Slooshark1
CGN frequent flyer
I was sitting in my stand on in the pouring rain, trying to be optimistic. Nevertheless, there was part of me that was wondering what the hell I was doing there. By 10:30 in the morning I had decided that I’d had enough and climbed down out of my tree stand and walked back to the truck. I met Henry and Wayne and we headed back to camp for lunch. When we got back to camp for lunch, we met everyone else and had a good meal and told some old stories. After lunch, Keven and I went for a drive to look for some birds and do some scouting. I shot 2 Ruffed Grouse with my .22, both head shots and both one shot kills. We returned to camp around 2:30 and I cleaned the birds and we discussed the evening’s plans. I decided to go back and sit in my tree stand. I got into my tree stand and sat there for about an hour and a half in the blowing wind when I decided that moose likely wouldn’t travel in this high wind unless they were motivated. I climbed down out of my tree stand and began to still hunt very slowly down an old skidder trail. I took the sling off my rifle so that it wouldn’t catch on any branches when I was walking. I walked for about a half an hour and had arrived at a spot where I had called the previous day and had heard an answer. I looked around and didn’t see anything and that’s when I felt nature calling. Once I was redressed I continued to still hunt my way into the Black Spruce for about 100 yards or so. I thought I spotted something dark up ahead but I noticed that it was right in line with a big Spruce tree so it was likely the trunk of the tree. I looked down at my feet and carefully took a few more quiet steps and then looked up. Ahead of me about 30 yards away, was a big cow moose standing broadside with her head down feeding. I slid the safety off my rifle and shouldered it. All I saw was black because my scope covers were down. I lowered the rifle and popped the scope caps up and re-shouldered my rifle. I put the crosshairs behind the front shoulder and squeezed the trigger. When the rifle went off, she took two steps into the Spruce bushes and disappeared. I immediately cycled another round into the chamber and looked to see if there was a calf with her. I didn’t see anything so I started to approach her. I took about ten steps when a bull jumped up out of his bed with lightening speed and began to run away. I shouldered my rifle and fired but I shot too quickly and I missed. I kept my rifle on my shoulder and cycled another round quickly and I fired again, this time taking an extra split second to make sure that my crosshairs were on him. His back end dropped to the ground and I worked the bolt again but I must have done something wrong because the next shell didn’t go into the chamber and jammed in the action of the rifle. I pulled the clip out and opened the acti
on. The shell fell on the ground and I stuck the clip back in and closed the action. I aimed for a head shot on the bull but I only hit him in the neck. It would have been a fatal shot but he didn’t fall down. I ran towards him digging in my pocket for another bullet and I stuffed the one bullet in my rifle and carefully aimed and fired. He went down for good. I looked behind me and the cow stood back up again. I dug in my pocket for another bullet and put her down for good too. It was an absolutely amazing experience to sneak up that close to two adult moose and I was only able to do it because it was so windy and noisy in the bush. When the guys arrived at the kill site, everyone knew what to do and we had the animals properly field dressed and dragged back to the trucks in no time. The boys were very happy with the whole situation and we had both moose hanging within a couple of hours. The next day, we skinned them out, quartered them, and wrapped the meat with game bags. The meat looks like it will be absolutely delicious and I’m looking forward to having some steaks.
What an awesome experience!
When I was cleaning the cow, I found the jacket had separated from the core in the chest cavity. I can't believe that that cow stood back up after being shot at point blank range with that rifle. They were Remington Factory Loads 250 Grain PSP. I think next year I'm going to reload Hornady Interlocks or something that will hold together better. Does anybody have a pet load for the .35 Whelen in a 250 grain that they would recommend?
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