Three years ago one of our hunting crew was drawn for a moose permit in the Three Forks unit. He spent weeks watching videos, practicing with moose calling tapes, doing research on the internet, as well as spending several weekends in the Three Forks scouting. One weekend he came back to the Skagit Valley with reports of a monster moose, one unheard of in Washington.
As opening day got close, myself and another from our crew wanted to go be a part of this momentous occasion. We arrived mid-day before the opener, set-up camp, and relaxed with a few adult beverages. Morning came and it was all business, we made a plan to lure the monster moose in with teamwork, the tagholder with the call, me thrashing the trees and brush next to the meadow, and our other partner watching and listening closely. After about 5 min we heard a large animal coming through the brush and then stop. We kept up with our plan but it never came all the way in.
After about an hour at this location we decided to split up and let the tagholder go do some serious hunting while we hunt grouse and try to locate some moose. We spent all day driving around, glassing, and dispatching an occasional grouse. Around the middle of the day we found a little bull winkle in the middle of the road several miles from camp (pic attached). As it started to get dark we were on our way back to camp and decided to go back to our morning location and see if we could located the big boy. About a 1/4 mile from our turn around we came around the corner and "BAM", there he was, 50 yards away standing in the middle of the road. We looked at each other with really helpless feelings and decided to at least get a picture. By this time the moose was moving up the road away from us but we had plenty of time to get the camera out and the picture shown below.
We then went back to camp and replayed the incident to the tagholder who spent 30 full days hunting over the next two months trying to fill his tag and never saw the moose again. As time was running out, he decided to take a cow. Everytime our crew gets together, this story comes up by the camp fire. He blames us for chasing his moose away and we blame him for being a lame hunter.
