Cub Slayer

I find that throwing money at animals helps me hunt them more effectively. I do both outfitted bear hunts and self-guided bear/deer/turkey hunts every year.

I'll be using my fourth outfitter this fall. So far, every one has a saying "If you'd shoot it on the last day, shoot it on the first day". Some people consider this gospel; I do not.

Experience has made me take this not too literally, although I almost follow it by only slightly lowering my size standards as the week moves on.

In 2014, I shot my very first bear on the first night. The bear was very small (~75lbs) and I took a lot of crap for it, but I likely would have shot it on the last day. Still, I would NOT shoot such a bear on the first day any more.

On two occasions, I passed on a bear early on because it was too small. Once a larger bear came in, once I went home empty-handed. I feel I made the right call both times.

Putting numbers on it, I'd probably pass a 120-lb bear on Day 1, but not Day 6. (I took a 120lb on Day 6 in 2018 - would have let him go on Day 1) 150+? I'd shoot any time unless I had intelligence suggesting a 200+ was also in the area.

flags

My father used to say "Never pass on a bull the first day that you would shoot on the last day" when he was teaching to to hunt elk in my native Colorado.

A professional hunter friend of mine named Walter Enslin is licensed to hunt 6 different countries in Africa and he told me "Never pass on a gift the bush gives you" when a huge bull eland srepped out in front of us when I was trying to close the deal on a blue wildebeest. I took the shot and at the time that eland was #13 in the world for the cape eland subspecies.

Both are sound wisdom. I would take the shot if for no other reason than the huge pile of meat a moose represents.

Cub Slayer

I guess the one thing I'd say I've learned since my early days is the importance of deciding ahead of time what constitutes a "shooter". I've sort of done that for black bear and deer, but not moose. If you know ahead of time, you can avoid hesitation when the first-day opportunity arrives.

rogerstv

Never would I pass on a legal tag filler on Day 1 unless guide states otherwise. Reasons for me not to pass -- 1) First time harvesting particular species. 2) Paid guided hunt. and 3) Enjoy the remainder of the days in camp doing most anything outdoors besides hunting.

Bocajnala

This was not a size issue. It was over 60". Very nice moose.

If I had to guess I think he dreamed of the back country experience more than of tagging a moose. The moose was just his way of getting that experience.
When he shot it that first morning he felt like he missed out on the experience.

Again I only talked to him for a few minutes as I stood in his living room taking down some info for a report.

Just got me thinking after hearing what he said and wondered what others thought about it.

-Jake

Oldtimr

What I think is if his goal was more about the backwoods experience than taking a Moose, it would have been a lot less expensive and less work if he had simply went on a hike and camping trip in the back woods. I guess I am more of a count your blessings kind of guy then some.

mrbb

or he could have done a caribou hunt for a fraction the costs of doing a moose hunt, and just hunted MT caribou , so he could get the same terrain and like set up.

personally IMO< when ever you DREAM a hunt, seldom does it goes as the dream!

and after taking the first hunt in a location you dreamed about, odds are higher that you will make a second sone and that you will also have learned more of what you want and don't want in a hunt and get a better result the second/this time and so on.

this tread sort of reminds me of, when a kid goes on his first deer hunt and shoots a monster buck
and everyone says, where do you go from there??
you simply keep hunting, as lets not forget its NOT all about the kill some times, but I do think most folks on guided hunts where a chunk on money is on the line are more about a KILL than the hunt, and most guides know this, and again, would expect a CUSTOMER, to shoot when the chance is there, over it being about the experience
they start talking MORE about the experience of the hunt, after days pas and they DON"T get you on an animal your after LOL
sort of preparing you in case you end up eating a tag!
all hunters have different goals

some get mad if they PAID for a hunt and don;t get a kill, some look at it , with the, they enjoyed the hunt attitude .

Cub Slayer

The way I see it, what is the point of going on a six-day hunt if you absolutely refuse to shoot for the first three days? Why not just go on a three day hunt?

Oh sure, you could spend the first days scouting-only, but it seems foolish to me to pass on an obvious bruiser just because it was early.

Last fall (Aug 2019), I shot the biggest bear of my life on Maine's opening day. It was about 7pm, getting down to the wire. I had already started planning the next day in my mind, things like "Move the chair farther from the tree" and "Get more Thermocell packs" when the bear showed up.

When he arrived, I estimated him at 150 lbs, but even that is above my "Shoot it" criteria, so I did. I will admit a slight sense of sadness at ending it so soon, but at the same time, I knew I wouldn't be eating tag soup, and I got to help other hunters recover their bears.

The year before, I shot a bear at the same camp on the last day. I can't say it was any more satisfying than shooting it on the first.

As someone who spends more money than he should on hunting trips, I can say I've never felt cheated by an early harvest.

Oldtimr

My first two wild boar hunts, first in GA and the next in SC I did not make a kill, on the first one the two guys I went with each got a hog over dogs on the last day and the next hunt none of us got one. We had a lot of fun, I made new friends and saw country I never saw before and I enjoyed the hunts. I would have preferred bringing home some pork, but that is hunting. Ever since those 2 first hunts I have brought home 2 or 3 hogs on each trip.. Sometimes you have to pay your dues, and sometimes it works out and you score, that is hunting. Actually, I could have taken a hog in GA but we were hunting on a huge island that at one time was a plantation and the entire place was saw grass and small shrubs and there was not a spot you could stand still without sinking into the wet ground. I have RA and I wasn't willing to get the dogs get hurt because I was not fast enough to get to the dogs because my legs hurt in my hips. I was hoping with all the barking and hogs running some would scoot over to whee I was on stand. I could hear them grunting and squealing but could not see them. I did have a huge boar 25 yards from me, probably 500 lbs and that is no exaggeration. I could hear him coming for 20 minutes through the saw grass making some real ugly noises. I was sitting on a baited wallow on an old kitchen chair sitting on a 4x4 piece of plywood. I was hunting with a .45 Colt caliber revolver and I had it drawn waiting for him. When he finally popped out into the wallow I could only see his head and shoulders and I thought he was a bear, he was higher off the ground and much bigger than I expected and he would not have been fit to eat because he was so big and rank so I made up my mind that if he did not come closer to me I wouldn't kill him. I just kept my sights on him til he finally walked away. That was when the last light I could see my sights with went away. Then, I could hear hogs every where around me and it was dark. I had to walk about 25 yards back to the river bank for the boat to pick me up from the afternoon hunt. I had my flashlight in one hand and my revolver in the other and when I got to the river I put my back to it and slowly fanned the light back and forth in front of me until the boat got there. Hearing that motor heading my way was one of the best sounds I ever heard.

Rob in VT