Day 2 found us parking about 50 yards from a clear cut and quietly working our way in with the goal to get into the middle, find a good vantage point and do some calling. As we walked in slowly, I kept scanning the area, looking for that perfect place to set up. We made it a little ways in and I told 92 that I was going to get above the road a few yards to see if it gave me a better view down over the edge below to the bottom of the cut. Once up there I gave the nod and said it was good so 92 made his way up the maybe 10-15 feet above the road to where I was standing. Almost exactly like the day before, just as he got to me we heard a bull bark back toward the parked pickup. We pointed and with few words spoken, agreed to get back to the road and sneak back the way we came from to try and get a better view of where we thought the bull could be. Just as soon as 92 hit the road, his eyes got huge and he pointed down the road and said “moose, it’s a bull” or something to that effect. I was still a few steps behind him and couldn’t quite see down the road but as soon as I did and got the angle to the bull, I could tell it wasn’t a dink and that was enough for me. I said “that’s a big bull” and his reply was “yep”. I got the rifle off my shoulder and knelt down in one smooth motion. It was just at shooting light and the backdrop of the dark timber behind the bull made it take me a second to find him in my scope. At this point he was still just slowly making his way toward us and for a split second I asked myself if I should just sit and let him come in. At that moment he turned slightly and that made my decision for me and I let the first one fly. The shot felt good and I saw him stagger but not go anywhere. I jacked in another round and shot again, he ate that one too but was still standing. At this point in my life I firmly believe in shoot until they are down so two more shots, though likely not needed, and down he went. I turned to 92 and we were both in complete and utter disbelief at what had just happened. I am not normally a hugger but I immediately went over to him and gave him a huge hug. I will never forget that feeling of excitement, joy, relief and amazement all wrapped up into one moment. To be able to share it with one of your best buddies who put in so much time and effort to help me with my tag was a dream come true. I owe so much of the hunt to him and to have him 3 feet from me when I connected was nothing short of perfection.
After a minute or two calming down, I picked up my brass and we slowly walked down to the bull that was amazingly dead right in the middle of the road. At this point I had ZERO idea how big he was because as soon as I saw he had paddles, I didn’t ever look at his antlers again. The closer we got, the bigger he got and it wasn’t until both of us were standing over him did we fully realize that we had just killed a very good bull. All this happened so fast that I have a picture of day breaking from just in front of my pickup time stamped and a video of me walking down to look at the dead bull time stamped 10 minutes later. When we had finally settled down enough we agreed to take our time and fully enjoy the whole process. We had the entire day with nothing else to do but live in the moment. I don’t think we actually made our first cut on the moose until close to 8:30 which was around 2 hours after I killed him but it didn’t feel like it was more than 10 minutes. I was on cloud 9 and actually teared up when it truly hit me what had just happened and how blessed I was to be able to experience something I had always dreamed about.
I think we finished processing him around 1:00 and had the absolute pleasure of walking down to my pickup and backing it down the road right to the pile of meat and head. You really can’t draw it up any better because even though you think you know how big they are, you really don’t until you are next to one and cut them all up.
Just for kicks and because some people I text asked, we threw a tape on him and came up with 48” wide. He has 3 points on each front and overall is an 8x10. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would ever see, let alone kill a Washington bull like this. All I can say is I am blessed and will never ever forget it.
