ELY— Eric Sherman was confident as four of us piled into his extended cab pickup last month. Sherman, a wildlife photographer who grew up in Babbitt and now lives in Ely, has turned his quest for subject matter into a business, Eric Sherman Wildlife Adventures, that can’t keep up with demand. As we chatted briefly before heading out, he said our afternoon and evening tour through the Superior National Forest would focus on moose.
I have had numerous moose sightings and other interesting experiences with the big beasts, mostly in the Boundary Waters, over the years, but our editor and photographer David Colburn had yet to spot one during his six years in Minnesota. So, when he spotted Sherman’s post on Facebook offering a moose “hunt,” he signed up immediately and I decided to come along for the fun of it. A third individual, who had seen plenty of moose years ago while living in Alaska but had yet to see one in Minnesota, rounded out our ride.
Sherman, it turns out, is one of a kind. He’s currently the only professional wildlife tour guide consistently operating within the Superior National Forest, and that means his tours sell out quickly. Family obligations had limited his tours this summer, so David thought he had won the lottery when he spotted Sherman’s post and was able to book both of us before it filled.
Sherman said he figured we had an 80 percent chance of seeing a moose, which certainly is an improvement on the odds for most drives on the backroads of the Superior. But when Sherman isn’t leading tours into moosey haunts, he’s out scouting on his own, so there are few people more likely to know the routines of the few thousand moose that reside within the 3.9 million acres of dense forest, wetlands, and lakes that make up the Superior National Forest.
As we headed toward our first stop, Sherman pointed out the many places along the way where he had captured images of moose in the past year or so. There were no encores, however, and we struck out as well at our first stop, just off the Tomahawk Rd. on the way into Isabella Lake. It was a roughly 20-acre pond full of lily pads, that seemed tailor made for a nice bull leisurely munching in chest-high water, but the neighborhood bulls were apparently otherwise occupied. At our urging, Sherman summoned up a couple moose grunts, more for effect than anything given that we were still weeks away from the rut. We otherwise contented ourselves watching a beaver make its way through the lilies and with a belted kingfisher who posed nicely on a jack pine snag along the shore.
It was much the same story at a couple other stops. David had joked early on that he was bad luck when it came to moose and that maybe we should just leave him out there to better our odds. After several whiffs at likely locations, it seemed David might be on to something.
Not that we didn’t have other things to entertain us. Sherman, it turns out, keeps up a running commentary of historical tidbits during his tours, testing our knowledge of the Superior National Forest. He even gave a test later in the day.
It turned out that some of that history was of particular interest to David, who said he considered our visit to Forest Center one of the top highlights of his day. That there had been a town, even a school, there not that long ago, and that so little remained, was a revelation for him. It was a reminder that the history of the Superior National Forest has its share of surprises.
Fortunately, there was wildlife as well as history lessons. If we earned a nickel for every flicker we flushed as we drove, we’d have been rich. We spotted a couple ruffed grouse (though no spruce grouse), which seemed like a surprisingly limited number considering that we traversed more than 120 miles of backroads during our tour.
The highlight was undoubtedly a great gray owl that Sherman spotted along an old railroad grade turned forest road in the general vicinity of that state of mind known as Isabella. It was perched on a low snag in a recent clearcut, not too far off the road, and we all piled out with our cameras. The owl, as is typical of great grays, paid us little mind as it actively hunted, turning its head this way and that, intently watching for deer mice or red-backed voles. The only sound there was the firing of camera shutters as we all clicked away.
We did find plenty of moose sign, and Sherman made a point of stopping a couple times to show David that, yes, there were moose around. And based on the tracks, “we’re headed in the right direction,” Sherman said.
About a half hour after our owl encounter, just north of “downtown” Isabella, we turned to the southwest along another former railroad grade. Like most rail grades it’s straight, and much of this stretch passed through lowlands of alder and willow, interspersed with dense stands of spruce and tamarack, which is pretty typical of that country. Sherman said he’d had good luck spotting moose along the stretch and here we were, as the sun was edging toward the horizon, prime time for our moose hunt. Eventually, the odds turned in our favor. We weren’t going to be among the 20 percent who went home moose-less.
After several uneventful miles down the grade, we all made note of a tiny dark blob that seemed out of place at least a mile down the road ahead of us. As we slowly advanced on the blob, it was clear that it was moving and eventually we could see it was a moose. Then, as we drove closer, we could see that it was a bull. In fact, it soon became apparent it was two bulls, but they were still too distant to attempt any photos, not even the evidentiary kind.
Unfortunately, that was all we were going to see of this particular pair of males. We were probably still half a mile away when the two of them casually stepped off the road into a stand of dense conifers. By the time we reached the spot, they had disappeared into the darkness of the forest.
Even so, a moose is a moose, even at a distance. Sherman pulled out his “moose clicker,” and he had David and our fellow traveler each punch the button to tally the sightings.
As Sherman noted, spotting moose in the Superior National Forest is all a matter of timing. Had the two bulls stepped off the road five minutes earlier, or had we come by five minutes later, our two figurative ships would have passed unseen in the night. The forests here are dense and brushy and until the leaves drop, visibility is nearly non-existent.
It all comes down to the odds. Put yourself in enough of the right places and eventually the timing works out and there’s a moose momentarily out in the open. Knowing the right places, of course, is the key, which is where someone like Sherman comes in. As with any guide, it’s about knowing the habits of your targets and spending the time in the field, day in and day out, to better your chances of success.
And on any such trip, it pays to be flexible and take your highlights in sometimes unexpected forms. As we drove back to Ely in the growing darkness, we passed Greenwood Lake just as a giant full moon was rising above the horizon. Like with the owl, we all piled out, cameras in hand, hoping to be able to capture the scene, but mostly just wanted to take it all in. It was a fitting end to an interesting tour through some of the Superior’s less traveled country. And we did find our moose…