October 17, 2025 • 26 mins
We're getting down to the meaty part of this Manitoba moose hunting tale. Brent left us all on the edge of our seats with his cliffhanger last time just when he'd gotten to moose camp. Rest assured there's no tricks this week and the rest of the story is waiting for you to push play. It's moose shooting time on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lighting and just in general
country living. I want you to stay a while as
I share my experiences in life lessons. This country life
is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio
on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor
(00:26):
podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab
a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores
to share on the loose for Moose Part two. I
hope y'all are as ready as I am to get
back after this Canadian moose. I've been busting at the
(00:48):
seams to tell you all about the experience of the
hunt from where we dropped off last week, and as
luck would have it, we stopped just before we were
literally dropped off at the cabin hunting out of for
the following week. Cock your pistols kids were fixing to
get to work on him and up a moose in
Northern Manitoba. The pilot leveled off the the havel and
(01:17):
otter out of a sharp left hand bank as we
descended toward the lake while applying the flaps that I
could see and gage out the window. The engine slowed
as we coasted downward until flaring right above the surface
of the water. For what seemed like forever, I waited
for the rush of the sound of the lake water
contacting the floats as we skimmed just above the surface
(01:41):
seventy miles an hour. Out the window, I could see
in the distance a boat pulled up on the bank
and a man standing beside it. The floats eased into
the water, and in a few seconds we were at
idle trolling up to the bank where my friend and
outfitter Craig McCarthy stood knee deep in the lake and
a pair of waiters. Pilot did an about face and
(02:04):
backed the otter into the shallow water tail first. I
don't know who was more excited me came a man,
Dave Gardner or Craig to get all our gear off
the plane and light the fuse on this hunt. We
watched as the otter taxi out on the lake and
took off, taking with it the noise that had been
drowning out the sounds of silence, and when it was gone,
(02:29):
nothing but the wind pushing through the trees and the
lake as it washed up and down the sand could
be heard. For a moment. We all stood there, just
soaking it in. Craig had been away from home now
for twenty six days, guiding in the wilderness from the
more Northern province, and none of it then here for
(02:50):
a week by the time David and I arrived. But
he knew what we were doing. We were turning the
page from all the months and meetings of practice and
preparation to chapter one of this project. And everything up
until now had been written for us. Take this equipment
and these items, be here on this date and here
(03:12):
at this time, fill out these forms, get them signed
by these folks, pick up these permits, stand in this line,
and we had done all of it. Everything that had
been asked and required of us had been done. Now
we were here, and the rest of the story we
would ride ourselves, with Craig's guidance Dave's camera. From now
(03:36):
on it would be totally up to the three of
us to tell the story, and moose or no moose,
there would be one to tell. We tolded all our
bags in cases up the cut out trail from the
beach forty yards to the cabin. The air smelled fresh
and it felt cool. We walked inside our home for
(03:57):
the next week, and I picked a bunk nearest the
door and furthest away from the wood heater. Dave took
up residence in the corner, and Craig was already rooted
into his spot on the opposite side of the structure
from where Dave was. Canvas cots adorned with the air
mattresses would be our slumber and scaffolds, and underneath them
we'd stow our bags and extra boots and packs. On
(04:19):
the mud stained plywood floor. Plywood walls with nails driven
into the tube before studs would be our clawss. It
had all the amenities of solitary confinement if you'd been
sent usd to prison on the little house on the prairie,
and I loved every inch of them. Craig whipped us
up a bit of eggs and bacon for dinner, since
(04:41):
we'd skipped breakfast. He cooked it on a small two
burner gas stove, brewed a pot of coffee, and toasted
some bread on the flat surface of the wood heater
he'd stoked up after we got settled in. Now we'll
have plenty of time to start our hunt this afternoon,
he said, it's legal to fly and hunt on the
sand day here in Manitoba. I'm in, but I want
(05:03):
to go shoot this rifle before we do. I want
to make sure this thing is still good to go.
After we finished Eden, but got our packs ready with
all the plunder we'd be token with us, and headed
off to the other end of the lake to check
the zero on my rifle. It was an issue that
had worried me since i'd left Little Rock the day before.
(05:24):
I checked it in at the ticket counter, and a
very helpful lady who crossed all the t's and dotted
all the eyes on my paperwork and printed my boarding
passes did everything but yell hulk smash when she slammed
my rifle case onto the conveyor belt behind the count
I swear it was so loud I thought it had
(05:45):
gone off in the box. The only thing that told
me different was knowing I'd removed the boat before I
secured the locks on the case. I wanted to throw Puncher,
but I wanted to stay out of jail more so
I settled on setting her on fire with my steely
eyed death laser stair as I walked away. That showed
her a mile down the lake, and three shots later
(06:08):
at one hundred yards and we were in business. I
had death raided, disintegrated, that articulated at the airport for nothing.
I felt bad about that. Not ready anyway, the hunt
was on. We settled into the boat and headed up
to the lake three miles to the northeast for our
(06:29):
first set. The wind and water sprayed a steady mist
over the back of the boat. It was cold on
my skin, and Dave stopped feeling ever so often to
wipe it off the lens of his camera. There was
so much to see and experience, and we were just
getting started. We stepped out of the boat onto a
big section of Manitoba granite and walked off into the
(06:53):
sponge covered muskeg and pete deposits that make you feel
every step in the small of your back until you
get acclimated to it properly. The air mattress that looked
thin and inefficient at first glance would be just what
the doctor ordered and a welcome sanctuary. Later that night,
the wind was howling. By dark that evening in all
(07:15):
of Craig's calls and grunts had gone unanswered. What I
didn't really understand at the time was that he was
more or less thrown out baits, so to speak, with
every call for the next day. We were positioned on
the edge of the lake, calling away from the water,
but the wind was carrying his calls across the lake
behind us. This was a twofold scenario. We might call
(07:40):
a bullion that was close to us on the same
side of the lake as we were, or the calls
that drifted three quarters of a mile behind us might
pull one onto the bank that we could see from
where we were. Also, a moose from two miles away
can hear the calls. Craig was periodically casting into the wind,
which could have a bull waiting in that area the
(08:02):
following morning. It's believed that the paddle portions of their
antlers act like hearing the ads directing sound to their ears,
and just like an old gobbler, here in one cluck
from one hundred yards away, a moose from over a
mile nose exactly where that sound came from. So even
if we didn't see or hear anything that afternoon, we
(08:23):
were laying groundwork for the hunts that would come next.
We made it back to camp, had supper and slipped
outside down to the edge of the lake to watch
the Northern Lights. I'd seen them twice before this trip,
once in Alaska a few years ago in August, and
once in Saskatchewan in late June. The Saskatchewan sighting was faint,
(08:44):
but it still counted, especially to someone who never dreamed
he'd get to see them more than once in a lifetime,
much less on more than one occasion. The best time
and place to see them in Manitoba is in Churchill
from January to March, but they're visible on average about
three hundred nights a year. We were less than one
(09:07):
hundred and fifty miles from there, and I was amped
to see them as I was a moose no kidding.
Churchill is also the best place to see a polar bear.
I had a hanker to see one of those two,
just not in the setting I was currently in. Also
not kidding, The lights didn't disappoint Dave, Craig and I
(09:29):
stood staring at the same spectacular vista in the sky,
each of us seeing differently or feeling differently about what
we saw. Called home later that night, talking to my
wife Alexis, and I struggled to come up with the
adjectives to accurately describe them. I realized it wasn't only
my limited vocabulary because of my struggle. Dave is first
(09:51):
and foremost a photographer. He's an excellent cinematographer, obviously, or
he wouldn't be there to begin with. But taking still
pictures is what he started out doing, and the rim
brand of the steel frame couldn't capture the totality of
what we were seeing. It was that overwhelming there. It
(10:12):
took me two weeks to come up with overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
But that's the best way I know to describe.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The next morning, we were up before the coffee got ready.
It had frosted heavy outside and lightly on the inside.
Craig stoked up the fire and had me prop at
the door opened in short order. The interior of our
fourteen by sixteen tarp covered cabin would hold all the
bee to us that little stove could turn out. Seeing
(10:49):
my breath when I woke up was a welcome sight
and vastly different from the long, hot summer that is
still taking place outside the house here in Arkansas. Our
departure would be delayed that morning due to a heavy
fog that only lessened throughout the day. And never completely
lifted until late in the afternoon. By midday, we'd ventured
(11:11):
out to the opposite side of the lake from the
evening before. We were three quarters of a mile from
where Craig had called less than twenty four hours ago,
and while we stood at the edge of the lake,
we heard the lonesome, melancholy sound of a cow moose,
followed by the grunts of a bull that was closing
the distance tour. Now both of them in the area
(11:33):
that would have been catching our wind long before they
came to us, so we opted out of trying to
lure them to our spot. It was still early in
the hunt and we had plenty of time. We slipped
back to camp after having been treated to the cause
of those moose and watching two dozen spruce grouse pick
up enough grit to make a little box for a tiger.
(11:56):
Those rascals were everywhere. We even had one struck by
like a boss gobbler that was so close I could
have kicked the field goal with him. It was quite
a show. That evening we bowted around with nothing to
show for moose, and as we passed the source of
a river that fed off the lake, Craig spotted a
moose from over five hundred yards away. I don't know
(12:18):
how he saw it, but he did. Finally directed me
and my binoculars into the area he was looking at,
and dad, come if I didn't see two of them, well,
pieces of two of them, as they stayed hidden except
for open patches here and there and a long way away,
one bull and one cow. Craig cut the engine and
we floated downstream and made a call, but the bull
(12:41):
never responded other than pushing her further down the river
and smashing some trees along the way. You could see
the tops of them shaking. Things were picking up, and
we had a starting point for in the morning. The
wind was forecasting to be perfect for a play down
that river. The next morning. The bull we saw would
(13:02):
probably still be in the area, and even if he
wouldn't leave her and come to us, another bull chasing
after her mike. We just needed the wind to cooperate.
The next morning was warmer than the day before. The
wind was blowing harder than it had since we'd gotten there,
but the direction was exactly like they'd forecasting it to be.
(13:23):
We built a pot of coffee and waited on daylight
and by the time you could see clearly across the lake.
We were pushing off the bank and motoring the short
ride toward the river. We pulled up on the bank
across the river from where we'd seen the pair of
the night before. Craig started calling every so often in
the Turkey woods. I called that prospect, just slinging a
(13:44):
call out, hoping for a response. We knew there had
been moose there the day before, but the landscape is unending.
They could be anywhere by now. It's kind of like
playing pool while wearing a blindfold. Being at the table
is only half the battle. You're just poking and hoping
something goes in. We sat on a point where you
(14:06):
could see the lake and down the river for over
a quarter of a mile until midday, and we hadn't
seen a hair of a moose. We had several trumpeter
swans fly so close overhead before we headed back to
the cabin. I felt like I could have wrecked them
out of the sky with a yard burn. Big beautiful
birds and more can I say? Craig fed us a
(14:29):
half a loaf of woodstove toast, three settings of eggs,
and enough bacon to rebuild the hog that came off
of For dinner, we retired to our spots for a nap,
and by three thirty that afternoon we were shoving off
the bank for the second time, headed to the point
on the river where we'd sat earlier. The wind was
honking like a New York City taxi driver was still
(14:51):
in our favor, and by four pm we were pulling
back up on the bank where we tied up that morning.
We eased down the bank to a dryer piece of
ground about thirty yards past where we'd sat the morning.
The temperature continued to warm in spite of the wind
coming off the lake. And by warm, I mean he
was in the mid sixties, which is Arkansas cool. But
(15:14):
we weren't in Arkansas, not by a long shot. Now,
Craig said, with the wind blowing like this, the moose
are more than likely bedded down. You figure they'll be
back in their feeting before dark if the wind starts
to lay just like yesterday, but probably not before then.
He said, we should get comfortable, but keep an eye
(15:35):
down the river. As warm as it is, they may
come out to drink. I fastened my rifle onto the
tripod and set it up where it would be adjusted
to me while standing, and I pointed it in a
safe direction away from where we were and found a
log ten yards away that would hold three fannies above
the wet ground. I sat down closest to my rifle.
(15:57):
Dave and Craig each had a spot a little further
down the log. Now, before I left Arkansas, I downloaded
a ballistics calculator app on my phone. My friend and
Sikh Sire engineer Matt Burns, who helped me citing my rifle,
set it up for me and helped me load all
the data from my rifle into the calculator. Now, when
(16:18):
I raised the target, I could input the data distance
to the target, wind elevation, and the calculator would tell
me how to adjust my scope for the yardage I
was shooting. Now, that's basic stuff for all you long
rifle shooters out there. But I ain't no rifle shooter.
I ain't never shot at a deer more than a
hundred yards away. I never went to sniper school. I'm
(16:40):
a bow hunter and all my police training and operations
was on the entry team close quarters battle. In bow hunting,
this was all new to me, but Matt had me
dialed in. We'd been there less than ten minutes, Dave
and Craig sitting to my left and me studying the
blistic sapp on my phone by putting into different yardages
(17:03):
and familiarizing myself with the data output. Really just killing
time waiting on the Golden hour. Dave and Craig were
talking about with the wind. I couldn't hear what they
were saying. I punched in some numbers and was staring
at my phone when I heard Craig say, there's a
bull on the river. Get your rifle. I looked up,
thinking he was messing with me, to see him spreading
(17:25):
by me, heading towards my rifle with a Dave in
hot pursuit. I glanced down the river and walking down
the timber was a dinosaur with moose antlers. The only
thing between that moose and the sun was the outside
of the moose. He was lit up like he was
in a movie, the sun turning the edges around him
(17:46):
a sharp yellow that glistened in the sun like like
a twelve hundred pound nugget of gold. I remember watching
him take his second step into the river when I
realized I needed to do what Craig said, and get
my rifle. I turned stepped over the log to get
my weapon. When Craig passed me again carrying it, and
Dave ride behind him with his camera on his shoulder recording.
(18:10):
I jumped behind the rifle settled the crosshairs on the
moose as he walked further out into the water. He
was knee deep a third of the way into the
stream and just standing there looking across the river at
the other bank. Craig ranged him and said four sixty.
I put four to sixty in the calculator. I read
the response and adjusted the scope turret. That moose didn't
(18:32):
look like he was four hundred and sixty yards away.
It looked like he was as close as the next
door neighbor. How far. Craig said four to sixty. Ranged
it twice. I checked the calculator and the scope turret sitting,
and I was right on it. I took a deep breath,
I exhaled most of it and clicked the safety off
and settled the crosshairs right behind the shoulder of the
(18:55):
biggest game animal I had ever looked at through a
scope and a hot weapon. I don't remember putting my
finger on the trigger, so when the rifle went off,
it surprised me. Bak, a six hour crosschambered in three
hundred PRC is a big round. It's a loud round.
(19:16):
But not only did it surprise me when it went off,
the sound was minimal at best, and the recoil not existed.
I heard the two hundred and twelve grand bullets slamm
into the moose, who, as far as I know, didn't
even flinch. I saw water kick up beyond where he stood,
and the river reinforcing what I just heard. I shot
(19:39):
right through him. I chambered another round and set the
crossairs once again. With the bull turned away from me,
face down, rivers still standing in the third of the
way out into the water. Time stopped. I could hear
my heart beating in my ears, and whether I sat
out louder in my head. I guess we'll find out
(20:01):
next year when we all watched the film. But I said,
if he turns either way, I've got him. Slowly, he
turned to the left and started to go back the
way he came, and once he was broadside, I sent
him another one. What I heard it hit him in
less than a second after I shot just like the
(20:21):
first time. If he flinched, I couldn't tell it. I
worked a bolt as fast as I could, and I
sent him another one. What he was now walking up
out of the water and disappeared on the bank into
the timber. A flood of emotion, amazement, disbelief, and wild
(20:42):
eyed excitement came over us. All now I can't tell
you what I said, because I don't remember, I recalled, saying,
I wish my brother Tim was with me. And I
scrambled to find the shell cases to give him. I
found one, and it's his. Got it with my life
until I got it home. And by the time he
(21:02):
hears this, he already have it in his pocket. We
waited twenty minutes before Craig said, let's go find your bull.
We loaded the boat and we drifted down river toward
where we'd last seen him. Played it over in my
mind a thousand times before we got there, and I
felt as confident as I'd ever been about shooting, but
(21:25):
intimidated by the monumental task that we'd all just undertake it.
What comes next? Are we going to have to track him?
How tough is this animal that just walked off toting
six hundred and thirty six grains of stopping laid down
that was traveling at almost twenty eight hundred feet per
second when it ran into him. Dave was in the
(21:46):
front of the boat, filming backward towards me in the middle,
and Craig running the motor. Dave saw him first, and
then Craig. I was straining my guts out, trying to
see what must be so painfully obvious to everyone else
in the boat. Where is this thing? I was searching
every inch I could see for a clue, and then
(22:07):
I saw him. He was fifteen feet from the edge
of the water, laying on the dry ground, and all
of a sudden, the guy that gets paid to talk
and tell stories couldn't think of anything to say. I
walked up to him and made sure he was dead.
(22:31):
Before I reached down to touch him. I stared at
this beautifully massive animal that laid in my feet. It
was a lot to take in. Now was when the
real work starts. But in a flash of consciousness, I
relived the last fifty something years of my hunting career
(22:52):
that all led to this pinnacle of accomplishment. I saw
all the people, friends, family, everyone that played even the
smallest role in getting me to the spot I was
now standing in on the bank of an unnamed river
that fed off an unnamed lake. I certainly didn't get
(23:14):
here by myself, and without all those people, my dream
hunt would still be just a dream. It took us
two and a half hours to skin quarter and remove
all the meat and loaded in the boat. We each
took our spots, with Dave setting beside me on the
(23:35):
way out. The sun was just fading away at dusk,
and it was easier to see and navigate the river
without any headlights. I sat there, still in grateful disbelief
in what I had just experienced outside of my family.
There's no way to top the feeling I was having
at that moment. And then I looked up. The northern
(24:02):
lights were out early, and they were brighter than they'd
been since we'd gotten there. They would shine a couple
more nights, but nothing like they did then. It was
a dancing ribbon of beauty, celebration, and gratitude, and it
made me feel very small and mostly insignificant, and not
(24:24):
in a bad way, more like it put me in
my place in the grand scheme of things. I was
affected by that trip in the purest way. While it
was somewhat emotionally intimidating, it solidified my position as a
participant in the daily grind for survival in a place
where survival isn't easy. Once the hunt was over, we'd
(24:49):
flown back and we left Dave and I dropped off
all the meat except for the backstraps at the meat
station in Ericsdale, Manitoba. I'll be picking the rest of
it up later this year when Craig brings it down
when he goes grocery shopping with his rifle into the
lower forty eight. The skull and hide I left with
Thomas Myers in Stonewall, Manitoba. I'm having it tanned and
(25:13):
skull clean. That skull will hang on my new office wall,
and in that form, it's my way of tipping my
hat to the folks to send me there. The backstraps
I had frozen and stuffed them into two thirty quartz
soft coolers and flew home with them. One backstrap in
each one weighed forty nine pounds and the other fifty one.
(25:38):
One hundred pounds of the purest protein around that tastes
better than ice cream. It is so good well, there
you have it, The Moussa. But wait, there's more. You'll
get to see it next year. Is a feature length production,
and I can't wait for you to see it. I'm
(25:59):
proud out of what I believe we captured in a
place where everywhere you look is a picture and every
sound you hear is a song. Thank you so much
for listening to me. Backwards University and Bear Grease. There's
some new This Country Life t shirts available on the
website if you like that sort of thing, and the
tickets are going fast on the Mediator Live tour that's
(26:22):
dipping down south of the Mason Dixon. I plum give
out after all that until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lighting and just in general
country living. I want you to stay a while as
I share my experiences in life lessons. This country life
is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio
on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor
(00:26):
podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab
a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores
to share on the loose for Moose Part two. I
hope y'all are as ready as I am to get
back after this Canadian moose. I've been busting at the
(00:48):
seams to tell you all about the experience of the
hunt from where we dropped off last week, and as
luck would have it, we stopped just before we were
literally dropped off at the cabin hunting out of for
the following week. Cock your pistols kids were fixing to
get to work on him and up a moose in
Northern Manitoba. The pilot leveled off the the havel and
(01:17):
otter out of a sharp left hand bank as we
descended toward the lake while applying the flaps that I
could see and gage out the window. The engine slowed
as we coasted downward until flaring right above the surface
of the water. For what seemed like forever, I waited
for the rush of the sound of the lake water
contacting the floats as we skimmed just above the surface
(01:41):
seventy miles an hour. Out the window, I could see
in the distance a boat pulled up on the bank
and a man standing beside it. The floats eased into
the water, and in a few seconds we were at
idle trolling up to the bank where my friend and
outfitter Craig McCarthy stood knee deep in the lake and
a pair of waiters. Pilot did an about face and
(02:04):
backed the otter into the shallow water tail first. I
don't know who was more excited me came a man,
Dave Gardner or Craig to get all our gear off
the plane and light the fuse on this hunt. We
watched as the otter taxi out on the lake and
took off, taking with it the noise that had been
drowning out the sounds of silence, and when it was gone,
(02:29):
nothing but the wind pushing through the trees and the
lake as it washed up and down the sand could
be heard. For a moment. We all stood there, just
soaking it in. Craig had been away from home now
for twenty six days, guiding in the wilderness from the
more Northern province, and none of it then here for
(02:50):
a week by the time David and I arrived. But
he knew what we were doing. We were turning the
page from all the months and meetings of practice and
preparation to chapter one of this project. And everything up
until now had been written for us. Take this equipment
and these items, be here on this date and here
(03:12):
at this time, fill out these forms, get them signed
by these folks, pick up these permits, stand in this line,
and we had done all of it. Everything that had
been asked and required of us had been done. Now
we were here, and the rest of the story we
would ride ourselves, with Craig's guidance Dave's camera. From now
(03:36):
on it would be totally up to the three of
us to tell the story, and moose or no moose,
there would be one to tell. We tolded all our
bags in cases up the cut out trail from the
beach forty yards to the cabin. The air smelled fresh
and it felt cool. We walked inside our home for
(03:57):
the next week, and I picked a bunk nearest the
door and furthest away from the wood heater. Dave took
up residence in the corner, and Craig was already rooted
into his spot on the opposite side of the structure
from where Dave was. Canvas cots adorned with the air
mattresses would be our slumber and scaffolds, and underneath them
we'd stow our bags and extra boots and packs. On
(04:19):
the mud stained plywood floor. Plywood walls with nails driven
into the tube before studs would be our clawss. It
had all the amenities of solitary confinement if you'd been
sent usd to prison on the little house on the prairie,
and I loved every inch of them. Craig whipped us
up a bit of eggs and bacon for dinner, since
(04:41):
we'd skipped breakfast. He cooked it on a small two
burner gas stove, brewed a pot of coffee, and toasted
some bread on the flat surface of the wood heater
he'd stoked up after we got settled in. Now we'll
have plenty of time to start our hunt this afternoon,
he said, it's legal to fly and hunt on the
sand day here in Manitoba. I'm in, but I want
(05:03):
to go shoot this rifle before we do. I want
to make sure this thing is still good to go.
After we finished Eden, but got our packs ready with
all the plunder we'd be token with us, and headed
off to the other end of the lake to check
the zero on my rifle. It was an issue that
had worried me since i'd left Little Rock the day before.
(05:24):
I checked it in at the ticket counter, and a
very helpful lady who crossed all the t's and dotted
all the eyes on my paperwork and printed my boarding
passes did everything but yell hulk smash when she slammed
my rifle case onto the conveyor belt behind the count
I swear it was so loud I thought it had
(05:45):
gone off in the box. The only thing that told
me different was knowing I'd removed the boat before I
secured the locks on the case. I wanted to throw Puncher,
but I wanted to stay out of jail more so
I settled on setting her on fire with my steely
eyed death laser stair as I walked away. That showed
her a mile down the lake, and three shots later
(06:08):
at one hundred yards and we were in business. I
had death raided, disintegrated, that articulated at the airport for nothing.
I felt bad about that. Not ready anyway, the hunt
was on. We settled into the boat and headed up
to the lake three miles to the northeast for our
(06:29):
first set. The wind and water sprayed a steady mist
over the back of the boat. It was cold on
my skin, and Dave stopped feeling ever so often to
wipe it off the lens of his camera. There was
so much to see and experience, and we were just
getting started. We stepped out of the boat onto a
big section of Manitoba granite and walked off into the
(06:53):
sponge covered muskeg and pete deposits that make you feel
every step in the small of your back until you
get acclimated to it properly. The air mattress that looked
thin and inefficient at first glance would be just what
the doctor ordered and a welcome sanctuary. Later that night,
the wind was howling. By dark that evening in all
(07:15):
of Craig's calls and grunts had gone unanswered. What I
didn't really understand at the time was that he was
more or less thrown out baits, so to speak, with
every call for the next day. We were positioned on
the edge of the lake, calling away from the water,
but the wind was carrying his calls across the lake
behind us. This was a twofold scenario. We might call
(07:40):
a bullion that was close to us on the same
side of the lake as we were, or the calls
that drifted three quarters of a mile behind us might
pull one onto the bank that we could see from
where we were. Also, a moose from two miles away
can hear the calls. Craig was periodically casting into the wind,
which could have a bull waiting in that area the
(08:02):
following morning. It's believed that the paddle portions of their
antlers act like hearing the ads directing sound to their ears,
and just like an old gobbler, here in one cluck
from one hundred yards away, a moose from over a
mile nose exactly where that sound came from. So even
if we didn't see or hear anything that afternoon, we
(08:23):
were laying groundwork for the hunts that would come next.
We made it back to camp, had supper and slipped
outside down to the edge of the lake to watch
the Northern Lights. I'd seen them twice before this trip,
once in Alaska a few years ago in August, and
once in Saskatchewan in late June. The Saskatchewan sighting was faint,
(08:44):
but it still counted, especially to someone who never dreamed
he'd get to see them more than once in a lifetime,
much less on more than one occasion. The best time
and place to see them in Manitoba is in Churchill
from January to March, but they're visible on average about
three hundred nights a year. We were less than one
(09:07):
hundred and fifty miles from there, and I was amped
to see them as I was a moose no kidding.
Churchill is also the best place to see a polar bear.
I had a hanker to see one of those two,
just not in the setting I was currently in. Also
not kidding, The lights didn't disappoint Dave, Craig and I
(09:29):
stood staring at the same spectacular vista in the sky,
each of us seeing differently or feeling differently about what
we saw. Called home later that night, talking to my
wife Alexis, and I struggled to come up with the
adjectives to accurately describe them. I realized it wasn't only
my limited vocabulary because of my struggle. Dave is first
(09:51):
and foremost a photographer. He's an excellent cinematographer, obviously, or
he wouldn't be there to begin with. But taking still
pictures is what he started out doing, and the rim
brand of the steel frame couldn't capture the totality of
what we were seeing. It was that overwhelming there. It
(10:12):
took me two weeks to come up with overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
But that's the best way I know to describe.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The next morning, we were up before the coffee got ready.
It had frosted heavy outside and lightly on the inside.
Craig stoked up the fire and had me prop at
the door opened in short order. The interior of our
fourteen by sixteen tarp covered cabin would hold all the
bee to us that little stove could turn out. Seeing
(10:49):
my breath when I woke up was a welcome sight
and vastly different from the long, hot summer that is
still taking place outside the house here in Arkansas. Our
departure would be delayed that morning due to a heavy
fog that only lessened throughout the day. And never completely
lifted until late in the afternoon. By midday, we'd ventured
(11:11):
out to the opposite side of the lake from the
evening before. We were three quarters of a mile from
where Craig had called less than twenty four hours ago,
and while we stood at the edge of the lake,
we heard the lonesome, melancholy sound of a cow moose,
followed by the grunts of a bull that was closing
the distance tour. Now both of them in the area
(11:33):
that would have been catching our wind long before they
came to us, so we opted out of trying to
lure them to our spot. It was still early in
the hunt and we had plenty of time. We slipped
back to camp after having been treated to the cause
of those moose and watching two dozen spruce grouse pick
up enough grit to make a little box for a tiger.
(11:56):
Those rascals were everywhere. We even had one struck by
like a boss gobbler that was so close I could
have kicked the field goal with him. It was quite
a show. That evening we bowted around with nothing to
show for moose, and as we passed the source of
a river that fed off the lake, Craig spotted a
moose from over five hundred yards away. I don't know
(12:18):
how he saw it, but he did. Finally directed me
and my binoculars into the area he was looking at,
and dad, come if I didn't see two of them, well,
pieces of two of them, as they stayed hidden except
for open patches here and there and a long way away,
one bull and one cow. Craig cut the engine and
we floated downstream and made a call, but the bull
(12:41):
never responded other than pushing her further down the river
and smashing some trees along the way. You could see
the tops of them shaking. Things were picking up, and
we had a starting point for in the morning. The
wind was forecasting to be perfect for a play down
that river. The next morning. The bull we saw would
(13:02):
probably still be in the area, and even if he
wouldn't leave her and come to us, another bull chasing
after her mike. We just needed the wind to cooperate.
The next morning was warmer than the day before. The
wind was blowing harder than it had since we'd gotten there,
but the direction was exactly like they'd forecasting it to be.
(13:23):
We built a pot of coffee and waited on daylight
and by the time you could see clearly across the lake.
We were pushing off the bank and motoring the short
ride toward the river. We pulled up on the bank
across the river from where we'd seen the pair of
the night before. Craig started calling every so often in
the Turkey woods. I called that prospect, just slinging a
(13:44):
call out, hoping for a response. We knew there had
been moose there the day before, but the landscape is unending.
They could be anywhere by now. It's kind of like
playing pool while wearing a blindfold. Being at the table
is only half the battle. You're just poking and hoping
something goes in. We sat on a point where you
(14:06):
could see the lake and down the river for over
a quarter of a mile until midday, and we hadn't
seen a hair of a moose. We had several trumpeter
swans fly so close overhead before we headed back to
the cabin. I felt like I could have wrecked them
out of the sky with a yard burn. Big beautiful
birds and more can I say? Craig fed us a
(14:29):
half a loaf of woodstove toast, three settings of eggs,
and enough bacon to rebuild the hog that came off
of For dinner, we retired to our spots for a nap,
and by three thirty that afternoon we were shoving off
the bank for the second time, headed to the point
on the river where we'd sat earlier. The wind was
honking like a New York City taxi driver was still
(14:51):
in our favor, and by four pm we were pulling
back up on the bank where we tied up that morning.
We eased down the bank to a dryer piece of
ground about thirty yards past where we'd sat the morning.
The temperature continued to warm in spite of the wind
coming off the lake. And by warm, I mean he
was in the mid sixties, which is Arkansas cool. But
(15:14):
we weren't in Arkansas, not by a long shot. Now,
Craig said, with the wind blowing like this, the moose
are more than likely bedded down. You figure they'll be
back in their feeting before dark if the wind starts
to lay just like yesterday, but probably not before then.
He said, we should get comfortable, but keep an eye
(15:35):
down the river. As warm as it is, they may
come out to drink. I fastened my rifle onto the
tripod and set it up where it would be adjusted
to me while standing, and I pointed it in a
safe direction away from where we were and found a
log ten yards away that would hold three fannies above
the wet ground. I sat down closest to my rifle.
(15:57):
Dave and Craig each had a spot a little further
down the log. Now, before I left Arkansas, I downloaded
a ballistics calculator app on my phone. My friend and
Sikh Sire engineer Matt Burns, who helped me citing my rifle,
set it up for me and helped me load all
the data from my rifle into the calculator. Now, when
(16:18):
I raised the target, I could input the data distance
to the target, wind elevation, and the calculator would tell
me how to adjust my scope for the yardage I
was shooting. Now, that's basic stuff for all you long
rifle shooters out there. But I ain't no rifle shooter.
I ain't never shot at a deer more than a
hundred yards away. I never went to sniper school. I'm
(16:40):
a bow hunter and all my police training and operations
was on the entry team close quarters battle. In bow hunting,
this was all new to me, but Matt had me
dialed in. We'd been there less than ten minutes, Dave
and Craig sitting to my left and me studying the
blistic sapp on my phone by putting into different yardages
(17:03):
and familiarizing myself with the data output. Really just killing
time waiting on the Golden hour. Dave and Craig were
talking about with the wind. I couldn't hear what they
were saying. I punched in some numbers and was staring
at my phone when I heard Craig say, there's a
bull on the river. Get your rifle. I looked up,
thinking he was messing with me, to see him spreading
(17:25):
by me, heading towards my rifle with a Dave in
hot pursuit. I glanced down the river and walking down
the timber was a dinosaur with moose antlers. The only
thing between that moose and the sun was the outside
of the moose. He was lit up like he was
in a movie, the sun turning the edges around him
(17:46):
a sharp yellow that glistened in the sun like like
a twelve hundred pound nugget of gold. I remember watching
him take his second step into the river when I
realized I needed to do what Craig said, and get
my rifle. I turned stepped over the log to get
my weapon. When Craig passed me again carrying it, and
Dave ride behind him with his camera on his shoulder recording.
(18:10):
I jumped behind the rifle settled the crosshairs on the
moose as he walked further out into the water. He
was knee deep a third of the way into the
stream and just standing there looking across the river at
the other bank. Craig ranged him and said four sixty.
I put four to sixty in the calculator. I read
the response and adjusted the scope turret. That moose didn't
(18:32):
look like he was four hundred and sixty yards away.
It looked like he was as close as the next
door neighbor. How far. Craig said four to sixty. Ranged
it twice. I checked the calculator and the scope turret sitting,
and I was right on it. I took a deep breath,
I exhaled most of it and clicked the safety off
and settled the crosshairs right behind the shoulder of the
(18:55):
biggest game animal I had ever looked at through a
scope and a hot weapon. I don't remember putting my
finger on the trigger, so when the rifle went off,
it surprised me. Bak, a six hour crosschambered in three
hundred PRC is a big round. It's a loud round.
(19:16):
But not only did it surprise me when it went off,
the sound was minimal at best, and the recoil not existed.
I heard the two hundred and twelve grand bullets slamm
into the moose, who, as far as I know, didn't
even flinch. I saw water kick up beyond where he stood,
and the river reinforcing what I just heard. I shot
(19:39):
right through him. I chambered another round and set the
crossairs once again. With the bull turned away from me,
face down, rivers still standing in the third of the
way out into the water. Time stopped. I could hear
my heart beating in my ears, and whether I sat
out louder in my head. I guess we'll find out
(20:01):
next year when we all watched the film. But I said,
if he turns either way, I've got him. Slowly, he
turned to the left and started to go back the
way he came, and once he was broadside, I sent
him another one. What I heard it hit him in
less than a second after I shot just like the
(20:21):
first time. If he flinched, I couldn't tell it. I
worked a bolt as fast as I could, and I
sent him another one. What he was now walking up
out of the water and disappeared on the bank into
the timber. A flood of emotion, amazement, disbelief, and wild
(20:42):
eyed excitement came over us. All now I can't tell
you what I said, because I don't remember, I recalled, saying,
I wish my brother Tim was with me. And I
scrambled to find the shell cases to give him. I
found one, and it's his. Got it with my life
until I got it home. And by the time he
(21:02):
hears this, he already have it in his pocket. We
waited twenty minutes before Craig said, let's go find your bull.
We loaded the boat and we drifted down river toward
where we'd last seen him. Played it over in my
mind a thousand times before we got there, and I
felt as confident as I'd ever been about shooting, but
(21:25):
intimidated by the monumental task that we'd all just undertake it.
What comes next? Are we going to have to track him?
How tough is this animal that just walked off toting
six hundred and thirty six grains of stopping laid down
that was traveling at almost twenty eight hundred feet per
second when it ran into him. Dave was in the
(21:46):
front of the boat, filming backward towards me in the middle,
and Craig running the motor. Dave saw him first, and
then Craig. I was straining my guts out, trying to
see what must be so painfully obvious to everyone else
in the boat. Where is this thing? I was searching
every inch I could see for a clue, and then
(22:07):
I saw him. He was fifteen feet from the edge
of the water, laying on the dry ground, and all
of a sudden, the guy that gets paid to talk
and tell stories couldn't think of anything to say. I
walked up to him and made sure he was dead.
(22:31):
Before I reached down to touch him. I stared at
this beautifully massive animal that laid in my feet. It
was a lot to take in. Now was when the
real work starts. But in a flash of consciousness, I
relived the last fifty something years of my hunting career
(22:52):
that all led to this pinnacle of accomplishment. I saw
all the people, friends, family, everyone that played even the
smallest role in getting me to the spot I was
now standing in on the bank of an unnamed river
that fed off an unnamed lake. I certainly didn't get
(23:14):
here by myself, and without all those people, my dream
hunt would still be just a dream. It took us
two and a half hours to skin quarter and remove
all the meat and loaded in the boat. We each
took our spots, with Dave setting beside me on the
(23:35):
way out. The sun was just fading away at dusk,
and it was easier to see and navigate the river
without any headlights. I sat there, still in grateful disbelief
in what I had just experienced outside of my family.
There's no way to top the feeling I was having
at that moment. And then I looked up. The northern
(24:02):
lights were out early, and they were brighter than they'd
been since we'd gotten there. They would shine a couple
more nights, but nothing like they did then. It was
a dancing ribbon of beauty, celebration, and gratitude, and it
made me feel very small and mostly insignificant, and not
(24:24):
in a bad way, more like it put me in
my place in the grand scheme of things. I was
affected by that trip in the purest way. While it
was somewhat emotionally intimidating, it solidified my position as a
participant in the daily grind for survival in a place
where survival isn't easy. Once the hunt was over, we'd
(24:49):
flown back and we left Dave and I dropped off
all the meat except for the backstraps at the meat
station in Ericsdale, Manitoba. I'll be picking the rest of
it up later this year when Craig brings it down
when he goes grocery shopping with his rifle into the
lower forty eight. The skull and hide I left with
Thomas Myers in Stonewall, Manitoba. I'm having it tanned and
(25:13):
skull clean. That skull will hang on my new office wall,
and in that form, it's my way of tipping my
hat to the folks to send me there. The backstraps
I had frozen and stuffed them into two thirty quartz
soft coolers and flew home with them. One backstrap in
each one weighed forty nine pounds and the other fifty one.
(25:38):
One hundred pounds of the purest protein around that tastes
better than ice cream. It is so good well, there
you have it, The Moussa. But wait, there's more. You'll
get to see it next year. Is a feature length production,
and I can't wait for you to see it. I'm
(25:59):
proud out of what I believe we captured in a
place where everywhere you look is a picture and every
sound you hear is a song. Thank you so much
for listening to me. Backwards University and Bear Grease. There's
some new This Country Life t shirts available on the
website if you like that sort of thing, and the
tickets are going fast on the Mediator Live tour that's
(26:22):
dipping down south of the Mason Dixon. I plum give
out after all that until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Host
Clay Newcomb
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