Moose down!

The moose hunt didn't last very long. I'm back home already and the season opened yesterday morning. Here's the story.

We exited the truck at 6:05am. There was 6 of us there and somehow we managed to be extremely quit on our 200 yard walk in the dark to the edge of the cutting. This is the same spot that I helped 2 hunting parties get their moose last year. I could not believe how quiet the guy's were, no coughs or sneezes from anybody and not a word either.

I stepped about 50 feet away from everybody else so I could hear better. Even their breathing is enough to bother the sounds. The only thing I heard in the upper part of the cutting was 2 owls. I went back to the guys and let them know and then walked about 75 feet to the other side. I immediately started hearing something down the hill but I wasn't sure what it was. I went back and got the 2 shooters to come over where I had been standing. It was still 20 minutes before legal time. We listened to whatever it was for the next 20 minutes. At 6:47am (legal time) I told the shooters to get their rifles out. As they did that, 2 moose moved off of a bench area that we couldn't see and they were headed away from us and down the hill at a pretty fair clip. When I first saw them they were 150 feet away. Chris got his 30-06 loaded first and by the time he aimed and fired they were a little over 200 yards away. His shot was true and the moose in front staggered to the side and fell as Chris let another shot go that missed. It was a very good shot on a running moose. It took us about an hour to clean it and pull it up to the truck and we were gone. Those shots were the only shots we heard in the last two days.

The final tally was 400 lbs of skinned moose at the butcher. We were the 3rd moose at the registration station and the first at the butcher. Moose steaks, moose burger and moose sausage are in my future.

Jack