Hey guys, Nice to see you've all been out and about. Great pics JD! Congrats on the early hunts Skeeter and YF. I've been pretty busy with work up until this week. Now that things have slowed down a bit i 've been able to get out chasing critters.
It took three days and some help from a friend but I got my first moose last night. As it turns out I'm now further indepted to the buddy who set me up on my whitetail last fall.
After a couple of warm windy days of trying on my own with only limited success, I was able to experience moose hunting at it's best. My hunting partner was able to somehow weasel himself out of his hectic work schedule on wednesday with the intent of showing me his "top secret" moose hunting swamp. Needless to say after hearing about this place for two years i was pretty pumped to finally see the "promised land" with a tag in my pocket.
After a 1 hour 8mile quad ride back into the bowels of a major wetland we arrived in what can only be described as moose heaven. The area was made up of 2-3 miles of waist high willows, alder runs oxbows and two rivers that gradually wind their way together. Within minutes we jumped up a medium sized bull who stood broadside and offered a very tempting 100yd shot. Having promised myself i would hold out for 40inches or better on my first moose, I reluctantly let him go only to start second guessing myself almost immediately.
Several hundred yards further we ran into another smaller bull and shortly after that a cow/calf pair. We set up and tried calling for an hour or so with no luck, the wind likely didn't help much as it was gusting pretty heavily all evening.
With darkness falling and 1/2 hour of legal light left we slowly made our way back out hoping to catch some evening movement on the way. We rounded the last corner into the last big opening with about 15 minutres of light left and immediately spotted a bull standing in the willow 300yds away. we quickly closed the distance on foot only to see two more bulls and a cow appear out of the willows and mill around each other. While we hummed and hawed over shooting the biggest of the three bulls I noticed some willows taking an aweful thrashing about 100yds behind the four moose. Right obout the time I lowered my binos to ask Mat if he could see what it was i heard him say "holy **** that ones a shooter!" We then watched as the new bigger bull walked in antlers waving and chased all three bulls of with the offer of a supreme a** kicking. After chasing the rivals away he ran the cow right at us until they were both about 100yds. Not long after that he turned broadside and the lead started flying
He only went a few yards as i hit him on all three shots. The result, a big smile on my face and a long hard drag back out of the swamp
Hope everyone else is having a great season so far. Good luck in all your adventures guys.
