My wife and I just returned from our DIY Alaska Moose Hunt. She shot a 52" with her 300wsm and mine was a 50" shot with my 50 Alaskan.
We hired a flight service out of Bethel, Alaska, Papa Bear Adventures.
The area we hunted was closed for 11yrs except for natives and was reopened in 2008 to the public. The only hunting in the area was by natives and they only wanted the cows and calves. Therefore, there is a very high bull to cow ratio and you can harvest any bull with horns. Meaning there is no minimum brow tine or width requirement. However, we set our personal minimum at 50”. I admit I am not even close to being an expert at judging horn width. So hunting in an area with no horn restriction takes the pressure off for that!
We saw ten different bulls and only three cows and two calves over the five days in the bush. We harvested number nine and ten. We saw bulls ranging from fork horns to what I would guess to be a 55” plus. We saw the 55” plus with two cows on the first day from a range of about 800yds on the edge of the timber. From our vantage point we had a cross wind so we tried an aggressive approach and went straight at him. At approximately 400yds the wind changed and I felt it at the back of my neck. The bull left like his butt was on fire! We did not see him again.
On day five around 1:00pm we were in camp eating lunch and at the far end of the lake we were camped these two bulls came out of the timber and started feeding on the edge of the lake. They were approximately 1000yds away feeding in our direction. We watched them feed towards us for about 40 minutes before they were within 150yds and decided they were big enough.
A bull moose was my wife’s dream animal so she had first shot. At the shot from her 300wsm with 180gs Nosler Partitions (3000fps) the bull went straight down as if a rug had been pulled out from under it! She put in a second insurance shot. The other bull, my bull, walked off about 50yds and stood there assessing the noise and was quartering towards me. I decide he was all the bull I needed so I shot him with my 50 Alaskan. The 525gr Cast Performance (1800fps) entered the base of the neck and front of the shoulder. He went straight down. We harvested two bulls about ten seconds apart! I was a bit disappointed the cast bullet did not exit but it did deliver a pretty hard blow as his hind feet just folded up underneath him and he never moved or kicked again.
Now the work began! I have never worked so hard! We had her's quartered and bag at about 7:00pm. We field dressed mine headed for the tent. We were toast! The next morning after breakfast were quartered and bag mine and hauled them to the edge of the lake and called for the bush plane to retrieve the meat.
