Moose Hunt 2017 is Game On

[Green Mountian Hunter]

Have a great time up there, It is a awesome area , Post some pictures for us and good luck.....

[Otto]

Good luck, hope you tag a good one!

[Alex De Large]

Got a few captures of this bull this AM in zone 3. A shooter in my book he's 50", 850lbs conservatively. Couple hunters scouting missed seeing him by a minute.

[teampar]

Got a few captures of this bull this AM in zone 3. A shooter in my book he's 50", 850lbs conservatively. Couple hunters scouting missed seeing him by a minute.

Nice Jay! Hope we see one just like him 1st thing in the am!

[Aziscohosbuck]

Wow, I returned from Zone 2 remote campsite and arrived in my driveway at 8:30 pm on Friday night 9/29/17 completely mentally and physically exhausted, left everything I had in that respect back in the Maine North Woods.  I filled my tag with a young bull that dressed out at 657 lbs with a rack that really sucked, nothing to be proud of, not the monster that I envisioned would be the end result.  Had chances at much more respectable bulls with nice paddles that ranged between 36 - 48 inches much earlier in the hunt at very early morning but could not seal the deal.  All opportunities were under 30 yards.  Monday thru Wednesday was sick rediculous heat with temps ranging 85 to 87 degrees from as early as 11 am through the rest of the day, which is a record in any previous Maine Moose Hunt.  Pressure and stress combined with physical and emotional exuaustion takes a toll on you as you get  later and later into the hunt, this was particularly apparent at my age of 61, I'm not a 25 year old kid anymore.  Anyway after 1 1/2 hours of steady calling at this particular spot on Thursday late afternoon and on into the evening I spotted what  appeared to me to be a very large heavy bodied Moose cross the road at less than 100 yards ahead of us while we were standing in a grassy green grass road at close to last legal shooting time.  This was at 6:44pm, we had 7 minutes of legal shooting time left,  We raced up the road on a dead run and fortunately the Moose was closer than I thought or had moved closer through the woodline right next to the road heading towards us, I don't know.  I heard a crack of limbs being brushed or feet stepping on slash on the ground and stopped dead in the road.  To my right standing broadside in an old skidder trail was this long and heavy bodied Moose at 25 yards and I clearly saw tines that were legal!  I had a very clear wide open heart/lung shot so I carefully aimed and with very slow and steady pressure squeeezed the trigger when the crosshairs settled on the heart/lung area just a little low and rear of the right shoulder.  My sub-permittee, fired off a round as the Moose took of straight away from us up that old skidder path and then appeared to veer left some 50 yards ahead of us on a flat out dead run . The time that we fired rounds at that Moose was 6:48 pm, which was 3 minutes before the end of legal shooting time for 9/28/17, pretty close and way closer to the time I have ever had to make a split second decision on a deer let alone North America's largest big game animal.  But my first shot was clear and obvious to be heart/lung and I was calm and confident when I took it.  So now darkness closes in completely.  I stare up into the starlit sky brightened by a Crescent Moon deep in the far Northwestern Allegash Region of the North Maine Woods and I say a prayer to my Son who passed on suddenly and trajically in 2005 and who has been on this trip with us I swear every step of the way, to help me as I realize I am standing alone in total darkness with no flashlight.  Moments pass and I am in complete panic, then calm reassures me as I hear my subpermittee and close friend Stephen reassure that he has found a very heavy lung shot blood trail.  At this point we send 3 members of our hunting party of 5 back to our campsite to retreive all the heavy gear necessary for processing this  Moose and transporting it back to camp.   You Know it's really strange how in moments of complete chaos if you force yourself to calm down and just think things through how logical things work out.  I realized I did have my cell phone with me and even at my age, I remembered there is a flashlight function on my phone and was able to turn it on!  So now I retrace with compass back to the starting point of my shot, pick up the blood trail and start following, noticing orange tape flagged at certain points along the way where my good friend and subpermittee Stephen has already marked.  I call out to him now, knowing that at some point ahead the Moose veered left and that Stephen is probably circling left in the dark trying to spot the dead Moose, no sooner then I start to circle to my left, I hear Stephen yell to me "I found him, he's deader than a door nail"!  I find my way to him by flshlight and find my prize, it is a young bull with a very long and heavy body but the rack is nothing to be proud of, like a 3 pointer spike bull but is legal and lo and behold guess what he has a radio transmitter collar attached with tagged ears on both sides, oh no! Still appears to be a 600 lb. plus animal and we have much work ahead of us to get him out of the woods.  So we waited for the rest of the party to arrive with heavy LED lighting, coleman lanterns, snatch blocks, 500 feet of heavy rope and the other truck to arrive before proceeding with field dressing.  The rest of our party arrived back at the site at 9pm, field full dressing was completed at 10:30 pm.  We cleared a 150 yard straight path form the road to the Moose with chainsaw and there was two tricky 90 degree turns at the very end of the trail to the Moose that had to be dealt with with a very heavy iron bar to pry and move the Moose around.   We had very high quality walkie talkies and used the two truck method with extremely heavy duty snatch block as the anchor point and twitched the Moose 150 yards to the road, then we re-rigged the snatch block on the back end of a long low bed trailer with ramp and pulled the Moose up onto the trailer.  High fives and 1 beer apiece and we were on the road, arrived back in camp at just about ten minites before midnight.  The beauty of the weather was that the high temp on thursday was 51 degrees and as we worked on that Moose in the dark of the Allegash Woods the temps went down into the low 30's, perfect.  Next morning loaded the Moose carcass full with 30 frozen milk jugs, tarped him to protect form road dust. Broke down camp, loaded and rolled for Ashland Tagging Station.  Much more stories I can tell of opportunities of bigger, much nicer bulls prior to this one but just did not happen.  I have absolutely no regrets, was the most exhilarating,heart pounding, adrenalin rush I have ever experienced in my lifetime.  Maine's Moose Hunt is second to none in the entire lower 48 states, and an absolute bargain if you get drawn.  I highly recommend putting in your application year after year, well worth it!  By the way, I will post pics of this young Moose as soon as I can figure out this new system, yeah your going to laugh at the rack but the body size is impressive and not only that the radio collar deal and weird rack will make for a great conversation piece.

Respectfully,
Aziscohosbuck

[Alex De Large]

Congrats! If I shot one with a radio collar I'd go with a shoulder mount for sure. Them are rare.

[Aziscohosbuck]

Congrats! If I shot one with a radio collar I'd go with a shoulder mount for sure. Them are rare.

Other guys on the trip were consoling me saying this was rare and will be a great story to tell and that the Warden Service already knew this Bull was dead at some point during the night and knew it was on it's way to the tagging station the night before.  On the way out the Gate keeper at the Portage gate looked at it and jokingly said "We heard this Moose was coming out, he's an old friend of mine." Turns out when I get to the Ashland Tagging station the next day and I told the female MDIFW biologist it had a radio collar on it she screamed with glee and said "We already knew it was on it's way here last night!"  She explained that the collar pings off a satellite every 4 hours and they know once it's down and dead and then go in and retreive it.  It was one of 35 newborn calves tagged in the spring of 2016 and they have been tracking it's entire life cycle so there was no need to pull a tooth to age it.  No ticks and huge body! 

[MEhunter]

Sounds like you made the most of the hunt and had a great time! That's what it's all about. Congrats to you and your entire party and most of all glad to hear your son was with you! I lost my Grandparents a while back and one thing my grandmother always loved was birds and their calls, especially the white throated sparrow (sam Peabody-Peabody). Well just about every morning on our hunt that was the first bird that called in the mornings. I to believe that was their message telling me that they were up there watching over us all.

[teampar]

Congrats....So sorry about your son but be certain he was looking down full of pride with the efforts of his ole man!

[mschott]

congratulations !! and great recap of the hunt.

[cjg]

Congrats on your moose!

  I filled my tag with a young bull that dressed out at 657 lbs with a rack that really sucked, nothing to be proud of, not the monster that I envisioned would be the end result. 

Not sure how to respond to that. It bothers me that the pressure to just "kill something" out weighs the fact that no one made you shoot something that you think "sucked"  Any animal that you harvest deserves all the respect that you can give it. People seem to think that it's the kill or the trophy antlers that makes them a great hunter, not the actual hunt. I get the end of the week pressure, once in a lifetime chance, I know you say you have no regrets, but "a rack that really sucked" sounds like you have some. Be proud of what you got, if you needed a monster you shouldn't have pulled the trigger.

[hesseltine32]

Congrats on the moose. Unfortunate weather but it will be a memory you won't forget

[Aziscohosbuck]

Congrats on your moose!

Not sure how to respond to that. It bothers me that the pressure to just "kill something" out weighs the fact that no one made you shoot something that you think "sucked"  Any animal that you harvest deserves all the respect that you can give it. People seem to think that it's the kill or the trophy antlers that makes them a great hunter, not the actual hunt. I get the end of the week pressure, once in a lifetime chance, I know you say you have no regrets, but "a rack that really sucked" sounds like you have some. Be proud of what you got, if you needed a monster you shouldn't have pulled the trigger.

You are perfectly entitled to that opinion, poor choice of the word "sucked", wish I had used another way to describe it, was not in any way meant to offend.  Truth is I wish I had held off until Friday the second day of cool weather up there, and may well have had a chance at a monster bull.  Just did not work out that way and I still think I am very happy with the outcome, come what may and there is no point second guessing what might have happened.  The adrenaline rush and heart pounding action we had up there on this hunt with 4 separate and distinct Bulls prior to taking this young one was incredible and I will never forget it for the rest of my life.  Everything about this hunt was thrilling, exciting, and an extreme adrenaline rush. But in all due respect I really don't appreciate you making a judgement call on my Hunt!

Respectfully,
Aziscohosbuck



























1 I felt like a little kid again like I have not felt in many years!

Peace to you fellow hunter, it's all good,

[Aziscohosbuck]

Talked to my sub-permitee tonight, will be picking up the frozen vacuemed packed Moose meat on Sunday 10/08/2017.  I think Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife wants me to fill my freezer full of wild game meat this year as they also  issued me a Doe Permit for this upcoming deer season!  May have to buy another freezer, just kidding as I have friend's with plenty of freezer space, so we will see how all this pans out.  I have a nice Buck scouted way out in a Swamp/Bog less than a mile form my house and I really should get back up to camp at Aziscohos for the very end of rifle or beginning of muzzleloader season.  After hunting 1000 lb. plus Moose running around in the far Northern Maine Allegash region, I don't know that Deer Hunting will ever be the same again!  But somebody's got to be in line for this and I am thinking positive as my liuck this hunting season has been the best that I have ever experienced.  Good luck on the upcoming Whitetail Hunt boys and girls, gonna be a great season in Maine as always.

Aziscohosbuck

[Aziscohosbuck]

I have my pictures organized in a file of the Moose Hunt and would love to post them, any suggestions on the easiest way to do this now that photobucket is trashed?
Thank you for any advice.
Aziscohosbuck