Seems like a slow time of year on here for hunting stories and I have a bit of time to burn lately so figured I would post up the story of this years moose hunt.
After anxiously awaiting the results of the annual LEH draw, our group of four checked and to our surprise were successful for an early season shared moose hunt. I checked in with my Dad and he also was successful for the same zone, at the same time! This meant that putting in some time scouting ahead of time would be critical if we were to be successful.
Throughout the summer I scouted a few choice areas and settled on one promising spot that we had harvested a moose from previously. There was lots of sign and I spent some time flagging a trail into the most choice habitat. September finally rolled around and it was time to go moose hunting! The first day out myself and two of our shared group tried a spot close to the spot I had flagged. It was a cool, foggy and damp day – saw lots of promising sign but no moose were sighted that day. Some nearby active logging and road building/blasting had us wondering if perhaps all the activity in the area might have made the moose shy.
My Dad showed up from out of town and I dedicated my time to helping him with his draw while my shared draw partners continued the search for their moose. Unfortunately my Dad’s timing for showing up coincided with the arrival of some seriously crappy weather. It poured every day for a week with the exception of one day. We were trying promising spots but just not seeing signs that rutting activity had started. The first day we tried the spot I had scouted and flagged a trail into. We called at a small meadow for about 2.5 hours until the rain and damp chased us out of there. We did leave a trail camera and some scent in the area though.
After that we mostly road hunted and checked a few likely areas. I really don’t like road hunting, especially for moose in this area as it feels like you are just going on luck on finding a needle in a haystack, rather than actual hunting skill. But given the poor weather and limited mobility that seemed to be the best approach. Meanwhile my partners kept putting in time at our choice spot but with no success in calling anything in. They did however pull the trail camera and the night before the last day of the draw we reviewed the images. Lo and behold a small bull had showed up right where we were calling. This gave us some degree of hope that there were bulls in the area.
Finally the last day of our draw arrived and we awoke to an absolute deluge of rain. My Dad decided he had had enough of being soaked and decided to travel home, leaving at around 830am. Things were not looking promising. However, right around 1030am the rain stopped and all of a sudden I had that feeling!! Something was telling me we needed to get out there – the weather pattern had changed and the rut was starting! I frantically threw some gear together and convinced my 11 year old daughter that she should come out hunting as well. She had only been grouse hunting with me before but she was keen to go. A partner from our shared draw who hadn’t been out hunting yet (there were 4 of us) also texted me and said she was keen to go out for a last ditch effort too so we headed out for one last go.
On the hike in to our spot it was obvious things had changed from a couple days previously. There were moose tracks everywhere and torn up ground and finally we were seeing fresh rub trees. I was frantic to get to our spot! We finally got to our spot and settled in with warm clothes and commenced calling. I cow called loudly about every 15 minutes. We stayed there for about 3 hours and I was starting to worry about my daughter being bored and cold, when my partner said she heard something in the forest next to us. I listened very carefully and did hear something but I wasn’t convinced it was a moose, it sounded too small and quiet. However, we just kept very quiet and kept listening very carefully, when all of a sudden I heard loud grunting start from the opposite end of the meadow about 400 yards away! I looked at my partner and my daughter and said “Now that’s a bull!”
We made sure we were behind the cover of small trees and I cow called again. We could hear the grunting working to the north and getting closer. However the wind was very swirly and I was concerned about being winded. The wind was blowing our scent right towards where the grunting was, and then the grunting started to sound like it was heading further away. I switched it up and tried a couple bull grunts and scraped a tree with my birch bark call. That did the trick! The grunting got very loud and fast and started coming back towards us. I was scanning the trees on a steep slope above the meadow when all of a sudden I could see large yellowish red antlers. The bull stopped behind a small tree and was scanning the meadow from about 70 yards away. He stopped grunting and was just looking around. We all stayed very still and quiet – I knew if we made a noise he’d be onto us and his vitals were obscured so no shot was possible. After the bull scanned the meadow for a couple seconds, he committed and charged down the slope into the meadow grunting loudly. At about 40 yards I put the crosshairs of my .270 win behind his front shoulder and pulled the trigger. This spun him and my partner hit him in the brisket with her 7-08. I reloaded and put a follow-up shot in his brisket and he reared up on his hind legs and tipped over backwards. I ran up and put one more in the back of his head. We were all super pumped and the adrenalin was flowing! We couldn’t believe we got a bull in the last half hour of our draw after the hunting had been so poor. I asked my daughter what she thought and she said “ Dad, I was plugging my ears because I knew you were going to shoot but he was grunting so loud I could still hear him even with my ears plugged!”
I got on the Inreach to text my regular hunting partner and sent the message “Bull Down”. His reply was “Seriously?” LOL! Both partners headed out to help us out, and were awesome enough to bring snacks and encouragement for my daughter, who was going through some serious adrenalin comedown after getting the moose.
The bull is probably the best eating moose we have harvested. He was super fat and had only recently rubbed the velvet from his antlers. It was a great experience to harvest a bull like that and truly was a team effort with everyone contributing. We called him the “Barely Legal Bull” as we got him in the last 30min of our LEH draw. It was really great to have my daughter involved and very satisfying to see her pound down moose steaks and know that she was involved from forest to table!
Would like to post some pics but don’t seem to have any luck posting on this site if anyone can help?
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Originally Posted by HappyJack
