After the shot.. Your best, and your worst!

[John Y Cannuck]

I've heard endless stories about the hard work after the shot on for example moose.

In our camp, after the shot, the guys gather round, and pitch in. Sure, it requires some muscle, but the guys are all there, there are lots of laughs and great times.

Lets hear your stories.

Give us your best, and your worst!

 

[John Y Cannuck]

First I'll give you my best, easiest moose.

Shot within 20 yards of camp, I dragged it to the meat pole with a Chrysler minivan. And hoisted it with same!

Quick and easy. All done in 20 minutes or less.

Too bad the guy I was with didn't drink. (meds)

 

[hoytcanon]

My best archery moose dropped where it stood on a logging road and we were able to back the truck right up to it. My worst, which I don't particularly like to talk about due to the comedy of errors on my part, resulted in a seven mile, two day tracking job, after which the recovery was made, three miles of thick, nasty bush from the nearest access... I won't tolerate any of the "moose are pussies" talk after that experience... they may go down easily enough on a perfect hit, but be off the mark a little and they are a very difficult critter to follow up on...

And then there was... "Robo-bear."

 

[John Y Cannuck]

Then there was the time the boys were sitting round the table wondering where the one lad was. He was late, and it was getting really dark.
He'd been walking the ridges furthest from camp.

So they began to mount a rescue mission. But, as they got set up, in to camp he walks, breathless, and hatless. Jumping for joy, he'd shot a big bull.

Where they asked?

"I dunno" Was the young mans response.

So, they set out to look for the bull, with lights, and three ATV's. winding their way north across terrain few would take a machine in daylight.

We have a trapper in our group, I swear he could drive a machine up the side of a mountain, and make it fly off the top if need be.

Anyway, after hours of searching and near 11PM, they returned to camp empty.

DAMN!

The young man, new to camp, began telling the story once again, and the oldest man in camp suddenly speaks. "I think I know that spot"

So, out they go again, far to the north, and this time one guy sings out, "I found your hat!"

From there, the young fella shows us his moose. All you can see is half the massive rack sticking out of the water in the darkness. It was dead, laying in the water, and the foot of a rock ledge.

All the machines together could not pull him up the ledge. So, with him leaning up part out of the water, reaching over his back, they gutted him. (2:30 am).

There he stayed until the sun rose, and he was quartered for the return voyage.

Early the next day, two of our guys lay on their backs looking at the ravens circling above. One says, "best not fall asleep, they'd peck yer eyes out"

 

[Robert Nicholson]

Back in the sixties, my Dad shot a moose in our backyard, in town. The RCMP showed up a few minutes later and issued a summons for
discharge of a firearm within town limits. At the hearing before a justice of the peace, he was fined $2. I am not sure if this qualifies as
my best moose story or the worst.

 

[carverk]

My older brother got a moose with a 22lr in a swamp wen we wear kids up by Toply BC
He was are Hero till we had too pack it out
The next trip out he went out cattle rustling and shot a cafe.
We had to get the cow out with out the pasture with out the farmer seeing us we wear really young my older brother was 13 the youngest brother was 4 years old
Today a person would be calling RCMP and child services if thay seen a bunch of kids with rifles covered in blood packing out meat out of the bush
Back in those days it was cool to be a poacher and cattle rustler
We were bad kids that watch too many spaghetti westerns Lol
Kids to day have no clue how to have fun Haahaa

 

[BigUglyMan]

Worst. My NWT Woods Bison. Shot it within 5km of the trailhead. It was so close that we were able to drive the truck down to the scene and back right up to him. I thought I was going to puke part way through. It was unseasonably warm (Labour Day Weekend and +18C) and by the time we got him to the point where we could tackle the guts he was bloating pretty well. Foolishly tubed-out the front legs which made getting the legs out of the hide even harder. Black flies like crazy and hundreds of pounds of innards. Get the picture? We were so worn out by the end of it we hooked the ATV winch around his neck and hacked away at the Atlas Joint until we had the several-hundred pound head and cape free of the rest of the carcass.

To top it off, the firewood cutter that came and went during the whole process reported us to the game wardens as having "shot a buffalo that they thought was a moose. Now they're cutting it up." Met the wardens on the highway with a broke-down pickup. Turns out I knew one of them for many years and he knew that I had been given a tag by the Chief. We were on our way pretty quickly.

But so much good eating.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

deer hunt
For years I thought I'd never have a drag harder than the one i did at Fogducker's place, but then on day...

I was hunting a high ridge, it had turned really cold overnight, rained the previous day, and was tired of walking, so I picked a spot near the edge to set a spell.

I wasn't there long before a nice yearling doe appeared below me. Now deer were scarce that year, and the camp had none, so I was gonna take her. I lined up, and click! The bolt was frozen. I had been hunting in the rain the previous day.

Waiting what seemed forever, I chambered another round, as the doe patiently wandered a little over 100 meters off. This time I was rewarded with a boom, and saw a branch fall from a limb between me and the deer. She ran off tail down. DAMN!

So, I made my way over to the cliff edge and half slid down the now snowy slope to the beaver dam at the bottom, crossed that and went to find her track. no blood for a bit, but she seemed to be wobbling.

After 80 yards or so I see a spot, and look ahead. Just then she raised her head, a few yards off and I quickly finished her. That branch had made the perfect shot, into a gut shot.

That set me up for some fun. I could not pull her up where I came down. The only way out was to drag her around the pond, probably a kilometer, on a side hill covered with fresh beaver cut spikes, slippery as hell because of the new snow, and then up the even bigger hill at the far end to the Hydro line where I could drive in My Jeep.

Three hours later, I was approaching the bottom of the Hydro line hill, when I heard the whistle of our people. They'd come to check on me when I didn't show for lunch. They helped me pull the rest of the way to the base of the hill, then, I pulled the deer up the vertical rock face with the Jeep.

Shot from Here:

I passed her bed on the way out:

 

[buckbrush]

yup Bison are great eating. I would not want to butcher one alone, I think I would die from exhaustion.

 

[the spank]

This one time at band camp. Oh wait....wrong forum!!

 

[stubblejumper]

Easiest moose, walked 300 yards from the road to where I had seen a 50+" moose standing in some willows. The moose stood up at 200 yards away, I shot it, and we drove the truck right up to the moose. Most difficult moose, first week of November and we came across three bull moose and a cow across the Wildhay River. We had a discussion as to whether we should shoot one bull, and it was decided that since we had an argo, we could surely get across the river to retrieve it. Long story short, I shot a bull, and after traveling a few miles each way down the river, we could not find a suitable place to cross the river. It was either too steep on one side or the other. Plan B, back to camp to gather all of the rope we could find and return to the location. We started a fire on the near side, and I took off my pants and boots, and started across the river with one end of the rope tied around my waist. About a third of the way across my feet and legs went numb, but I made it across the river, dried my legs and feet, and put my pants and boots/socks back on. It started to snow, so I started a fire and warmed up good, and then proceeded to gut and quarter the moose by myself, rather than make someone else cross the river. Luckily the rope was more than twice as long as the river was across, so I was able to tie one quarter to the rope for my hunting partners to drag it across the river while still holding the other end. We did this with all four quarters and the antlers, then I warmed up good, took off my pants and boots, , tied the rope around my waist, put out the fire on my side, and across the river I went again. When I reached the other side, I dried off warmed up by the fire, and dressed again, and off we went to camp. I was lucky that despite the fact that the river was well over fifty yards wide, it was just below my crotch at the deepest point.

 

[medvedqc]

easiest: a moose that nobody shot as everybody was too polite ..... we even knew where he wil come ... needless to say that story is still the one going out wiht some locals and member of this site ....

hardest: when i was guiding in northern quebec. a guide called me at the radio as his hunter wounded one caribou. when i arrived i learnt that just after the caribou was shot (60 yards in windy condition) they went after him instead of waiting ... so i found out some black blood (liver certainly) after 2 hours of wait, we tracked for 5 hours (it was shot very early in the morning). we found him lying down in a small creek-pond the hunter raised his bow to shoot him and i stopped and offered him my rifle or i will shoot. his reaction was about the record in Pope and Young book not the animal. that was too much for me ... the savage lever action 300 savage ended the day ... so far my worst hunting experience.

 

[Superbrad]

Best..... Shot a whitetail buck with a 12 gauge slug on a spot and stalk along a ridge..... The buck slid about 20 yards down the ridge, landing ten feet from an atv trail and up against a tree with all four legs pointed skyward in a perfect gutting position.......

Worst.... We always have at least one bear tag at deer camp as the seasons overlap...... I was a dogging along with two other guys and we pushed a bear out to one of the older guys who shot it...... It left a fairly good trail, and being that I was much younger than the shooter, who was about to have a heart procedure that year, I was tasked with the recovery..... So I waited the usual 20 minutes and after it I went......

The bear had run down a slope towards a nearby creek then bolted left into some of the crappiest, thickest prickly ash I have ever been in...... Trying to get through and look for sign while dealing with thorns and thick bramble was terrible..... I got about 20 yards in and decided to back out and circle the prickly ash to look for sign going he had made it through, but of course he had not....... Then, out of nowhere, came the death bawl...... So, not having much bear experience at the time, here I was thinking I was closing in on a potentially live bear......

I finally came upon the bear, very much dead of course in the middle of the ash...... They sent another of the young guys in to help me gut the bear, all the while barking out instructions about gutting (which I made a complete disaster of)..... I came out of the ash patch frustrated, exhausted and looking like I got in a fight with a herd of angry barn cats.....

 

[John Y Cannuck]

Death bawl made yer hair stand on end ^^^^ The first one usually does.

 

[Superbrad]

Death bawl made yer hair stand on end ^^^^ The first one usually does.

Didn't even know there was such a thing at the time..... Got in my head that I was closing in on a live and very pissed off bear (which of course I was not).....

It actually still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, even though they are much more grey now.......

 

[beretta boy]

Moose season opener .... bull tag in pocket, hunting at camp with buddy & his uncle. They were going out by ATV so I said I'd go ahead early & walk to my stand.
Passed by a doe & fawn on the way in in the near dark. Half way in to my stand, there's Mrs. moose, about 20 minutes from legal time, so I just stopped at about 75 yards
short and watched & waited as she was browsing some red ozier tops. Getting a little lighter, noticed some movement to her right side ... a calf. Waiting, waiting, waiting, watch watching, seemed like it took a long time. A calf was fair game, and with walkie talkie in pocket, was in touch with the other two back in camp if need be. Heard the ATV start in camp and knew it was coming in my direction. At legal time, the calf exposed itself and down it went from a 250 gr. Hornady in the 35 Whelen. At the shot, the cow shifted and exposed a second calf. Shot No. 2, same result. The cow did not move. A few minutes later as the ATV got close, the cow moved off about 50 yards. Once buddy & uncle got to me, of course it was "what's all the shooting about ?" Pointing, i replied, "well there's the cow, her calves are lying right over there, side by side". The cleaning chores were started after tagging, and uncle kept an eye on the cow. After 3 or 4 minutes she moved off. The cleaning didn't take long between the two of us and once done, uncle & buddy went back on the ATV. Buddy returned with an old slant 6, tracked, stick steer Bombardier right up the trail. The winch & mast on the back took the calves up and mostly off the ground so that only the rear quarters were dragging, straight back to camp. I walked out and after catching up, it was conference time. Very warm weather for opening day, so the calves were let down on the ground, picked up with the bucket of a back hoe loader and loaded into the back of a one ton dually dump truck. Straight in to the cool of the killing floor of the local abattoir. At 9:05 a.m. it was breakfast at the local beanery in town ! .... Could't lay eyes on a bull all week to fill the bull tag, but saw three in deer season a week and a half later !

 

[jables]

The best to date was my first and only calf moose up in NE Ontario. I set a friend up in a swampy cut block and I proceeded to walk about 2mi down some old logging roads to check out a few cuts that were a couple years old. Just before dark I started walking back to our meeting point where I had left the truck when I heard a couple moose come running over a ridge straight towards me. I could tell there were at least two moose by the sounds of the branches breaking just 20ish yards from the road where I was standing, but the bush was too thick to see what was going on. After a few minutes they walked away, but happened to cross the trail exactly where I had decided to turn around an head back t the truck. First the cow stepped out, walked about 30 yards then turned to look behind her. That's when I saw the calf come running up behind her. One shot in the ribs and the calf didn't move so I was able to reload and put one in the neck just down from the ear. She dropped on the side of the trail, the cow bawled a bit, and then the wolves started howling. I can only assume the wolves pushed the moose over the ridge towards me. After literally running back to the truck to collect my hunting partner before it got too dark, we drove up to where the calf lay, did a quick field dress, then loaded her up. After we got back to town, we got my friend's loader out, hoisted the moose, and that's where she hung for a couple days.

The toughest to date, although not too bad, was my first bear. I shot him last fall with my bow while doing a quick pre-gun season deer scout back in some oak ridges and swamps on the outskirts of where I do most of my deer hunting. After noticing several areas of chewed up ground (something digging for acorns in the leaves) I decided it was time to set up and see if anything walked between the two swamps on the oak ridge I was hunting. As I was looking for a spot to sit comfortably I looked up and saw a decent bear grazing on acorns only about 25 yards away. He didn't see me and I let my arrow fly. It was October 31, the last day of bear season. He was hit well with as complete pass through the back of his lungs slightly quartering to, ran about 30 yards and slowly walked down the ridge towards the swamp. After checking out my arrow and seeing good blood I tracked him a total of about 70 yards top where he was down. Unfortunately he was about 400 yards from the snowmachine access trail, and about a mile from the quad. I was lucky enough to get 1 bar of cell phone service, got a hold of my brother and his girlfriend who were coming out to the hunt trailer that afternoon. I dragged the bear about halfway, no water, no ropes, nothing. I never realized how difficult a bear would be to drag through the bush with their big ankles and dense hide (as this was my first bear). After the team showed up to help it wasn't a bad go to the trail, hoisted him up on to the quad, and started the long slow ride back to the trailer. I was pretty thankful for the help at that point. He dressed out at about 160 or so, somewhere around 5.5' long (honestly not that great at guessing bear measurements yet). Luckily I was able to get him to the butcher that night (Saturday), and make it back out to the trailer that night to wind down and get ready for the deer gun hunt on Monday. Although it wasn't as entertaining as some of the stories you guys have, it was the furthest back in the bush I've harvested an animal on my own.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

Stubblejumpers story reminded me of this one.
Should have been an easy, he was shot ten feet from the watchers boots, and five feet from our ATV trail. But then, he decided to take a swim.

That's the shooter tying to get a rope around a floating bears head, in freezing water ten feet deep above the beaver dam.

Bear went about 400lbs.

 

[atr]

My 10 year old uncle was crossing a huge rye field late one night back in the 1930's with his .22 . He could see the light in the farm house from the coal oil lanterns and was following that light in but still at least a mile away . Something big jumped up in front of him and startled him . He fired a single shot from the hip and down went the monster that had jumped up . He had no light but made his way home to tell his father , my grand father that he had just shot the neighbours horse . Grand father gave him a terrible whipping and then the family got the lanterns and went out searching . Sometime after mid-night they found the cow moose that uncle had dropped with a single hip fired .22 shot . They canned that meat and shared it with everyone and it was the only meat they had that fall and winter . Thing is , there are no moose around there and never has been but there was a cow bedding in the rye . So he fed the family and neighbours which made it the best hunt of his life in his 10 short years and got whipped like an animal for doing it , making it the worst hunt of his life in his 10 short years .

As for me I've only had one worst hunt of my life and that was in October of 1978 . It was a heavily overcast day , dark in the afternoon and an icy cold rain coming down . Me and buddy were cruising the cuts when I spotted a young bull about 250 yards out running parallel to us knee deep in a swampy area of a cut . I bailed out and hit him with my .308 and he kept running , up out of the swamp , uphill , which was a small hill but the highest point of elevation in the cut . I hit him again , this time in the neck and down he went .
Buddy and I got our packs and gear and although 250 yards it was so hard going with the stumps , roots , rocks and in places knee deep swamp . We arrived and caught our breath for a minute and decided buddy would roll a hid leg and I would gut it . There came a bright blue flash that instantly turned the dark cut into daylight and the world went silent . I got to my knees , and buddy didn't get up . I shook him and yelled and checked his breath and tried compressions that I only saw on television . Lightening had hit and buddy was dead .
I didn't have any idea what to do but I knew I couldn't leave buddy there in the pouring October rain . I tried to hoist him up on my shoulder but couldn't . It took me about 3 hours mostly on my knees to drag buddy back to the truck . He and I were both covered in mud . I got him on the front seat and drove about 60 miles to the Port Arthur General Hospital where I pulled up in front of emerg . I couldn't get out , there was nothing left , I couldn't even cry anymore . An orderly spotted us and they came out with a stretcher .
There was never a time I didn't know him . We started the 1st grade together . More like brothers and what a horrible thing it is to have to drag your brother out of a cut in the cold October rain . I still smell burned hair . We were 25 years old . Now i'm 63 and buddy is still 25 .

 

[carverk]

My 10 year old uncle was crossing a huge rye field late one night back in the 1930's with his .22 . He could see the light in the farm house from the coal oil lanterns and was following that light in but still at least a mile away . Something big jumped up in front of him and startled him . He fired a single shot from the hip and down went the monster that had jumped up . He had no light but made his way home to tell his father , my grand father that he had just shot the neighbours horse . Grand father gave him a terrible whipping and then the family got the lanterns and went out searching . Sometime after mid-night they found the cow moose that uncle had dropped with a single hip fired .22 shot . They canned that meat and shared it with everyone and it was the only meat they had that fall and winter . Thing is , there are no moose around there and never has been but there was a cow bedding in the rye . So he fed the family and neighbours which made it the best hunt of his life in his 10 short years and got whipped like an animal for doing it , making it the worst hunt of his life in his 10 short years .

As for me I've only had one worst hunt of my life and that was in October of 1978 . It was a heavily overcast day , dark in the afternoon and an icy cold rain coming down . Me and buddy were cruising the cuts when I spotted a young bull about 250 yards out running parallel to us knee deep in a swampy area of a cut . I bailed out and hit him with my .308 and he kept running , up out of the swamp , uphill , which was a small hill but the highest point of elevation in the cut . I hit him again , this time in the neck and down he went .
Buddy and I got our packs and gear and although 250 yards it was so hard going with the stumps , roots , rocks and in places knee deep swamp . We arrived and caught our breath for a minute and decided buddy would roll a hid leg and I would gut it . There came a bright blue flash that instantly turned the dark cut into daylight and the world went silent . I got to my knees , and buddy didn't get up . I shook him and yelled and checked his breath and tried compressions that I only saw on television . Lightening had hit and buddy was dead .
I didn't have any idea what to do but I knew I couldn't leave buddy there in the pouring October rain . I tried to hoist him up on my shoulder but couldn't . It took me about 3 hours mostly on my knees to drag buddy back to the truck . He and I were both covered in mud . I got him on the front seat and drove about 60 miles to the Port Arthur General Hospital where I pulled up in front of emerg . I couldn't get out , there was nothing left , I couldn't even cry anymore . An orderly spotted us and they came out with a stretcher .
There was never a time I didn't know him . We started the 1st grade together . More like brothers and what a horrible thing it is to have to drag your brother out of a cut in the cold October rain . I still smell burned hair . We were 25 years old . Now i'm 63 and buddy is still 25 .

Holy crap that is a bad run of luck atr
I realy like the story about your uncle