Originally Posted by
super_hunt54
It's not really the "clinging to life" but more along the lines of actual weight to carry with no oxygen being pumped through the muscles. But you 2 are indeed correct that Moose lay down much faster and easier than Elk. Unless you have a seriously rutted up Bull Moose on the warpath. Nothing short of spinal interruption puts one of them down quick. It can really be a "bad day" if you nail one with a bow and the damn things spots where you are! Sometimes people forget that a Bull Moose, while being big, dumb, and ugly as sin, is still a wild animal and can be just as deadly as a Brown Bear if provoked. I tend to go for a High shoulder shot with all big game with firearms but if Bow Hunting then I like to have a nice tree that's quickly accessible when hunting those that are bigger than me and I aint no small feller
I've taken Elk with the 7mm.08 but in my honest opinion it really just doesn't have the availability of weight for bullets to get to the spine with my chosen shot placements. It's perfectly fine for tucking in behind the shoulder and for quartering away shots but to get through the hide, muscle, and heavy shoulder bone (yes the high shoulder of a moose is still pretty heavy) I just prefer having a bit more "meat" on my bullets than I can load up accurately for my 7mm08 barrels.
Yeah, with moose I think the proper handling of those moments immediately after the shot can be extremely important, way more important than with most other animals with the exception of brown bears. Reading the animal is a skill in itself and only comes with experience. If the moose gives me a follow up shot I'll take it, just to make sure I have one in the boiler room. But often you can pump lead into a moose all day and he wont die any faster, so once I know for sure I have one in his lungs I'll usually close the distance to where I feel in control of the situation if the moose decides to run, then just wait out of his line of sight for him to expire. Any animal dies way faster if they cant see you.
One of the first moose I shot went straight down at the shot, I walked right up to put one in his neck, at 15 yards away he got up and put his head down. I managed to shoot him in the neck while running backwards, the bullet obviously hit the neck bone because it exited out the side and blood was shooting out the exit wound in big arcs. It still took almost a minuet for him to fall over though.
One of the scaryest moments I've had while hunting was wading out to my chest in a river to get a rope around a moose that had fallen over only minuets before. He was drifting away with the current so I couldn't wait. Within arm's length of him, with my rifle back on shore, in 4' of water I figured if he got back up I'd just dive for the bottom and hope things looked better when I came back up. Nothing happened but I still get the willies thinking about that one.
Oh, and I know first hand that a .270 150 grain Coreloct bullet will punch through the thickest part of a moose shoulder and still take out the lungs every time.