Salmon fishing & fly tying on the Miramichi...

Sunday 30 September 2012

The Mother Of All Blinds or MOAB for short..

In my last 2 posts I referred to the MOAB which is short for 'Mother Of All Blinds'... last year we needed to rebuild Tom's number 1 blind so we decided to make one that was big, comfortable and would last a long time. The first version of this blind was build up at our deer hunting camp and it has stood the test of time so we decided to make a mirror image of it 8'x8' and 12 to 14 feet to the floor up on moose mountain. Here's a few pictures of the process.

We prefabricated it at home and folded it up and brought it to Tom's in a trailer:












And that's the deal on the Mother Of All Blinds.




Moose Season or: How I learned to stop worrying and Love the Hunt - the conclusion

We were almost back to the camp when Rick's phone rang, it was Tom and he had a moose down, he was also out of shells! Ha! So we headed up the hill to the MOAB - everywhere you go on the mountain is up hill in both directions - even when you go down hill you still end up walking up somewhere along the way!

As Rick and I reached the MOAB we looked to our right and this is what we saw:


He was right where Tom emptied his rifle into him, about 30 yards from the blind! As we skinned the old brute we saw that 1 shot would have more than likely done the job but as my grandfather always told me, do what you got to do to knock him down -- even if there's only enough left for hoof soup!

Tom excitedly told us the story about what had happened and this fellow came down right from where the neighbors are -- which was a bit of poetic justice really, based on the previous day's shenanigans of them driving all over the place calling within earshot of our 2 blinds -- take that, neighbors! =)

Yours truly:


Tom and Art:


Rick and Art  are father & son -- a couple of really great fellas too - i'd hunt or fish with them anyday!


Dad, Tom and I:


The view from the blind of where the moose dropped:



The view from the blind of where he came from:


Tom and his John Deere:


Genuine Ford Parts -- and he sure is!


Dad, Tom and I:


Worn out hoof:



It was a great hunt, spent with a good old friend and a couple new ones. I look forward to spending time at Tom's place and wish I had more time to go more often. He's always an incredible host and makes us feel right at home. Thanks again, Tom! Art and Rick, it was a pleasure to meet you gents and get to hunt with you. I'd jump at the chance to do it again!

Now that the hunt is officially over I have to say how lucky we were to have a day like Friday... the weather was perfect, the neighbors had screwed off somewhere and that old bull cooperated. A lot of things had to happen just right for the day's events to turn out the way they did. As with most things in life there are no guarantees, especially on a moose hunt. If you look at the weather for this years 3 day event, Thursday was windy as hell and Saturday was windy AND rainy all day. Thank goodness for Friday!

I'm not sure how the hollywooders on the base made out, but I am both relieved and happy that Tom was able to connect at his place instead of having to join them.

What a great hunt! And I never thought of salmon fishing the whole time =)