Made a little something for my moose hunt

RRMan said:

You mind sharing the prices? How far in advance did you have to book?

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In my experience, the good outfitters book up at least a year in advance. I know that Alberta Wilderness Guide Service was booked out 3 years due to their fine reputation with traditional archery hunters. What is good about that kind of wait is that it gives you time to come up with the cash to pay off the hunt. If you book way in advance, most outfitters only want a nominal down payment. I've been paying on this moose hunt for 18 months and sent my last check in last week.

So what are the costs? A lot of times it is hard to compare prices because some hunts are 5 days long, some 8, some 10. Also, some prices include tags and taxes and some don't. This is what I have learned about moose hunts. The cheapest hunt is a DIY affair in Alaska. However, that has its own set of problems too numerous to go into here. Those are nonexistent if you hire an outfitter. The cheapest outfitter hunts are in Newfoundland where you can book with a reputable outfitter for $5K-$6K. Those hunts are also the shortest with most being 5 days. The success rate is really high for rifle hunters. You really have to be choosy if you are a bowhunter, though, because hardly anyone bowhunts on that island so getting a guide who understands your sport is tough. Also you have very unpredictable weather to contend with. I have heard several horror stories where folks who have booked a remote hunt were stuck in base camp for 2-3 days because of weather.

Moose hunts are more expensive the farther west and north you go, especially north. Alberta and British Columbia are very bowhunting-friendly provinces. Most of their moose are of the Canadian variety. However, in the northern part of their provinces, there is some interbreeding between Canadian and Yukons which means bigger animals. It's also a logistical nightmare to get up there from Missouri. Almost all the western hunts are 8-10 days. I paid $8K for my 8-day hunt. That is pretty much the going rate in the southern half of BC. Alberta is a little cheaper, maybe a grand or so. The terrain is much less brutal than what Newfoundland can be. If you have mobility issues you can still have a good hunt out west. I have a steeper walk to my mailbox than what I saw the entire time I was in Alberta!

I want to talk a little bit about the logistics of a moose hunt. That is one big animal and it's a lot of work to get it out of the bush! If you have an outfitter, they will take care of the lion's share of that work by making sure the meat is processed and ready to go with you when you leave. If you're in the wilds of Alaska by yourself, it's all on you and you really need to think about how you're gonna wrangle a 1500 pound carcass around while keeping the grizzly bears off of it. If you have driven to your hunting destination then you can drive your meat back. If you're in Alaska, you can ship the meat back through various services. If you're in Newfoundland, you can have it trucked back at a reasonable rate. The downside is you may have to wait a couple months before that truck makes the trip and you then may have to drive a distance to get to a city where that truck is dropping your meat off. If you are in BC or Alberta and have flown up then any meat you bring back MUST be flown back as extra baggage. That can get very expensive. In Alberta, I flew back with 2 bags, 1 moose head, and 5 50-lb tubs of frozen meat. My luggage bill was a little over $1300. Fortunately, I knew what it was going to cost me ahead of time and I had already accepted the fact. It's simple math. Just go to your airline carrier's website and look up their luggage rates. Then you can decide how much meat you can afford to bring back home. Oh, and this rate doubles if you choose to hunt in the northern parts of BC or Alberta because you cannot get a direct flight there from here. You have to book a charter flight in addition to your regular flight and they have their own set of rules and prices for luggage. I will be flying into Prince George, BC and that alone is a nightmare with 3 layovers and a flight length of 12 hours. If I was hunting north then I would either rent a car and drive another 8 hours or book a pricey charter flight.

I know the money involved in one of these hunts scares off most people but it's really not bad if you bite it off in manageable pieces over time. The main hurdle to get over is to just commit to go and then do your homework. Trust me, it is all worth it. You cannot believe how massive these animals are until you have one standing next to you at about 5 yards! And when you hear a bull grunting and watch him thrash the brush - man, that gets your heart racing! It's also the best wild meat I have every eaten so it was worth every penny I spent to get it all home. You only live once so you might as well make all your dreams come true that you can.

That's all I got to say about that,

Darren