Ragman
AH elite
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2015
- Messages
- 1,936
- Reaction score
- 4,004
- Location
- Saskatchewan, Canada
- Media
- 279
- Hunted
- Canada(Sask./B.C.), Namibia, RSA(Eastern Cape) USA(Texas)
in 2017 my better half expressed an interest to try hunting with moose being at the top of her wish list. She grew up in Newfoundland with her Dad, two brothers, uncles and now her niece all being moose hunters. Moose meat was a staple for them. Then she moved to Saskatchewan and missed that. Sometimes I think the fact that I often had a supply of it is what attracted her to me in the first place!
I started to put her name in to the draw system for moose in my home area in 2017 but she just couldn’t seem to get drawn. She did shoot her first whitetail that year and has gotten a buck every year since as well as a beauty mule deer buck in 2020. HOWEVER….when I checked our draw results in June this year her dream tag became reality.
Fast forward to October 1st and we were out searching for a bull. For the morning hunt we were only able to find a cow with two calves. Any of them would have been legal but she wanted a bull be it small, medium or large. So we let them be. After lunch we found another cow that had two calves with her. Except this one had a beautiful 3.5 year old bull harassing her. We watched them for a while and it was clear that she didn’t want anything to do with that horny bugger. I guessed at where I thought she was going to go so I told Tina that that was where we had to get to. We barely got to where I thought the moose would appear when the cow and calves came tearing out of the bush at a dead run. I told Tina to be ready and to concentrate on where the cow came out. About thirty seconds later the bull came busting out of the bush like a charging rhino only 30 yards away. I was yelling at her to shoot and she kept telling me that she couldn’t. The bull was almost to another bush and I figured we’d blown it when she finally shot. Turned out she was having trouble finding the moose in her scope. The bull kept running into the bush but did not come out the other side. I gave her some time to get calmed down and then we slowly made our way into the bush. To our relief there was her bull laying right in the middle of a cattail patch, stone dead. Out came her phone and she was immediately calling her Mom and brother back in Newfoundland. She got very emotional as her Dad passed away in April 2022 and I know she had really wanted to shoot a moose when he was still alive. She was actually wearing one of his jackets for luck when she shot the moose. I think he was watching it all happen!!!
She has taken a real shine to my Tikka T3 7mm RM and that is what she used on her moose. This is the 160 grain Barnes TTSX recovered under the hide on the far shoulder.
I started to put her name in to the draw system for moose in my home area in 2017 but she just couldn’t seem to get drawn. She did shoot her first whitetail that year and has gotten a buck every year since as well as a beauty mule deer buck in 2020. HOWEVER….when I checked our draw results in June this year her dream tag became reality.
Fast forward to October 1st and we were out searching for a bull. For the morning hunt we were only able to find a cow with two calves. Any of them would have been legal but she wanted a bull be it small, medium or large. So we let them be. After lunch we found another cow that had two calves with her. Except this one had a beautiful 3.5 year old bull harassing her. We watched them for a while and it was clear that she didn’t want anything to do with that horny bugger. I guessed at where I thought she was going to go so I told Tina that that was where we had to get to. We barely got to where I thought the moose would appear when the cow and calves came tearing out of the bush at a dead run. I told Tina to be ready and to concentrate on where the cow came out. About thirty seconds later the bull came busting out of the bush like a charging rhino only 30 yards away. I was yelling at her to shoot and she kept telling me that she couldn’t. The bull was almost to another bush and I figured we’d blown it when she finally shot. Turned out she was having trouble finding the moose in her scope. The bull kept running into the bush but did not come out the other side. I gave her some time to get calmed down and then we slowly made our way into the bush. To our relief there was her bull laying right in the middle of a cattail patch, stone dead. Out came her phone and she was immediately calling her Mom and brother back in Newfoundland. She got very emotional as her Dad passed away in April 2022 and I know she had really wanted to shoot a moose when he was still alive. She was actually wearing one of his jackets for luck when she shot the moose. I think he was watching it all happen!!!
She has taken a real shine to my Tikka T3 7mm RM and that is what she used on her moose. This is the 160 grain Barnes TTSX recovered under the hide on the far shoulder.