Moose hunting with Zach and John- Sometime in September, 2009

I had such a good summer this year. A lot of fishing and hunting with family and friends. Kimmy and I were married last fall, and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of her outside relatives… outside meaning not from Alaska. I had promised my friend and former college Nursing instructor Karla that I would take her husband fishing if she brought him down to Soldotna. For one full week, the three of us were on the Kenai hunting Reds. I was successful in catching a few every day, but they had some trouble getting the hang of flipping for Reds. Both of them caught a few Pinks, and took them home along with my Reds. Working nights made it an exhausting but fun week.

In late August Zach, John and I did a moose hunting trip beginning at Watson Lake in Sterling into the East Fork of the Moose River. We were giddy talking about it… like little girls discussing little boys, or Hannah Montana. Zach and Jenny have three children, the last two being twins. John and Rebecca have 5, the last two also being twins. You can imagine why they would want to get out of the house and into Alaska.

We researched the trip using satellite images from Google Earth, and the lakes appeared to show an uninterrupted crick right to the Moose River. We could barely contain ourselves anticipating our coming adventure. John and I headed out early to set up camp at the end of the third lake while Zach finished work. We paddled our overfilled canoe across the first lake, through a slough, across the second lake, through another slough, and to the end of the third lake where it emptied out into a very small crick. Overgrown alders and grass clogged the drainage dashing our hopes of making our way into the Moose River. I had never been this far back on this series of lakes, and was just beginning to understand how difficult this hunting trip was going to be. John and I walked up the crick for a while hoping it would open up, but it did not. After talking about maybe changing plans of crossing over, we set up the tent and collected some firewood for later. We paddled back out to the car and I got a nap in while we waited for Zach.

It was pitch black paddling back to the tent, which was a lot harder than you would think. It was very difficult for all three of us to balance without seeing each other. Once again, we paddled across the three lakes and somehow found the tent despite our blindness. We pulled out our sleeping bags and prepared for sleep. I could hear John rustling inside the tent while I sipped some coffee. Zach whispered “He’s afraid of bears so he’s moving his bag into the middle…“ John got shit for that the rest of the trip. In the morning we decided to explore after breakfast and coffee, resigned to the fact that we would not be able to push through to the Moose River. Hoping to make the best of it, we split up looking for the elusive legal Bull, but soon found that we were not as far from society as we’d thought. We could hear people target practicing nearby. Why people feel the need to fire hundreds of rounds somewhere in the middle of nowhere while moose hunting, I will never understand. The amount of noise those people made was depressing. We decided it was useless to stay here. We could either turn tail and go home or try dragging the canoe through the drainage and push on ahead. It turns out it this initial obstacle wasn’t that difficult compared to what lie ahead. On the other side of the drainage the crick widened and deepened into a beautiful small valley. We found an old campsite that was perfectly set up and decided to stay there for the night. The next morning Zach and John successfully called in a very friendly Bull who nearly trampled Zach coming in. The young moose was so excited at the sound of a cow call, he completely ignored the three of us. His horns were no where near legal and we went back to camp. It was tough letting him go.

We decided to pack it up and head out Northish. It was a rough haul. More often than not, we were dragging the still overfilled canoe while trying to keep our feet dry. At one point, beavers had dammed the crick completely, adn behind the dam, spawned Reds were stacked for hundreds of yards.

The crick opened some, but seemed like it had baffles every 15 feet. The three of us had to get out, drag the canoe over the sandbar, hop back in only to repeat it all over… and over… all day long. In a flash of brilliance while taking his turn dragging, Zach decided keeping his feet dry was no longer priority, and bulled his way downstream. It made the time fly by, and the distance ahead shriveled. Somewhere earlier in the day, we heard what sounded like a cat. “MMMEEEOOOWWWW…”. Zach said “Is it a Lynx?” They don’t meow dude. Someone is messing with us. Ahead of us on the bank hid two hunters in the 6ft tall grass. The smart ass thought he was pretty funny, and whispered “Don’t worry, it gets easier”, holding his fingers up to form quotes. Zach, John and I wondered if that meant easier but still hard. It didn’t take long for us to understand. Each mile passed with more difficulty. Near the end of the day, we were exhausted, hungry and thirsty. Luckily Zach had brought beer from his brewery which provided us with the calories necessary for such exertion, as well as filled us with courage to keep on keeping on. We decided every hour, we would stop for a pint. Good decision. It allowed us frequent breaks and time to empty our boots. Empty boots didn’t matter much as they were again filled within 30 seconds of walking. After pulling for 6 hrs straight, we set up camp and I strung a cord between two trees to hang our soaking clothes. I gathered firewood, and Zach and John attempted unsuccessfully to catch a few spawned Reds. I told them if they brought one to me, I’d cook it for dinner. I was so hungry I would of eaten the ass out of a dead dog.



That night the temperature dropped. I woke up early, fighting the need to urinate. I noticed the tent was covered in ice. I had no desire to step out into that cold. As the sun rose higher, Zach started a fire and put the water on. When I was pretty sure coffee was up, I decided grudgingly to join him around the fire. I was amazed that I didn’t have a single sore muscle. I give the beer credit. There must be magic in the stuff. After packing camp, we decided we didn’t have time to hunt. I had to work that night, so we made like a baby (headed out). We had 8 hrs to paddle about 6 miles as the crow flies, of the most crooked river known to man. It reminded me of the story of Paul Bunyan hitching Babe his blue ox to a crooked river so she could pull it straight.

The flow of the East Fork is very slow. We had to look at the weeds at the bottom to know which direction was downriver. At times the current picked up speed and it seemed a joker (God) had set up sweepers around every blind corner. I was sitting in front, and became very good at reading the river ahead. If we’d had more time, we could have lazily drifted down, taking in the beautiful day. As it was we had no time, no beer, and had eaten the last of the food that morning. John found hot chocolate packets and passed one to each of us. The three of us paddled the rest of the trip until we reached the Sterling bridge. While waiting for the boys to retrieve the car I set up Johns gas stove to heat up some coffee, but it didn’t work so I drank it cold.

I’m pretty sure all three of us were disappointed at the time, but despite the challenges and no moose, this was a great trip that I'll never do again.