My Back Yard: Spilling Blood Under a Super Blood Wolf Moon

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Spilling Blood Under a Super Blood Wolf Moon

Bryan, Ernie, Herb, and myself warming our bones. Photo by Rach.

Super moon: When the moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit. The moon appears larger.
Blood moon: During a lunar eclipse the moon appears reddish orange.
Wolf moon: The first full moon of the new calendar year.

My feet were cold. It was 20 below zero and I had the wrong boots on. My black bunny boots that I wished were on my feet were 35 miles away in the truck, hanging out, chillin. The weather forecast had called for milder temperatures and, like an idiot, I believed it.
We were several miles from the warmth of the wood stove by now and I was starting to have my doubts. “Do we really want to shoot a moose if it’s this cold?” I wondered. I looked back at my dad and his Elmer Fudd rabbit fur hat was loose on his head but his Kylo Ren goggle/facemask setup was high and tight. “Maybe we should come back next weekend when it is warmer,” I thought.
We were winter moose hunting in unit 16b. The tier 2 moose tag is for any bull and we were excited to be on-the-hunt. Each year we proxy-hunt for our friend Jim Lanier and we look forward to it immensely.
Just then I saw a moose to my left. We were winding our way down a trail that parallelled a slough of the river. “Cow...darn-it!” I was a little disappointed but then another moose caught my eye. The second moose ran away from me and I could clearly see his “junk” swaying from behind. Since most of the bulls have lost their antlers at this point, hunters must use other clues to determine whether a moose is legal or not. Hanging cock- and-balls is one way (although at 20 below said equipment is high-and-tight as would be expected of any male mammal), the other is to spot the tell-tale antler “nubs” on the forehead. These nubs can be hard to see unless you have a spotting scope.
It wasn’t long before I had this moose in my sights but I wasn’t sure if it was the same moose. I had to be sure that it was a bull. After studying it through the 30.06 scope for five minutes I decided to get off the snowmachine and walk closer. After several minutes of close observation I was able to clearly see the antler nubs on both sides..... “BOOM!” A carefully placed head shot dropped the young bull in the snow.
We decided that a trip to the cabin was in order to warm-up and to fetch my black UHMW sled. After warming our bones by the fire, we returned and rolled the moose onto the sled, tied it on proper, and then began towing it back to the cabin.
A winter moose hunt can be an easy affair with all the right tools. Besides our Skandic super wide track snow machines with winches mounted to the back, we had my ten foot long black plastic sled, a snow shovel, Dad’s 30.06, a multitude of knives, a bone saw and some game bags; We were set. Before long we had the guts rolled out of the moose on the creek below the cabin and the blood pool was easily scooped out of the rib cavity with a snow shovel. The dark red puddle of blood released its steam and slowly disappeared into the snowpack.
It wasn’t until later-on that I realized that our carnivorous activities had occurred under perhaps the most ominous of full moons. Around the world there are all kinds of superstitions surrounding eclipses, super moons and wolf moons.

The Mayan people, for example, perceived lunar eclipses as fearful times and they would abstain from normal activities because they were afraid of the eclipse causing supernatural events, such as tools coming to life and attacking their owner. With our full kit of tools we would have our hands full. I’m not a particularly superstitious person, but spilling blood under a super blood wolf moon seemed pretty cool nonetheless.