Re: Moose adventures again
The rest of the day involved packing the animal down in quarters, building a new game pole as we had relocated our camp to a new spot (won't use that spot again, too open), having some laughs and not seeing anything on the evening hunt. Again it started to snow...simply amazing for this time of year around Kamloops. Off to bed we went.
When we woke up it had stopped snowing, and the stars were out in full force...which meant the temp had dropped...oh man had it ever! I told everyone to pack for some colder temps, seeing as how we have done this hunt several times before, never with snow in Oct no one really packed for snow...and of course me being the tough one, I barely packed for the cold lol!
I gotta believe this was some kind of record for Oct 2...The cold meant that nothing was moving, there was fresh snow and no tracks were to be found anywhere. It was an amazingly odd moment. After this mornings hunt, if we didn't have the experience that told us the most moose would be seen on Oct 3 and 4, we may have green lighted immature moose. The discussion was had, and the idea was floated but we were far from feeling panic.
So -17, no animals sighted the entire day. Not many pictures either as we were all huddled around the fire keeping ourselves warm by passing around the scotch.
The old guys had gotten their moose, now it was Reagans turn. They tell me I have a knack for finding moose, so reagan had been riding with me this day. We figured it was going to happen, but it didn't. Not in the morning, not in the evening, so the plan was to keep the group together and have at it again. Well then next morning (oct 3) out we went, back to the spot I figured we would see moose and wow is all I have to say. Again our motto for this trip was be first, so first we were. The weather had again changed and with that change the Moose came out of the forest. Tracks everywhere, bushes thrashed by angry bulls, we could hear them in the timber, see that we were literally minutes behind but we didn't see a single moose. It was crazy, there are 3 roads that divide up this little area, with swamps and timber between all 3. The roads take the high ground and we can see down into the swamps. I can't believe we didn't see a single moose. Reagan and I went out again at 1pm to see if we would get lucky and catch a moose doing the afternoon shuffle. We tried calling, we could hear them react to our calls in the timber but they just wouldn't come out. More conversations were had but no immy was given the green light yet haha. Back out we go for our evening hunt. We are driving into the valley and I look down the draw...I think thats a moose, its about 800 yards away, maybe 1km. Binos up, yup its a moose. I get out the spotter and put it on the animal, yup its a bull...might be an immy though. Whats the plan reagan asks. Well the road takes us up and directly above him so we will just drive up and see whats what. So along the road we creep, moose typically don't blow out of there, he had already made us and hadn't left so I wasn't really too worried. We got above him, put more glass on him and yup he was a shooter. There was a tree directly in front of him, and he was basically facing us, so it was just a waiting game. I ranged the bull at 225, told reagan where to aim and then we just sat there. It took about 5 minutes but the moose finally decided to go on his way. 2 steps, I gave a grunt and reagan let him have it. He was hit for sure, it looked like it might have been a touch back, another bullet lept out of reagans rifle, the moose kept walking. Now he was directly walking away from us, I told him to hold, wait for him to turn. I gave another call, a cow call this time, the moose turned and reagan let another bullet fly. The moose took 2 steps and did the classic wobble and fall over dead. Big hugs, this was reagans first moose. I was so happy for him, we had so much fun after that.
Now I am the more experienced field dresser, and on the last moose reagan may have nicked the stomach haha, so I let him celebrate while I got dirty. Hes not much of a technology guy...doesn't even own a cell phone, but he sure did snap some fun pics with my phone on this one
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