Livewire322
10-10-2011, 03:08 PM
Well as some of you may know I succesfully drew an LEH for a moose in 3-18 this year. I have been draw 4 times (counting this time) and never shot a bull. My hunting father has shot a moose when he was in our group draw. This year I decided to put my mother and in for 3-18 we normally put in for the areas around Likely and stay in a family cabin. We had an LEH for 5-15 2 years ago and decided that the hunting wasnt good enought to warrent going all that way. Now I put in for the area around Savona becuase my grandparents own a house on the lake. I was unsure of the amount of hunting I would be able to do this year as I started college this fall.
We started our trip from Burnaby at 5pm and did not arrive in Savona until after 10:30 pm (damn merging system in the city). When we arrived we (I) realized that the LEH papers were still at home in the freezer... so we got in touch with some friends and got the papers the next morning. Due to the missing papers we decided to sleep in to 7:30, we collected the LEH documents and a moose tag from the Savona store, then proceeded to the top of mount savona to try for a a bull moose that my grandfather had seen earlier this year. We arrrived on the top to find more than a dozen other people hunting, and decided that we would walk some swamps to wait out the other hunters. We returned to the tracker at a little past noon. Most of the other guys had left the hill so we proceeded down to small treestand in one of the lower slashes. My grandfather sat behind a stump vocalizing a moaning cow moose in a birch cone while I sat up the tree. 30 minutes went by with no response. Then out of the tree line came a serenade of coyote barks and howls. I couldnt see them (lucky for them), and after 10 minutes of staying out of sight they became silent. I can only assume that they decided to leave the cow moose with a blaze orange hat alone.
We left onto a lower road with more than 2 hours of daylight left. Not wanting to go home empty handed we tryed a road which always has grouse on it. We had nearly lost all hope of seeing anything living when we came across a brood of 5 ruffed grouse. I got out of the tracker with my .410 mossberg 500, and proceeded to walk towards the brood which was approximately 20 yards up the road. The grouse must not have felt threatend by my presence because all 5 proceeded to walk towards me. I got to 5 yards from the closest grouse when I shot it in the head. The rest of the brood took to the air, 2 went up hill and the other went down a bank. I could still the 2 that went up the hill. One had landed in a tree about 15 feet up, I took aim and the grouse came to the ground in a flurry of feathers. The other grouse flew away up the hill. We came home just after dark with 2 nice cleaned grouse.
The next day started at 5:30 am we decided to go somewhere further away from civilisation to avoid the traffic. I was feeling optimistic about our new location as we only saw one other vehicle on the way in. We got to a slash that had been freshly logged. It was a rather large slash so it took us 20+ minutes to get to the end and back. We rounded a corner, and there was a cow moose 50 yards away from us staning in the middle of a road with a bull 5 yards behind her. I got out of the tracker with my .270 loaded the magazine into the rifle and chambered a round. I could see the antlers on the bulls head before I looked through the scope. He thought he was “hiding” behind a tiny christmas tree. But his top half was exposed, so i could clearly see his hump and head. I lined up the crosshairs below his hump and let fly a 140gr federal premium accubond, which found its mark. As I brought the gun down to chamber a follow up shot the moose took off at a trot across the road and 100 feet into the timber on the other side. I took chase up and over a bank and found him keeling over onto his front legs. It looked like he was going to get up and run so I fired another shot at his neck. He then rolled over and died. After 3 years without killing any BIG game I was hooting and hollering.
We gutted the moose and called the girls to bring the truck up. The first shot went directly through both lungs. The second which we found after skinning severed his windpipe. It couldnt have landed in a better spot. We backed the truck right up to a bank and pulled the bull out with the tracker and some rope.
So after succesfully drawing for a bull 4 times I have FINALLY shot myself a moose. Ill let you be the judge but im extremely happy with him. Weighed 482 pounds skinned and hanging. :-D:mrgreen::-D
(the pictures dont seem to want to post im trying to figure it out)
We started our trip from Burnaby at 5pm and did not arrive in Savona until after 10:30 pm (damn merging system in the city). When we arrived we (I) realized that the LEH papers were still at home in the freezer... so we got in touch with some friends and got the papers the next morning. Due to the missing papers we decided to sleep in to 7:30, we collected the LEH documents and a moose tag from the Savona store, then proceeded to the top of mount savona to try for a a bull moose that my grandfather had seen earlier this year. We arrrived on the top to find more than a dozen other people hunting, and decided that we would walk some swamps to wait out the other hunters. We returned to the tracker at a little past noon. Most of the other guys had left the hill so we proceeded down to small treestand in one of the lower slashes. My grandfather sat behind a stump vocalizing a moaning cow moose in a birch cone while I sat up the tree. 30 minutes went by with no response. Then out of the tree line came a serenade of coyote barks and howls. I couldnt see them (lucky for them), and after 10 minutes of staying out of sight they became silent. I can only assume that they decided to leave the cow moose with a blaze orange hat alone.
We left onto a lower road with more than 2 hours of daylight left. Not wanting to go home empty handed we tryed a road which always has grouse on it. We had nearly lost all hope of seeing anything living when we came across a brood of 5 ruffed grouse. I got out of the tracker with my .410 mossberg 500, and proceeded to walk towards the brood which was approximately 20 yards up the road. The grouse must not have felt threatend by my presence because all 5 proceeded to walk towards me. I got to 5 yards from the closest grouse when I shot it in the head. The rest of the brood took to the air, 2 went up hill and the other went down a bank. I could still the 2 that went up the hill. One had landed in a tree about 15 feet up, I took aim and the grouse came to the ground in a flurry of feathers. The other grouse flew away up the hill. We came home just after dark with 2 nice cleaned grouse.
The next day started at 5:30 am we decided to go somewhere further away from civilisation to avoid the traffic. I was feeling optimistic about our new location as we only saw one other vehicle on the way in. We got to a slash that had been freshly logged. It was a rather large slash so it took us 20+ minutes to get to the end and back. We rounded a corner, and there was a cow moose 50 yards away from us staning in the middle of a road with a bull 5 yards behind her. I got out of the tracker with my .270 loaded the magazine into the rifle and chambered a round. I could see the antlers on the bulls head before I looked through the scope. He thought he was “hiding” behind a tiny christmas tree. But his top half was exposed, so i could clearly see his hump and head. I lined up the crosshairs below his hump and let fly a 140gr federal premium accubond, which found its mark. As I brought the gun down to chamber a follow up shot the moose took off at a trot across the road and 100 feet into the timber on the other side. I took chase up and over a bank and found him keeling over onto his front legs. It looked like he was going to get up and run so I fired another shot at his neck. He then rolled over and died. After 3 years without killing any BIG game I was hooting and hollering.
We gutted the moose and called the girls to bring the truck up. The first shot went directly through both lungs. The second which we found after skinning severed his windpipe. It couldnt have landed in a better spot. We backed the truck right up to a bank and pulled the bull out with the tracker and some rope.
So after succesfully drawing for a bull 4 times I have FINALLY shot myself a moose. Ill let you be the judge but im extremely happy with him. Weighed 482 pounds skinned and hanging. :-D:mrgreen::-D
(the pictures dont seem to want to post im trying to figure it out)