My Cow Moose in 232

LB 270 · #1 11-24-2012, 11:48 AM

I was held up in the city yesterday morning. I dropped the kids at school then had to drop an oil sample at the lab. All the while thinking about the moose that was waiting for me today!! Once I got out to where I was going it was after 11:00 A.M. The wind was blowing pretty good from east to west so I thought I would walk through this block of trees that had a few open patches slowly and see if I could scare up my cow moose. I walked about 20 minutes going from high spot to high spot and saw nothing. I only had another thin line of trees in front of me before coming out on to a large hill with a slough at the bottom. As I came through the trees and on to the hill I saw a mule deer to my left, a quick look through my scope I noticed he was a small spiker. No good to me as I have already filled my buck tag. He quickly hopped away over the hill into the wind.

As I stood there for a bit deciding what to do I had a quick look to my right across the slough. In the trees on the other side I saw what I thought might be a moose. I could see the hump and the back only. I took about 10 steps to my left to see if I could make out if it had antlers or not. Well now it didn't even look like a moose so I went back to where I originally was and looked again. Yup MOOSE. I laid down on the top of the hill and tried to decide whether to move around the slough and come at it from into the wind. After a couple of minutes of watching it convincing myself to stay put she stood up. She had been watching me as well and had decided maybe she was busted laying there I guess. After she stood up I could quickly see that it was a cow and the heart pounding really began. I had ranged her at 239 yards before she stood up so plenty within my range. I tried the deep breath method and the close my eyes method.........nothing. Moose!!!!! So I put the cross hairs high on her shoulder and counted to 10, gently squeezing the trigger so it broke at..............1 1/2! Bang. Smack. She took two big steps forward and stopped. I cycled the bolt to hit her again when she took a big step backwards, she sat down then the front legs came up and over she went. Aaalllll the way down to come to rest under big deadfall.

Now I was hoping she would fall right where she was or better yet run up the steep bank she was on and die at the field edge. Uh, no. She ended up about 125 feet from the top of a steep grade, buried in the trees. Head facing down. I sprinted across the slough and up the hill to see what I had in store for me. Tagged her and went to my truck to call for help. My brother showed up 3 1/2 hours later with his winch. By then I had cleared a path down to her and had her quartered. 3/4 of her was in my truck!!! Ha ha, thanks for coming out Bro!! On such a steep incline I had to use the come-along to spin her so I could get at her. Gutting her was easy though, open her up and out they came. I just had to cut a few places and look outta the way! Needless to say I am a happy camper and thanks to my Bro for coming from downtown Edmonton to help. Enjoy the pics, my phone froze and these were all I got while she was whole!

I got the muley buck in almost the same place. No story other than I walked into the block of trees. I climbed to the top of a hill that had a ton of beds, looked down to my right and he was standing looking up at me. Once I saw the horns bang. He went right down and that was it. Heavy body on him and a ton of fat.

Thanks guys for reading.

LB