My 16 year-old daughter drew a Montana moose tag this year. I've been putting in for 30 years for a moose tag and have never drawn one so to say I was excited for her would be putting it mildly.
Of course, when you're 16 years old, hunting with Dad is not always the highest on the priority list. Things like friends, boyfriends (I have a lot of trouble with this one!), football games, dances and other teenage activities often take precedence.
I have to admit, I was frustrated when she didn't want to go hunting every weekend but I kept telling myself it was HER tag and not mine and I had to go with the flow and go when SHE wanted to, not when I wanted to, otherwise I would have been down there every waking minute.
We hunted the opening weekend and saw some sign and covered a lot of country, but didn't see any moose. We waited a couple weeks and intended to head back about 10/1 but she got the flu so I made a solo scouting trip down and found a little more sign in a few different areas and also bumped into a grizzly bear. But still no moose sighting.
We headed down to Moose-ville on Friday night to hunt for the weekend. Saturday morning we hunted hard, saw lots of fresh sign but no sightings. Dang, the pressure was starting to build and Rylie was getting a little frustrated as was I.
For the Saturday afternoon hunt, I had a small meadow in mind where I'd seen moose previously while on goat hunts with a few buddies, so I decided to hike in and check it out for something different.
We were a little later than I would have liked so we hustled up the trail which had fresh bear tracks in the mud. Hmmm....the wife and daughter were not thrilled about that and I wasn't overly excited either as I knew we'd be walking out in the dark.
Screw it, let's go! We got close to the meadow about 10 minutes before shooting light ended and slowed down and eased through the trees to the edge of the meadow.
I noticed two black spots I didn't remember and through up the Swaro's. Holy crap, those are two small bull moose! We hit the dirt and got ready to shoot. I then noticed a bull bedded at the base of a small spruce tree. He was a slightly bigger than the two feeding bulls.
We got Rylie in position to shoot and the bull got to his feet, quartered away from us. I told her to put it on about his last rib and she let it rip. The moose lunged forward and stood almost facing directly away from us but was obviously hurt badly. He'd turn and look back at us then resume facing away. I told Rylie the next time he looks back to shoot him high in the neck close the the ear. He looked back and she drilled him right where I asked her too. DOWN GOES BULLWINKLE!!!!!!!
High five's insued and we cautiously made our way to the moose. We all had our adrenaline pumping as we got to the moose. Woohoo, we did it!
About that time I'm thinking, holy shxx, what the hell was I thinking? A mile and half from the truck, in bear country with my wife and daughter and a moose on the ground and getting darker by the minute.
We snapped a couple pictures and I hurriedly field dressed the bull as I pondered what to do. We were able to get a couple logs underneath the bull (not as easy as it sounds with me and the two ladies) to get some good air circulation around the meat, I "marked" the territory and left some of my shirts draped across the moose's chest cavity and we headed back down the trail.
Let me tell you, I had a couple of cling-on's hanging on my arms on the way out as I was wearing the only headlamp I had and fresh bear tracks on the trail.
When we got back into cell service and I called a couple hunting buddies to see if they could come down and help us out. They agreed and said they'd head out first thing in the morning. Now it was no small feat as we were about 3 hours from where they were but to say I was appreciative would be severely understating matters.
We went back to the cabin we were staying in and the wife and I had a celebratory glass of red wine and Rylie hit the sack to warm up and get some rest.
The morning dawned wet and rainy, not ideal moose retrieval weather. We met the guys at the trailhead and headed in with my buddy's game cart and all the other essentials.
As we neared the moose, we slowed down and looked for any signs of bears. We were armed about as well as the Seal Team Six in case we had any unwelcome visitors. Thankfully nothing had disturbed the moose.
We looked things over and decided to try to get it all out whole, in one load as the weather was deteriorating rapidly. I was highly skeptical that we could do it but figured what the heck, it was worth a try.
We got the moose positioned and grunted and groaned and got the game cart standing. We had a couple of exciting stream crossing to get to the trail but once we hit the trail he had it made. It took about three hours from the time we left the truck til the time we got the moose loaded so it wasn't too bad at all other than being soaked to the core and cold as heck.
We made on stop on the way home for a pizza break and got home about 6 pm.
We certainly didn't kill the biggest moose out there but it was a hard-earned moose, deep in the heart of public ground and I was very proud and happy for my daughter.
We certainly weren't going to pass up any legal bulls as I had no idea when we could get back down there with the regular season starting this coming weekend and another daughter chomping at the bit to get in some hunting as well.
Sorry for the long read and many thanks to my two buds for dropping their own hunting plans and helping us out. I have a serious "IOU" to those two guys and can't thank them enough.
Note: We were wearing hunter's orange during the hunt and Rylie had her's during the retrieval but we shed it for the pictures.
