Once in a lifetime: Teamwork the key to successful moose hunt for Eastern Washington brothers

Perseverance and community played critical roles in Bruce and Dean Grass being able to fill their once-in-a-lifetime bull moose tags recently.

The two men, along with four additional brothers, have been hunting and fishing together for six decades. Sometime about 1987, they started putting in for moose permits, one of the most coveted hunting opportunities in the Lower 48 states. Year after year, they were rejected in the drawing with lottery-like odds.

“I’m 72 and Dean’s 68,” said Bruce, who lives on the Palouse near Garfield. “We’ve been putting in for these tags for 38 years. I never expected to get a tag.”

That changed this year. The two men, who entered together, were selected.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Dean, of Metaline Falls in Washington’s Pend Oreille County about 15 miles south of Canada. “And pretty crazy after so many years of no, no, no and then this year, and on a group hunt that made it even better.”

Networking

Known as the Hangman Moose Tag, they were allowed to hunt in Washington’s game management units 127, 130 and 139, an area that stretches roughly from Spokane to Pullman and the Washington-Idaho state line to Sprague.

Bruce sees moose frequently.

“I’ve had moose in my yard all summer long. Actually, there’s been a seven-by-nine bull moose here. We saw him the week before the season opened for moose.”

But the animals cannot be counted on to be in any particular spot with regularity. The hunt area is also dominated by private land. So, securing permission to hunt is critical.

Bruce has lived at Garfield for decades and had a number of properties he was able to access. Shortly after the drawing, he started spreading the word. He told his mail carrier, UPS driver and others of his good fortune and asked them to keep an eye out for moose.

Soon he had volunteer recruits who wanted to help with the hunt. Bruce taught hunter education classes for decades and former students James Martin and Johnny Wilson were eager to assist. “My oldest son Chad was able to get time off work and come over,” Dean said.

The hunt

They did not see any moose for the first two days of the season that started Oct. 1. But they made some new contacts. Bruce asked a farmer he didn’t know if he had seen any moose. The man was standoffish and said it had been about 20 years since he had seen one.

They were skeptical but understood the man’s reluctance to share information with hunters he did not know. Soon after, they got a call from Wilson and Martin. They spotted a moose on land they had permission to access.

“We scamper down there, and we get there about the time the moose is off a property that we can hunt. So literally, we followed that moose. We’re on the roads. We’re just driving. The moose is just walking. We follow that moose for 8 miles until it crossed onto some property that we could be on.”

Bruce insisted his little brother take the shot. He did and the moose was down. The crew of workers made quick work of it.

They spent the next day taking the meat to a butcher. That night the UPS driver called and said the standoffish farmer wanted to talk. The driver had vouched for the brothers and broken the ice. Soon the farmer and Bruce were on the phone together. He told them where he had seen a bull hanging around a cow and calf. October is the breeding season and the bull was likely attracted to the cow.

The next day they found the bull on state land. Bruce took the shot and filled his tag.

The farmer used his tractor to fetch the moose. Wilson and Martin, field dressed the animal.

Bruce had previously told them they could each have 50 pounds of meat but changed his mind.

“I said, ‘I got bad news for you guys.’ I said, ‘You can’t have 50 pounds of moose that’s off the table.’ And they give me kind of a funny look. And I expected that. I said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do, if you pay for the cutting and wrapping, I’ll give you half of this moose.’ ”

Dean’s son Chad is paying to have shoulder mounts of each animal. Neither will make the Boone and Crockett club’s record books but that is not why the Grass brothers hunt.

“We weren’t going to play any games filling moose tags. That was not going to happen,” said Bruce. “We see a moose and it’s someplace we can hunt, it’s going to be a moose on the ground. You know, we grew up being meat hunters.”

Both brothers say the hunt would not have been possible without all the help.

“You don’t find that anywhere, that often,” said Dean. “That is what makes everything so crazy, those guys were willing to put in the time to help us and they wanted us to be successful and they got to experience it too.”