bosch
10-20-2007, 05:22 PM
Just returned from our hunting vacation, myself and hunter1947. He was in the Kootenays since the begininning of September celebrating his recent retirement from Buschart gardens and capped it off with a 7 week hunt. myself, being a working stiff had 2 weeks to maximize my freezer. I flew to cranbrook on the 5th of October with visions of a 6 point elk in my head to follow with an LEH draw for moose, the second week in Houston. Hunter had a very frustrating 5 weeks before I arrived seeing 22 bulls and nothing bigger than a 5x5 excepting a bull down with an unmentioned member who decided not to share his kill with him, but that's another story.
well after hooking up with hunter our first hunt on the 6th brought in a huge 5x5 bull, 75 yards away to add to his other 5x5's, hmmmm! think they should be reviewing the 6x6 only rule?, again another story, anyway after a week of hunting the Kootenays, we came up short for elk in the freezer but did manage a nice little whitetail, which i will post the pic.
Well it was off to Houston, BC, to try and bag my moose.
After a long haul to get there we were shown some areas by trigger, which athough were nice areas, they did not produce a bull.
However, on the second day out we were doing a drive around the areas, and found some fresh sign and went for a walk to try some calls. Hunter ran into a cow in a clearing he was watching and we heard a grunt from a bull but could'nt get him to come in. after meeting back at the truck I decided to go for a walk down the road and looked over the bank to find myself looking face to face with a young bull. My shot was going to have to be a head shot or brisket, which I did'nt feel comfortable with but was convinced to try, only to shoot high and have the bull run away from me.
Great start!
The next couple of days had little movement by the animals but we did get to see some moose in other areas at a long distance away.
hunter and I decided to move our camp to where I missed the bull and pound that area again. I have to admit my confidence level at that point was at a considerable low but with my partner's reassurance of his faith in me I went on. I have been quite accurate with my hunts before with a 100% kill ratio but after missing that bull at such a close range I was very confused.
Anyway I was there to hunt and back to business so on the 17th we decided to split up areas to maximize our percentages. Hunter was covering a beautiful 10 year old clearcut overlooking swamps and grassy meadows that we both agreed should produce a moose, myself I went up the road I shot a the bull to look over some new cuts.
I had agreed to pick hunter up at 9 AM to go for a little road hunt and found the time went by very quick so I walked back to the truck and realized it was 9:05 so I drove quickly to pick him up only to have a huge bull cross the road about 150 yards down the road. I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my gun and loaded a round to only catch his big body disappear in the timber...great Moose-2, me-0.
I continued on to pick up hunter, and thought that I had just lost my chance for a moose this trip. After picking up Wayne I suggested we go back up the road and have a look around to see if we could surprise that bull and he agreed. We headed back up and looked over the area for about 30 minutes and realized he had vanished.
Well we were left with our road hunt but hunter suggested we go to the end of the road so he could retrive his tree stand he had left there a couple of days before. At first I thouht no, let's keep hunting but then agreed that made sense so on we went.
When we got to the end we both started walking towards the stand and I said to him I had felt it made no sense for both of us to get it so I would walk up through a slash that was nearby to see if anything was there and he go and get it, he agreed and off we went.
After heading through the slash I felt the wind was not in my favour so I started to parallel my trail and put myself against the timber. All the time I was saying a little prayer and thinking I was ready to walk every inch of this land to get one more chance at a bull. When I got to the end of the cut, I looked to my right and suddenly saw a coe standing about 175 yards across the slash close to the timber. I crouched low and had a look through my bino's and saw some movement just insde the timber, and suddenly saw the bull's beautiful redish-brown antler's. At this point I had the wind perfectly in my favour so I found a good stump for a rest and put my crosshairs behind the shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger.
Down he went!! Shot him right in the hump and snapped his back...GAME OVER! I will try and post the pics as soon as I figure out how!
well after hooking up with hunter our first hunt on the 6th brought in a huge 5x5 bull, 75 yards away to add to his other 5x5's, hmmmm! think they should be reviewing the 6x6 only rule?, again another story, anyway after a week of hunting the Kootenays, we came up short for elk in the freezer but did manage a nice little whitetail, which i will post the pic.
Well it was off to Houston, BC, to try and bag my moose.
After a long haul to get there we were shown some areas by trigger, which athough were nice areas, they did not produce a bull.
However, on the second day out we were doing a drive around the areas, and found some fresh sign and went for a walk to try some calls. Hunter ran into a cow in a clearing he was watching and we heard a grunt from a bull but could'nt get him to come in. after meeting back at the truck I decided to go for a walk down the road and looked over the bank to find myself looking face to face with a young bull. My shot was going to have to be a head shot or brisket, which I did'nt feel comfortable with but was convinced to try, only to shoot high and have the bull run away from me.
Great start!
The next couple of days had little movement by the animals but we did get to see some moose in other areas at a long distance away.
hunter and I decided to move our camp to where I missed the bull and pound that area again. I have to admit my confidence level at that point was at a considerable low but with my partner's reassurance of his faith in me I went on. I have been quite accurate with my hunts before with a 100% kill ratio but after missing that bull at such a close range I was very confused.
Anyway I was there to hunt and back to business so on the 17th we decided to split up areas to maximize our percentages. Hunter was covering a beautiful 10 year old clearcut overlooking swamps and grassy meadows that we both agreed should produce a moose, myself I went up the road I shot a the bull to look over some new cuts.
I had agreed to pick hunter up at 9 AM to go for a little road hunt and found the time went by very quick so I walked back to the truck and realized it was 9:05 so I drove quickly to pick him up only to have a huge bull cross the road about 150 yards down the road. I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my gun and loaded a round to only catch his big body disappear in the timber...great Moose-2, me-0.
I continued on to pick up hunter, and thought that I had just lost my chance for a moose this trip. After picking up Wayne I suggested we go back up the road and have a look around to see if we could surprise that bull and he agreed. We headed back up and looked over the area for about 30 minutes and realized he had vanished.
Well we were left with our road hunt but hunter suggested we go to the end of the road so he could retrive his tree stand he had left there a couple of days before. At first I thouht no, let's keep hunting but then agreed that made sense so on we went.
When we got to the end we both started walking towards the stand and I said to him I had felt it made no sense for both of us to get it so I would walk up through a slash that was nearby to see if anything was there and he go and get it, he agreed and off we went.
After heading through the slash I felt the wind was not in my favour so I started to parallel my trail and put myself against the timber. All the time I was saying a little prayer and thinking I was ready to walk every inch of this land to get one more chance at a bull. When I got to the end of the cut, I looked to my right and suddenly saw a coe standing about 175 yards across the slash close to the timber. I crouched low and had a look through my bino's and saw some movement just insde the timber, and suddenly saw the bull's beautiful redish-brown antler's. At this point I had the wind perfectly in my favour so I found a good stump for a rest and put my crosshairs behind the shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger.
Down he went!! Shot him right in the hump and snapped his back...GAME OVER! I will try and post the pics as soon as I figure out how!