Larry Birdman left from the town of Bethel, Alaska. He took a 207 airplane from Hagland Airport to the village of Russian Mission. Larry went by boat to the village of St. Mary’s from the village of Russian Mission to another village of St Marys hoping that he would see a moose on the way down. He had a great boat trip but it lasted a long time about four hours. When Larry and his uncle Baboo got to St. Marys they got ready for the next day to go hunting.
Larry said, "Hey Uncle where are we going to go tomorrow for moose hunting?"
His uncle replied, "I don’t know maybe tomorrow I’ll go take a ride up the Drift Wood Slough to go set a white fish net but bring your rifle just in case we see a moose."
So the next day around three o'clock, they took off to Drift Wood Slough, and a couple bends up, Larry looked in this one creek and he saw a huge bull moose. Larry said to his uncle. "Baboo turn around, I just saw a big Bull Moose."

Baboo turned around and Larry went up the bank and walked slowly and quietly to the moose. The moose crossed the creek making it easy for Larry to shoot. When Larry got closer, he jumped up from the grass and shot at the moose. At first, the moose just sat there looking around and just kept on eating. Larry shot again and he hit the spine and just the back end of the moose went down. The moose just kept on walking with his legs dragging and Larry shot again - this time he hit the shoulder. The moose finally fell. Larry was so happy that he knocked down his first moose. Larry went to go see his moose and he noticed that it was still alive, but was paralyzed. So after about 10 minutes it was still alive and Larry shot again right behind the ear. The moose died after that shot.

Larry turned around running back to his uncle and said, "Baboo I just knocked down my first moose!"
They didn't even expect to see a moose and they didn't bring the right equipment; they just brought a butchering knife with them. Larry and his uncle Baboo started to butcher the moose but after they took the legs off and took the guts out they noticed that it started to get dark out.
Baboo said to Larry, "Well Larry will have to come back tomorrow and get the meat because its getting to late to bring it back and tomorrow will come back with a sled and the game bags so we could bring the moose back."

The next day, Larry and his Uncle Baboo got up early and got ready to go get the moose. They left St. Mary’s around 8:30 to go get the moose. When they reached the moose, they started to skin it and cut up the ribs and the brisket, and they skinned the rest of the meat and put the meat in bags and brought the meat back to the boat. Larry went back to where he had knocked down the moose and got the head and his rifle and went back to the boat. Larry and his uncle Baboo started back to St. Mary’s on the way back they saw another moose. Larry wanted to shoot that moose, but it ran off in the trees.
Baboo said to Larry, "If you had shot this moose, what would you do with this other moose, you just shot?"
Larry replied, "Well if I knocked that one down, I could of just put this moose under your name and you could have this one and I could put the other one under my name and I could have that one."
Baboo replied, "Oh, I get what you mean."
When they got back to the village, Larry went to go ask his auntie if he could use her truck to go get the moose from the dock. It was alright with her. She was so happy that he caught his first moose. When Larry went to the dock with his moose, everybody was happy that he caught his first moose. When they had reached Larry's grandma's house, Larry ran inside the house and told his grandma that he had caught his first moose. His grandma came out and told him to give away half of his meat since it was his first catch, so that is what Larry did.
After Larry had given half of this moose away, he had packed up the other half of this moose and while he was packing up the other half of his moose, his cousin from St. Mary’s asked him, “Hey Larry where did you catch your first moose?”
Larry replied back to his cousin, “Oh, I caught it in Drift Wood.”
Larry’s cousin got ready and got his rifle loaded and his game bags and went up the Yukon River to Drift Wood Slough and went to go hunt for a moose. Larry’s cousin shot a moose, but it kept on running and his cousin lost it in the trees.

Larry called his parents with excitement and told them that he knocked down his first moose. They were happy for him. He asked them, "How should I bring my moose back?"
Larry's parents replied, "Well use some of the meat as your baggage and put the rest on freight."

So that is what Larry did. Larry went to the airport the next day after he had picked up his moose and took the plane back to Bethel. His parents were waiting for him at the airport and Larry walked off the plane holding his horns because he was so happy that he wanted to carry his horns on the plane. When Larry reached Bethel, he went to his house and unpacked his meat and cut it up and gave some of it away to his aunties and uncles; they were so happy about what he had caught. With the rest of the meat, Larry's mother would do a feast for him later on in the year when they weren’t so busy. After Larry and his parents were done putting away the moose, they sat down and Larry told them about his moose hunting trip and going to the villages.
Larry’s father asked Larry, “Hey Larry, since that was your first moose did you drink the blood?”
Larry looked at his dad smiling, “Yeah I drank like four cups of it but on the last cup I started puking it back out.”
They started to laugh after Larry had told the story to his parents.
A couple of months after Larry caught his moose; his mother had a big feast for him and invited lots of his relatives and friends. They were so surprised on how big the moose was that Larry had caught. Larry had a good story on his hunting trip and when he got back to school, he told all of his classmates about his hunting trip. When Larry went back to school a couple months after school had started his teacher wanted the students to write a short story. Larry had nothing to write about and he remembered that he could write about his hunting trip and traveling to the villages on the Yukon River.