There was another hunter in camp, a Toronto resident named Ed (left). On the evening of the eleventh he took a 12-foot shot at a small bull and made a bad hit. He and his guide, Joe (right), tracked the animal 600 yards into a spruce-choked peat bog the next morning and dispatched it with two more shots (yes, out of tune 400-grain carbons and wide mechanical heads are a lousy choice for moose hunting). Only one of the arrows made it into the rib cage, never reaching the offside of the chest cavity.
Off road vehicles are allowed in this area, so that's what was used for the moose extraction. That sounded like a good idea to me, especially since the alternative was packing it out through foot-thick peat moss and swamp.
Joe grabbed a chainsaw and proceeded to clear a trail through the cutover and into the bog. Ralph manned the ATV.
Joe was definately having fun running that saw.
We eventually got the ATV to the moose. It took five of us to lift its head and tie it to the rack. Ed sat on the front rack to keep the nose of the quad down while Joe walked ahead with the winch cable. It took all six of us almost five hours to get the moose to the logging road and loaded in the trailer. Not exactly your typical moose extraction, but effective nonetheless.
When a whole moose is hanging on the meat pole the enormity of its size becomes apparent. For the sake of comparison, Ed is about 6'2" tall.
Ed and I had yet another talk the next day about his out-of-tune bow, light arrows and big mechanical heads for moose. Hopefully he'll make the necessary changes before he hunts anything else this season.
Try as I might, I'm not sure he realizes how lucky he was to recover his moose. He should probably go buy a lottery ticket.
Topic: Ontario Moose Hunt Photos (Read 5922 times)
