Maine Moose Hunt 2006

By Jay S. English

So I guess it all starts with that magic morning when you get up just a little bit earlier than usual and then hit the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife website to see the results of the Maine state moose lottery drawing.

Okay, so you’ve been applying and dutifully sending in your application fees for like twenty some odd years and haven’t been picked yet.
Don’t matter, this is THE YEAR ( or so you think ).

The shock!!!!! I’m going moose hunting. So there I was, heading for District 3, northeastern Aroostook County, September 25th with my Cow permit clutched tightly in my mitts.

Talk about being excited. Then the phone calls start from your hunting buddies, basically saying congratulations along with a healthy dose of “You SOB, how’d you get picked and not me?” In fact, some of them used slightly stronger terms than SOB. And then, in Maine at least, a bit of a dilemma sets in. “H’mmm, should I ask my subpermittee or my alternate hunter?” This ain’t good, this playing God stuff, so I took the high ground and just stuck with who I had picked for my subpermittee. As an aside, each year I’ve rotated my subpermittees from among four of my hunting friends. Every year up until now I was sure that the only reason I didn’t get picked was because of the bad luck of the person listed as subpermittee. “That friggin’ ( insert name here ), he’s got no frickin’ luck at all.” The bad news is now I’ve got three of my hunting buddies P. O.’ed at me.

 

One of the things that added to the sense of suspense about hunting in District 3 was that I wasn’t real familiar with the lay of the land there. I did run into a few folks that had hunted the same district recently and had some good luck bringing back the moose meat. And then, there is that inevitable someone you always meet that says, “Oh yeah, well I know ( so and so ) who was up there last year and never seen a ( bull/ cow - take your pick ) the whole week. Not what you want to hear and it definitely increases the “Pucker Factor” with apprehensions of coming home empty handed. Facts are, Maine moose are definitely becoming a little more hunter shy and a lot of the old easier moose hunting habitat ( clear cuts ) has gone by the wayside. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife statistics for 2005 showed up that 77% of the eligible moose hunters were successful ( and 23% weren’t! ). I didn’t shoot off my mouth out loud any about how I was going to make out success wise, but I told myself silently to put in my best efforts and be as prepared as well as possible. And not be one of the 23%.

Maine having the Moose Lottery in June, with the first weeks hunt not until the end of September, would seem to give you endless amounts of time within which to plan and get ready. Not really so true. The first couple of months do seem to poke along but then that last month flies by pretty quick when you actually start to make some concrete plans and get stuff lined up and gear together.

The first thing that came to mind was what gun to use to hunt moose, being that the rifles we’ve been using for deer hunting might not be just the right tool for the job. I started by asking around as to what would be a good moose hunting gun. Between friends, relatives and what seemed like some pretty knowledgeable sources on the Web I got a fairly broad idea of what would do the trick.

My brother -in- law, Bob, volunteered a Weatherby 340 Mag which I think would probably knock over a moose about seven zip codes away. All I know about that gun was when we target shot it brought to mind the old saw about “kills from both ends”. Ungodly ballistics though. My friend Barry was kind enough to lend us a Remington 7mm Mag, which although didn’t have quite the wallop of the Weatherby, did manage to raise some truly psychedelic colored black and blues on my shoulder by the time we were done dialing it in on the shooting bench and getting confident shooting it freehand. Although we were probably over-gunned as far as the necessary “pop” to hunt moose, it felt good to know we could take a long shot if circumstances dictated it.

All right, now for some time up in The County.
Looking at the District 3 Map I knew we had a big area to choose from. I took a Pre-Scouting scouting trip for three days a couple of weeks before the season opened. From Delormes Maine Atlas I had spotted a wilderness campsite near Limestone that seemed like a good spot to pitch my canvas cabin. Sadly, when I arrived there that site had been closed, but a fellow who worked nearby mentioned that the Town of Limestone had a camping ground at Trafton Lake. Although it was closed for the season, when I stopped in at the Limestone town office to ask about it, they were nice enough to let me stay there anyway. I think it might have helped when I promised to leave the campsite cleaner when I left than when I came. Then again, also it may have helped that the fellow that told me about the campground happened to be the Town Managers husband. Thanks Ulyess. I should also add that I was a little discombobulated by having my first choice of campsites unavailable but when I mentioned what had happened to a few people I had just met, I was greeted with their saying, ” Don’t worry about it, if you can’t find a campsite you can just pitch your tent down in the back of my field.” Pretty doggone nice of them to have offered, especially to someone they hadn’t known for more than about five minutes. I think that says something about people being generous and the friendliness of folks in Aroostook in general. Maybe it’s also a case of hunters looking to help out another hunter. Anyway Trafton Lake Campground was a really pretty spot and during the eight days I camped there never had anybody else staying in the campground. My company was a family of fairly well behaved skunks ( seeing as I never got sprayed ), some day visitors to the lake, a daily cruise-by from the Limestone Parks and Rec folks and about 10,000 Canadian geese taking a break on their migration South.

Once I got my campsite semi-established and wasn’t a homeless hunter anymore ( my real home is about 350 miles south of Limestone in Shapleigh, Maine ) my plan was to go cruising through the District, talk to some folks and try to get a nose for where some good Moose hunting territory might lay. It seemed a mite odd that so much good moose sighting/ hunting area was on paved roads and in many cases so close to homes and outbuildings but the first few days of scouting proved that to be true. I had heard a lot about how the broccoli fields were real beacons to moose so I checked them out early in my scouting. Oddly enough I never ended up seeing any moose at all in those fields. HOWEVER, there were moose aplenty most everywhere else. WOW!, I was convinced after two days that I was in the moose capitol of Maine.

One of the tips that I had picked up was to be out in the area to be scouted about a half hour before legal shooting time. The first two days it seemed like there was no end to the moose to be seen ( note: it was good and chilly, but dry both those mornings ). I also scouted the late afternoons and while I did spot moose then, the frequency of sightings was a bit less than those of the early mornings. Midday wasn’t nearly so productive with the sightings and so I began to skip that.

I tried to talk with as many different people that were familiar with the District as I could, ranging from the Regional Biologist over at the IF&W station in Ashland, to an Immigration Officer in Limestone, to the folks at the local corner stores and gun shops. What began to become apparent was that EVERYBODY had a moose story to tell and everybody “had one in my back yard just last week”. The best story was how the week before a moose had walked into the front door of the Limestone school bus barn, meandered around a bit and then kept on walking right out the back door.

What also was starting to become apparent was that if I listened to everybody and tried to check out all the various locations that were being brought up I’d pretty quickly become the moose scout equivalent of a Jack of all trades but Master of none. It began to dawn on me that it might be smarter to narrow down my scouting areas and try to become a lot more knowledgeable about one in particular. With that in mind I started paying particular attention to the Caribou/Limestone/Connor areas.

These areas had a good mix of agricultural fields and woodsy areas. The deeper woods that I had been checking, like Cyr Plantation up in Hamlin and Caswell and also the Sullivan Road over above Madawaska Lake showed plenty of moose sign but a bit tougher shooting sight line opportunities. Speaking of Cyr Plantation, there’s some interesting woods roads up there, including some where no Dodge truck should ever go ( Don’t ask how I know this. ).

One area that stood out, not for it’s moose hunting possibilities, but for other reasons was the former Loring Air Force Base. It’s hard to describe the vastness of the place, it’s really huge in size. It’s also incredibly under utilized at present. The facility could ( and did I’m sure ) support much much more than is going on there at present. My hat’s off to the Loring Redevelopment Authority for their efforts to bring some industry back to their location. That said, the vast emptiness of the place is saddening and a bit eerie. Seems like a lot of ghosts are still lingering. And a pile of somebody’s money ( care to guess who’s? ) is being spent on upkeep of a property that is very very forlorn. It gave me a lot of pause for thought. If you haven’t seen it you should. The other thing that crosses your mind is what the impact of the Base closure must have done to the surrounding towns.

Anyway, after having been driving around the District for about four days, from Fort Kent, to Van Buren, to Limestone to Caribou, I began to narrow my prospective area. My first scouting trip kind of concentrated on the Limestone area. The first two mornings of scouting yielded seeing seven moose in forty-five minutes and then four moose in thirty minutes just off Rt 1A. “Wow, I thought to myself, this is slick, they’re everywhere.” What was weird was seeing them so close to people’s houses and outbuildings and from paved roads at that. I had heard that the State was concerned about the number of car/moose collisions in this area but these moose were so close I couldn’t help but wondering about the number of moose/riding lawnmower collisions. I did notice though that many of the moose were a goodly distance off in the fields, likely a 250-300 yard shot. Also I noticed that if you stopped your vehicle or got out to look at them they did get a bit antsy after about thirty seconds or so and would start back towards the woods, not exactly at a flat out gallop but they were nervous. Nonetheless, heading back home to Shapleigh I was pretty stoked about the number of moose I had seen in that short time. It also occurred to me that Leon and I had better put in some more time on some long distance shooting skills practice.

The next week went by way too quick what with gathering up the various moose hunting paraphernalia, trailer to get prepped, winches and rope and cable, chains, come-a-longs, snatch blocks, hunting gear, guns, ammo, chow, etc. My second scouting trip began Monday, September 18th, a week before the hunt began and again found me setting up camp at Trafton Lake. So there I was, out early on Tuesday morning in the predawn, ready to spot the endless procession of moose that I was sure were right around the next bend in the road. SKUNKED!!!!!! All the spots where I had seen moose the week before were EMPTY! The “Confidence Index” took a severe shellacking that day needless to say. One difference from the week before was that it was now a lot warmer weather wise, Hmmm?

OK, no need to get nervous just yet I told myself. Just wait ’til tomorrow. Thankfully the next day yielded two sightings, not great but better than the dreaded “S” word. The next day the weather cooled off a bit and the good times began to roll again, - moose morning and night. One conclusion that I started to make after the couple of sparse sighting days was that, as the saying goes, “Choosers are Losers and Pickers ain’t Getters”. I kind of began thinking that the first cow Leon and I saw was the one we were going to try for. Next, to try to talk him into that, as both of us are partial to a full freezer. The rest of the week the sightings kept getting better and better. Having narrowed down my area to target it seemed like I was better able to pattern where the moose would likely show themselves and when. One of the facets of the moose feeding behavior that stuck out after a bit was that they were way fond of sticking their faces down into the clover that many farmers had planted in their hay fields. Another facet was that they were in the way of staying nearby to some watersource, whether for drinking purposes or for hiding in the thick bushes nearby middays, or maybe both.

“FINDING THE FIELD”

All right, here’s where thing start to get interesting.

Wednesday by midmorning about 10:30 found me checking out one last field/woods area up above the Town of Connor ( it was getting late for what I reckoned was morning scouting ). There was no particular abundance of moose sign in that field, at least from the road, nor did I see any as I had driven up through it. I was starting to get hungry for a real camp-style breakfast cooked over the Coleman and wasn’t paying too much attention to what was around me. Time to head back to Camp and start frying up those potatoes and onions I was thinking of. I had made it a habit of lugging along a notebook to write down where I had been and what I had seen ( or not seen ) each day of scouting. So I stopped my truck in the middle of the fields road and sat there for a few minutes, engine running, while I made a few notes about the mornings efforts. When I finished with my notes a couple of minutes later and looked up, sure enough, there was the biggest Cow I had seen to date standing towards the far end of the field just going about her business of chowing down on all the clover she could wish for. I checked her out with the binocs and sat for a few more minutes. She surely knew I was there but wasn’t confronted about it in the least. Thinking that this was a good time to leave her to her chow without getting her too riled up, I slowly headed out. The only problem was that she, like a lot of the moose I had been seeing, appeared to be about 275 yards away. You can bet that this field was going to get checked out early and often for the next few days.

As you might begin to guess, Yup, there she was again the next morning too, a bit earlier now, about 7:30am. All right, now I’m getting excited over the prospects of taking a great big “Kinga” of a cow. The next morning, Friday, I decide to check this field first and no more just driving up through it in the truck. I’m not about to be taking a chance of spooking this moose, no sir. So, I park a good distance away about forty-five minutes before legal hunting time and begin to walk up the field road in my best whitetail deer sneaking up on technique ( as if I had one ). It was pretty dark, with no moon, but I knew where I was going and figured I could sneak right up there without a peep. Maybe I was a little too quiet. I had gone maybe 75 yards out of the quarter mile that I had intended when all of a sudden a cow walked across the field road in front of me and gave a loud call or two. BUSTED!!!! I reckoned her to be about 40 yards away. She was standing uphill of me, just beginning to be silhouetted by the lightening sky as the sunrise started to make its way in the East. Couldn’t have been a much prettier image, but I was riled up that my attempt at sneaking up there had been sniffed out (or heard out, - there wasn’t a lick of wind ) so easily. Next began the part that just about had me heading back to camp for a fresh change of BVD’s. Unbeknownst to me, she was traveling with a bull. Also unbeknownst to me, he was standing along side the road about ten yards from me and a little behind from where I had just walked up. He let loose with a couple of snorts in answer to her calls and then began doing a bit of thrashing about in the bushes where he was standing. “Great”, I thought, “I’m between a bull and his cow and might it just be possible that he’s not too thrilled to see me?” ” What to do next??? Hmmmm, why don’t I try just turning around and walking back the way I came just as softly as can be?” Seemed like a good idea, so that’s what I did.

But there was one more step to be done as far as checking out “THE FIELD” that needed doing but I wanted to leave that off until Sunday.

Being as it seemed to me that these moose had been having more than their usual share of human companionship, I decided to leave The Field, as I had begun to call it, alone for a bit. There were beginning to be more moose hunters starting to do their own scouting for the past few days and it was fun to stop every now and to swap some stories. Friday was my last night at Trafton Lake staying in my tent. Although I’d taken a few PTA baths during the week I was starting to hanker at the thought of stepping into a good hot shower. I really like camping out and take a bit of pride at being able to set up a good comfortable camp to deal with most any of the elements, but it was starting to feel like time to go. My hunting partner, Leon, was coming up tomorrow along with three of his sons, Adrian, Isiah and Eli. They were up at 3 am and on the road by 5am for the 6 hour drive. His boys are all pretty hardcore about hunting and they were as happy to see their Pop finally getting a chance to moose hunt as if it were themselves. We had found a camp to rent at Madawaska Lake that was of a good enough size for all of us to fit in comfortably and were looking forward to turning it in to the Jay&LeonMooseapaloozaTour headquarters for a week. Just like most hunting camps, that means eating a good deal of the stuff that your wife won’t let you eat at home and eating it in quantities such that you probably will need two digestive tracts ( especially the rear section) to take care of it all. Naturally a certain quantity of malt beverages figures into the mix also. The words, potatoes, onions, bacon, eggs, beans and pickled eggs figured prominently into the menu planning anytime day or night. We left the windows open a lot.

In addition to bringing his trailer and his son Eli’s ATV, Leon brought along a chest freezer, full of bags of ice he had acquired over the summer. When he first mentioned bringing it I was thinking that maybe it was a little bit of overkill, but later on it turned out to be a pretty smart idea. They got settled in, we had a bite of chow and then headed out for a bit of Saturday afternoon scouting in a new area up off the Sullivan Rd. that came pretty well recommended but that I hadn’t had the time to check out. Sure enough, moose back in the thick woods too, but some of the shots would have been a little sketchy. Saturday night everybody stayed up later than we should have burning off some of the first night in hunting camp energy, but I talked Leon into a bit of early morning scouting about while the young guys were still in the rack. We did spot eight that morning but we were outnumbered about five to one by other hunters out scouting. I was glad that I had gotten my scouting pretty well in hand earlier in the week. When we got back about lunch time his boys were making noises about, “Why didn’t you wake us up too?” but I think they were glad to get caught up from their 3am morning the previous day, especially since I had told them that we were all getting up at two AM on opening day. A little later in the afternoon Leon and I took our rifles out for one last bit of target practice to make sure the scopes had survived the 350 mile trip.

ELI LANDS ON THE POOP LIST ( FOR AWHILE )

Back to the unfinished business over at “THE FIELD”. The one thing that I wasn’t 100% positive about when I had been spotting that walloping big cow was how far exactly was she back at the rear of the field from the field road that I was thinking of shooting from, 200 yds., 300yds, 400yds? The field was so big I didn’t really trust my sense of perspective so I reckoned it would be smart to pace off the distance during the middle of the day when the moose wouldn’t likely be around. Now Eli, having fifteen year old legs, seemed like the smart choice to me and his Dad to do the hiking part of this process, while we both lazed around by the truck observing his process and conserving our energies for Opening Day. Eli was agreeable, and after some schooling up on remembering to count his strides and writing it down at the far end of the field, and then repeating the whole process coming back up to the truck, we were pretty near ready to send him off on his excursion. “No, wait. One last thing, Don’t go all the way to the wood line. Stay back about seventy-five yards so you don’t leave any scent trail right up close to where the moose have been coming out.” “OK”, says he and off he strides. Bye and bye he begins to become more and more of a speck on the horizon and then finally he stops. And then he goes just a little further. And then goes just a little further again. And again. Suddenly we see him duck down and disappear from our view. A few moments later, up he jumps and begins hoofing it back across the field. I began to have a premonition of what was going to come out of his mouth when he finally got back. ” I just jumped a big moose!” says Eli. “She scared the crap out of me. She was bedded down right in the field.” We badgered him a bit about not stopping before the field edge but he explained, “I saw some tracks, then I came across a few beds. I just wanted to see where they went.”. Who could blame him? For awhile I was ticked off at him for what I was sure had ended up spooking the big cow I had spotted away for eternity. Then I thought about it for a bit and couldn’t blame him for letting the excitement of all things hunting lead him on as they did. Where there’s one moose, they’ll be more, I thought to myself. But, just a little, he was still on my Poop List.

That night the excitement of knowing the Opening Day was just hours away caused more than one of us to do some considerable tossing and turning instead of the usual sleeping like a log after a good day in the out of doors. Although the alarm clocks were set for two A.M. I don’t think anyone really needed them. We slurped up a bit of breakfast and then packed up some mid-day sandwiches and snacks including a goodly chunk of extra sharp cheddar for everyone and were out the door a little before three A.M. The drive the the Field was only about thirty-five minutes but we were wanting to be there plenty early to allow lots of time to hike into our hunting area nice and quietly and also maybe before lots of other hunters showed up. Although I had only seen one other hunter pre-scouting this particular field I was pretty sure it wasn’t exactly a “secret spot”. I was hoping that if other folks did come along they might respect that there was already someone in that location. As it turned out, that was the case. Leon and I set out pussyfooting our way up into the field road about 3:45 A.M. The young fellows were going to stay in their truck and laze out for a bit longer then begin walking in just before first light. Leon and I knew that we would have to change our plans a little because the wind, which had previously been in our favor, was now blowing from behind our backs over towards where we were guessing we’d hopefully first see some moose. So began the long, slow hike around the perimeter of the field in the very deep dark. Did I happen to mention that it was a walloping big field? Slowly we began to make some progress getting towards where we figured to set up. This journey was punctuated with a pile of missteps into road ruts, a bunch of “Shhhhs’s” and not a few pre-hunt jitters questions like, “Leon, did you remember to bring your bullets?”. Fortunately we hadn’t, to our knowledge, spooked any moose on the way in, at leastwise not in any drastic fashion.

Finally we were pretty much to the point along side the back edge of the field where we figured we’d have a good vantage point in a couple of directions. We had discovered in our hike that the back edge of the field wasn’t as straight across like as it had appeared from the road, but had a bunch of coves and points. We also discovered that the cultivated portion of it ( hay, which had been cut, and clover ) didn’t extend all the way to the woods line, instead stopping about seventy-five yards short. We picked our lucky spot ( we hoped ) and hunkered down, probably about an hour before legal shooting that day, which was 5:56 A.M.

Anybody who’s sat on a stand for awhile knows the feeling of what happens next. Will daylight ever come? Is this a good spot? Maybe we should move over there a little? Finally legal shooting time arrived. Guess what? Not a moose in sight. But we’re not discouraged yet, No Sir. All right, now it’s 7:30 A.M. and we’re starting to have some second ( and third ) thoughts as well as some sore butts from sitting so long. Leon’s sons had hiked in pretty stealthily and we had finally noticed them sitting motionlessly like three statues in a good spotting location way across the field. About that time Leons cell phone rang (vibrated) and it was Francis, a fellow moose hunter from Caribou, who I had made a point to visit with during my scouting trips. He held a Bull permit and was sitting over a broccoli field on Opening morning. “How are you guys making out?” “Not so good. Nothing. How about you?” Same story. He said he was done sitting and was now going to do some road cruising in hopes of better opportunities. With him being a local and also being a pretty much of a fanatical hunter, we were getting pretty tempted to do the same. We whispered goodbye and then talked it over. “What the Hell, lets give it anther half an hour”, we decided.

About then Leon’s phone vibrated again. “Great”, I was thinking, “Francis must have driven around the first bend in the road and whacked one” But instead, it was Adrian, Leon’s oldest son. “Pop, a nice bull just came out in the field over to your right”. Believe you me, that ratcheted up our excitement level just a tad. The part of the field where the bull had come out was out of our line of sight, obscured by a small point of trees and brush about seventy-five yards away. “Let’s sneak over there and maybe we’ll get lucky and he might have a cow with him” we both decided. Sure and by golly, before we had even gotten that far, we began to hear some rustling back in the woods behind us. The beginnings of a smile began to cross our faces and then that realization that this stood a chance to be our lucky day began to rise. A few moments later we could start to see some brown. Then a bit more. Sure enough, we got a brief glimpse of the head as it reached up to eat some leaves off from an poplar tree back in the thick woods about thirty yards away - a Cow!!! Now the fact that it was a Cow had us considerable enthused but the bad part was that she didn’t seem the least bit interested in coming any further out of the thickly wooded area she was feeding in. She was real content to stand back in the woods with her head going up and down, stripping leaves and then lowering her head out of our view to chaw and swallow. After a few minutes of alternatively raising our guns and trying to get her sighted in for a head shot and then lowering them down again I began to think we weren’t going to get off a good shot right then and there.

Time for some moose calling, I thought, and so I tried a few grunts. Nothing doing!!! It was like it was Dinner time and she wasn’t about to be bothered. Finally, she must have gotten filled up for the time being and so she ambled, still back in the woods a bit, over towards the bull that was still out in field to our East, maybe 150 yards away around the point in the woods. I guess I may have mentioned that, yup, the woods were a bit thick right along there. From where Leon was standing, just a few yards to my right, she was still pretty much obscured by the brush and tree growth but as she ambled to our left she stepped into a small semi-clear area in front of me so I drew a bead and touched off the 7mm. Alright, maybe it wasn’t my best shot! She never even flinched. “What the hell is this?”, I was thinking seventy-five feet away and I miss?” “Miss a moose?” ” OK, calm down, let’s try that again”. Meanwhile she didn’t seem to even know where the shot had come from and had just walked a bit further along. And then she came to another small semi-clear spot. And went to moose heaven shortly thereafter. My second shot caught her in the neck and severed her backbone, sending her to the ground with a thud. A third shot behind her ear pretty much made sure she wasn’t going to feel any more pain.

No question, there’s a certain amount of jubilation that comes at that moment. But also, it is very much a time to show respect for the animal and for the Creator for furnishing one of His creatures for our use. I hope each of us who happens to read these words can take part of that moment to share this tribute.

They say that now the hard work has just begun, but we got lucky. Where the moose dropped was at the edge of the field, maybe seventy -five feet back in the woods. Leon’s sons hoofed it on over to where she dropped and after a bunch of grinning and congratulations were passed around we got her rolled over on her back and tied down. Leon’s boys said their Pop always complains about having to be the one that always dresses out the deer, but that the facts are that he knows he can do it better than anyone else there. It’s true. He generally just works with a single edge razor blade and the job is usually over before most other people are even begun. With a moose it took a little longer and was a bit more of a group effort, but the whole process was pretty short and sweet. He had thought to bring along a battery powered sawzall so the job of cutting through the pelvic and breastbones was accomplished quickly. We were able to drive our trucks down another of the field roads to within about 150 yards of where she dropped. Eli redeemed himself considerably by hooking the moose up to his 4wheeler and tugged her out to our trailer like a streamer fly across Rangeley Lake. From there we used an electric winch to pull her onto the trailer and the ( not all that ) hard work was over.

We tagged her in at the station in New Sweden where we found out that she weighed in at 518 lbs, not the heaviest cow but not the smallest either. I found it really difficult to judge her weight/size in the woods. We took her to camp for a quick wash and wipe and then packed the living daylights out of her inner cavity with the ice that Leon had thought to bring, covered her with a tarp and headed for Herring Brothers Butcher Shop in Dover-Foxcroft. Although it was a far piece from Madawaska Lake, we had both heard so many good things about the quality of their butchering work that was where we had decided on before the season to take her. Talk about a crazy scene that we found when we got there. There were moose aplenty waiting to get delivered and amongst the checking out of all the moose and hearing all the hunting stories, we could have hung around there for a few more hours easily. The butchering crew was going at full tilt and had everyone’s moose in the walk-in in short order though. By the next Saturday it was all cut, wrapped and frozen in vacuum packaging and ready to pick up. All except for the tenderloins. You can guess what was for supper that night.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my windy version of how our moose hunt went. I’ve enjoyed your stories here and think I have learned a bit more about hunting from them. Hopefully there was something here for you to take away likewise.

After our moose was down and I had had a chance to reflect on it a bit I remember the thought crossing my mind, “Is that all there is?” Getting picked in the Lottery and the opportunity to go moose hunting had loomed pretty large in my thoughts since June. And now it was over in an hour and a half. But then I began to think that there was really a heck of a lot more to it than just that 1 1/2 hour. That’s kind of why I decided to write this story. Leon and I had talked about the hunt a fair amount before heading north and one point that we had both come to was that, if we get a moose we’re going to have a great time. And if we don’t get a moose, we’re still going to have a great time. It turned out to be a great time, just like we thought.