jikjak
12-01-2015, 06:25 PM
I know this post is a couple months late and I apologize for that. This is my first post of an actual hunt as i usually dont post much on the forums. I've been quite busy since this happened and was able to get out on a few more hunts for white tail and mule deer. It's been a successful year for me and i hope to get out to the island this weekend to do a final hunt for the season as im still looking for a buck to put on the wall. Anyways here's my story.
Ive known Srupp for a few years now and he has given me great advice on grizzly hunting which helped get my dad his grizzly bear. We always keep in touch and before the LEH we spoke about moose. He said that if i won the draw then he would help me out with the hunt and show me how to call moose.
Well i was lucky enough to finally win my first LEH draw, and it was for moose, so we began planning for the hunt. I met up with Srupp a few days before the opening day of the hunt and we set off to make camp and to make some preparations so that we would be ready to go on day one. Our plan was not to road hunt but to bring the moose to us.
Oct.1 has arrived and we go into an area where we plan to call. Srupp let a call out and we waited. Shortly after, we noticed that there were some people driving around in the back of the area that we were planning to hunt for the day. This would ruin our chances and possibly pull a bull mouse out for them to shoot so we decided to move on to one of our other spots.
We head on over to another area and pull into a spur road off the main fsr . We posted up about 250 yards from the moose scent we hung up in a tree the day before. Steve started calling and repeated it every 15 mins on the dot. After about 45 mins we heard a distant answer from a bull. He sounded like he was a kilometre or more away. Srupp gave a short answer and about ten minutes later he gave us a couple more grunts. Srupp answered a few more times but the bull went quiet. It could be due to all the wolf sign we have been seeing in the area.
We kept calling every 15 mins. Approximately 45 minutes later, all of a sudden, without a sound, I see a bull moose appear out of the timber like a big black ghost. He stopped in the middle of the spur road about 50 yards away and stared right at us. I motioned to Srupp to have a look as i drew up my rifle to get ready to shoot.
I hear Srupp say 'shoot' and i pull the trigger, click, nothing happened, rookie mistake, i left the safety on. A split second later, the full fury of the .375 H&H roared out of the muzzle of the Blaser R8 and then the moose took off. It really seemed like I only startled the bull and he didnt seem injured at all. Apparently moose seem to have a slow nervous system that doesnt respond well to bullet shock. I know I made a good shot, but that didnt prevent horrible thoughts of missing from creeping into my mind.
We waited a little while and then walked up to the tracks he made when he emerged out of the timber. With no blood to be found where he was standing, we followed his tracks into the cut block that he ran into. Srupp and I went off in different directions and after a few minutes I spotted some blood. A bubbly pinkish clot stuck on some leaves told me that I hit his lungs. A step beyond that showed a lot more blood all over the ground. I stayed put and yelled over to Steve to let him know and then a minute later he saw the bull lying in the ground, no longer breathing. He was well within 100m of the spot where i shot him. Looks like the 260gr Nosler partition did its job. Now the work begins.
Long story short, we gutted him on the spot and then used a quad to pull it closer to the road. We rushed back to camp to grab my truck and trailer. We put the trailer down and angled it towards the moose. I turned my truck around and used the winch in front to drag the moose on to the trailer. The 12,000lb warn zeon winch made it effortless, im glad i have it as it has gotten me out of sticky situations in the past. We hitched up and high tailed it to my friend's house near town. We used his tractor to lift it and finished skinning it there. We split it into 6 parts and fit it into his meat cooler. After a few days of chilling we picked it up and butchered the moose at Srupp's place. It was a lot of work but definitely worth it. After letting it chill in the cooler for a few days, we butchered, grinded, vacuum sealed the meat and then froze it. It is all ready to eat!
I have to give a big thank you to Srupp for his help to make this happen. I also have to give a huge thank you to his wife Susan. She made us some excellent meals that we were able to freeze and simply heat up in the trailer. We were very well fed with some good home cooking. Also a big thank you to my friend Joe, who bailed us out by letting us use his meat cooler. It was a hot day and we were close to having the meat spoil on us. I learned a lot from this hunt and i cant wait to do it again!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/jikjak/2014-04/458EA309-6C0F-41A4-8838-2D3B664996CB_zpsgbcpjynf.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jikjak/media/2014-04/458EA309-6C0F-41A4-8838-2D3B664996CB_zpsgbcpjynf.jpg.html)
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Ive known Srupp for a few years now and he has given me great advice on grizzly hunting which helped get my dad his grizzly bear. We always keep in touch and before the LEH we spoke about moose. He said that if i won the draw then he would help me out with the hunt and show me how to call moose.
Well i was lucky enough to finally win my first LEH draw, and it was for moose, so we began planning for the hunt. I met up with Srupp a few days before the opening day of the hunt and we set off to make camp and to make some preparations so that we would be ready to go on day one. Our plan was not to road hunt but to bring the moose to us.
Oct.1 has arrived and we go into an area where we plan to call. Srupp let a call out and we waited. Shortly after, we noticed that there were some people driving around in the back of the area that we were planning to hunt for the day. This would ruin our chances and possibly pull a bull mouse out for them to shoot so we decided to move on to one of our other spots.
We head on over to another area and pull into a spur road off the main fsr . We posted up about 250 yards from the moose scent we hung up in a tree the day before. Steve started calling and repeated it every 15 mins on the dot. After about 45 mins we heard a distant answer from a bull. He sounded like he was a kilometre or more away. Srupp gave a short answer and about ten minutes later he gave us a couple more grunts. Srupp answered a few more times but the bull went quiet. It could be due to all the wolf sign we have been seeing in the area.
We kept calling every 15 mins. Approximately 45 minutes later, all of a sudden, without a sound, I see a bull moose appear out of the timber like a big black ghost. He stopped in the middle of the spur road about 50 yards away and stared right at us. I motioned to Srupp to have a look as i drew up my rifle to get ready to shoot.
I hear Srupp say 'shoot' and i pull the trigger, click, nothing happened, rookie mistake, i left the safety on. A split second later, the full fury of the .375 H&H roared out of the muzzle of the Blaser R8 and then the moose took off. It really seemed like I only startled the bull and he didnt seem injured at all. Apparently moose seem to have a slow nervous system that doesnt respond well to bullet shock. I know I made a good shot, but that didnt prevent horrible thoughts of missing from creeping into my mind.
We waited a little while and then walked up to the tracks he made when he emerged out of the timber. With no blood to be found where he was standing, we followed his tracks into the cut block that he ran into. Srupp and I went off in different directions and after a few minutes I spotted some blood. A bubbly pinkish clot stuck on some leaves told me that I hit his lungs. A step beyond that showed a lot more blood all over the ground. I stayed put and yelled over to Steve to let him know and then a minute later he saw the bull lying in the ground, no longer breathing. He was well within 100m of the spot where i shot him. Looks like the 260gr Nosler partition did its job. Now the work begins.
Long story short, we gutted him on the spot and then used a quad to pull it closer to the road. We rushed back to camp to grab my truck and trailer. We put the trailer down and angled it towards the moose. I turned my truck around and used the winch in front to drag the moose on to the trailer. The 12,000lb warn zeon winch made it effortless, im glad i have it as it has gotten me out of sticky situations in the past. We hitched up and high tailed it to my friend's house near town. We used his tractor to lift it and finished skinning it there. We split it into 6 parts and fit it into his meat cooler. After a few days of chilling we picked it up and butchered the moose at Srupp's place. It was a lot of work but definitely worth it. After letting it chill in the cooler for a few days, we butchered, grinded, vacuum sealed the meat and then froze it. It is all ready to eat!
I have to give a big thank you to Srupp for his help to make this happen. I also have to give a huge thank you to his wife Susan. She made us some excellent meals that we were able to freeze and simply heat up in the trailer. We were very well fed with some good home cooking. Also a big thank you to my friend Joe, who bailed us out by letting us use his meat cooler. It was a hot day and we were close to having the meat spoil on us. I learned a lot from this hunt and i cant wait to do it again!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/jikjak/2014-04/458EA309-6C0F-41A4-8838-2D3B664996CB_zpsgbcpjynf.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jikjak/media/2014-04/458EA309-6C0F-41A4-8838-2D3B664996CB_zpsgbcpjynf.jpg.html)
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