I won't drag out too long so here it is.
Looking back at camp (3 miles away), I decided it would be good to start heading downward so I wouldn’t be in the thick brush after dark. So I started hunting my side-hill back. With a little over an hour of daylight left, I spotted a good bull about a half mile past my tent on the same side-hill. I dropped down and hurried to get a better look. It was the same bull I passed up 2 miles up valley from camp earlier. Since I passed him up already, my excitement dropped. BUT, he had another bull with him. At 150 yards, I could see he was much wider, so I got low and moved closer. I crawled on hands and knees, bear crawled, and belly-crawled the last 70 yards, staying below their line of sight and using the dwarf birch as cover.
They were both above me, but I had a good wind as the cool 40 degree evening down thermals were to my advantage. Glassing through the brush I could see the lower bull had good swoop to his beams leaving his head, and flared palms with long side tines. He did not have many brow points, only 2 on left and 3 on right, but rack sure looked to be over 60 inches wide.
They were preoccupied and raking brush, allowing me to get among them. The upper bull kept looking in my direction, but he never knew I was there. I finally slid my pack off and crept up behind a spruce sapling. The wait was on. The sun was setting. I could get no closer.
Finally the upper bull moved down to the same plane as the wide one, and then the wide one viewed the encroached personal space as a threat and turned toward him. But once the first bull backed off, it turned around and headed up toward me. I glanced ahead and looked for a shooting lane, then back at the upper bull. His head was down feeding. Now all my attention went to the wide bull, as I rose to my feet. He came up the trail a little more, with me standing behind the spruce at 30 yards. I thought about shooting, and then about the clear lane. I waited.
With his head down and moving forward, he turned to look over his shoulder toward his buddy. This gave me a rare chance to turn my feet and take a perfect stance. I thought to shoot low in the chest. He took his step and stretched the front leg forward. The 66# Schleyer model Stalker recurve, made for me by South Cox, came all the way back and the long shaft was on its way. I saw my white fletching hit tight behind the shoulder as I heard a crack.
My fear of hitting a leg bone was only momentary, as the great bull lunged forward, ran thirty yards and died in 20 seconds.
Topic: Mitten's memorial moose hunt for Bart-video added p. 14 (Read 3379 times)
