After 4 seasons of effort I finally got my first Ontario archery bull moose on the 4th day of the week long archery moose season! My longtime friend & I were hunting an older cutblock when he called me over the radio & said a nice bull moose was coming my way. It had been raining all afternoon & I was already packing up my blind & gear when I received his radio call. I heard large branches cracking in the cutover & a nice bull moose appeared on the ridge around 200 yards in front of me. He was quartering right down the slope towards me with 2 large cows following behind, so I knelt down in the middle of the old logging road & brought the crossbow to my shoulder. I counted the yards down as he approached my position, 120, 100, 80, 60 yards, then 40 yards. I calmed my nerves & thought when he gets to 30 yards I will loose the bolt. He stopped @ what I thought was 35 yards & stared directly at me from a quartering position. Not the best shot for archery, but I knew at any moment he was going to wheel around & bolt, so I took the shot. In the low light conditions, I didn't see the bolt strike home, but I had a good shooting position, & felt I had made a good shot! The bull kind of jumped at the shot & moved 5 yards to my right, still looking in my direction. Then he trotted off too my right, went up and over a small hill and I lost sight of him. It all happened so fast, my heart was just pounding in my chest! I marked the position the bull was in when I made the shot, then called my friend on the radio to let him know I had shot the bull. While I waited for him to arrive, I checked the spot where the bull had been standing, & looked for any sign that I had made a solid hit. At first I could find no sign in the heavy slash of the cutover, then I found a clump of cut hair so I was pretty sure I had hit him. I started to circle around looking for blood. At first I didn't find any & doubt started to creep in; had I really hit him or not? Then I found the first splash of blood on the alders. Relief flooded over me as the blood trail got stronger & stronger. My friend arrived & congratulated me on the shot. He said that he had spotted the bull further up the cutblock & had challenged it with a bull call. That was the reason why the bull had arrived so quickly on my position. It was circling downwind of my friend position & I was in the right spot at the right time! We used a rangefinder to discover that the shot was 42 yards! By this time 30 minutes had gone by & it was starting to get darker. I wanted to give the bull time to expire, so we stopped tracking after about 100ft. I went & got the rest of our gang with flash-lights, & we started tracking after another 30 minutes had gone by. I was not certain where I had hit the bull, but the blood trail just got stronger & stronger until we found the animal approx. 100 yards from where I made the shot. I had sunk the bolt to the flights into his lower neck, severing several large blood vessels. I was so happy to see the nice bull on the ground! Here are a couple of pictures. Many thanks to my long-time friend & hunting partner for calling in this nice moose!
The happy hunter!
Getting a congratulations handshake from my long-time hunting partner.
A shot showing the 52 1/4" spread rack.
The happy hunter!
Getting a congratulations handshake from my long-time hunting partner.
A shot showing the 52 1/4" spread rack.
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