The fall moose hunting season opening is right around on the corner on Sept. 15. Technically, it closes on Oct. 7 but Fish and Game only allows 20-25 moose to be taken, so the season can close at any time.
Last year one hunter, Baylee Pearson, bagged a moose within a few hours of the opening of the season while hunting with her grandfather, Craig Loomis, and her stepdad, Paul Carrington.
She sat down with the Chilkat Valley News to talk about the experience and what she hopes to accomplish on her next moose hunt.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
So let’s begin at the beginning of your day and go from there.
We were out on the Chilkat and then we just set up our moose camp there, and then we usually just have dinner and then go to bed as early as we can. We did a little bit of moose education. My grandpa wanted me to know exactly what I’m gonna shoot, right? Because we don’t want to end up with an illegal bull. So we went over the Fish and Game packets that have, like, what brow tine means what, what’s legal and what’s not legal. And he quizzed me all night long until it was time to go to bed. So I had a pretty good understanding of what was legal, because honestly, I didn’t know and it’s tricky.
Growing up, I’d always assumed, “Oh, it’s so obvious. You’ll know if it’s you know, 50 inches, right?” No clue. And most of the time, you shouldn’t go off of that, unless you are so certain and you’re a really seasoned hunter. But for me, he was like, let’s focus on the brow tines, just in case. So I had it in my head, mainly, three on one side and you are golden.
So we went to bed and probably all of us woke up around 5:30 a.m. because it was super cold. We were all freezing, and, I think, really antsy. It was a clear morning, which was awesome and we just had breakfast. My grandma had made us some crepes.
Crepes in the woods sounds amazing.
Cream cheese crepes with some with some, like cherry sauce or something on them. We made some coffee and then about six o’clock was first light so then we took off and kind of figured out where we were going to be. So I was with my grandfather, Craig Loomis, and my stepdad, Paul Carrington, and so Paul headed south of us on the four-wheeler, and then my grandpa and I went to the tree. This tree has been used so many times throughout our time at the camp.
How do you know that?
Well, my dad used to hunt with my grandfather and my uncle and friends. And my grandpa, he would find a tree and set up a stand. My dad would find a tree set up a stand, kind of nearby and they could see each other. But a lot of them rot over time. This one is the “in-use, not-gonna-rot tree.” It’s kind of funny. I clocked it on my phone – it was about 6:15 in the morning, and we had gotten to the base of the tree, and there’s a cow moose and a calf right there. I took a picture of it, but it’s right at the base of our tree, which I was, like, kind of spooked about, but my grandpa was super stoked about, because that means a bull is most likely following that, right?
So you climbed the tree? With the moose right there?
Yeah, so this is the crazy part. So, this is Craig Loomis we’re talking about, yeah, and that means that nothing is quite safe. And so he had jerry-rigged two ladders on top of each other, like, roped around, tied off.
My grandfather also would have done that.
Yeah. And, you know, he gives it a good shake, and he’s like, “see, it’s safe.” So he climbs up that thing like a cat, and I get on it next, and I have my rifle, it’s a 300 Winchester short mag. It’s actually my mother’s rifle. So, it’s a pretty big gun. I had never shot a gun that big. I used it once to sight it in and that’s it. So I threw it on my back and started to climb up. And as you go up, it gets closer and closer to the tree, right? So by halfway, it’s flush with the tree, so the little toes of my Xtratufs are on it, and I’m just holding myself up. So I looked down, and I shouldn’t have looked down. My dad actually had fallen out of a moose tree. He broke his back, and he had to be, like, life flighted out of moose camp. So, I was terrified. And my grandpa was like, “Do you need a minute, you know?” And I was said, “I honestly am scared.” And he’s like, “It’s okay. You don’t have to come up, you can go down if you want to.”
I just kept thinking, “Okay, I can do this. Take a deep breath. It’s actually still going hurt no matter where you fall, right? So if you fall from 10 feet higher, it doesn’t matter. It’s still going to hurt, right? So I got into the moose stand, which is like just a platform and then a seat.
And then you wait?
So we both have our binoculars out. His head is about where my feet are, so I’m just like a little bit above him, and we’re kind of checking things out, for about 20 minutes. And then I look over to my right, and I see horns. So I whisper yell. I’m like, “Horns. Craig, horns!” And I was just looking at the brow tines, and I clocked that there was, there were three brow tines on one side, and that was good enough for me. “Okay, awesome.”
So I whisper, yell, again, “3-3-3,” and Craig’s not listening. He’s locked in on this thing, right? And so I’m thinking “He forgot his hearing aids. He can’t hear me.” But I can see it. Maybe his eyes are worse than mine, I don’t know, but he’s, he’s the best. So, I just kind of ignore him for a minute, and then I get antsy. It’s starting to come out in front of us now, right?
So this is, like, left shoulders exposed to us, perfect profile. So I then take three fingers, and I start putting him in front of his binoculars. And I keep going, “3-3-3,” and I’m like trying to get his attention, and he’s not listening to me once again. So, I just think he can’t hear me.
So I just pull the gun up and shoulder it up, get it ready, and I have it in my sights. And finally he goes, “shoot that f—-.” I pulled the trigger immediately.
Ok, that’s hilarious. I love the idea of you sitting there and questioning yourself.
Yeah, and now funny story, he texts me, like, once a week – he texts me 3-3-3.
So was that your first time moose hunting?
That was my first time. First time getting a permit.
What made you decide to do it last year?
I’ve been deer hunting for years in Sitka and that’s where I grew up primarily, and I just thought “It’s my turn now.” My brother, my little brother, he is two years younger than I am, he got one at 10 years old. And I thought “Ok, I think at, you know, 21, I should probably go and get mine now.”
My grandpa has been pushing me to get a permit forever. I really wanted to go with my grandfather, you know, while we still can. I didn’t expect to get one, you know. I never shot an animal this large before. But with just us three, there’s kind of less pressure. Sometimes the guys will go over in, like, groups of five or six. And I feel like I wouldn’t have attempted to do that. But it was just me, my grandpa, and a tree. I felt pretty safe.
Do you think that years of hunting deer prepared you for what happened?
My first hunting experience was awesome – with my dad and my brother. And I don’t know if it was luck or not, but I didn’t miss somehow, and that went great. But there were plenty of trips where I was in tears. There was plenty of times where I’d injured one and you know, you have to go and kill it at close range.
Every time I go to shoot an animal, like you have it in your sights, I hear my dad’s voice going “exhale and squeeze the trigger.” Because, you know, you’re there. Your blood’s pumping. You have this rush of adrenaline. You’re freaking out. Then you just exhale, you squeeze the trigger nice and slow, and it kind of just, everything just stops in that moment. It’s really interesting, but it was so many hunting trips of nothing at all, injuring things, having someone else shoot the animal for me because I just didn’t feel I could do it, or the shot wasn’t right, or whatever. But this time, I felt pretty confident.
So you said it was about 100 yards in front of you. After you shot it, what happened next?
So Paul pulled up right about then, and we got down there. Every time I kill an animal, I like to sit with it for a minute. So they’re chatting, they’re super excited, and I kind of just sat with it for a little bit. And that is a massive animal. I had no idea until I was laying next to it on the ground. I was the size of, you know, its antlers alone, right? So I kind of sat with it. I like to apologize for taking its life, but also thank it for, you know, providing for so many families. That fed so many people. So I kind of took my moment, and then I was, like, pictures. So we got all of our pictures, and then came the hard part. So this was all really fun up until, like, about this part, when it gets a little bit hard.
Where did you learn to sit with it like that?
I actually, that’s a good question. I don’t really know. I feel like, I think the first time I killed a deer, I cried, and my dad and my brother don’t really have that same mentality. It’s not a bad thing at all. They just don’t. I felt like I was just a little bit more empathetic than they were, and I just felt like I had to, because it’s still a living being. I want to say I feel like I had someone in my life at some point mentioned it, and that really stuck with me because it’s actually really smart. Because, you know, I don’t know what to do with the emotion that I feel in that moment.
Did you lay on the ground next to it?
It was laying on its side, so I kind of just like – slumped up against it. And, you know, their eyes are still open. Like you just still see, like the soul of the animal. Some people are probably like ‘this woo-woo girl’ but, really, it’s an insane experience that not a lot of people, I think, get.
The first time I caught a halibut, I was just laying on the deck of the boat – looking into its eyes. I felt like I was looking at the bottom of the ocean.
Yeah, like staring into the wilderness right?
I think a lot of people close the emotional loop.
Especially an animal of that size and strength. I mean, if we reversed it, this animal could have killed me in a second and I just killed it in a second. You have to have mutual respect for each other. Like, I just have a gun, that’s the only reason why this animal is dead now right? If I ran into this animal in the wild, it would have killed me. The gravity of the situation is just so heavy in that moment.
So you get your pictures, realize it’s the size of a horse, then what?
This is crazy, so our protocol, it’s a little bit interesting. So we have two four-wheelers out there. Now, we ran back and grabbed another one, and we hook up a chain to the back of the four-wheeler and wrap it around the moose’s antlers, like at the skull. And then you hook up another chain between the two four-wheelers and then we literally just drive it out. And so you just drag it across the flats. Luckily, we had, like, a path that we kind of like cutout there. So then we get to the bank of the [Chilkat] river. We got our jet boat, kind of like tied right there on the bank. So you’d think getting this animal three feet into the boat would be easy but I’m talking four hours to get it from the bank to the boat. It is a huge process. So we get it, we drag it over. Then you have to throw it on its back, which is a feat in itself, because you have to splay the legs out like a starfish, yeah? And these legs weigh as much as I do each.
Several hundred pounds of animal, right? Was it just the three of you?
Yeah, just the three of us. We’re just kind of sitting there, Craig’s watching out for bears, and I’m just giddy. So we end up, chaining the limbs to the trees. That probably took a half an hour to an hour itself. Then, the next part of it, is you have to gut it. So, we don’t quarter it out in the field. We wait until we get back at home. But otherwise you can’t lift the thing, um, so we take a saw, and we just saw through its rib cage, just right down the middle. And then when you get in there, you take out all the organs, and then we literally take a bucket and we bail the blood out from the cavity. Um, this cavity is so big that I could, I could just like, sit in there and hang out.
Did you try it?
I did not.
Were you able to be part of the gutting process?
I didn’t participate as much in the internal gutting than I did on the skinning of it. I’m still learning the anatomy, and it is so much different going into a deer that I’ve done a couple times, to a moose, which I’ve never done, and everything’s so much bigger, and there’s so many different things that you can puncture and, you know, we have to, like, do this in a timely manner, because of the bears. So I think Paul kind of just took that over.
And you were bailing blood?
Yeah, I was bailing blood and stuff. I was kind of just running blood to the river. Then came dragging it into the jet boat. Again, this is Craig’s stuff, so we had a Come Along like, literally hooked up to the back of the jet boat. And then it’s Craig in the middle, putting his full body into the come along with these rusty ass chains and then the moose and us pushing as if that’s gonna help. It took us so long to get that thing in there, because then if you don’t do it right, you’re gonna flip your jet boat over so if the weights are not distributed correctly, it’s an absolute nightmare. So that took us forever.
That sounds messy.
We were all covered in sweat for sure. Just totally sweaty and just muddy, too, from falling on the ground. So then we finally got it in there and after that we headed back across the river. And that was the time to alert the family because you get service right? So we’re letting everybody know. Then it was time to go over to Fish & Game. I want to say we made it to Fish & Game between 11 a.m. and noon.
On opening day?
Yeah, I think I set the bar high for this year. Rolling into Fish & Game at noon and then I’m like “yeah, I’m going to go have lunch now.”
So how did that work?
And so this is all kind of a bit of a blur, that part. I was just so excited. So I went in and told them, like, “Yeah, I got the moose.“ And they asked who was the one who shot it and I was like “Yeah, that would be me.”
Very demure.
There’s this whiteboard in the window that tells you what the moose count is and then what kind of moose it was. I was like, “You can change that zero to a one.”
Did you have to leave anything with them?
You have to cut the lower jawbone off and then you have to give it to them and then they can age it.
Okay, so what do you do once you get the moose back home?
We headed back to my grandparents’ house and Craig has built a moose refrigerator. It looks like a gigantic smokehouse, really tall, right? So we go to hang it up and it breaks. It ripped the eyelets out of the ceiling because it was so heavy and broke it. So then we had to go buy 1,000-pound eyelets and screw those in and then hang it back up. This is without a head and without most of its legs. So this is one massive animal. Then we just skinned it from there.
You said you got more involved during that process. Tell me about that.
So it’s actually really satisfying. You just take a really sharp blade, and we just start from, I don’t really know exactly where they start. I want to say it’s from the butt. But then you just cut down, and you just really lightly keep it held taut, and you just kind of slice along the little inner membrane there.
Oh, like when you’re filleting a fish and trying to keep the bones out?
Yeah, exactly. While we were skinning it, we had this talk about how we didn’t actually know how many bullets made it into the moose because when we shot the first two shots – we could see a big splash behind the moose. We thought we had missed and then I fired off my last shot and that dropped it. While we were skinning it, we came across the left side and we had a grouping of three within like an inch or two of each other. It was awesome. It was good to see.
How does the meat get divided up in your family?
So, we have a rule with moose camp that it gets divided equally between whoever is on the hunt. So, this year, it’s just the three of us. So one-third to me, one-third to Paul and my mom, and one-third to my grandparents. I think I ended up with 150 pounds and I don’t even think I got my full share and it was still that much.
Are you still eating on that?
We still have a full freezer, haha. Whenever anyone comes to visit, literally anyone, I’m like ‘please have some burgers. You like moose?’
How do you think about the whole thing now? Would you do it again?
Oh, absolutely. I have my permit ready for this year. I think, though, that I’m still riding off of this high and I’m going to be out in a tree for, like, 30 minutes and be like ‘ok, I’m bored.”
But, really, the conditions were so perfect. You know if it’s raining too hard, or if it’s way too cold, if you’re going to be up there for more than a few hours – it sucks. But, truthfully, it’s still such a great time because you’re disconnected from the world and you’re just sitting and being present. And, I’m with my family.
My grandpa is the biggest fan of moose in the whole world. His ringtone is a moose call – literally over and over again. He sends me pictures of moose every day. I’m not kidding. He updates me like “no moose today. But, you know, I did see a coyote.” He is obsessed with moose. So, it’s just really great to be out there with him during his favorite time of year.
What will you do differently if you get a moose this year?
Well, I really want to be part of the processing now because I didn’t get to before and I felt really guilty about that. I think I would donate way more of the meat this time around because I definitely don’t need a whole share. I’d like to get it to people who aren’t as fortunate and can’t go out for themselves.
How does it feel to have gotten the first one last year? Do you tell people about it?
Well, if I don’t get to it, my grandma definitely does. She, for sure, let’s everyone know that I got the first one. I think it’s badass. I’m pretty proud of that. It was super surreal.
Do you find yourself bragging about it?
I don’t want to brag. But I do find a way to slip it in there. You know “They just weren’t ready for me. It was just so early in the day.”
Tell me about how it feels to be able to hunt and kill your own food?
It means a lot to me. I have a chronic health disorder. I have severe endometriosis and so that can be super inflammatory with any kind of growth hormone, right? So, a lot of our meat that we buy at the store is pumped full of growth hormone, that’s what they do with the cows, it’s what they do with the pigs and chickens. So, being able to have this source of clean meat is a blessing. It really is. It helps me so much. It’s hard to eat a diet that is so clean and anti-inflammatory all the time when we’re from a place that, you know, a lot of the fruit and vegetables are already moldy by the time they get to us. I don’t have space to garden, I can’t grow my own food. So, having a source of meat all year long, for several years from one animal – that is just so incredible.
What’s it like to have someone like Craig Loomis as your mentor?
He’s like a moose guru, you know? I felt like I could have gone out there blindfolded and I still would have been completely fine. He is so incredibly knowledgeable about it, he’s so passionate, and he’s lived here his whole life. I just think that’s so special. I’m so fortunate to have him with me on a hunt and I hope that it stays that way for many, many years to come.
It sounds like he’s good at passing knowledge along?
I didn’t feel pressure. Sometimes you can feel really intimidated. That’s kind of the joke, like you’re holding the flashlight for your dad while he’s working on your car. But I didn’t feel that at all. When I froze on the ladder, he was just like “It’s OK. You can go down. We don’t have to do this.” I think that made if for me. That’s what helped me get up because, I knew that it wasn’t the end of the world.
What do you want other women who are going hunting this season to know?
I grew up only hunting with men. I never had a woman as a role model. I love that hopefully one day I can be a role model, you know, for other little girls. Like, my sister, she thought it was so cool that “big sissy got a moose.” I was a little bit intimidated at first, but we can do anything a man can do. I can pull a trigger, I have an index finger, I can shoot an animal. You know, if I can hike and I can climb a tree, no matter how scary it is, I can still do it. And then the men will drag it home for you.
For more information about taking legal moose, check out the “Is This Moose Legal?” available on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website or visit chilkatvalleynews.com to find a link.