Mingo's Three Forks Moose

[mingo]

Well after a couple of exciting months of planning and scouting, my moose hunt is over after two days of highs and lows.  We had two very nice moose pegged a few weeks before the opener in an area that we thought nobody else would get into, but low and behold that wasn’t the case.  Sorry this got so long.  Feel free to browse through and read what you want. 

On opening morning my dad and I were up early and very excited for what the day had in store and we headed to the area where these bulls were seen.   The plan was to hike into this 4-5 year old clearcut that is at the bottom of a big draw.  Above this cut in the draw is an older clearcut probably cut about 20 years ago. (See picture below).  This is where the big boys were holed up all summer.  So we get in there just before light and get set up.  After it was light enough to glass the entire area we start calling.  After getting no responses after about 30 minutes we decided to get out of there.  We did hear one big crack in the brush up the draw from us but no grunts.  In hindsight and how the rest of the morning played out, we maybe should have stuck it out there a little longer.   We got back to the truck and drove to a few more areas that we wanted to call in but once again we got no responses at all.  As was mentioned by just about everyone else who was out on Wednesday, it was HOT!  It was not ideal hunting weather and the moose were not moving at all.  After driving around a little longer we decide to head back to the draw where we were at daylight.  But this time the plan was to drive to the top of it and hike out an old skid trail into the older cut and try calling in there.  Next thing we know we go around a corner and ahead of us is another truck that appears to be moose hunting as well.  We follow them for a ways and they end up pulling over right at the exact place that we wanted to park at to hunt the draw.  We parked in the road next to them and it is another local that we heard drew a tag but never thought that we would run into because Three Forks in huge and there is moose all over of it.  The younger guy is about my dads age and it was his dad that drew the tag.  He was 73 years old and said that he had been applying for about 45 years or whenever permits first started to be given out and was finally selected.  It was cool to see someone who had been applying for so long to finally get drawn.  So we B.S with them for about 5-10 minutes and decide to drive up the road a little ways and crawl up into this bench above the road because they said that they were going to start calling where they had parked. 

We take off and no sooner than we get out of the truck we here a shot from their direction.  We had just left them a couple minutes earlier and didn’t think it could possibly be them so we start hiking up to this bench.  A couple minutes later we hear another shot so we decide that we should go back down there and see what is going on.  We hike down to where they are since it is only a couple hundred yards from where we parked, and we see them just casually standing around looking across the draw.  The first words out of our mouths are what happened?  They go on to say that once we started up the truck and drove off they saw a huge bull get up and start wandering up through the draw.  This draw is very thick and there are only a few places were you can see into it very well.  Sure enough when this bull decided to get up and move and it went through one of the few small openings where you could see.  The guy with the tag didn’t see the bull at first and had to run back to the truck to grab his rifle.  By the time he got back he was really excited and he still wasn’t able to see it.  Finally he saw it and made an offhand shot about 120 yards out and missed.  The bull just kept wandering up through the draw and went through an opening again!  This time the son bent over and the dad shot over his shoulder for a rest.  This time the bull was about 200 yards away and the dad thought he heard a thud but the son didn’t see anything since he was bent over and plugging his ears. 

Once we arrived the dad decided that he would hike up and go side hill across to where he last saw the bull.  He disappears and we keep on watching across the draw not sure if we are going to see this bull again.  Well after about 10-15 minutes all hell breaks loose on the hillside across from us.  All of a sudden this bull appears in a small opening and if I had a split second longer I would have gotten a shot at him.  He indeed was a huge bull and this confirmed my dads and mine sinking feelings that they had got a shot at one of the bulls we had seen earlier scouting.  The bull heads into the thick stuff and we can see trees crashing all around him and hear the horns crashing into everything.  This goes on for another five minutes or so but it is so thick we could never see him and I never could get a clear shot.  Finally the bull struggles through all of this and gets into the big timber above the draw and all goes quiet.  With all the struggling the bull did to get through there, my dad and I knew he had been hit but it was obvious that the vitals had been missed.  My dad and I decide to go after it when there was no sign of the guy who had shot.  We were hoping we could at least locate it and confirm our suspicion that it had been hit.  There was one tall single aspen next to the place where I saw trees and brush moving last so we head in that direction.  We get close to the aspen and my dad looks down and spots a tiny speck of blood on a leaf.  We start looking around a little and find more blood and that blood leads to lots of blood.  It was very easy to follow up into the big timber and by the time we got through all the brush our pants were covered in blood.  We started up though the timber and it was really easy going and we could hear the bull ahead of us a couple hundred yards crashing though the trees.  At this point we decided it was best to stay off it and let it bed down somewhere.  So we go back to where the dad made the shot and tell them the news.  At this point it was about 12:30 and it was hot.  Unfortunately my dad and I had a prior commitment back in Colville at 1:30 that we had strict orders that we couldn’t miss unless I had a bull down myself.  We tell them everything we saw and took off while they were putting a game plan together.  They knew how to get a hold of us if they needed anything but we never heard back from them so that’s were that story ends for now.  Driving back to town we were bummed out that we had missed out on that bull since we knew it was there all along and had been calling earlier that morning only a few hundred yards away from where the bull was shot.  It was also disappointing knowing that a bull of that caliber was wounded and there was the possibility that it may not be found.  We went out later that evening for a couple of hours but didn’t see anything.   


This is a picture of the draw taken the weekend before the season opened.  The bull was shot to the left of where I took the picture but almost exactly from where I was standing.  As you can see it is very thick and they were very lucky to have to bull walk through two seperate openings that a shot could be taken in.

[mingo]

Day 2 brought a fresh start and our spirits were higher than they had been the previous afternoon.  We went back to the same general area and get there about 15 minutes before it was light so we sat in the dark in the truck and waited for it to light up a little.  After it was light enough we eased in and went around a corner and we catch a bear in the middle of the road.  He takes off like a bolt of lightening and I quickly decide that if we catch up to him Ill take a shot at him and erase some of the frustrations from the day before.  We never see him again which turns out to be a good thing.  About 10 minutes later we come around another corner and see a moose up ahead of us.  I bail out of the truck and try to get a good luck at it but it isn’t moving much at all and it is behind a few trees.  I can tell it is a bull as I caught glimpses of its horns a few times but I never could tell how big it was.  I didn’t think it was all that big but I never could tell for sure.  All this time I am up and down the road trying to get different angles on it but to no avail.  So I walk back to the truck and my dad has the binocs on it and he saw horns too but the dang thing is not moving at all.  We decide to drive up around the next bend in the road thinking it will take us pretty close to where this thing is standing.  Sure enough we come around the bend and we see a cow first about 40 yards away and then standing right above the road is the bull.  He is only 30 yards away max and he would look at us a little then back at the cow.  It turned out that he was pretty wide, probably mid 40’s, but was really weak.  It looked very similar, just not as wide, to a picture that I believe PA Ben posted a while back of a mount of a bull that was shot a while back that was 50+ wide but weak everywhere else.  This guy had very weak palms, especially on the left side and only about 5 points per side.  I was half tempted to shoot since he was pretty wide and basically right on the road but ultimately it was way too early for a bull like that.  He was fun to watch though because he was super pissed that we were there.  You could see the hair raised on his back and he kept putting his head up in the air showing his teeth.  This went on for quite some time and finally we took off because we were tired of watching him.  All this time he never moved more than a couple of steps.  I tried taking a few pictures of him but my camera is not too great and all I got was a dark screen and some brush.  I guess it wasn’t quite light enough for my camera to take a picture at that distance even though it was only 30 yards away. 

Up the road we went and only about 200 yards or so up the road we look down a see a nice bull about 80 yards down the hill.  He had nice palms, double browtines and I believed him to be about mid 40’s wide.  As I am bailing out of the truck my mind was running knowing that there are bigger moose out there but this is a pretty nice one and that it could take a long time to find one this nice.  Even with this going through my mind I knew once I saw him that I was going to pull the trigger if I got a clear shot.  Once I find a clear shooting lane I take a shot.  I can tell immediately that he is hit hard as he takes a couple of wobbly steps.  I can hear my dad yelling from the truck to put another one in him so I put another one in him knowing that he wasn’t going too far after the first shot but every less step that he takes saves us some work.  The rest of the story is pretty anti-climatic from here.  Immediately after the second shot hit, his back legs collapsed and he through his head into the air and basically did a back flip in the air and landed on his back with his legs up and head kind of twisted under his body.  From the initial shot he might have made it 10 feet.  All in all he measures 41” wide and has 9 points on each side.  Unfortunately he did have one point that was broken off.  This guy looked like a fighting machine as he had scars all around his eyes and his ears were all notched up. 

I shot him around 7:15 and my dad and I got him quartered and had everything back to the truck and on our way out at 12:30.  So we had about five hours of work.  I am very happy that he was only about 80 yards from the road as that saved us a lot of work.

[mingo]

Oops, didnt mean to hit submit quite yet.  Here is one more picture of me and my dads cousin.  He has been disabled since he was young but is an avid, avid hunter.  He lives for hunting season.  He has max moose points so we are hoping he gets selected soon.

[jackelope]

great bull mingo, great story and great photos...welcome to the site.

[Backstraps]

Congrats Mingo on a beautiful moose! Special memories to share with your Dad!

[50CalJim]

Nice Bull, Looks like your going to get it mounted.

[bucklucky]

Great Bull man!

[Ridgerunner]

Great bull, good job beating the heat and getting a big one.

[Craig]

Great story and bull.

[BC CHASER]

I am jealous!  Great bull and story man!  I swear you have to be old really young or female to draw a permit here, you give me some inspiration!

[Wea300mag]

Well done mingo!!!

[searchnfor]

Great bull! Congratulations!

[finnman]

Nice story! Thanks for sharing, congrats on a very nice bull

[washingtonmuley]

Congrats and thanks for sharing the story.

[X-Force]

Very cool great story. it was worth reading every word. man these beasts are awesome looking. Great Trophy

[bowsandhose]

great bull congrats

[Gobble]

Great bull, good job!

[huntnphool]

Very nice, congrats

[Rhinoron247]

Great pics, wonderful animal.  You should be proud as hell.  My fingers are crossed for that someday tag.

[saylean]

Way to make the most of the tag man. Grats! Thanks for the write up.

[boneaddict]

Good job Mingo

[agchawk]

CONGRATS on a fine bull moose!

Loved the story too!

[billythekidrock]

Great write up. Thanks.

[M_ray]

Congrats on a great trophy!

[Buckblaster]

Mingo, your dad showed me some other pic's today of your moose while I was at work. No need to second guess if you should have waited for a bigger one. Very nice bull!!

[mingo]

Thanks Blaster!  The funny thing is we thought we would have the whole place to ourselves and then we run into those other guys so 25% of the tags are in one area.  Then they got lucky and wounded the huge one that we knew was there.  But thats hunting lol.  And to top things off the guy who bought the governor's tag was in there with a video crew following him around the day after I shot mine.  Not sure if he was around the first couple days...   

[huntnphool]

And to top things off the guy who bought the governor's tag was in there with a video crew following him around the day after I shot mine.  Not sure if he was around the first couple days...  

Thats interesting, he generally doesn't start until the end of November. Word has it that some outfitter has told him they know where there is a 70" bull, don't know why he would be out there unless they have spotted it in that area

[mingo]

He was in there, not sure how serious he was about shooting anything.  He was bow hunting and wasnt packing a rifle.  The guy who wounded the big one actually picked him and the camera crew up and gave them a ride down the mountain.  It was the day when it was pouring down rain, Saturday I think?  On the way down the hill they were in the back of his truck and they spotted a bull not too far off the road.  The guy who wounded the big one jumped out and shot this bull and they got it all on tape without him even knowing they were filming. 

Its always possible there is a bull that big in that area but we never saw anything close to that, probably 52" max.  On the other hand im not sure why they would have been in there without some kind of info like that since they could hunt anywhere.

[bucklucky]

A 70 inch Shiras Oh man I can see it now headlines : Washington, the top state for 70 inch Shiras Moose and 500 inch bull elk 

[MichaelJ]

A 70 inch Shiras Oh man I can see it now headlines : Washington, the top state for 70 inch Shiras Moose and 500 inch bull elk 

Hey thats 450" bull elk!  Don't turn minnows into whales there Charlie!! haha

Michael

[Skyvalhunter]

Way to go Mingo, Congrats!!!

[bucklucky]

A 70 inch Shiras Oh man I can see it now headlines : Washington, the top state for 70 inch Shiras Moose and 500 inch bull elk 

Hey thats 450" bull elk!  Don't turn minnows into whales there Charlie!! haha

Michael

Hey now, I seen the 500 incher right in the Margret unit