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

BigUglyMan said:
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.
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I've done a few bison, and they don't get easier. They're always tough, the skin is a leaden tarp, they live in moose country but are twice the size, the head weighs what an adult male should (zero exaggeration, weighed it) and you have to work quickly to cool them down. They don't roll thanks to bulls being a couple thousand pounds with a purpose built hump clearly of intelligent design that prevents any kind of reorienting of a dead Bison. Add the typical season of winter for bison hunting and the associated snow and it gets worse. They can't be strung up without a serious skinning pole that nobody but ranchers have the time to build, and when you ask someone to hold a leg you can watch them steel themselves. And they aren't misguided in doing so. The gut pile weighs more than just about any deer in the country, and thanks to a bison not rolling kindly, and the impossibility of winching one up, you fight with that cow elk sized gut ball up close and personal. The last one I did gutless and it's the only way in my eyes if don't take the ribs. Oh, and bison can be tougher than a 12 valve cummins.

Both my worsts were weather related, a -30C bison north in the dead of winter, and a -30 Whitetail. Neither story is entertaining both were just a grind.
 
Yep, I have to agree with you Angus..........dealing with a dead bison is like beaching a 3000 lb halibut, they absolutely don't roll over like a moose and there is nothing about it that resembles fun..........it is without a doubt one of those hunts when the fun is over after the loud bang.
I once shot a moose which ended up in a pond about 3 1/2 ft deep in mid October, I had no way to remove him from the pond.........it turned into one of the worst, coldest, longest nights of my life, never mind hunting career. And when I got him all cut up and in the freezer, you couldn't eat the SOB he was so tough. A serious cluster f**k in all respects, never again allowed a moose to get anywhere near cold water.............Well except one more time with Ted (Why Not?), but we were able to get him out of the water and up onto a gravel beach before we had to work on him........still a lot of work but at least not scrotum deep in frigid water.
 
Worst - Shot a bull moose with a 280 Imp I had a the time. Excited as hell when I ran up to it to admire my kill. It was at this point that I realized 2 things.
1. I had shot the moose in a scarified field.
2. I was by myself, and there was absolutely no one else around.
The moose was shot at about 1300hrs. I had him gutted, legs and head off, skinned and quartered by 1700hrs. At this point it was dark.... very dark. I then had to stumble about 300 yards through this field to get to my truck with each quarter. By the time I was done, I thought I would have a stroke. I'm still surprised I didn't break a leg or any other appendage. I did learn a valuable lesson though.
 
atr said:
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 .
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That's a hell of a way to lose a friend.
At least, I hope, he died doing something he loves. I hope I go that way.
 
Easiest: Opening morning, lifted the moose into the truck after gutting.

Hardest: 1 K hike uphill after shot, before I got ATV. Last moose lugged. If I cannot get ATV to or close to Moose, I will not fire. I do put the ATV in some nasty spots all the same :)
 
Easiest; found a yearling bull with a dislocated front leg and were able to get ahold of SERM to see what they wanted to do about it. Shot it at their request, and got a farmer who was loading round bales a couple fields over to pick it up with the front end loader for us. Doesn't get much easier than that. A few got loaded with box mounted winches and a set of quad ramps. That's pretty easy too, just a bit slower than a tractor

Several moose are tied for second place as we were able to get a truck right up to them. Some got cut in half, some quartered and at least two that I can remember got loaded by hand in one piece. One of those wasn't even gutted, but there were 3 guys.

Hardest is tougher to call. Boning out a moose in a mountain lake wasn't real fun, but at least we could get a boat to it. Packing a couple miles through semi-dry muskeg wasn't fun at all but at least there were 4 of us. Still considerably harder than getting my goat off the mountain, but that was likely the easiest goat in history.


It helps to have a plan from beginning to end, when it comes to moose.
 
John Y Cannuck said:
Death bawl made yer hair stand on end ^^^^ The first one usually does.
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Yes the death moan made my blood cold the first time I shot a black bear. In my hunting area there are a lot of swamps. The bears like to run in to the deepest most tangled swamps and die. I now pack extra clothes and boots because I will have to strip down to my shorts and boots to wade out and tie a rope to it to haul it out.
 
gaud.....

many years ago I was heading back to camp near last light, and I thought I was a little early still so I would make another little loop. In the middle of a big floating bog I make the turn back to camp and what do I see... Moose, not a really big one but you shoot-em when you see-em or you go home with your tags.

not a hard shot 250m face on, it turns and runs a bit and piles up in the swamp. So first things first, its getting dark fast (first week of November) get to the animal, mark it, find a way to get the quad to the beast, gut it, drag it out to the trail, load it in the truck, load the quad, in the truck on the moose, get it home. Easy.

Oh it is now dark, and I'm alone, and there are no trees big enough to tie the legs up to so I have to use the quad, and balance a leg on my head. Well with the quad on the back of the moose with the legs tied up the only light I had was a small crank up flashlight which I had to hold in my mouth so I can see what I'm cutting. Problem is that the light needs to be cranked up every 5 min. Takes a lot longer then 5 min to gut a moose so I'm cranking up the light with bloody hands and sticking it back in my mouth. Oh and its about -15 deg C, but with all the work I'm down to my t-shirt sweating. Moose is bigger then I thought, gutting in the near dark is taking longer then I expected, flashlight is crap.

But It gets done, then where the hell did I leave that trail.... Hmmmm cloudy no stars, well just follow the quad trail, easy there is a little snow, makes dragging the moose easier. So now its almost midnight and I'm back by the truck.... getting that bugger in the truck by myself was a real treat, tie down ratchet straps, the quad winch, quad ramps, cussing, swearing, more tugging and cussing. So 45 min of moose loading with the truck backed into the ditch, quad is on the back of the moose and on the tailgate, all tied down.

Time to head home, put it in 4x4 to get out of the ditch, and there is a horrible grinding noise, sounds like the front diff is eating itself, well I get out of the ditch, check under the truck for missing parts, and drive home in 2wd. got home at about 2AM still have to hang the moose, I had to go to work the next day and having a moose in the truck would be an issue. Wife is giving me grief for not phoning to let her know I was going to be late.

all in all a good day hunting.
 
The best was being able to drive up beside a bull moose after he was down. Then a truck with 4 guys drove over to help us load him up.

Another best was taking my biggest whitetail ever, after figuring my season was over. Had not seen a thing all day and decided there was no point stumbling through the trees by flashlight. Unloaded my rifle and started walking back to where I had parked. Walked up on a beauty buck along a treeline only a few yards from my truck. I just suddenly saw a deer's ass sticking out of the tall grass within 25 metres. He had his head down grazing. I caught a glimmer of antler through the bush and guessed him to be a young buck. Squeezed off my shot when I caught just enough of the elbow through the grass and reeds to act as my aiming point. Dropped him on the spot. He had way more antler than I was expecting.

The worst was a bullet to the leg from some jackass shooting at a deer that ran past me.
 
I`ve told this story before but this time I will leave out the name of the town.
In 1968 my Father and I were going to the local rifle range to site in our rifles for moose season. We had our tags and the season was open. Just as we sat down at the benches, a nice two year old moose stepped out right between the 100yd targets. Well one shot from Dad and our moose season was over. We drove right up to it, gutted it, loaded it in the station wagon and went home.
It took many years for us to live it down.
Just remember, this was 1968. I`m pretty sure this would not be done now a days.

DF
 
Spooked this black about an hour before... we spooked each other actually at about 20 yds! I was slowly walking a road with lots of terrain on shoulder when we encountered each other. The black was in some dead ground. Came back an hour later and caught it feeding.

 
My worst moose was my first one. Late October, spotted him standing at the edge of a small slough.
Pounded him through the lungs with my 30-06, and you guessed it....straight into the slough he went.
He died and was floating about 40M offshore. There is ice on the edge of this pond. About that time my
two buddies appeared, as they heard the shot. "You shot him, you get him" they said.
Down to my skivvies, and I had to swim to the moose. Once there , he was easy enough to get to shore,
where we were able to get him onto land. Never, in my memory, have I felt so cold...I'm sure my voice
went up 3 octaves at that time. Got a fire going and thawed out, but made a mental note to self about
moose and ponds. lol.

OTOH, I have shot at least a dozen moose that we could back right up to with the pickup.
This includes the last young bull I shot. These are the good times.
Regards, Dave.
 
My daughter was out with me for her first deer hunt.and we hear some shots across the valley and out comes a little buck.he runs by us at 30 yards just about the right speed for a new hunter .not to fast were it is a tough shot and not to slow were thy can over think the shot just up and shoot.she has a remington 870 with rifled slug barrel and a scope.so she shoots the deer right behind the shoulders with a slug perfect we watch the deer go down .so without thinking we run out grab him by the horns and start dragging him to the trail .well with one of us on each side lifting he got his feet back under himself and it was just like he was walking between us.boy did we ever have a laugh out of that .if anybody would have seen us thy would not have not know what to think.lol we should have given the deer a few minutes to bleed out.lessened learned.lol heck of a first hunt and first deer for a young girl she is hooked for life. Dutch
 
carverk said:
It was the norm back in the day and we used what we had
Ther was no money for fancy rifles and exotic ammo every kid had a 22 and we wear good with them
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Been there and done that, to many times as a youngster. We didn't even know we had to have a license, or even a season for game .
We hunted for food , my parents knew nothing about hunting laws or seasons. They never hunted just me and my brother.
 
judge329 said:
Been there and done that, to many times as a youngster. We didn't even know we had to have a license, or even a season for game .
We hunted for food , my parents knew nothing about hunting laws or seasons. They never hunted just me and my brother.
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we figerd we had run of any wear with in walking distance to us there was no such thing as privet land
we ran a trapline problem was we never owned the trapline haha
The trapper who had the line beat the crap out of me and my brother so Fore the rest of the winter we robbed the poor bugger blinded
The next winter he gave up fighting us and started buying fur off us
we wear bad kids but we lived wild and free I mist the care free life of my youth Haahaa
 
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