MAINE MOOSE TAG!

[nwwanderer]

Excellent!!!!

[benhuntin]

One good horn. Let's see it!

[boneaddict]

That's some real moose country.

[huntnphool]

 It's about time Russ

 

That's some real moose country.

One good horn. Let's see it!

No kidding, wide paddle and triple brow.

[jackelope]

That looks like a brute of a bull. On with it now!!

[birddogdad]

I've been busy visiting with family I haven't seen in years, but I'll toss up some pictures for you guys real quick.  We didn't end up on Northwoods Law.  We were too law abiding for the show.

First pic is after the shot.  The bull was out in the clearing hiding in some small saplings.

had I known, I may have been able to help with that, Warden Rick LaFlamme  lives next door to one of my best HS buddies..... 

GREAT JOB!

[TRD1911]

Looking forward to the pictures. I sure do miss that part of the country. Did you get to visit with DC while up there? Congrats on the moose!

[Miles]

I'll start with some scenery pictures.

[Miles]

Next are some moose pictures.

[Miles]

So I arrived on Friday morning and spent the most of the day getting stuff ready and checking zero on the rifles.  Saturday we scouted a little and didn't see much, but on Sunday we found some promising sign in a clearing.  Up until that point we had a plan to hunt a specific drainage that had been holding some good numbers of moose.  We decided Sunday night that the sign found in the clearing was too good not to be there Monday morning (opening day). 

From this point on things happened fast...


Up at 3:00 am on Monday, cooked a big breakfast and hit the road.  It was about 20 miles on dirt road to get to our spot and we wanted to be there first.  After arriving we waited for shooting light and spotted a cow and calf in a clearcut.

[benhuntin]

PLEASE

[Miles]

After watching the cut for a while (the one with the two moose in the last picture) we decided to take an old skid road up the mountain into another cut that was a couple years old.  On the way up the trail was tore up where two bulls had been fighting and there was clumps of hair scattered all over the place.  The wind was in our favor as we eased into the edge of the cut.  I saw what I thought was a cow moose looking at us out at around 100 yards.  A quick check with the binos confirmed that but also allowed me to see the PADDLE of a moose antler in the distance behind her.   We adjusted to get a clear shooting lane and Dad took the first shot...then I shot... then he shot and the moose dropped.  It turns out we were hitting it with every shot, it just wasn't falling.  They are certainly a massive and strong animal.

So that was it, the hunt was over opening morning with a great bull on the ground.  The rest of the week was spent grouse hunting and visiting family.  The moose population is certainly a lot lower than in the past and I feel very fortunate that dad was able to get such a good bull.  I'll post a timeline of pics next.  The bull was 690 lbs dressed weight and had a 48" spread with triple brows on each side.  Dad used the 6.5x55 and I used an old model 94 .32 special that was passed down to me.

The bull had previously broken part of his right side and as he fell the remaining part of one point was torn off in the logs he fell into.  Luckily we found it sticking in the mud and it fits back together perfectly.  A lot of the points were recently chipped and pure white, so we are guessing that there's some antler pieces along the trail we walked up on.

[Miles]

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[Miles]

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[Miles]

This is how you get a moose out whole.