I went back out last afternoon, and set up in treeline pretty much the same spot I shot the buck from the previous morning. I put out a Montana cow moose decoy about 35 yards in front of me in the field. It was overcast and moderately cool out, and dead calm. We had rain in the morning so the field was wet.
I started cow calling on and off around six pm. Had a whitetail doe show around 7, didn't like the decoy and left, and saw nothing else for 45 minutes, when after a cow call I saw this young bull come trotting in quick to the call about 300 yards south of me. Not where I had expected but ok. He slowed up as he came into the field and stopped, eyeballed the decoy. I gave another soft cow call while turning on the red dot on my scope and dialing up to 6x. He came on another 50 yards slowly, and I gave another call trying to bring him in closer, all he was giving me to look at was a front shot.
I only had about 15 minutes of light left and wanted him broadside, and at my last call he started veering off to the east slowly. The decoy and where he was hearing me call from probably didn't compute as the same, they triangulate so good with those big ears. I knew he was going to go into the trees and circle around behind me to check out decoy from the trees, and he would bust me and I'd never see him again, so when I had a fairly good look at him almost broadside, slightly quartering to me, I squeezed off my shot.
He hunched hard, I racked another round, he made it 50 yards and went all stagger kneed and piled up...in the field, conveniently, and I didn't bother with another shot as he was obviously done. I shot him from around 200 yards, and I got both lungs and clipped the heart.
He's exactly what I was after, nice young bull feeding on alfalfa, he'll be very tasty. He did not stink at all! So, got on the phone, and a couple of my friends I hunt with brought my trailer out, we knocked the guts out, I managed to put a good slice on my finger, we dragged him onto trailer with the towstrap and had him at the butchers not even 2 and a half hours after I shot him. Will have to pay a call out charge, but it wasn't cool enough to leave him on the trailer with the hide on and I was not interested in quartering him up.
So, two tags filled in 2 days, I'll have a freezer full of meat and will share some with friends and my kids, as my wife and I donāt need a whole moose and deer....and all done in September! Now I can go to a wedding this weekend down in K country with no tag anxiety.
And, once again, I just gotta say how much I love that .338 Federal. It sure gets the job done, very convincingly
I started cow calling on and off around six pm. Had a whitetail doe show around 7, didn't like the decoy and left, and saw nothing else for 45 minutes, when after a cow call I saw this young bull come trotting in quick to the call about 300 yards south of me. Not where I had expected but ok. He slowed up as he came into the field and stopped, eyeballed the decoy. I gave another soft cow call while turning on the red dot on my scope and dialing up to 6x. He came on another 50 yards slowly, and I gave another call trying to bring him in closer, all he was giving me to look at was a front shot.
I only had about 15 minutes of light left and wanted him broadside, and at my last call he started veering off to the east slowly. The decoy and where he was hearing me call from probably didn't compute as the same, they triangulate so good with those big ears. I knew he was going to go into the trees and circle around behind me to check out decoy from the trees, and he would bust me and I'd never see him again, so when I had a fairly good look at him almost broadside, slightly quartering to me, I squeezed off my shot.
He hunched hard, I racked another round, he made it 50 yards and went all stagger kneed and piled up...in the field, conveniently, and I didn't bother with another shot as he was obviously done. I shot him from around 200 yards, and I got both lungs and clipped the heart.
He's exactly what I was after, nice young bull feeding on alfalfa, he'll be very tasty. He did not stink at all! So, got on the phone, and a couple of my friends I hunt with brought my trailer out, we knocked the guts out, I managed to put a good slice on my finger, we dragged him onto trailer with the towstrap and had him at the butchers not even 2 and a half hours after I shot him. Will have to pay a call out charge, but it wasn't cool enough to leave him on the trailer with the hide on and I was not interested in quartering him up.
So, two tags filled in 2 days, I'll have a freezer full of meat and will share some with friends and my kids, as my wife and I donāt need a whole moose and deer....and all done in September! Now I can go to a wedding this weekend down in K country with no tag anxiety.
And, once again, I just gotta say how much I love that .338 Federal. It sure gets the job done, very convincingly
Game from farm country always tastes better than from wilderness areas.
