A very nice from you is high praise Roy.
Sorry Kenny, I posted on the Pow Wow about our hunt.
Our camp was made up of 7 hunters this year and due to cutbacks by the ministry, we ended up with one bull tag. We split up into 3 groups to hunt different areas, one of which has produced several moose in the last few years.
My partner and I hunted a remote lake where we had some action last year and missed a nice bull.
We set up on shore on the corner of a bay where a tiny stream came out from a small boggy lake about a half mile into the bush. My partner was up in a black spruce and I was about 45 yards away on the ground in a natural blind made by deadfalls. We both had several shooting lanes into the bush as well as out onto the lake, where we set up a cow decoy. The strategy was to alternate calling every 15 to 20 minutes and listen for bulls. Spot and stalk is impossible here as the forest is dense in places and a big windstorm had knocked down a lot of trees a while back, making walking ( for us, not the moose ), really tough.
With the exception of two evening sits, this is where the two of us hunted all week.
Opening morning two of the guys, hunting a bog north of camp had a young bull come in, but he only got to 75 yards out when a bigger, hidden bull barked at him and chased him off. The other three guys saw a distant moose, but they couldn't tell if it was a cow or bull. We hunted our spot until Wednesday with no action other than once hearing a distant grunt and a cow.
On our commute from camp for the evening sit, I commented that it would be nice to hear a bull and my friend said it would be nice to see one.
So we got past the beaver dam and over the broken culvert to the old canoe landing, loaded up the boat and headed down the lake to our bay. It was cloudy that evening and we figured we'd be in for a short sit as it would get dark early.
As it was getting dark, I heard a thump and a splash from about 30 yards to my left, but I couldn't see anything through the trees. I stared and listened for some time and it drizzled for a few minutes. Nothing happened and it got a bit darker, then, I heard something with big floppy ears shake water off it's hide and my heartrate went through the roof! There was a moose really close! I turned and grabbed my bow and an arrow from where I had hung them and really stared holes in the trees. Now I could hear him rubbing up against the branches, but he stayed put, so I turned to face my partner and gave out two soft cow calls. That was our signal that one of us needed the other to call. He started a long series of sexy cow moose talk, and a minute later, I heard a second bull grunting in reply as he came through the woods. This bull was making a beeline for my friend's position. I still gave a few soft calls to help keep him coming on and then I heard a deep voiced grunt and antlers banging off trees as a really big boy came right towards my hide. He came in to within 20 yards of me and I couldn't see him through the deadfalls. He sounded so close I thought he could spit on me, so I shut up before he ran right over me in the gloom. Just as the light was fading, I turned to my right to see if I could spot anything and I heard my partner shoot, a huge crack and another loud crack as the moose turned and nearly knocked down a 60 foot spruce. Then nothing. Absolute silence for about half an hour, and I saw a black shadow with a cream colored blur above it slowly move through my best shooting lane. A black blob against a black background after the sun had been down for a bit. If my eyes were lasers, he would be dead, bur no matter how hard I looked, I could not see enough to aim. I was also wondering if it was the same bull my partner had shot. I never heard anything crash through the bush or fall.
I waited another 20 minutes before making my way to the boat and picking up my partner. As we headed back to camp, we talked about what had happened and we came to the conclusion that his arrow had likely glanced off a twig and struck high, most likely an antler. The bull reacted violently, but moved off about 10 yards and stood looking around, but obscured by brush. He then moved off about another 20 yards and stood there for about 20 minutes before wandering off. The little bull to my left had probably sneaked out of there when the big boys arrived and the one I saw in the dark was either the really big one or a fourth bull.
I commented that it was like an hour and a half long heart attack, but I was happy with the way I was able to keep my cool after being surrounded on the ground by a bunch of bulls. My buddy laughed and said that he was expecting me to run screaming for the lake as this was the first time I was that close to a moose.
We spent the next two mornings going over the area looking for the moose, the arrow, blood. Nothing. We found tracks and followed them. We found a big wallow pit that was being used, but no sign of any moose going down. We even looked for circling ravens which would lead us to a kill.
The one thing we did find, though, was a moose highway from the lake to the bog and next year's set up.
It was a great week though. We saw lots of wildlife including a bear that ran across the road in front of my truck as we drove into the town of Hearst, a wolf by the highway, foxes, eagles, a lynx and several moose.
As we hunted, we were being driven crazy by the fish in the lake. Big walleyes, pike and whitefish jumping and chasing baitfish the whole time we were there. We left our fishing gear at camp so we wouldn't be tempted by distractions.
We came to hunt moose.
Kenny, I don't want to make you feel bad, but I couldn't take the bow you made for me. Two days before we left, the riser overlay came loose. I had time to repair it, bit it came loose again. I think the riser is flexing a tiny bit and it's causing the overlay to pop.
I'm sorry my friend, I really wanted to hunt with it.
Dave.
Topic: What did you do today 2014 (Read 28969 times)
