I already posted this on the Sasky site, .........copied and pasted...hope that's ok
PART1
Most of you know that my boys and I were drawn for elk last year in a great zone where our family cabin is located. Things worked out well and we got two bulls. We spent a lot of time spotting and hunting and we sure did see a lot of moose in our travels. When it came time to put in for the draw, we knew what our zone preference would be. Besides, hunting out the "back door" of our cabin is great!
We split up our applications in the hopes that one of us would get drawn and it turned out to be me!
I received some pretty interesting texts from Tuffymitch throughout the fall while I impatiently waited for the October 1st season opener. He lives 5 miles from my cabin and logs many backroad miles every fall hunting birds, plus he's a good friend. He's got a pretty good handle on where the moose, elk, and deer are.
Here's a couple of them that got me revved up...
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It was -7 this morning, seen 41 moose in between ***** and ***** 15 bulls, 2 nice ones 50"
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Just seen an absolute Monster Moose south of ******. WOW! Unbelievable! Tried getting a pic but couldn't get close enough
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BEERSLAYER: Ok, If you're excited, I'm really excited.
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One of the biggest bulls I've seen since 3 years ago! Yeah it takes a lot to get me rattled and I am rattled!
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And with that, the big boy vanished..........
Sunday September 30th we met up to go for a little sightseeing tour and found moose right away. We had just passed an intersection when I looked back in time to see the back end of a moose crossing the road. We swung around and went back to check it out and found an absolute brute of a bull breeding a cow within a few yards of the edge of the road. They were in some bush so we couldn't get any pictures but we could see he had an enormous body, lots of tines, and a great looking drop tine on his left side. I knew if I saw him the next morning I'd shoot him in a heartbeat. Rumour has it that some locals called him out the next day and ummmm passed him up.
In total we saw 4 bulls, 4 cows, and 2 calves on the evening tour but no sign of the monster when we hit his home turf.
This is one of the smaller ones we saw.
We talked things over and made a plan for the next morning. Blair figured that he could get away and go for a tour with me. That sounded good, he's got the eyes of an eagle x 10.
It was a short night and by 6:20 am we were off to see what we could find. We started seeing moose right away but nothing quite big enough to shoot. I figured that 50 inches wide was my minimum standard for opening day and we weren't seeing anything close.
It was almost 7 when we were approaching the area where the monster was thought to be hanging out. We were worried that he might be holed up with a cow and would never show himself but when we got to a certain volunteer canola field there was not one but two enormous bulls in it.
We got the binoculars out and Blair started to get pretty excited. "That's him, that's the bull you want to shoot Keith!" Blair was getting pretty wired up, a condition that lasted for the next two days. In fact, I'm pretty sure he still hasn't calmed down.
It was pretty cool, these two huge bulls were slowly closing the distance between themselves while grunting and swaying all the way. We thought we were going to see an epic battle but the monster changed direction a bit and vanished into a bush, possibly gone forever. Ireally wondered if I'd see him again.
We figured we better go in after him and we passed by the other 50++ at about a hundred yards as we headed for the edge of the bush. Let me tell you it was tough passing by that other bull, I would have shot him without a second thought any other morning.
The big 50++ was hurting pretty bad, the monster must have just hung a licking on him and he was barely able to limp a hundred yards or so. We kept on going and reached the edge of the bush.
The monster was still in there and Blair could see a little bit of black hair through the trees. He started calling and the bull started coming. Wow, talk about exciting! Blair and the bull were calling to each other and the big guy kept coming at us. Blair was out of breath and I was thinking he's either really excited or really out of shape
.We could hear the bull grunting, see him swaying back and forth as he broke branches while closing the distance between him and us but I still had no clear shot. Finally, at about 40 yards he stepped into a clearing and turned broadside. PERFECT!
I picked a spot on his chest and shot, he was rocked pretty hard and went down on his knees but got back up. He staggered a little and I shot again. He wasn't going anywhere but he wasn't going down either so I put a third shot into him. With that he tipped and it was over.
Here's what we saw when we walked up to him.
Unfortunatly he died right in the middle of the muskeg swamp, a few feet over and he would have been on dry ground. If we would have been 5 minutes earlier we would have caught him out in the field.
Of course the first thing we did was take a couple of quick pictures and text our family and friends. To show how quick news travels these days, I think I shot him about 7:01 and the rumour about me shooting it was on MOD by 7:10. Pretty incredible.
I was really happy with how the whole thing went down. If we had just pulled up to the field and shot him standing there ......... well, that wouldn't have been quite right. Him disappearing into the bush and us having to call him back sure added a lot of drama and uncertainty to the hunt. It was incredible!
First Moose ..... and It's a Boone & Crockett!
!!!! Grats .. Finally its your turn .. good job Dad ..the boys have a chore to beat that one..
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