As I reflect back on my OIL Washington moose hunt this past season, I often find myself starting at the end of the hunt and rewinding back through the memories to the beginning. Thumbing through photos of the magnificent animal I was fortunate enough to harvest always leads back through more photos of the journey along the way until I get back to the beginning, the day draw results were posted, which started months of anticipation, planning, scouting, overthinking, and driving everyone around me moose crazy. I find it fitting to share the story the way I relive it, starting at the end and rewinding back to the beginning.
Day three, October 11th, back to the truck with full packs and the final load consisting of the head and cape brought my OIL opportunity to a close. The bittersweet of accomplishing something few will get to experience and knowing you will never get to experience it again. I was fortunate enough to share this experience with two of my sons, Wyatt and Gus. Although Gus was not able to participate in the hunt, it didn’t take him long to ditch class, grab a buddy, and drive two hours to be part of the pack out once he got the call. Earlier that day started with Wyatt and me awakening to a heavy, dense fog and drizzle cutting visibility to less than 100 yards. The
weather changed our plans as we knew glassing from the location we had spent days one and two at was not going to be an option, so off to plan B. We decided to head into an area where Gus had glassed a good bull during a scouting trip in early September, stopping every so often to let out a couple cow calls in hopes a bull would reveal himself vocally since visually was going to be challenging.
By 10:00 a.m., we finally made it into the drainage where Gus had spotted the bull during our scouting trip. Walking up towards the landing, I let out my best impression of a desperate cow wanting some love. A breeze had kicked up, making it hard to hear any response, but it was starting to break up the fog. After a couple more calls, Wyatt said he heard a bull grunt way off on the ridge. I continued to call, and sure enough, the bull gave up his location. After 30 minutes of back and forth calling, the wind finally blew the fog out for a few brief seconds, which allowed us a quick 30-second window to look at the bull half a mile up the ridge before the fog blanketed his location again. Not being sure as to whether the bull was going to commit and come to us or just stay up in the fog and sound cool, I made the decision that I was going to go to him. I left Wyatt on the landing in hopes that if the fog broke again, he could get eyes on him as I made my way up the ridge through the wet, dense entanglement of brush and debris.
As I approached the top of the ridge, sitting on the edge of a bowl of heavy timber, I was at the door to his bedroom, but with the fog and rain, I was barely able to see past 75 yards. Wyatt started calling again from the landing, hoping to trigger a response so I could plan my next move. After 20 minutes of silence, I decided I would just take it slow and move in five yards at a time and glass as far as I could. I entered the first five yards and glassed, revealing nothing. I wiped my binos and moved in another five yards. As I put my binos to my eyes on my fourth move, I was able to make out a moose standing behind a tree 75 yards below me. As the moose took a few steps out from behind the tree, I was able to see that it was indeed a bull and definitely better than the bulls we had seen the previous days of hunting. I made a quick decision through the fog and wet binos that this would be the bull I would put my OIL tag on.
As I moved a few steps to rest my rifle on a tree to steady my shot, my feet decided otherwise. Focused on the bull and not where I was stepping, I managed to place my foot on a slick patch of blowdown, and with a crash, I hit the dirt. The bull ran off 50 yards and then stopped. I got to the tree and found the bull in my crosshairs. With a squeeze of the trigger, the bull disappeared. I worked my way down through the dog-haired patchwork of brush and downfall to the last place I saw the bull. Wyatt was blowing up my phone with excitement and waiting for me to answer his calls. Circling back through the patch of jack fir I last saw the bull in, I stopped to finally answer Wyatt’s call. As I stood in that spot filling him in on the details and events that took place, I caught a glimpse of an antler and saw my bull lying 50 yards away. I stood in amazement as I gave the bull thanks and then worked my way down the ridge to meet Wyatt and grab our packs for the work ahead.
Rewind to days one and two. Day one was finally here. With the trailer loaded and ready to go, Wyatt and I started the four-hour drive from home to our base camp. My day one started nine days into the season due to my work schedule. It was my first opportunity to get out. We motored through the long drive and rolled into our camping spot at around 11:30 a.m. We unhooked the trailer, spent 30 minutes setting up camp, and then we were off to hunt. We drove through miles of old logging roads, glassing along the way as we made our way to a glassing spot we had in mind for the afternoon.
We arrived at our spot and set up. It was 1:00 p.m., and the excitement was starting to kick in. Twenty minutes in on the glass and through the haze of the gray overcast sky, a sunbeam protruded through. In the distance just past where it seemed the sun touched the earth was a bull moose. Although he was on the small side, it was a promising sight. We spent the next few hours glassing the area. We turned up three more bulls and five cows, a great start for day one.
Day two’s morning started with Wyatt and me meeting up early with a buddy I had met who is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced moose guys in the state. As he was returning from an out-of-state hunt and preparing to leave the next day for another hunt, I couldn’t turn down his offer to tag along for the time he had available. Although day two did not turn up any shooter bulls, the experience was awesome. We encountered six bulls that day and another seven cows.
Rewind back to the first week of September. My wife, Jennie, my son, Gus, and I headed off for a Labor Day weekend of scouting for moose. We had spent a lot of time in this unit in years prior hunting deer and turkey, but now it was time to get familiar with it in a new way. We went into it with the mindset to not get discouraged if we didn’t see moose, but rather use the time to get familiar with some road systems, find promising areas, and cross off not so promising areas so as to not waste time during the hunt. We covered a ton of ground and found that some of the access areas we had been into years ago were no longer accessible. We ended up seeing two cows and two bulls on that trip.
On the evening of day two, Gus wanted to go up into a small basin where he had spotted a cow the night before. We headed in that direction and set up to glass. It didn’t take long for him to glass up a good bull on top of the far ridge. We watched the bull until dark. Little did we know, 38 days later this would be the bull that wore my OIL tag.
Rewind back to mid-June and draw results were finally out. I scrolled through the categories and Wild ID numbers of my wife and kids. Excitement hit as Gus and Jennie both drew cow elk tags. I pulled up my account and saw under antlered bull moose the word “Selected.” I could not believe after all the years of applying and dreaming that it finally happened. It was a hunt and experience I will never forget, and although my Washington moose hunting career was over just as fast as it started, I will forever relive it when I rewind.
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