 2017 Argo Huntmaster while I piloted Project 6x6 on our early morning moose hunt. Of course we didn't need two machines but we had them in the trailer and it provides more flexibility and convenience to cover more ground if necessary.

We spent the day in our usual hunting areas with French set up on the long skinny bog and myself covering a large area on foot taking notice of fresh sign and checking our game cameras.

On my walkabout I came across this dandy grouse, too bad I never had a shotgun with me, my 30.06 Browning would be a little much!

I was in charge of lunch today which consisted of my own custom recipe Italian Moose Sausage meat sticks and a feed of fresh fish white puddings. I had the puddings made earlier this year from my own cod at Porters Meats in CBS, they fry up beautifully when sliced into discs and browned up in the pan.

That afternoon Matthew & Stroh made the trip down and joined us for the evening hunt which unfortunately was unsuccessful as well.

Thanksgiving weekend arrived and all of the crew had family plans with French at his camper in Marine Park all weekend while Stroh and Matthew were equally tied up with family gatherings.

Sunday Sandra and I had family over for a full thanksgiving dinner.

Our outdoor boiler not only makes jigs dinner cook faster (as it comes up to temperature quicker initially and after you add another dose of fresh vegetables), but also keeps the steam and heat out of the house! A section of cardboard temporarily fastened to the patio rail made a great wind block to get maximum heat into the boiler.

Monday morning I got up early and made an awesome breakfast hash of Moose sausage, onion, mushroom, egg, hashbrowns and green peppers.

Lunchtime, with my Argo still in French's trailer I loaded up Project Foreman and took a run down the shore for a solo hunting scouting mission to pass away the beautiful holiday.

I covered a lot of ground on the bike today and on foot taking note of fresh sign in our traditional hunting areas and some new ground further in the country.

After an unsuccessful afternoon/evening hunt I had a quick boil-up to warm up just as darkness fell before heading back to the truck.

Acting on a hunch/feeling I made a snap decision and headed back down the Southern Shore early Tuesday morning on my own while the rest of the crew went to work.

About ten minutes after daybreak this dandy six point bull came out to my iPhone app moose caller walking steadily closer and closer to my vantage point. At 80 yards I took aim and connected a successful shot with my Browning BAR 30.06 rifle.

I love early morning hunts, the air was crisp, the wind very slight and in my favour. Moose can't see very well so I was able to stand in the open and just stay quiet. Preparedness is certainly a big factor too, noiseless clothing (doesn't have to be fancy) and having my firearm already loaded when I set up at my spot to hunt, the only noise I made was clicking off the safety.

Now I faced the task of for the first time field dressing the animal solo which seemed daunting at first. I have dressed quite a few now, so I simply took on the task one step at a time. Like we've done many times with the Argo's, I parked Project Foreman along side my harvest and used it as a tie off point to hold the upper legs up and out of the way.

In no time I had the paunch removed using a few solo operational tricks such as tying a rope around the windpipe and using a ratchet strap to adjust the upper front leg as I worked through the process pulling the wind pipe through etc.

I knew a moose halved up would be too heavy to lift on my own. I planned for this by taking my good Stanley handsaw with me which worked great to quickly and easily quarter up the moose in the woods.

I took the animal and my gear out across the bog in five total trips, the maximum legally allowed. I didn't want to fool around with less trips by strapping a quarter on top of my rear cargo box, plus it was a short 15 minute round trip from the harvest site to my truck.

I stacked the quarters on a fresh tarp in the front of my bed which left enough room for the bike by resting the rear tires on the tailgate.

On my way back to town I immediately dropped off the jaw bone to the wildlife station at Paddy's Pond before it got gross. Next I stopped to my place to drop off the bike, and carried on to Harry's to hang, skin and wash down our crew's harvest.

This was my first time harvesting a moose solo and I have to say it is one of the most rewarding accomplishments I've completed in my hunting career to date. It's just fantastic being in the woods with the bye's which we've done many times this year and will keep doing so. This was a unique and extremely rewarding accomplishment that I won't soon forget.

In Portugal Cove Harry, Arch and I got to work skinning the moose, graciously making use of Harry's state of the art facility and equipment.

Once again I washed down the quarters with a 50/50 mix of water & vinegar using a microfiber cloth to clean, sterilize, seal the meat and effortlessly remove all hair left by the skinning process.

French's cooler was put to good use to hang the quarters until Bassan, Roger and I got a chance to process them.

Hard work done and all cleaned up again!

About a week later Bassan, Roger and I got to work processing the quarters.

Just like our past processing nights, we debone, cut out & bag all the prime cut roasts and label them using Bassan's easy peezy 27 category moose roast classification system. The rest is placed in 50lb meat totes and ran through the grinder.

This year Matthew and I enhanced our sausage making and moved away from the prepared sausage kits which contain a lot of salt and binder. Over the summer we started creating our own mixes using only pure spices (and less salt) based on extensive research followed by trial and error. Over the course of the summer & fall we made up a bunch of 3lb test batches to dial in a few recipes. Bulk barn turned out to be a great source for ingredients.

I organized mine into sealed containers to keep them fresh and orderly. My favourite two recipes are Spicy Italian with Red Wine, and Okto-beer-fest which features a quantity of my favourite beer of the day. Matthew also had great success with his homemade Honey Garlic recipe!

One test batch of Okto-beer-fest was made with this Innis & Gunn Whiskey Cask aged stout which turned out amazing.

My Italian recipe multiplied out well for a 16lb batch but I did cut back and adjusted the amount of minced garlic and salt in the larger batches. Accurate note taking of any changes is key to replicating the recipe in the future. (These adjustments are already made in the recipe posted on this website)

For most of my own sausages this year, I changed up from putting them in traditional sausage casings. Not because it's hard but I really like taking the sausage meat, flattening it out in the pan and splitting it into meat sticks as it cooks, I find it better than eating casings.

So ends one of my all time favourite moose hunting trips to date, but the season is not over yet. French still has a set of Not for Profit tags to fill which is a party either sex license.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith