BearStump
12-10-2012, 01:39 PM
About a month late posting about my 9 day LEH moose hunt in 5-2. thanks to some pointers by some on this site we conected on one of our two "any bull" tags. it was a super tough hunt and the moose were definately hiding in the thick crap. conditions were perfect, with about 1" of fresh snow every morning. no question that all tracks were fresh. day one and two were spent pretty much in the truck looking for sign. deer or moose. didnt see jack shit for two days. then we started seeing sign on day three. once we started honing in on where the moose were hanging out and crossing roads from thick to thick, it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. my buddy just yapped with another hunter on a decommissioned logging road for twenty minutes, then putts around the corner and BAM! 3x3 bull down. from about 50 yds with his 7mm. bang flop, with an angled shot that hit one lung then up through the spine.
as exciting as it was to get som meat on the ground after 5 days of hunting hard and following tracks through the hell that moose love.
The most exciting part of the trip was, believe it or not, missing the biggest buck i've ever seen. on day three, the 10th of November and the last day of 4 pt season before our hunt focused strictly on moose. my buddy and I went to a good spot we know and split up in seperate directions down a fenceline on quads. at about 4:00 with about 50 min of daylight left I went into what I thought was a shallow mud hole.(tough to tell with a few inches of snow and partially frozen) turns out it was a muskeg like bog that swallowed my quad like it hadn't eaten in a month! stuck right up to the racks and screwed.....10k from where I'm supposed to meet at dark. well fear kicked in and I wrestled with that quad like my life depended on it for about 10 minutes and got out. As soon as i got out, and breathing heavy I see a beutifull Typical 4x4 staring at me watching the whoe thing. this guy had 4 6-8"deep forks and was the biggest buck I'd ever seen on the hoof. I couldnt get steady for the offhand shot for the life of me. I was breathing so heavy and the buck fever didnt help I'm sure. But I held my breath and let the .300 wsm bark. Miss. jumped the fenceline and ran into the cut to see him trotting away at 250 yds. got a rest and sent another round down range when he stopped. Miss. The shots did'nt feel good. and They actually felt like misses.
Disclaimer: I looked for an hour that night and went back 2 days in a row looking for blood in the snow, but nothing.
Found his tracks on the same trail 2 days later, so he lived unscathed. AAAAAAAHHHHH! that sucks, the worst feeling in the world and it stayed with me for about 3 days.
But we got 1 moose out of a possible 2 and theres meat in the freezer.
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131062.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131041.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131064.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131066.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131061.jpg
as exciting as it was to get som meat on the ground after 5 days of hunting hard and following tracks through the hell that moose love.
The most exciting part of the trip was, believe it or not, missing the biggest buck i've ever seen. on day three, the 10th of November and the last day of 4 pt season before our hunt focused strictly on moose. my buddy and I went to a good spot we know and split up in seperate directions down a fenceline on quads. at about 4:00 with about 50 min of daylight left I went into what I thought was a shallow mud hole.(tough to tell with a few inches of snow and partially frozen) turns out it was a muskeg like bog that swallowed my quad like it hadn't eaten in a month! stuck right up to the racks and screwed.....10k from where I'm supposed to meet at dark. well fear kicked in and I wrestled with that quad like my life depended on it for about 10 minutes and got out. As soon as i got out, and breathing heavy I see a beutifull Typical 4x4 staring at me watching the whoe thing. this guy had 4 6-8"deep forks and was the biggest buck I'd ever seen on the hoof. I couldnt get steady for the offhand shot for the life of me. I was breathing so heavy and the buck fever didnt help I'm sure. But I held my breath and let the .300 wsm bark. Miss. jumped the fenceline and ran into the cut to see him trotting away at 250 yds. got a rest and sent another round down range when he stopped. Miss. The shots did'nt feel good. and They actually felt like misses.
Disclaimer: I looked for an hour that night and went back 2 days in a row looking for blood in the snow, but nothing.
Found his tracks on the same trail 2 days later, so he lived unscathed. AAAAAAAHHHHH! that sucks, the worst feeling in the world and it stayed with me for about 3 days.
But we got 1 moose out of a possible 2 and theres meat in the freezer.
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131062.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131041.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131064.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131066.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/BearStumper/PB131061.jpg