Day 4
Up as usual, a cup of coffee and we hit it. Back to the calling spot with heavy fog rolling through. It was very still with hardly any wind.
About 8 o’clock a heavy low cloud bank moved in and cut visibility for 40 minutes. Once it blew through this feels like the perfect morning to be moose hunting.
Adam spotted a young cow midway up the hill. He called through the morning but no bulls have responded.
Later in the morning she called out a few times. The glassing became more difficult as light rains blew through. Ultimately, the rain got heavier and constant so by 11 we headed back to the tent for lunch. If the forecast holds true this should clear up by late afternoon and we will have good weather for the evening hunt.
After our siesta, the heavy rains have passed so we got our gear together for the evening hunt.
We took off from camp about 4 o’clock and headed up the hill behind the tent. Adam wanted to try a new area that he had been studying on Google Earth.
The climbing wasn’t bad other than the occasional thickets of Tuccamore we had to pass through. That’s probably the biggest challenge to hunting up here is the tangled gnarly tuckamore that grows almost everywhere.
We reached our spot high on the hill about an hour later. We could see a small lake back to the west and more area that we have not yet been able to view. Within a few minutes, Adam spotted a young five point bull with a cow in a calf. They were about 400 yards from us grazing on a hillside. It’s nice to see the moose up and moving after such a slow morning, we’re hopeful there’ll be more activity.
The winds were fairly heavy, so I ducked down behind a big rock and glassed back to the south while Adam stayed up high scanned the area occasionally calling.
Somewhere around 5:30 Adam said there’s a moose off in the distance. I hopped up,
grabbed my binoculars and he pointed to two knobs on the top of the hill about 3/4 of a mile to the west. I could see that it was a moose and I could see that it definitely had an antler so that was a good sign. And we watched him move down the hill towards the lake we were overlooking, and Adam began to call.
At this point he had made his way to the lake edge and was a little over 800 yards from us. It was obvious that he was a good mature bull and we needed to try to figure out how to make a play on him as we only had two hours of daylight left.
We surveyed the situation and tried to see if there was a way to get closer, but there was a big ravine between us and the plateau above the lake so we watched the bull for better part of a half hour while Adam called to him.
The bull grunted and into my amazement, I could hear it at that great distance. I guess because this lake was down in the valley, the sound carried towards us. The bull was interested, but he was posturing and raking trees not really making any move to come towards us.
Adam changed his tactics and started to grunt like a bull and got a moose shoulder blade out and started raking the trees around us to challenge the bull. This only made the bull more aggressive and he continued raking the trees all around the lake and not making much of a move. We decided at this point we need to try to close the distance and see if we can get a shot so we were gonna make our way through the deep gully and back on top.
Adam was picking his way down the steep Bank. I was about 15 feet behind him watching the bull as we were just about to get out of sight of him and I told Adam that he has started to move to the left. I said we should stay on top and try to keep an eye on him and Adam agreed so he came back up to bank of the gully and we moved back about 50 yards to a good size rock and set up and waited.
Adam continued to call, but we couldn’t hear anything. There was a fairly strong crosswind so that was in our favor for the bulls approach, if he was making his way towards us.
In anticipation of a shot, I chambered around, set up my shooting sticks and focused on the flat top hill that he would come across, if everything works out.
Not 5 to 7 minutes later I saw the bull appear about 500 yards and I said Adam look there he is on top of the hill.
Adam continued grunting but at a lighter level and the bull continued walking straight towards us. I ranged him at 412 and was very comfortable and told Adam if you can turn him, I can shoot him.
The bull was coming on a string and he was looking for a fight. He continued walking at a steady pace, coming straight for us. I ranged him again, now he’s at 216.
Keeping him in my scope, I continued to scan the terrain as he was within 75 yards of another deep gully and I was afraid if he made it down there, we would lose visibility and possibly lose the opportunity for a shot.
It’s often been said you should not shoot a moose directly facing you so I asked Adam to try to turn him. Adam grunted at him loudly and stood up and waved the shoulder blade in the air, trying to get the bull‘s attention, hoping that he would turn and show himself for the challenge.
He’s now within 10 yards of the gully and I told Adam I’ve got to shoot or we’re gonna lose sight of him. The bull fortunately quartered a bit and gave me a good shot so I squeeze the trigger right on the point of the shoulder. The report of a solid hit the bull ran straight ahead. I quickly chambered another round and get off one more shot which dropped him.
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It was 6:33 and we were celebrating the reward of a great hunt. We needed to make our way to the bull so we could get him gutted and start our way back to camp before it’s too late.
When we finally got to the bull, I was pleased, a classic Newfoundland Eastern Canadian moose.
Adam got the bull gutted and we were back on the trail by 7:30. We donned our headlights and worked our way back down the hill to camp. We pushed our way through the tuckamore, slipped and slid down the hill and finally arrives at camp just before 9 o’clock.
I was exhausted, but elated as this completed my quest to collect all four sub species of moose in North America.
After dinner, I had a whiskey & a cigar and enjoyed the beautiful night in this wild place. No, sounds other than the waterfall off in the distance in the light breeze that moved across the hills.
The bull is down in a tuckamore choked valley so the helicopter will come in tomorrow morning and sling him down to our camp where we will skin and quarter him.
Once finished we’ll break down camp and head to town.
