Local girl bags bull moose
courtesy photo
Josey Motichka displays her bull moose. Josey shot the big mammal in the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.
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POLSON — Josey Motichka said she had less than a one percent chance of drawing a permit to shoot a moose, but she drew one. The 15-year-old has been hunting with her dad since she could walk. When she was old enough, Josey shot her first buck deer on family land in Eureka.
But a moose permit is something special; people enter the lottery for years and never get picked. Before she could hunt, however, Josey had a medical issue to overcome.
Last December, after finding out one of her legs was significantly longer than the other, doctors at Shriner’s Hospital in Spokane cut her femur in half, removed an inch of bone and inserted a rod from her hip to her knee.
She was hospitalized for a week and had to learn to walk and run again, first using a walker, and then crutches.
“The first two weeks were hard,” Josey said.
It was humbling, but many other kids were in worse shape, so she decided to just buck up and follow the instructions sent home with her.
She had about six months to recuperate and get physically stronger before hunting season.
As the hunt approached, an uncle recommended a certain spot on the Middle Fork, and they saw a lot of old sign (read “poop”) near there. The family scouted the area on and off from August until opening day.
So Josey and her dad, Trevor Motichka, took their saddle horses, a pack horse and a wall tent and camped on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River between Columbia Falls and Browning, where Josey’s permit was located.
Trevor and Josey, a freshman, took a “good week” out of school the week of her 15th birthday to hunt seriously. If a hunter draws a moose permit, whether or not he or she bags a moose, they can’t apply again for another seven years.
“We hunted really hard for three or four days,” Josey said, but they didn’t see anything.
Waking up early every morning, following game trails, scouting and hiking in the middle of the day and not seeing anything had Josey discouraged, “so we decided to change it up” and returned to another area where they’d seen a bull moose while hunting elk. They also saw grizzly tracks. Off to the side of the trail, they saw about 20 or 30 crows. Trevor said he’d ride in and see what was up.
“He hollered, ‘Get back, there’s a bear, there’s a bear,’” Josey said. “’Holy cow, there was huge griz back there, and I’m pretty sure I saw a moose there.’”
Normally she would have been excited, but now she thought the deceased moose was probably the only bull in the region.
“We’d hunted everywhere in that area. The one bull (moose) we did find was being eaten,” Josey said.
They called the area Moose Highway, because every time they went there, there were fresh tracks.
Josey was hoping for tracking snow, just a light skiff that animal tracks show up on, and was lucky enough to get her wish. Although she was sleepy from hunting for four or five days, Josey became alert when she and her dad came upon a fresh set of tracks.
They trailed the animal for two or three miles to see if they could figure out if it was a cow or a bull and if there was a calf. They decided it was a bull moose and that Josey should shoot, even if it was a smaller bull.
“The tracks became fresher and fresher, and I knew we were getting closer,” Josey said.
Her dad told her to take her gun out of the scabbard so she held it across her lap.
“I saw these huge paddles (moose horns) going along,” Josey said so she jumped off her horse with her gun.
With long strides, the bull meandered along, and every time Josey got ready to shoot he’d go around a corner.
Since she and Trevor had scouted the area, they knew a pass was coming up, and her dad advised her to shoot the bull before he got to the pass.
Josey wanted a good broadside shot.
“I kept telling myself, ‘you’ve got to breathe,’” she said.
She shot, and her shot glanced off the moose’s hip, and he turned, wondering what was going on.
“Oh, Lord, what if charges me,” Josey remembered thinking, but she got several rounds from her 30.06 into him, and the moose went down.
“My dad gave me a hug and said, ‘We got a moose, Josey,’’ she said.
Then the real work began, Josey said. She shot the big bull at about 10 a.m., and the pair had the moose dressed, loaded onto the packhorse, broke camp and were at the trailhead driving out by 6 p.m.
The bull measured about 46 inches across and had full mature “paddles, kind of crabbed out,” Josey said, which mean his antlers, defined as palmate, had turned a little so they look like crab claws. The Motichkas took the moose head to Shawn Andres at Alpine Artistry to be mounted.
Josey and her family celebrated her 15th birthday with moose steaks.
“It was quite a trip. I will remember it forever,” Josey said. “There are not a lot of chances (to) get (a moose) and ride up on a grizzly eating another moose.”
