Born in Alaska in 1993 · 30,000+ sold · Ships across the U.S. and to Canada
Born in Alaska in 1993 · 30,000+ sold · Ships across the U.S. and to Canada
THE METHOD, DAY BY DAY
THE IDEA
This is one part of how to call a moose, and it is the part most hunters get wrong before they ever make a sound. Wayne has run it for about fifteen years: decide where you are hunting, then stay there. Moose hear extraordinarily well and can pinpoint exactly where a sound came from. Bulls have walked into his calling spot hours after he left it, and sometimes a day or two later. You do not need to find them. You need to be somewhere worth them coming to, and still be there when they arrive.
If there are legal bulls within two or three miles (sometimes further with the right wind), three days is almost always enough to bring one in.
THE PLAN
GROUND
Country above timberline overlooking swamps and mixed birch and willow. Natural drainages with ponds or beaver dams are especially good. Moose like water and feed on pond weed.
Look for fresh sign: tracks, droppings, beds, rubs, scrapes, scent pits. Major game trails and old rubs from previous years prove the area out.
QUIET
Away from ATVs, boats, aircraft and crowds. It is harder and more expensive every year and it still matters: the granddaddy of all bulls coming to your call can be run off by any of them.
Worse, in heavily pressured country moose turn nocturnal and wait until well after dark to investigate you at all.
SETUP
Choose the lookout first. This is where you will spend ninety per cent of every daylight minute for three days.
Then pick two or three calling spots 100 to 300 yards out from it, near the sign. Several spots mean you always have one with the right wind, and calling from more than one place sounds like more than one animal.
Camp close to the lookout. First and last light are prime, and you do not want to spend them walking.
DAY ONE
Camp up, lookout chosen and calling spots picked by 2 p.m. if you can, 4 p.m. at the latest.
Then call in the middle of the afternoon, even though little is likely to happen before evening: you want to be first on the list of party spots a listening bull decides to visit. If your thrashing reaches him first, he is liable to check you out first.
Glass hard, thrash twenty to thirty minutes at a calling spot, return to the lookout. Repeat every two to three hours, then hourly for the last three sessions. Finish thirty to forty-five minutes before dark and stay watching until you cannot see to shoot.
DAYS TWO AND THREE
Back in the lookout at daybreak; call as soon as it is light enough to see, partly to check whether a bull came in overnight. Second session an hour later, then back to two-to-three-hour intervals.
Do not go slack at midday. Bulls are often bedded before your first morning call, and midday is when they come to investigate it. Wayne’s crews keep the lookout manned all day and take almost half their bulls at midday, often right at noon.
With a partner, one of you stays in the lookout. They will see a bull answering that you cannot.
Flying a hunter in on 28 August, Wayne passed a 65-inch bull three or four miles up-river from camp, beating a bush apart and scraping off the last of his velvet. Too early in the season to chase, so they left him for opening day. That afternoon they cut firewood with a double-bladed axe in an old burn two hundred yards from camp. The bull turned up in the exact spot they had been cutting, at last light the same day.
He has also seen a man drop a bull fifteen feet from his cabin, one that walked in to the sound of him nailing the hinges back on a door that had blown off in a storm.
NEXT
That is normal, and it is the whole reason for the three days. A bull can hear you on day one and not walk in until day two. Give it as much time as you can, and do not get lax in the middle of the day.
If you are getting answers but bulls are hanging up out of range, that is a different problem, and a fixable one.
Wayne Kubat, Alaska Master Guide #147. Assistant guide from 1981, registered guide since 1986, and the designer of the Bull Magnet® moose call. About Wayne
Wayne’s own is a moose call born in Alaska in 1993 and made in the USA. It carries your calls, thrashes brush, and takes the season.
