This story actually starts back in 2019. I had booked a hunt for Canadian Moose with an Outfitter in Newfoundland at the summer of 2019 to take place the following year. Several weeks after the initial booking, I had some trouble getting ahold of the outfitter regarding some final arrangements; he eventually got back to me and informed me that he had gotten into a bit of trouble with the local government and they had stripped him of his outfitter license, so he would be unable to take me the following fall. I started scrambling to find another outfitter, after reaching out to several with no response I was contacted by a gentleman who offered the style of hunting I was looking for; tough, remote and centered after a trophy moose and black bear if the opportunity presented itself. Moose is highly prized across the majority of Canada, with residents who draw a tag usually preferring to hunt the roads to take a small bull or, where legal, a cow, to fill the freezer, so certain areas with good access are hammered pretty hard by the locals, so I wanted to avoid those outfits catering to resident hunters from the mainland.

As with most other things, when Covid hit in the spring of 2020, Canada closed its borders up water tight, with access severely restricted. I had recruited two friends to go with me and the call was made to all parties pushing it off until 2021. That year came and went and access to the Country was shut down to non-residents, so we again had to push to the following year. In 2022 Canada opened its borders to the vaccinated who were able to provide a negative covid test, but I felt it was still too risky a time to be traveling internationally, so again we made the decision to push it off one more year. In the spring of this year all vaccine requirements were dropped, so the dates were finalized and the countdown began....


We were booked for the 1st week of October, which was supposed to be prime time for the rut. After batting .1000 on my last 4 bow hunts, I made the decision to forgo the rifle on this trip and try to take a moose with my bow. Hours of research online, both video and text, confirmed this should be a reasonable animal to take with a bow as cover is dense and encounters are typically at a short range. Some specialty gear was purchased, time was put in practicing as the countdown begun to our departure......

1st week of October?

The time gets short and eventually the day of departure arrives. I pack up all my gear, load up the bow and head off for the airport. The flights were relatively uneventful until we got to Toronto. Air Canada is, from my understanding, the main airline in country. We had several delays, including a down plane, but after a short delay in which we were able to have a few drinks, we were able to load up onto the plane to make our way to Deer Lake, NF, where we would overnight. We took our seats and prepared for take-off.....and waited, and then waited some more. The official excuse was that we were waiting for the concierge to bring the in flight meal (which was only a 2:30hr flight) and could not take off until it was on board. Almost 2 hours later, spent idling on the tarmac, the food carts were loaded and we were able to take off. 7/8ths of the plane was filled with hunters headed to "The Rock" for a week of hunting, which was supposed to touchdown shortly after 12am. Well, it ends up touching down closer to 3. Bags are quickly unloaded we make our way off the plane and into the terminal to wrangle up our gear to catch a cab to the hotel.

We grab our stuff and call the hotel to request a shuttle. Well, we were informed that the hotel shuttle was off line and we would have to catch a cab. There were about 30 hunters outside waiting and only two cabs were working. We buddied up with another couple and after an hour and a half of waiting we finally flagged down a cab willing to stop, loaded up and off we went to the hotel.



We check in and immediately go to our rooms. Sleep came fast and the next morning we got prepared to get picked up by the outfitter and make our way to camp, which was a few hours East of Deer Lake




to be continued manana'.....

Good story.

Waiting for the results. Good luck.

Following....

Newfoundland, where Moose outnumber people and has its own time zone a half hour different than the Canadian East coast.

Interested in the rest of the story. I had a NF moose hunt booked for 2020 as well and haven't rebooked yet.

So after a brief wait in the lobby of the hotel, where I chatted with some fellow hunters about their lost luggage, the outfitter pulled up and we were whisked away to the lakeside lodge. The town of Deer lake is a mid-size town of about 8000 people, and is neat as a pin. Once you leave city proper, however its mostly just a long stretch of road, surrounded by low mountains, beautiful spruce, birch (aspen) and pine trees interspersed by many lakes and rivers. The scenery is reminiscent of Colorado in many areas, save for the large mountain peaks.

A little under 2 hours later, we pulled up to the cabin , which overlooked a beautiful lake that just a few other cabins were located on. Covid hit many outfitters really hard, with no income for two years, so the outfitter was forced to liquidate 4 of his other camps, leaving just two remaining. We would use this camp as a base and then drive out every morning to the hunting areas.




We were joined by a father and son duo from Tennessee, along with a hunter from South Florida who actually drove all the way up there. After confirming that the rifles were still on zero, we have a few drinks and settle in for the next morning, which for me would begin at 4 am.

Day 1:

The alarm goes off and I roll out of bed. Breakfast is fried Canadian bacon (which is a personal favorite of mine) fried eggs and toast. After breakfast we load up into my guide Daniel's truck to drive over to his house about 45 min away to grab his ATV and then head over to the hunting grounds. After grabbing the bike, we drive another 20 min, when we pull off the pavement and go down a two track gravel road, after a mile or two, we stop, unload the bike and head off on a two track that gradually starts to disappear. We turn off toward a slight opening in the woods when I realize this is the trail we are going to take. For the next 45 min we drive the bike up a trail I would hesitate to take a saddle horse up. Eventually, we reach the edge of a beautiful meadow, park the bike, grab our gear and begin to walk.


Only it isn't a beautiful meadow....its a bog. A wet, soggy, swampy bog. We trudge thru this bog, taking each step carefully, because the hole you step in could barely cover your boot or it could swallow you up to your knee. Slogging thru the bog, one step at a time, we eventually reach the start of a mountain, which believe it or not, is only slightly less wet than the bog. We take a trail up the mountain to the edge of a ridge where we can look out and glass for moose feeding below:





We sit and glass until about noon, seeing a few moose right at sunrise but they bed down fairly quick. We trudge back to the ATV to head to another spot. We go over to an old, abandoned asbestos mine that is enormous. Sitting on the edge of the mine, we glass for moose, but I also take in the magnificent view of the North Atlantic. The sun begins to set and the shadows get a little long, and around sunset we head back to the bike to begin the journey back to camp



This is how they gain a better vantage point when glassing, we are looking for moose along the edge of the bogs when they come to feed. Much like hunting here on the mainland for Deer and Elk

Day 2:

The second day brings another 4 am wake up call. The forecast called for rain, and I'll say their meteorologist is a lot better at his job than ours. We go pick up the bike (the road into camp is rough and he doesn't want the additional wear on his truck or bike, so we pick it up and drop it off every day) and head out. We head back to the same spot we were the day before, I decided to strap my bow to my pack and strap the pack to the bike rack on the back. I'm glad I did this, as we slowly drove up the horse trail, we hit a rock that was hidden by some moss, and the bike promptly tumped over. We roll the bike back over and continue our journey. After glassing for about an hour and only seeing 1 moose, we head out to another spot. We head back to the main trail, load the bike up and move locations. This one we park next to the trail head and walk in. I notice that there is zero traffic at these points of entry. Its set up very much like public land out west where its open to the public but outfitters have concessions where they can operate exclusively in. At this point, the only other hunters Ive seen were two local guys who walked down into one of the bogs for a quick look around the first morning. We hike to the top of one of the tallest peaks around that offered a 360* view of the surrounding country




Even though we are on top of this mountain, things are still soggy. The rain isn't heavy, more like a heavy drizzle, but with everything being saturated already it might as well have been a monsoon. My guide is 27 years old, about 5'7, 130 lbs and is an absolute machine. He is lazer focused, can fly thru the bog as if he has webbed feet and can climb like a mountain goat. Climbing up this spongy, wet mountain, I had to come to grips with the fact that I'm not in my 20's anymore. While far from crippled, I can tell I'm not as springy and spry as I was a decade ago. I didn't specifically train for this trip, although I stay in pretty good shape year round so I wasn't worried about it, the altitude at most was 1000' above sea level, some areas only 70' ASL, so that wasn't an issue, but the constant strain on your legs of having to walk across these bogs and spongy areas was exhausting. Think of having to walk across the mud flats in Baffin bay, that would be a good equivalent to walking across the bogs. Coupled with the lack of life in this part of the world, I was begining to struggle mentally and keep my head in the game. This is a pretty sterile enviromment....very few birds (no ducks or geese on any of the lakes, only Grey Jays, a few Crows and the occasional Grouse you would flush up), a squirrel or two and moose. Thats it. This island has more moose per sq. mile than anywhere in the world, but by nature they are a low population animal so its not like they are around every tree either. We glass up a few small four point bulls and a cow, but nothing we want to go after.


We hike back down the mountain and head to another spot on foot. We drop down and get into the bogs, walking along the edge of the openings calling and scraping (take a moose antler and scratch trees with it, similar to a form of rattling). This is a very slow and tedious process and a scraping session can take an hour or more, with you having no where to sit, you just stand there and look and listen. We do this for several hours, but as the rain starts to increase and moose activity drops to nothing, around 3 pm we call it and head back to camp to dry off, as I'm soaked from head to toe, my boots have taken on water and I'm hungry

Day 3:

We arose at our usual 4:00 and headed back to the original spot we were at on the first day. This morning was clear and cool, 180 degree difference from the day before. Immediately we spotted moose, first several cows and then a very nice bull. Daniel shimmied up a tree to get a better look and spied another bull about a mile away to the east of where we were. We gave them some time to bed down, before we began our descent to go look for the bull. We had last seen him go into a group of trees with two cows and did not see him come out, so we were fairly certain he was still in there as we started off into the bog.





We make it to the trees and can hear several cows and a bull talking. Swirling winds are making it tough to form a stalk plan, we scrap and call for over an hour and no response. After another 45 min or so we decide to abandon this group and go over and see if the other bull is still there. We start off on the 1+ mile bog trot and after what seems like an eternity, find a spot of semi-dry ground to stop and eat lunch. We scarf down a few sandwiches and keep walking to a few scraggly spruce trees emerging from the swamp.

Daniel pulls out the antler and starts scraping. Immediately we hear several cow calls, a call that Daniel says they make when they are trying to get a bull to come back. We check the wind and make a semi-circle around a group of trees. We stop, wait and scrape, and hear a tremendous ruckus in the bush that sounds like two bull dozers going at it. After a few min we get a glimpse of a young bull walking away....we call to him and cannot get him to look our way. Convinced there is another bull there we keep scraping and calling and see another young bull moving thru the trees. This one is on a mission as well and disappears into the bush as fast as he appeared. We continue glassing the bush and then we see what we came for....

Looking forward to the rest of the story.

Cont. Day 3:

So we see the bull looking at us from about 90 yards out. We continue to call and make our semi-circle to close the distance. Somewhere during the previous two days, I had lost my hand held range finder, but had my Vortex Razor 5000's in my chest rig, so I could at least range the beast. We call and he starts to come in, slowly but at a steady pace. We stop next to some short spruce as he emerges to a spot with enough opening I felt comfortable with and he stops, range him, first read says 30.9 yards, the second 30.2. I draw back and settle my 30 yard pin behind his shoulder, hit the trigger on the release and watch the arrow sail perfectly.....right underneath him. I cannot believe that I shot under him, neither can Daniel. He is startled but not spooked and he runs about 40 yards...we give it a min and then start calling to him again.

We walk up to where the arrow was laying on the ground and he starts coming back, this time with 3 cows in tow. He gets between two spruce trees and I range him again....It reads 30 yards again but this time he is much closer, the original shot was probably closer to 55 or 60 yards.



He starts to walk and I think I'm going to get a 30 yard broadside shot when he decides to turn and start walking away....I draw back and wait for him to stop, but he never breaks stride. I let down and watch him walk off at a steady pace.

Heartbroken and in disbelief about what just happened, we trudge back a few hundred yards to retrieve our packs. We stop and start talking and running thru the scenario, what caused the rangefinder to mis-read, why didn't he come in, etc. when we hear a loud crash at the edge of the bog and watch him emerge about 130 yards away and walk down the treeline. We call to him again but at this point he's figured something is up and he turns and walks into the dark timber and out of my life. I can't help but feel that a little bit of karma came my way, minutes prior to me encountering the bull, I was texting my wife via my InReach. These trips I take are a little hard on her as we have 3 kids, she runs her own business independent of mine and has a lot on her plate. She sent me a snarky reply to one of my texts, against my better (and conscious) judgement, I sent her a snarky one back. 20 min later I have a range finder snafu and can't help but think if that was my comeuppance for the text.



We finish the rest of the hunt that day and ride home in silence. When we get back to camp we find that several hunters had had some luck, with one really nice bull being taken. Hoping to get back on him tomorrow, we make a plan to go back to our vantage point to try and find him and then sneak back down and put an arrow in him.


Note the ridge we had to go over to get back to the bike:

Day 4:

That night the wind had switched and was blowing the opposite direction. One of the guys in camp offered to loan me his rifle, which I politely declined. As I was eating breakfast, the camp elder mentioned that I should take the rifle, he's a big bull and I'll regret not taking a gun if we see him out of bow range. Normally I'm very reluctant to switch weapons, but I decided this was a sign from the Lord that I needed to heed, So I borrowed the rifle and headed out.

We make it back to the vantage point and start glassing. Animal activity is very slow with only one cow moose being seen. We walk back to the bike and begin our decent (tumping the bike once more) and coming around to approach the bog from a different direction. We enter the bush and begin our routine of calling, scraping and standing. We stand in one spot for almost two hours, listening to the odd cow call and squirrel chatter. I find a stump to sit down on and actually fall asleep in the thinking man pose. We hear a few grunts of a bull but are unable to turn up anything with antlers. We have a close encounter with a cow at around 5 yards, and later a cow and calf pair that we met at bog intersection.....the mom was not to pleased to see us and we got out of there with a bit of haste.




We go check another area close to dark, but turn up no moose


Now we are getting down to the wire. Daniel has been working his arse off and is flustered as well as to the lack of moose sightings. We talk and decided to go back to the big mountain where we can glass for miles around and see if we can spot a bull. The weather is predicted to turn warm with an afternoon high of around 70 degrees, so conditions are not looking good for us.

Day 5:

We make the long walk up the big mountain. By this time I am tired of the walks thru the bog, the constant moisture, the lack of overall wildlife, lack of bull moose, I'm over it all. Daniel takes off at his usual lightning speed and I slowly make my way behind him, when I arrive he is already set up and has spotted a bull well over a mile away on a distant bog. We continue to glass and we hear a bull down below us about 300 yards, but due to the angle cannot see him. After 4 or 5 grunts, we decide to make a play on him.


We make a big semi-circle around the mountain to account for the wind and bail off down the side.

Once down in the bog, we start calling and Daniel makes a few scrapes on a tree. Praying to God to give me an opportunity, We give it 30 min without much action. Suddenly, we hear a bull grunt. Shortly after we can hear something walking. Hoping this will be my chance at redemption, I quietly as possible chamber a round, shoulder the rifle and get ready....I see him now and I can almost see his rack......when he turns and looks at me, I can see he is a 4 point bull. Standing only 30 yards away, I am dejected. I let him walk and talk to Daniel, asking if he thinks there is another bull in the area? Its starting to get warm, sun is out, when the bull comes back and stands in an opening about 80 yards away. Knowing Daniel did not draw a bull tag for the year, I ask him if he would be interested in sharing any of the meat, and upon confirmation that he would be more than happy to, I settle the crosshair on the bull's foreleg. Weighing the decision on whether or not to shoot, I ultimately decide this is the one the Lord put in front of me, its the last day and the
weather is not going to improve, and the only other bull we saw is over a mile away with no guarantees on him even being there if we walk over, I tighten up on the stock and let it fly. The bullet hits the bull and he drops, then flips over. We both jump up and share a bro hug, then start to walk up over to him. I find that he is still alive, so I put a finisher in his neck and it is done. Now this is were the real fun begins:






By fun, I mean that in a literal sense. For me, handling such a big animal is a cool experience. I roll him over, grab my knife and begin to gut him. Daniel comments that he has never had a client clean his own moose before. We get him gutted, I hand Daniel the knife and he removes the windpipe.

Taking stock of the situation, he really wants to get this animal out in one shot. We are in a location that we think we can get the bike over to, so we sprint up the hill, gather our packs and walk back to the truck to unload the bike. We set a goal of getting the bull out in 2 hrs so off we go thru the bog to the animal. We get back to the carcass with a chainsaw and portable sawsall, and get to work. Using just the knife, we cut the animal in half behind the 3rd rib and load up his back side on the back and the front side on the front.



We are not on a monster quad either, this is a Can Am 570 that is more nimble than brutish. We shove the head inside the cavity and off we go, Daniel slowly maneuvering the bike thru the woods and me walking behind with the chainsaw.

Day 5 continued:

We are loaded and off we go!




We are taking things very slow as to not tip the bike, because with the moose on it there is no way we can roll it back over. He maneuvers over the uneven terrain with me walking behind and when we hit open bog I hop on for a quick hitch until its time for me to get off. Several times we approach deep holes, fire up the saw and cut pine saplings to literally bridge over the holes to keep moving forward. We get stuck in one bog hole but are able to push it out. Shortly after we come up to another one and build our sapling bridge, only to miss one spot and have the back end fall in. Stuck again, we roll out the winch cable only to find out that its not making connection. We sure up our footing, give it a big shove and feather the throttle and the machine crawls out under its own power. By this time we are home free, we slowly make our way back to the truck and load it up in the bed. Total time was 2:45hr from start to finish on the recovery.

To me, the recovery process was the funnest part of the whole hunt. Such a cool experience and I would have shot the baby bull all over again to be able to be a part of that.

We get back to camp and they get to work on getting the bull quartered and hunt in the meat shed




that night, we enjoy a few beers and get prepared for the travel ahead of us the next day...

Day 6- Headed Home:


Saturday I slept in, which was much appreciated. After a breakfast and some last minute paperwork concerning the moose, we hop in the truck to go back to Deer Lake to our hotel, where we have to catch a 5am plane the next morning. I am finally able to achieve a lifelong dream of eating at a Tim Hortons and it is every bit as wonderful as I could have imagined.




We grab dinner and drinks and settle in for the 3 am wake up call the next morning. When the alarm sounds, we get loaded up in the taxi where it whisks us away to the airport, we board and head to Toronto.


I won't bore you with the events that transpired on the way home, lets just say I do not want to relieve it. 6 hours spent in U.S Customs in Toronto, a lost bow, a lost gun and two lost bags. Almost missed our flight back to Dallas with minutes to spare. You would think air travel would be more streamlined in 2023 but that is not the case. I arrived home in Boerne just after 7pm, happy to be home.



The Takeaway:

Enjoyed the hunt and enjoyed the company. Everyone in Newfoundland was a joy to be around and the camp was filled with good guys. The hunt itself; not as exciting as I would have liked, largely due to the soggy, sterile environment and lack of overall animals. Beautiful country though. I just did not care for all the moisture and I was happy to get home. Outfitter I was happy with and I could not have asked for a better Guide, Daniel gets an A+ in my book.

Winners and Losers of the trip:

Winners- Kennetrek Boots (I really needed to be wearing fitted rubber boots but I thought I knew better, they only took on water one day and even then kept my feet warm) Kuiu Ridgepoint Fleece Jacket (amazing fleece jacked, worth every penny) Firstlite Catalyst pants, Kuiu Divide 1500 pack, Kuiu bow sling and string cover, Can Am/BRP off road machines (the abuse this bike takes is unreal) Toyota Trucks, U.S Customs and Border Patrol ( good people and not the cause of the delay)

Losers- Vortex Optics. I'm done with Vortex. I don't care how good their warranty is, if you have to continue to fall back on your customer service, you need a better product. Buddy has a probably 20 year old pair of Swavroski's that I did a side by side comparison and the glass in the Vortex isn't even in the same league as the Swaro's. Head and shoulders difference. I'm not blaming the miss entirely on the Bino's, but its def. a contributing factor. At best, it picked up something else like a small tree in between me and the bull, but it should not have as I had a clear line of sight. Beyond that, they were dark and constantly fogging up in the nasty conditions. Air Canada, if you can fly a different airline or drive there, do that, its less hassle.

Great write up txtrophy85. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Glad you boys made it home safe and sound. Making memories is worth the price of admission. Congrats on your harvest.

Enjoyed the write up very much. Thanks for taking us along with you. Which Vortex broke down on you?

The Fury 5000 HD.

I've had several vortex products over the years. These started out great but I've noticed they have gotten darker over the past two years.


They are not a bad product and will work fine for the deer hunting most of us do. I just expected more from them and missing a range by 25 yards at that distance is unacceptable. Like I said, I won't fully put the blame entirely on them as there may have been some operator error, but I've used a rangefinder enough to really doubt I was the reason.

I have one more paid hunt for next year then I will be taking a hiatus from travel trips for awhile, wrestling with buying just a regular pair of Swavroski’s or biting the bullet and get the rangefinding ones

Thanks for the report.

I enjoyed following along txtrophy. Thanks for sharing your hunt with us.

Sounds like a great trip, thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing your trip, really enjoyed your experience.