if anybody minds hearing from an out of state guy they dont really need to be on a national site , just my .02 .. bt good luck i just came through pa a couple of weeks ago went to salem virginia fora national softball tourny awesome country saw tons of deer would love to come hunt it someday anyway good luck cant wait to see some pics of your kills.. What are the limits/restrictions for you guys. i know here we are only able to harvest one deer with a rifle which is why i got into bow hunting the expanded season but now im hooked ad havent even looked at my rifle since.

phil i would not call you crazy with the backup i had decide to do the same if i were chose this year for a moose definitley interested in how it works out and what kindoff takle you use for future reference. My uncle owns a hunt park im gonna go shoot a red deer meat hunt, check it out im not sure off the hunt park idea but its 200 aqcres fenced and animals are as wild as any from what i can tell, anyways im gonna try my bow if i get a within range shot if not ill have my rifle as well. have been shooting rage but thinking more like muzzy for the bigger animal ( more penetration ) let me know how you make out.

hey bt one more question i thought the deer ther looked smaller but bigger racks than ours here had i had to many or was i correct, maybe just time of year, just curios as to what is a trophy for you

Our limit is one buck for the season no matter what weapon is used and the doe limit depends on the management unit. We can essentially get unlimited doe tags for some areas. I've harvested as many as 10 does plus my buck by utilizing different management units.


Our bucks do run smaller but our average age is probably less than yours. I have a brother in law who has hunter up your way and he tells me the deer are far fewer but far bigger at least in body size.

As far as a trophy for me, I tend to hold out for a Pope and young minimum buck or 125". My philosphy is to shoot does for venison and wait for a nice one before I use that one buck tag I get. My best PA deer was 129 6/8 but I also had a 5 year old with two broken tines that made 125"

I also hunt Illinois and look for 140+ when I'm out that way.

If you ever find the opportunity to hunt PA, feel free to drop me an email or a PM I'll be happy to show you some great places to hunt. Theres actually a good amount of land in the Northwest part of the state that is eirther public ground or private but wide open to hunters and some darn good hunting. Especially to a guy willing to do a little walking which I understand is fairly common up your way.

yeh its not uncommon to do some walking for me. not as much were i live its smaller woods but weve got a camp in jackman and you could walk for days there if you didnt have a knowledge of the area or a good compass/gps

i satill think its good to have a sense of direction up there. we hunt hard up around bingham solon and moscow and over to eustis and ive gotten on iron beds as big as a few acres and my compass was going hay wire!!! i cary two compasses and both were spining and straightlinging then half turns and straightlining again...pretty crazy. ive tracked bucks through that particualr section more then once and it always happens in there. cant beat the big woods for big bucks

I have had the same thing happen.. I would be following the compass and it kept me in a cedar swamp for quite some time.. After a while I decided to choose a tree to get some sort of a direction from. I then picked another tree and so forth inorder to find my way out of there. I now use a compass and a gps and I have less of a problem.. Where I live up here it is mostly woods no matter where you go..

congrats phil on the moose will be some great meat too bad you didnt get to try the bow on him i was really interested in how that worked out for you

theres this t-shirt in the new whitetail magazine that says

"use a GPS......its awkward whe you have to eat your buddies" lol

btw, you still didnt give any details on the kill phil!!!

I was hoping to get it with my bow my friend.. I can not apply for at least 2 more years now but as you know I can be a sub. i have made it clearer that I want to shoot one with a bow. So if my sub gets drawn I will sub for him with a better understanding. I would be using a Bowtech Constitution with a 60lb draw wieght. i know a few that have choosen the bow and stated that the moose may go around 50 yards if you are lucky.
I was set up with using Magnus 125 grain 2 blades..

We started out around 15 minutes later than planned so we never really started hunting at the time I wanted to. We drove down a dirt road and stopped and talked to a logger and a mechanic that was working on a log truck. I asked them if they had been seeing any moose on the roads. They stated not for a while. The road that we was on we traveled for a total of 5 1/2 miles and turned left and drove for another 2 1/2 miles before turning a right into an old cutting from a year and a half ago. We drove into this road for roughly 1 mile and stopped to try calling as there was fresh moose tracks in the mud. ( I had found this place scouting earlier. )
I called and we wiated for about 15 minutes with a steady wind blowing. I did not think 1 would come to the calling because of the wind. We then drove into the rest of the road, which was about another mile. When we drove back out to where I was calling a moose was standing in the cutting. The moose was only about 20 yards from us but due to the leaves we couldn't see any antlers. So we thought this was a cow moose. I tried calling some more hoping to see a bull that I thought should of been with her. When she was about 45 yards I thought I could see a small set of antlers but wasn't sure. When it got out to around 65 yards on a ridge we both could see the antlers then.
My sub mentioned our agreement that the first bull we see would be shot. So I said go ahead then as that was what we had agreed to ealier on. He shot it with a Savage 30-06 using a 150 grain bullet. He shot it low into the front shoulder and the moose ran about another 65 yards into the woods. I went in and tracked it. It had left no blood trail but was fairly easy to find because of the size of its tracks. I came across some rasberry bushes that looked like the moose had a hard time going threw them. I turned and looked to my left and there was the moose laying there. It was killed by the first shot. Upon field dressing it I discovered both lungs to look OK as well as the heart. The bullet did enter the ribcage just in front of the heart and lungs so I am thinking he got lucky and hit the main artery to the heart and that is why it died quickly.
Now let me tell you trying to drag an animal this size out of the Maine woods up here is not an easy task. We did get him out after 5 1/2 hours of steady work using a come-a-long, chains, and rope. But we did it and mission accomplished even though I would of like to try for a bigger moose with a wall hanger rack that tourists would like as well as myself..

P.S. I was using a Quakerboy Cow Grunt tube that I purchased about 20 years ago and it still works great today. I let a friend use it ealier this year and he got a 6 pointer with it. He was very happy with the results of this call. Now he wants to record me using the call. So, that he can get one out during the rest of his hunts in the future. He is an Indian that can hunt yearly and is around 70 years old. I have known him for quite some time and we have been great friends over the years..