Moose Hunting Trip Part 3

It rained all night and to really say it was pouring. It was close to 6 AM and still raining.

I told myself a good breakfast and a good coffee is what I needed. That morning was bacon and eggs and let me tell you with a smell like that my buddy was up in two minutes.

An hour later I was outside just looking around and thinking what shall we do. It was still raining a little and it was calm, a bit of fog on the lake. It looks like it’s going to clear up I told Reno. He replied I think so, maybe this afternoon? I asked him what do you want to do? What ever you want. I said there seems to be a cow around and that we are sure of.

It was 7:45 AM we got aboard my chestnut canoe and had decided to paddle the lake. Giving a few soft calls once in awhile, the bull grunt. We had packed a lunch and also our fishing rods were in the canoe.

First call about half an hour later, we listened for about 15 minutes and no sound. One thing the echo was great. We continued paddling at a very slow pace. Looking at everything that looked like a moose. Gave another call, the grunt 3 times in a row. Listened for about 10 minutes and the continued. Looked at Reno and he shook his head no nothing.

It was noon and we stopped on a little point. A sandy beach, there were tracks and looked pretty fresh. I said that’s this morning and it’s a bull and a heavy one at that. I said we will hunt from here there’s no wind and raining a little.

We pulled the canoe out of the water. Got our lunch and thermos. Had our lunch and I’ll wait for a while before giving the cow call. We sat there and listened. Not a sound to be heard.

Reno moved up to hide in the small bushes. I was in the water about 5 feet from shore. Just waiting and listening. At around 1:30 PM I started breaking those dry twigs. I listened for a couple of minutes and started to do the Moose walk and looked at my buddy at the same time, he was waving at me and pointing on the other side of the lake.

I looked and saw or heard nothing. I walked out of the water towards Reno. I said what? He said there’s a bull that answered on the other side. The bull grunt he said. I waited and waited. I said are you sure, yes it did it at least 3 times when you were walking the moose walk in the water. Across the lake was about ½ a mile.

An hour went by and nothing to be heard. I decided it was time for the cow in heat call. That’s loud, long and pulled out call. I did it once, twice, third ….and about the sixth time

We saw the big bull come straight out of the bush’ straight into the lake and was swimming straight for the call. This was a none stop, he was coming straight for us and grunting.

Reno didn’t move nor did I. It was about 200 feet from shore and about 500 from us. I looked at Reno and made a sign to him to get his rifle ready. It was coming out of the water and stopped with its head up in the air. Trying to smell us. I looked at Reno and said yes. Bank, the moose buckled up walked a few feet and fell.

This was all to fast, our hunt was done. The work started and let me tell this is fun. As we both take a great pride in the preparation of the meat. No hair and has to be clean. Plus the longer we leave it at the same place without moving it to tender the meat. We gutted it and rolled it over on to its knees

I said to Reno, what now? As always, we will go and move the camp over here. That’s

What we did.

For supper that night yes it was liver, bacon and onions and mashed potatoes. Our usual red wine, with of course our shot of cognac. This was great and always the second best part of a big game hunting trip. The first is getting the moose.

We spent 3 more days there, did not see the cow, we did some fishing, catch and release.

We did an excellent job on the moose meat. We relaxed and talked a lot of our other moose hunts. This was another great hunting trip. Oh yes the antlers measured 58 inches. A big and healthy moose.