Rhyno
12-19-2010, 11:59 AM
Although it has been awhile I thought I would share my late season LEH story. Anticipation was high as I left early on Nov 1, only to find the road was closed due to a police incident. After 9 hours of pacing and drinking way too much coffee, me and a buddy were off to meet HeyBlast. Got in just before dark and ended up setting up camp in what turned out to be bit of a mud bog....Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all about the same, spent a bit of time on the quad learning the area and walking places that looked promising. We were seeing moose alright..COWS....couldn’t grow antlers on any of them. Thursday afternoon I decided to sneak into an area that I had seen numerous fresh tracks that morning. I rounded a bit of a bend and thought hey that stump looks like a moose, put up the binos and all I could see was his face and antlers. Well chalk it up to inexperience, but I whipped the gun off my shoulder so fast you would think I was drawing in a fight at the OK corral. The moose took one look at the creature making frantic, spastic motions as I got my sling caught on my pack and was off. Once I finally untangled myself I dumped the pack and coat and was into the bush after him. I got about 20m into the bush and slowly looked around when I spotted an eyeball through a tangle of trees 60 m away. Another look at me and he was off again. I followed the tracks for a few hundred meters until I lost the trail. Disappointed I headed back to my pack, walked for about 10 minutes until I ran into a small lake that I had no clue was there. At this point I realized I was seriously turned around and had no clue what direction the old road was. After a small bout of panic (remember I dropped my pack with my spot, matches, ect) I remembered I parked the quad with the sun in my face, so I put the sun at my back and started walking. 20 minutes later I was back in familiar territory. Finally back at my gear I was now depressed, I screwed up my only chance so far that week. I contemplated going back to camp to drown my sorrows. Picked up my gear and decided to carry out my original plan. After finishing my walk I turned around to head back to the quad. I was within a few hundred meter of where I saw my bull, walking along staring at my toes, when I heard crunch, crunch, crunch....I was about to take my pack off again to head into the bush when I remember the uncomfortable night in the bush that mistake had almost recently cost me. So I left the trail and hadn’t gotten to the trees when I spotted his head and neck poking up over a pile of windfall. This time I SLOWLY put the gun to my shoulder, crosshairs on the base of his neck and BOOM. He went down in his tracks! I can’t even explain how excited I was. Pretty new to hunting the big stuff, I shot a 6 point elk in September, but a bull moose was a dream to me. First big animal I had to clean solo, lucky he was a little bugger. Ended up being the only moose we got, but went home very happy.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/CampNight.jpghttp://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/moose32.jpg
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/CampNight.jpghttp://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/moose32.jpg