Hunting and photography are two obsessions that run deep in my soul, especially when I pursue these passions in the great state of Alaska. Twenty years ago, I ventured to Western Alaska armed with a .300 Winchester Magnum in pursuit of every sportsman’s dream – the giant Alaska-Yukon moose. I was also carrying a point-and-shoot film camera to document my trip.
While on that hunt, I was extremely fortunate to harvest a beautiful 64" bull. After taking a few snapshots, we skinned and butchered him and then endured the long process of packing him back to camp. As I was sitting around the roaring campfire later that evening, celebrating my amazing hunt with the native guides, I discovered just how special Alaska was. When I gazed off to the horizon, I saw smoke in the distant sky and quickly said, “Look over there, that’s smoke from a forest fire.” The native guides looked in the direction of the smoke and immediately started laughing at me and telling me how ridiculous I was. “That’s not smoke, that’s the Northern Lights!” Upon further inspection, I could see the moving bands of light. I sat for hours, mesmerized by their stunning beauty. I grabbed my camera and quickly shot a couple rolls of film to capture the night sky, only to find after developing them black images with no mysterious Northern Lights visible. I vowed to return to hunt another moose and photograph this amazing north country phenomenon.
Twenty years after that iconic hunt, I got lucky and drew the coveted Huslia River moose permit again. I was going back to hunt monster moose once more and hopefully photograph the Aurora Borealis. This time, I was armed with a family heirloom Savage 110L chambered in .308 Win. and with a camera you will find in many professional photographers’ gear bags, a 45-megapixel Nikon D850 full frame DSLR. With the September moose rut just starting and a rare weather forecast of 10 consecutive days of clear skies, I was more than optimistic that success was in my future.
I flew 250 miles northwest from Fairbanks to the tiny Athabaskan Indian village of Huslia, which rests on the banks of the famed Koyukuk River within the boundaries of the Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge. From the village, I traveled by boat another 60 miles upriver and arrived at a beautiful hunting camp, complete with several canvas wall tents with smoke rising slowly from the wood stoves and settling into a stunning backdrop of pines and aspens. The aroma given off from the burning wood in those tents was better than any scented candle you have ever smelled. This was my kind of aroma therapy. The best part was that this remote wilderness camp was home for the next 10 days, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather be.
The season opened the next morning, and we hunted hard for several days, traveling by boat a hundred miles or more, calling at every opportunity we had. On the first half of the 10-day hunt, we were hampered with unseasonably warm weather, which kept the big bulls bedded deep in the dark timber. It was fairly slow with limited response to our calling and only a couple sightings of legal bulls, none of which I wanted to put my tag on.
On day six, I found a beautiful shed moose antler laying in the grass as we were accessing another calling location. It gave me renewed hope knowing there was a trophy bull standing in my steps when that antler was shed. I picked it up and carried it out of the field and back to our camp. This antler was going back home with me. Later that night, while lying in my sleeping bag next to the crackling wood stove, I was replaying the events of the day. Then it occurred to me, there could be no better moose call than the real deal. I thought, “I’m going to pack the shed moose antler along and use it to rake the willows and brush to fool one of those monster moose.”
The first couple spots we tried the following morning didn’t produce any interest, but it wasn’t long before my luck changed. In the next meadow we came to, I immediately got a response after raking the antler on the brush. I raked the shed antler a second time in hopes of pinpointing the bull’s location. His immediate response directed my attention to an aspen grove about 300 yards to my right. A couple more battles with the shed and the brush patch in front of me brought the bull out from the aspens, only to be concealed by a dense stand of willows. He viciously thrashed the vegetation, and all I could see was the tops of the willows violently shaking back and forth and leaves flying through the air in every direction. We played this game of challenging each other for several minutes until the enormous bull stepped out and made himself visible. As I raised my binoculars and his image came into view, my jaw dropped. This majestic bull is what every moose hunter’s dreams are made of – wide and tall with heavy, long, palmated brow tines, and, to top it off, he was coming directly toward me.
I raked the brush again, and the bull continued on his path of destruction, thrashing the brush and tearing up trees with every turn of his powerful neck. At this point, he was only 100 yards away and walking directly toward me. He was definitely looking for a fight. One hundred yards became 70, then 50, then 40. I didn’t have a shot because he was still headed toward me, slowly posturing his enormous rack from side to side as if to say, “I’m your huckleberry.” Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he turned broadside at just 26 yards. When we made eye contact with each other, I could immediately tell the big old bull knew he had made a critical mistake. I slowly raised my rifle, and as the crosshairs settled in the crease behind his shoulder, I squeezed the trigger. The monster bull took five or six steps, and then 1,800 pounds of solid muscle and antler crashed to the ground and he gave up his fight.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened. There was no doubt in my mind that my good fortune of finding that shed antler was directly responsible for calling this bull out of the aspen grove. As I approached, my bull kept getting bigger and bigger; there was no ground shrinkage with this beast. His beautiful 65" wide rack had four long brow tines on the left side and five on the right. This was definitely the moose-of-a-lifetime for me. After a short photo session, I secured my locking tag to his antler and then proceeded to cut the month and date out of my harvest ticket. I then went back to camp with a smile as big as Alaska itself to share my good news and to get help with butchering and packing my moose out.
That evening, I once again found myself gathered around a roaring campfire and celebrating my amazing day. This time, however, I wasn’t going to be the laughingstock of the camp by thinking the Northern Lights were smoke from a distant forest fire. I came prepared, and I was armed with a high-end digital camera; a specialized, light- gathering wide-angle lens; and the knowledge of how to capture one of the north country’s greatest spectacles. As my good fortune continued, I learned there had been a rare solar explosion on the sun only days before and the opportunity to photograph the aurora would be the best it had been in the last several months. With clear skies and stars from horizon to horizon, I set my camera up on a tripod and captured numerous breathtaking shots of the lights, redeeming myself for the totally black images I had captured 20 years ago on the same riverbank.
As for the wonderful meat from my moose, I donated three-quarters of it to the elders in the village of Huslia, and I brought the other quarter home to share with my friends and family. It gave me great satisfaction knowing the moose I had harvested helped so many families in this harsh and remote part of the Alaskan wilderness.
As for the antlers, after the 60-day drying period, they were officially scored at 212 6/8", making them large enough to be entered into the Boone and Crockett records book. This trip was my 45th to the great land, and it was definitely Alaska at her finest.
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