on another moose hunt!

[davidlt89]

Had a good friend I went to college with call me last year and ask if he applied for the Maine moose lottery if he could come and stay with me, of course i told him it was ok. Low and behold he got drawn this year and showed up Sunday around noon time.
We got his stuff out of the car and took his gun to the bench. He brought a ruger #1, with a laminate stock and stainless barrel, chambered in 270. He had loaded up a batch of 150gr Berger VLD's and brought them along. It did not take us long to have the gun zeroed and put in the truck for Monday.

Now, whenever you get a permit like this there are people crawling out of the wood work giving you "tips" on where to go. Some of them don't even hunt! I decided to follow the advice of a friend who was from my home town and is a registered maine guide and has done a lot of traveling and filling tags this season.

Day 1: We got up at 4:00 on monday morning and got some breakfast and met another friend at 5:00 and headed out to the big woods. We were starting on a road up in bridgewater and were to hook onto to more roads until we got up into blackwater which was where I shot my moose when I had a permit. We started on the right road but took a few wrong turns and was hunting a different road than our "informant" had told us to go. We had not been out more than 40 minutes when my friend in the back spotted some huge paddles of the road about 40 yards. We all got out of the truck and my friend with the permit loaded up and we "investigated". Now, everyone hunting this week was issued a cow permit so we were hoping since the moose had herded up already that this fellow had a lady friends with him. Did not take long to see he was by himself. I will say, if we had had a bull permit and were "trophy" hunting, this bull was keeper. He had a 50" spread if he had an inch. We watched him for five minutes and loaded up and started down the road. Got about 1/2 mile and there was another big bull down in the woods. When I got out, I noticed there were two moose. Our hopes got high, but we quickly seen these were two massive bulls together and they did not hang around long. We did not see anymore the rest of the day. We did see on whitetail briefly and 3 grouse, all of which would not offer a shot!

Day 2: We headed the opposite way of which we did the morning before. Drove 6 hours in the big woods to only see 4 does and 3 grouse. Again none of the grouse would offer a shot. got a "tip" from a guy that lives down the road from me who has been hunting deer the last two mornings a mile down the road from his house in a hidden field. Says he has seen a bull and two cows the last two mornings. We will start there tomorrow and go from there.

MORE TO COME!

[RatherBHuntin]

Good luck

[gitano]

Sheese! Can't find a bull moose in this neck of the woods come **** or high water, and you can find cows. The State of Alaska increased the allowed permit applications for moose to six from three, and no more than three can be for bulls. To clarify, in Alaska, you can apply for a drawing permit for no more than three hunts for a given species. In other words, you can apply for three black bear permits, three sheep permits, three caribou permits, etc. THIS year they doubled the moose permit application number to six, but if you apply for more than three, they must be cows. You can apply all six for cow permits. That should give you some idea of how bad the bull:cow ratio has gotten here.

Weidmann's Heil!

Paul

[Vermonster]

Cool David!  Isn't that always how it happens though?  You have a bull tag, you see cows.   Have a cow tag, you see bulls......
 
Hope your buddy scores!

[davidlt89]

Day 3: we went off of the tip we got the other night and headed to a field about 4 miles from my house. We were told to "go past the potato house and follow the tracks in the field". So, we did that but followed the wrong set of tracks! long story short, it took every bit of four wheel drive my truck had to get us out there and back to where we came from!

We got out of there and got on the right set of tracks which brought us on hill over looking a little grass field surround by some woods and about 200 acres of potato field. Needless to say, the moose the guy had seen the last two morning were not there. So we got out and pushed the little bit of woods that was there and managed to kick up two does!!! once that was over I headed across the river to where my friend had taken his son bear hunting this year. We got where we were taking in bait and parked the truck, I got out and loaded my gun since the potential for a whitetail was there and got to the end of my truck and looked up just in time to see a bull moose come right out of the trees at about 20 yards. We were parked in a field that was planted for Christmas trees, but never harvested! there is about 4 yards of field end and then the woods and this moose had just come out of the Christmas trees and was pointed at the woods. He stood there for about 25 seconds and decided to head back where he came from. All of us then ran up the the clear lane in between rows and looked down to see two more bulls standing there. One of them was a smasher, enough said.

So for now we have seen a total of 6 bulls so far half way through the hunt. We have also seen 7 deer, all does, one owl, 8 grouse, one porcupine, and one fisher!!!! Back at it tomorrow!!!!

Sheese! Can't find a bull moose in this neck of the woods come **** or high water, and you can find cows

usually not all that hard to find a bull, and any bull is legal as long as the horns are longer than the ears!!!! but usually you see more cows, which is why this is perplexing!!! And we have just not seen some run of the mill bulls, two of them were huge!!! God Bless.

[davidlt89]

Day 4: Back at it again this morning. Weather was not all that good! Was snowing and the roads were pretty slick, plus the wind was about 25MPH. We were hunting on the road we saw the three bulls on yesterday, which is about 8 miles from my house. We got there and my buddy and I posted up in a big field and sent my other friend to the upper field to keep an eye out.

We stood there for about an hour and I asked my buddy if he wanted to comb the edge of the woods on the other side of the field and he said ok. We went in in the corner of the field where the moose and deer have it beat right down. I have kicked up moose in there before bedding so thought we had nothing to loose. got in the woods about 25 yards and it really opens up. I started heading south down along the edge of the woods and looked to my right to see a cow up from her bed. I immediately pointed and said "right there". my friend could not see from where he was until he got up to me. He got his gun up but there was no shot at the time. she was butt to us and starting to move away. She started picking up speed so my buddy decided to take her in the head instead of the butt and let the lead fly. After he shot it looked like she missed a step, then it looked like she tried to get over a log by some waist high spruce trees and dropped.

We got ourselves together and started celebrating!!!! after that was over we went up to look at my buddies trophy and low and behold she was not there!!! track were heading off with a large amount of blood to start with then steady trickles as she was running. We got on the track and my phone rang from my friend in the upper field. She had just passed him and down into another piece of woods. He verified the blood so we knew it was the same moose.

To make a long story short, we tracked her for the better part of a mile and found her laying down! my buddy dispatched her and the hunt was done. of course we were about 400 yards from the truck in some massive blow downs. Thank God the land owner drove by as we were at the truck!!! he went home and got his tractor and plowed a way down into the woods right to the moose, drug it out, then put it on his forks and dumped it on the truck!!!!!

Now we have to go down the road and show one four year old who wanted to see one monday! Then to the butcher. Moose dressed out at 456lbs. God Bless.

[JaDub]

Yippieeee  !!        
 
 Can you say......................... Liver and onions  !!!!
 
 
  WELL DONE  and thanks for the blow by blow.
 
  JaDub

[gitano]

Great!

Where did the first bullet hit? Where did the coup de grace hit? What rifle were you (both) using?

Inquiring minds want to know...

OK - I see from post #1 that he has a .270, and I see the picture. CONGRATULATIONS! To both of you!

Paul

[RatherBHuntin]

Awesome, sounds like a great time, with a lot of game seen and one fat moose in the truck,  Nice to be able to hunt private land and have landowners that are friendly and accomadating.  Congratulations to all.

[Brithunter]

Ahhh it sounds like you have been busy.

Congratulations on a successful hunt.

[MountainMafia]

It can't get much more exciting than that, and with a sucessful ending.

[davidlt89]

Where did the first bullet hit? Where did the coup de grace hit? What rifle were you (both) using?

We searched and searched for the "initial hit", just could not find it! it had to be somewhere in the back of the head because that was all there was while it was running away. The coup de grace was on in the neck!! As you read, darryl's gun was a .270, with hand loaded 150gr Berger VLD's. I was using my 7mm mag with 160gr accubonds!
Being the subpermitee, and being able to legally shoot the moose, I offered to put an accubond in it to finish it off and let him "save" on of his shells, but it seems he did not need my services;).
We had our first snow of the year the night before, without it, we probably would not have been able to track this moose!!!! God Bless.

[gitano]

We had our first snow of the year the night before, without it, we probably would not have been able to track this moose!!!!

I have needed divine intervention on more than one occasion in order to recover an animal...

Paul

[buckshot roberts]

:grin:cool.............Ron

[davidlt89]

i have needed divine intervention on more than one occasion in order to recover an animal..

Amen!