First moose!

T

trevj

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Location
Interior BC
I was out last night, sorta half arsed hunting, mainly walking around checking the periphery of the area I was calling in the last few days I've been out.

The area is an old burn site, that has grown back over, about 10 feet tall cover. It's a pretty decent looking spot, as there is some elevation that allows a point of view over a fair wide area.

I wasn't working too hard at hunting, mostly hoping for a couple grouse. I wandered up the main road a ways, and walked a few game trails. Saw a rabbit, but decided that the lynx needed it more than I did.

So I'm on the way back up the road, trying to time it so I reach the car at about last light. I crest the hill, and you could have knocked me down with a feather! A MOOSE! Standing next to my damned car!

I checked my cell phone, for an accurate time. 7 minutes of legal shooting time left! I scope the moose. Damn. Can't see if there is antlers, due to the backdrop, and the moose standing still. I stepped to the side of the road closest to the moose, and the trees screened me. I start walking (OK, scurrying!) up the road and close in to about 100 yards. The moose turns his head and I se...ANTLERS! Holy sheepdip! Then he turns and walks out of sight. I run!

He had stopped about 10 yards over, and i had a clear look at him broadside. I shot. He shook, then started walking. I ran again, got a bit closer, and shot at him. Missed, it turns out, but that's OK.
He went about 40-50 yards into the trees, and was wheezing pretty heavilly. He staggered, dropped to his knees. I was worried that he'd get up and go, so I tried for the back of his neck. Booom! He flopped, so I thought I hit him where I wanted to. By the time I quit shaking, and walked up on him, he was all done, and it was exactly 7:27. :rockOn: YEAHHHHH!

I made a call home to tell my wife not to expect me very soon, called a friend who graciously came out and helped me haul out. We were able to skid the moose to the road with a rope. He was only about 60-70 yards in, and we could have got right up to him if we had had a 4x4.

So I was about 3/4 of the way through gutting him, when my bud showed up with a Coleman lantern. My jaws are still sore from holding the flashlight in my mouth (note to self! Find head light!) All told, it took us about 3 hours to get the moose gutted skidded out, split and loaded. We were able to winch the back half into the truck on a plywood ramp, whole, and we split the front half and loaded the quarters.
We were in my garage, and the skinning and a preliminary washdown for hairs and stuff all taken care of, by 2:30 in the morning. I was so wired it took me until nearly 3:30 to get shut down.

Pictures as soon as I get some new batteries for the camera (doH!)

Figure about a 30 inch spread. Maybe 3 year old or 2 year old young bull.

Wife figures, based on her experience with horses that he was between 800 and a 1000 pounds live weight.

Nice!!!!!!!!

Seen moose before, had moose tags before, first time to see a moose when I had a tag. I'm still stoked!

Cheers
Trev
 
Wonderful!! Congratulations!! You'll enjoy some great eating there. Will watch for the pics.

I know how you felt about not being sure of the horns. A few years ago with about 15 minutes of time left I had moose come out to me about 75 yrds off. Similar background. I looked, stared, glassed, scoped that animal for what seemed like an eternity. By times I thought I could see a small rack then it would disappear and all I would see were ears. Finally I got a good look when the head moved a certain way and I definitely saw the rack. It was also around 2.00am by the time we got the quarters hung.

We're leaving in a few more days...hope your luck rubs off a little :)

Ron
 
Congrats to ya...but next time do what I did. My first bull was 250 yards in on a small ridge off the road. When I shot him it was starting to get dark. By the time my buddies arrived it was dark and no way to get him out that night as we needed quads to do it.Soooo....we gutted him right there then wrangled the carcass about 30 feet or so away from the gut pile.

Then I took off all my clothes cept for my pants,shirt and a light coat . I put my socks,shorts,camo pants and jacket and one other light wind breaker I was wearing and draped this over the moose carcass. Came back in the morning first thing,the gut pile was gone but my scent from my clothes kept the moose untouched.

It was my first moose and funny thing is that a buddie of mine who didnt have the draw here told me of a small bull that he had seen in the same spot. Maybe a 20 to 30 inch bull which was fine for me cause I just wanted the meat any ways...When i seen the bull standing where he said he seen the other one I didnt hesitate....cranked him and it was a 48 inch bull....I grinned for days...:D
 
Congrats Trev!
Nugget and I know how you felt with the clench jaw syndrome. He knocked his bull down well before dark at 4:30PM but we had a hard time getting him out. Combine that with rumors of grizzlies all over and things making noise in the bush while we worked made for a nervous gut and quarter session.
There we were with flashlights in our mouths in the frosty dark fumbling around with a bull stuck in a hole, that really hurts after a while. Finally got to camp at 1:30AM froze still to a camp already tore down to leave. That was a long two days with no sleep! What a riot we had.

I love this time of year on CGN.
Again, great job!
 
I was pretty concerned about getting the meat cooled. Maybe over-concerned, but, what the hey, eh. My first concern was to get the guts out and get the cooling process started. I figured if I had to run back into town and get my truck (about an hour plus dicking around grabbing stuff), or if it had to stay out over night, it'd be cooling down.

Anyways, pictures.
I measured with a tape measure, really quickly, and the widest point looks like 32 inches. The level is 36 inches, as a point of reference.
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The furrow plowed across the antler was from my third shot, attempting to put him down for good.

For the good it and my second shot did, I coulda saved the ammo.
The view from behind.

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The good stuff!

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The garage looks like chaos. It is. I'm not very organized. So sue me. :D I have a pretty good idea where most stuff is out there, but it's still 9 pounds of excrement innna 5 pound bag. The panic to get some space to hang the moose didna help a lot...but it was chaos before.

This was the one hole I put into him that counted. First shot, clean.
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The bullet hit the rib, carried fragments of it into the lung where I found a few during the cleaning. He was done. Like dinner. Never went digging looking for the bullet, not sure of it's end point. Never found an exit wound. Figure it's in the gutpile somewhere.

In the next couple days i plan on running out to the site and taking a few shots of the lay of the land, etc.

Oh yeah. My car. I figure that renting it out as a moose decoy could be lucrative. This guy was about 20-30 yards from my car when I saw him. At the beginning of the season, I had another moose standing near my car too, after I had been mucking about calling, while out grouse hunting (code for "seeing where the trails go"). Coincidence? Dunno.

Did he come to the call? Dunno that either. He wasn't in a huge hurry to leave.

So, I remain an optimistic skeptic about moose calling, until the time comes that I can see a moose actually react and change course to come find the girl of his dreams. I am certain that my attempts at grunting to him did not chase him away, as he watched me close the distance between us. I got a young fella, not yet entirely wise in the ways of the world. Prime stuff, and a really good experience, for a first moose.

FWIW, it was a 308 Winchester Model 70 Featherweight, that I inherited from my father. The ammo was a reload, Federal case, 47 grains of H380, under a Winchester bulk bag 180 grain. Worked as advertised!

And I finally got big game blood on my self-made hunting knife, which held up pretty well. I used a small folding saw from Lee Valley, to cut the brisket and hip bones, and found it worked really well for that, but the teeth were too fine for splitting the spine. I used my bud's Gerber folding saw, and it worked a hot damn, though the lock would allow the blade to flip past where it was supposed to stop. Great piece of kit, though, I think I'll get one. It was from CTire, IIRC.

The top an bottom knives are the ones I used the most. The top one was a one afternoon project, starting with a chunk of old crowbar, the bottom one is all my work except the heat treat.
The middle one was a chunk of a railroad spike, and has processed a couple dozen deer along with an equally tiny pocket knife.
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Things I'd do different. Prepare! I had a light duty block and tackle, as well as some tarpage, in my car. I had several flashlights but had used my headlight for some house repairs and not returned it to my bag. LED flashlights rock! I had a coast mountain one a bit smaller than a mini maglite, and a 1 watt Princess Auto one that both served pretty darn well. I'd make up a "battle bag" with the stuff for recovery and cleaning in it for another moose hunt.

I'd dearly love to find one of the pull through style come-along's (as opposed to the spool type that are common).

More rope!

I stand here and testify! Moose hunting CAN be done without a quad!!!:rockOn:

Cheers
Trev
 
As a quick update.

Cleaning up the quarters, trimming fat, etc, I found my bullet.

It was in the right rear quarter, sitting stuck into the inside of the ham, about where the (I think) Femoral artery runs in to the leg, just a little below the tenderloin.

Weight was 133.5 grains, for 74% retained weight. The jacket petalled back pretty well and the nose looking like it hit a rock, which it pretty much did, when it hit the rib square on. I'll edit in a picture later.

Could not find any other bloodshot spots in the vicinity, so I figure that the fragments all ended up in the lungs area, or maybe in the upper part of the stomach and intestines area, though I did not see any signs of openings other than what I caused along the process:redface:

There was no mess and no blood in the body cavity behind the diaphragm when I was cleaning him out, so I'm pretty happy that I didn't make a mess with 'guts'.

Thanks for the congrats, guys! Appreciated.

Still trying to figure out what I did to pull this kind of Karma!:D

Cheers
Trev
 
I think the WW and RP bulk bullets get overlooked too much, they hold up pretty good in medium velocity catridges.

That is a great looking knife Trev. One day I'd like to learn that art.

Congrats on a great first bull!
 
Any thing can be done witout a quad...it just depends on how badly you want a sore back after the work is done!!! That moose sure looks tasty hanging up there...I got my cow draw this year so on Nov 1st...I am going looking for bull winkles bride and bring her to her knees!!!
 
Noel said:
I think the WW and RP bulk bullets get overlooked too much, they hold up pretty good in medium velocity catridges.

That is a great looking knife Trev. One day I'd like to learn that art.

Congrats on a great first bull!
Click to expand...

Yeah. The bulk bullets are great stuff until driven at gopher gun velocities. Moose have a big boiler room to aim at, too. :D
They shoot better than I do, most of the time. When I can take my time, and keep from getting bored at the range, they shoot 1 1/2 inches at 100, or thereabouts. Plenty accurate for the ranges I shoot at.

The blade for that damascus knife was made from some leftovers from a demo weekend with Rick Dunkerly and Barry Gallagher, at the Western development Museum in Saskatoon. I did the welding at a buddies place, and did all the grinding with a bench grinder. I'm really proud of how it turned out. It was a long term project. Really long term. I think the demo was about 10 years ago.

Cheers
Trev
 
Long afternoon on the road. 230 k +/-, to drop the meat at the cutters.

385 pounds, hanging on the scale, after trimming as much fat as i could, as well as cutting off almost all the loose and hanging bits along the flanks, to use for stew and jerky meat (two large steel salad bowls full after trimming off fascia and fat to make just clean, lean meat.

Cheers
Trev
 
Congratulations!
You are OBVIOUSLY very stoked about the whole deal what with all the pics!:D
And believe me when I tell you that that feeling NEVER goes away - not for me anyway......
Cat
 
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