2010 Youth Cow Moose Hunt – We pulled the RV over to Spokane on Friday night and my son and I got an early start on Saturday passing the timber company gate right at opening time. We hadn’t been in the area before so were going in blind. We drove the logging roads for an hour and a half not seeing anything and surprised at the heavy brush and lack of viewing areas – it looked like we were going to have to hope to see one on the road. We did cut some fresh tracks which was encouraging and were mainly scouting for the next days hunt anyway.
At 8:00 am we got to the end of a spur and decided to take a coffee and donut break and I got out and gave a wail on the elk bugle just for fun. My son immediately said he heard a moose answer so I called again and sure enough here comes a “grurrp”, “grurrp” coming down towards us. After 5 minutes a huge bull moose poked its head out of the brush about 35 yards from us. It then came out onto the road and raked the brush and then bedded down on the side of the road not 40 yards from us and the rig. We then heard another animal below the road. What followed was an hour long waiting game trying to get a look at the animal below the road while trying not to piss off the bull.
Finally after an hour we got a good look at the cow below the road and my son got the opportunity to take a good shot off steady sticks at about 80 yards – this took about 30 minutes and we were both worn out by then as he had the gun up and down trying to get a good look downhill through the brush. He finally got a clear shot down through the timber at about 80 yards. He made a great shot and I saw the big cow go down but go out of sight. We waited 30 minutes before going down to check it but in that time the bull moved down towards it and we ended up having to scare it out of there before getting to the cow.
Video of Bull:
moose-washington-2010.wmvWe got down to the cow and it was hit right where my son had aimed with his .325WSM. We started quartering it when the bull showed up again at about 20 yards scaring the cr*p out of us! After a couple warning shots and some sticks thrown it finally ambled off – OMG are those things big and dumb in the rut!
It was getting warm out so we used a spray bottle of 50/50 vinegar and water which kept the flies and bees away and after 2 ˝ hours we had it all packed out with my son doing most of the packing while I did the knife work ( he’s 15 years old but 6’ 2”” and 215 lbs. ) We then headed to Spokane to find a butcher that was still open and that turned into an adventure in itself but finally we got the very clean meat down and in a cooler and ended a very successful hunt. We even made it back to the RV in time to listen to the Ducks, Beavers, and Huskies win big. It was a great weekend. It wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounds and we didn’t make it back to camp until 6pm having left at 6am but lots of great memories!
