SPILTZ
12-17-2014, 09:32 PM
Well, I'll start off with the thank you's first. First and foremost, My wife, considering I came home from camp for half a day and left again for the week considering we have a 2 month old. (thanks hunny, she wont read this but its the thought that counts). Next up is the guys I went with, none of them are on here but it was a great hunting with a couple rookies and my experienced'ish father-in law. Finally, want to thank a few guys on here 416(dave), thick, 264winmag, live for the hunt. All of you guys gavbe great advice and we were lucky enough to meet up 416 who without a doubt pointed us in the right direction. Thanks again everyone.
Ok, now to the story. Packed up trailer Tuesday night, caught first ferry Wednesday morning, arrived in Vernon mid afternoon, met up with 416, had a good chat and he pointed in a area where he had seen a bull the weekend prior. We carried on, arrived at our overnight destination in Cherryville at a friends of a friends place. To be honest we thought we had it good, thinking it can't get any better, well it did. Over the course of the trip when we would come back to the trailer parked at the friends place, he would invite us back into his house where dinner would already be made. (thanks Jim). After a good first night piss up to get the nerves all sorted out, we got up Thursday morning ready to go and full of excitement considering 2 of the 4 our group have never hunted before. So we head up to our area where 416 and the few others mentioned to check out. Our plan the first day was to to truly just get a lay of the land and look for sign and go from there. Off the hop we run into a couple whitey does, my fatherinlaw and his friend just miss the ads end of a moose but no luck to see if it was anything worth checking out. Anyways my buddy and I start cruising the roads hard covering ground and finally start heading up high on a switch back that over looks the whole valley, so I stopped the truck and started to glass the drainage area figuring it sure looks real moose!!. Well nothing down in the river bottoms, so I start glassing the adjacent cutblock from where we just were but at the time looking up into the slash, but now that we are way up, we were looking down, way better vantage point. That being said, guess what we see, way at the top of the block. Good ol moose, but we were too far away to know if it was a bull or cow. So we radio the father in law and tell him to meet us at the cut block and then make a plan on how to go after the moose.
My fatherinlaw gives me and my buddy the go ahead to hike up and put the stalk on the big animal, we hiked about 600yrd up the side of the mountain, along the tree line trying to be stealth and eventually decided to cut over to the direction as to where we figured we seen the moose. At one point we thought in that 10 -20 mins that it took for us to get to the block again and our 45 min slow/sneaky/stealthy hike, the moose had left the block. I was almost certain that it had left or we spooked it, but as we are making our way horizontally through the cut, my rookie buddy, says "what's that", I don't see anything at first, and he's like" look about 50 yard from us, the shape doesn't look right!". So I get a better look and damn near crap my pants, heart starts pounding "moose". But the way it was hiding behind some brush, you couldn't see the antlers at first, so for abou2-3 mins it was a staring contest. It finally took a step so we could see it better and my buddy says" its a bull". I got into a better spot again to make sure and confirm it had wood, and it did. I told my friend who has never hunted before or shot at an animal, he could take the shot if he wanted as we were only about 50 yards and the moose wasn't spooked, as long as he took the fundamental shot behind the front quarter broadside, and knowing my buddy was good to 200yrds and I would back him up if need be. But he declined and felt more comfortable if I shot first and see what happens from there. This little conversation went down in 10-20 seconds. A minute or so later the bull moose took another couple steps and was completely broadside, So BOOM goes my 30:06 and I hit him right where I placed my shot just behind the front quarter in the boiler maker. But he just stood there like nothing happened so I told my friend to put one into him in the same spot and he did as we later found when we skinned him out the shots were about a 1 1/2 inches apart. The bull then went for a slow walk and bedded down. Some high fives were given and congratulations but the fun part would start. It was now 3:30 and would be dark within a a hour or so. We decided to drag it out with the 1000yrds of cable we had and gut it down near the trucks in the headlights. We had it gutted skinned and hung by 8pm or so.
So to recap, we got our moose with in the first 7 hours of the trip and couldn't be happier knowing that bulls are few and far between in those neck of the woods. Unfortunately the next day didn't turn out as good as I ended up putting my truck in the ditch and cost me a $300 tow bill. Gotta love ice, it was completely my fault and thankful for cell service. Lesson learned, put chains on if you have them if your gut is telling you something, 4 wheel drive is not the be all end all and it don't matter how new your tires are ice is ice.......! luckily no damage and back on the road.
As for the rest of the trip, hunting wise, it went down hill from there, we didn't see any white tail bucks, loads and loads of does though. One more cow moose and near the end of the trip it started to snow, lots. So we decided to call the trip a bit shorter and head for home since we were happy with the bull moose that we got knowing it will help feed our 4 families. All in all it was a great trip and successful to boot. And I'm pretty sure our two rookie hunters that came with us are now hooked!
As for Pictures, I have a bunch, but I just got this new Microsoft surface and trying figure this thing out. I can text/email them to somebody if they want to post them for me if its possible. I promise it did happen........... lol.
Hopefully the read wasn't too boring, look forward to sharing the pictures with everyone. Take care and merry Xmas!
-Spilly
Ok, now to the story. Packed up trailer Tuesday night, caught first ferry Wednesday morning, arrived in Vernon mid afternoon, met up with 416, had a good chat and he pointed in a area where he had seen a bull the weekend prior. We carried on, arrived at our overnight destination in Cherryville at a friends of a friends place. To be honest we thought we had it good, thinking it can't get any better, well it did. Over the course of the trip when we would come back to the trailer parked at the friends place, he would invite us back into his house where dinner would already be made. (thanks Jim). After a good first night piss up to get the nerves all sorted out, we got up Thursday morning ready to go and full of excitement considering 2 of the 4 our group have never hunted before. So we head up to our area where 416 and the few others mentioned to check out. Our plan the first day was to to truly just get a lay of the land and look for sign and go from there. Off the hop we run into a couple whitey does, my fatherinlaw and his friend just miss the ads end of a moose but no luck to see if it was anything worth checking out. Anyways my buddy and I start cruising the roads hard covering ground and finally start heading up high on a switch back that over looks the whole valley, so I stopped the truck and started to glass the drainage area figuring it sure looks real moose!!. Well nothing down in the river bottoms, so I start glassing the adjacent cutblock from where we just were but at the time looking up into the slash, but now that we are way up, we were looking down, way better vantage point. That being said, guess what we see, way at the top of the block. Good ol moose, but we were too far away to know if it was a bull or cow. So we radio the father in law and tell him to meet us at the cut block and then make a plan on how to go after the moose.
My fatherinlaw gives me and my buddy the go ahead to hike up and put the stalk on the big animal, we hiked about 600yrd up the side of the mountain, along the tree line trying to be stealth and eventually decided to cut over to the direction as to where we figured we seen the moose. At one point we thought in that 10 -20 mins that it took for us to get to the block again and our 45 min slow/sneaky/stealthy hike, the moose had left the block. I was almost certain that it had left or we spooked it, but as we are making our way horizontally through the cut, my rookie buddy, says "what's that", I don't see anything at first, and he's like" look about 50 yard from us, the shape doesn't look right!". So I get a better look and damn near crap my pants, heart starts pounding "moose". But the way it was hiding behind some brush, you couldn't see the antlers at first, so for abou2-3 mins it was a staring contest. It finally took a step so we could see it better and my buddy says" its a bull". I got into a better spot again to make sure and confirm it had wood, and it did. I told my friend who has never hunted before or shot at an animal, he could take the shot if he wanted as we were only about 50 yards and the moose wasn't spooked, as long as he took the fundamental shot behind the front quarter broadside, and knowing my buddy was good to 200yrds and I would back him up if need be. But he declined and felt more comfortable if I shot first and see what happens from there. This little conversation went down in 10-20 seconds. A minute or so later the bull moose took another couple steps and was completely broadside, So BOOM goes my 30:06 and I hit him right where I placed my shot just behind the front quarter in the boiler maker. But he just stood there like nothing happened so I told my friend to put one into him in the same spot and he did as we later found when we skinned him out the shots were about a 1 1/2 inches apart. The bull then went for a slow walk and bedded down. Some high fives were given and congratulations but the fun part would start. It was now 3:30 and would be dark within a a hour or so. We decided to drag it out with the 1000yrds of cable we had and gut it down near the trucks in the headlights. We had it gutted skinned and hung by 8pm or so.
So to recap, we got our moose with in the first 7 hours of the trip and couldn't be happier knowing that bulls are few and far between in those neck of the woods. Unfortunately the next day didn't turn out as good as I ended up putting my truck in the ditch and cost me a $300 tow bill. Gotta love ice, it was completely my fault and thankful for cell service. Lesson learned, put chains on if you have them if your gut is telling you something, 4 wheel drive is not the be all end all and it don't matter how new your tires are ice is ice.......! luckily no damage and back on the road.
As for the rest of the trip, hunting wise, it went down hill from there, we didn't see any white tail bucks, loads and loads of does though. One more cow moose and near the end of the trip it started to snow, lots. So we decided to call the trip a bit shorter and head for home since we were happy with the bull moose that we got knowing it will help feed our 4 families. All in all it was a great trip and successful to boot. And I'm pretty sure our two rookie hunters that came with us are now hooked!
As for Pictures, I have a bunch, but I just got this new Microsoft surface and trying figure this thing out. I can text/email them to somebody if they want to post them for me if its possible. I promise it did happen........... lol.
Hopefully the read wasn't too boring, look forward to sharing the pictures with everyone. Take care and merry Xmas!
-Spilly