| We had our required moose class, last Thursday. The head biologist
recommended that we contact the National Forest district ranger, for
our zone. They will be able to direct us away from any areas that are
restricted to hunting, possibly gives us some areas that support moose
and hopefully if we are successful, they might open a barred access
road to make the retrival a little easier. I've made a couple of trips
to the area and seen one moose without getting out of the car. Now the
serious scouting trips will start.
->>>>-------->
Mike
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| Sorry for the late reply. I guess I could say, I'm late getting this in
here due to work constraints, but maybe moreso that we were part of the
unlucky 15% to not score on a moose.
No excuses, just a lot of hard work and not much activity. I think
Zone E3 is probably the hardest zone to hunt moose in N.H.. I'll
qualify that statement with the following. E3 is all White mountain
National forest. There are no access roads into the area that you can
travel with a vehicle. The best places to hunt require a minimum 3 to
5 mile hike in, uphill.
Now for the important stuff, We really had a good time. If I get lucky
enough to draw a moose tag again, (in 3 years) and I get choose for E3
I would hunt it again. What I would do different next time.... listen
up guys, in case you draw this zone, take a plane ride to find all the
clearcuts that you can.
We hunted 6 out of the 9 days, got blown out the last 2 days of the
hunt. We saw 2 moose on the 3rd day of the hunt, (a cow w/calf) No
opportunity presented itself, the only shot would have been a bad shot
so we chose to wait. It was the only moose we saw on the whole trip.
On Monday, we cut our hunt short to help two "wanta be hikers" out of
the woods. We were changing locations for the afternoon hunt, (we were
in the woods all day, we were moving about 1 mile from the morning
hunt) when we encountered 2 women hikers?, they stop us and asked for
directions back to their car. They were very concern/afraid, as they
had been wandering about for the last 3.5 hours without a clue as to
where they were.
After pulling out trail maps and spending the time explaining where they
had to go, it was evident they weren't going to make it out of the woods
on their own. It was now 4 pm the temp was 40 degrees and it was expected
to go down to 25 that night. They only had on light jackets and gloves
to hats. We didn't dare take the chance that they might find there way
back out, they were 6 miles from their car.
I should mention that these women were visiting the states from Germany,
it was their 12th day in the states. They had wanted to see some moose
and someone told them to go hike in this area and they would see moose.
They didn't tell them how to dress or to seek information on how to
read the trails signs etc. They were ill prepared for their adventure.
I always wondered how some of the tragic accidents come about up the
White Mountains, now I have some inside knowledge. We saw only 1
mountain biker that day, no one else. I dred to think what might have
happened had they, not been fortunate that we decided to change the
area in which we were hunting.
I consider this the highlight of the trip, and the part that makes it
rewarding for me.
All in all we saw, 2 whitetail deer (they never knew we were there) and
2 moose. Walked 12 to 15 miles a day into and out of our zone. Had a
great time at camp and in the woods.
Out of the 25 permits issued in E3, I only know of 8 or 9 moose that
got taken.
Mike
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