Blizzard bull highlights hunt for N. Idaho man

The weather was frightening for October in North Idaho, but sometimes it pays to hunt in a blizzard.

The gale that blew snow across the Panhandle Oct. 29 didn’t keep Frank Gabriel Jr. from filling his Idaho moose tag and putting more than 300 pounds of meat in his freezer.

When Gabriel, a plumber and volunteer fire chief at the Prichard station, opted to apply for a moose hunt this year he didn’t expect to be drawn for a once-in-a-lifetime bull tag, and he didn’t think he would shoot a bull in a snowstorm.

He did both however, and came home with a large Shiras moose with a 45-inch antler spread.

Although the number of tags this year available for moose hunts in Unit 4 dropped from 35 tags to 20 because of a decrease in the moose population according to Idaho Fish and Game, Gabriel had no problem finding the behemoth deer during his more than a half dozen trips into the backcountry.

“I was out seven different times and saw a total of nine bulls,” he said.

Most of the bulls were young animals, likely in the three-year-old age range.

Gabriel wasn’t looking for a rack, although something bigger than a small bull paddle would be nice, he surmised. He wanted an animal in the five year-old range that would provide him with an adequate meat larder and if he was lucky, a set of antlers that could go on a wall.

Again, for Gabriel, both of the wishes were accounted for.

A North Idaho Shiras with an antler spread of between 40 and 50 inches is considered quite large, Gabriel said.

“This bull fell right in between,” he said.

Gabriel found the bull on a side hill near the headwaters of Tepee Creek, he said. It was late afternoon and daylight was waning and although the sun shone at least half of the day, it had turned blustery.

By the time he came upon the bull the snow was blowing sideways and Gabriel tramped after the bull, grunted from a call and made the animal stop and turn broadside.

“I saw its antler sticking out from one side of a tree and the butt sticking out on the other,” he said.

He didn’t have a shot.

The moose ambled farther downhill and Gabriel grunted again. The animal turned and he shot it once with a 30-06.

Biologist Barb Moore at Idaho Fish and Game said the department reduced the number of controlled moose hunt tags in North Idaho units based on lower success rates across the region. Hunters spent more time looking for moose than a decade ago, and fewer hunters were harvesting animals. Although that is a pretty good indicator that Shiras populations across the region are in decline, Moore said, other factors may also contribute to the statistics. For instance, hunters may pass up on smaller bulls as they hold out for a larger animal, and end up not harvesting.

Harvest rates, usually above 60 percent in most units, hovered between 20 percent and 90 percent in Unit 1, as low as 47 percent in Unit 3, and 40 percent in Unit 4.

The department sent out kits and instructions to hunters this year to help collect tissue, blood and parasite samples.

“So we can get a better understanding of what might be affecting populations out there,” Moore said.

IDFG hopes to post an updated moose management plan this week on its website, for the public to peruse and comment on.

“It’s kind of a big picture,” she said.

But the plan also pinpoints potential management in specific areas of North Idaho.