Post by buckshot (Ben) on Nov 5, 2009 21:13:04 GMT -5
I am a little late on my post but you all know how it is this time of the year. ha ha
our moose season started off very slow. My father was the guide and I was the second shooter and my son was the first shooter. We were hunting zone p in the southern part of vt where we live and do most of our hunting so we were very optomistic. During bear season I video'ed a huge bull and another one that was very good size. I will post some of the video soon.
After hunting those bulls for two days and not being able to locate them. We moved up into the high mountain swamps. There was a ton of sign but like usual the moose had moved off and we had to cover a lot of ground to find where they were hanging out as the rut was pretty much over.
On the third day we walked into a bedded cow, she stood out of her bed and stood broad side at 15yards. I said to my son "moose", He looked and said its a cow, I said I know do you want to take her its been tough. He said I really want a bull and I said then dont shoot and we will keep on looking. I told him to just enjoy watching her and she stood there eye balling us for five minutes then walked off. I was very proud of my son for sticking to his guns of wanting to shoot a bull. But after that of course we were wondering if we made the right decision but there was no looking back. After searching over the area we could see there was a good bull in the area so we hung there for the rest of the day. With no luck finding the moose in the big choping the next day my father and I decided while my son was in school we split up and cover a lot of ground scouting for a bull. The next mornng I went back to work trying to find that bull that I had seen while bear hunting. After four hours I had to cut my loses. I called my father and told him what I had found and he had about the same luck so we said we would meet up to our camp and take the wheelers on a long ride on this high mountain trail and see if any moose had crossed it or traveled it. I unloaded my wheeler at our camp and started out the trail looking around while waiting for my father. Thats when it happened I saw a smoking track in the trail. I stopped the wheeler and investigated it. It was a nice bull track headed down into the same swamp that we had seen the cow. I also had my game cam there earlier in the season and got a couple pictures of a good bull. When my father showed up we started making a game plan for in the morning.
After thinking about our early morning tacktics all night and hoping that the bull had stayed in the rabbit swamp all night that we know every inch of.
With and half hour before it got light we met at camp. We started the fire and sat there waiting for the light to start cracking. We didn't want to get in there in the dark and spook the moose as they sometimes hang out close to where we were going to go in.
Finally it started geting light enough to see so we were out the door.
We got to the first spot to set up right where I had my game cam. My father did some cow calls and I raked a tree with and oil can on a stick to make it sound like a bull and a cow in the area.
We thought we heard something but it turned out to be nothing as what was the case so many times. We worked our way around the thick rabbit cover skirting the swamp. There were lots of moose tracks but no sign of the fresh moose that had come into the area. We were working with a quartering wind so it was going to be tough so we decided to do one more set up behind an old dry beaver pond that was mostly mud now. Then take the trucks around and come from a different area to get the wind right.
We stood on the edge of the beaver pond where we had stood many a day while hunting and always thinking to our selves what a place to shoot a big buck or a moose. Of course it seems in those spots rarly does it happen. We set up and took our packs off and my father started cow calling very softly at first and louder about five or six times. Then I started grunting softly and raking the beach wips with the oil can and making some grunting noises. About every minute for about two minutes I either raked the trees or just shook the small beach wip next to me with leaves still hanging on it to sound like a moose feeding. As we sat there the sun broke threw the morning high mountain fog. It wasn't a minute later I heard a crash a few hundred yards away. I looked over to my son but he didn't look like he heard it and after so many times saying "did you hear that" I decided to not say anything. After a couple more minutes there was another crash and I again looked at my son and he looked over at me and I asked him if he heard that. He said "yup" . I turned to my father and he nodded. Thats when we heard the soft grunt. Thats when the old ticker got going. ha ha
I turned to my father and said here comes a moose get the video camera out. He started digging it out off his pocket. As the moose got closer he was dirrectly on the other side of the pond witch was about five acres in size. As he walked closer we could only see his silowet in the thick softwood on the other side of the pond. I could clearly see his rack. I kept asking my son if he could get him in his scope but with the sun in our eyes and the moose in the dark shadow of the large spruces we could only see him with our naked eye. He was about 150yards away. He slowly walked skirting the edge of the pond working his way down wind of us. The wind kept shifting but we were good for about another fourty yards and he was gonna wind us. He walked out into what looked like a clear broad side shot and I grunted to him twice and stoped him but when he stoped my son or eye could just not pick him out of the foggy shadows with the sun in out scopes. I told him to just stay still and wait! After what seemed and eterety wich was probably one or two minutes. The bull continued towards the beaver dam end of the pond. As he was almost to the dam he started his way down the bank and out in the grass that had grown up on the pond bank. There was no problem seeing him now. My son and I had agreed that if we had the chance we were both going to shoot. I would just follow his shot. As my son took a bead on him he fired and so did I. The moose went down like a pile of bricks out of site into the tall grass.
My son kept his rifle on him for a few minutes in case he got back up but we could see his antlers only wigling a little. I turned to my father and said "yes high five we did it" he said " No , not till we are over to the moose I have done this before". Wich is another story all together.
All together we made our way around the pond and came onto a glorious site. A great bull lay there. I told my son to finish him as we could see his chest still moving. I told him to shoot him low in the chest. That was when the high fives started. After a good time gutting the bull, ha ha
We went back to camp and made a few phone calls and got some gear.
We had two wheelers with winches and a chain saw and so we headed right back down to the moose. My son drove a wheeler and my father drove one while I ran the chain saw cutting down the dead falls on the logging road that went right to the beaver pond. We only had to cut a trail a few hundred yards parallel to the beaver pond after getting off the logging road to get to the moose. It only took us a half hour and we were at the moose again. we had a tape with us and we measured the moose it had a spread of 55.5inches.
We then winched him up out of the pond and tied the mooses antlers to the rack on the back of my 700 sportsman. I hooked my winch to the hitch of the other wheeler and kept about 4 feet of cable out. With my son driving the front wheeler and me behind on the other we started out of the swamp. my father kept the ropes and ratchet straps tight and a friend of our that showed up worked on the trail with his saw straitening out some of the tighter turns we had made on the way in.
We shot the moose at 8:15 and had him back to camp and hanging up by 12:00.
Hope you all enjoy the story I know it is a time that I will treasure forever. Three generations of Birch's on a hunt of a lifetime.
Here are some pictures from our hunt.
And the video
our moose season started off very slow. My father was the guide and I was the second shooter and my son was the first shooter. We were hunting zone p in the southern part of vt where we live and do most of our hunting so we were very optomistic. During bear season I video'ed a huge bull and another one that was very good size. I will post some of the video soon.
After hunting those bulls for two days and not being able to locate them. We moved up into the high mountain swamps. There was a ton of sign but like usual the moose had moved off and we had to cover a lot of ground to find where they were hanging out as the rut was pretty much over.
On the third day we walked into a bedded cow, she stood out of her bed and stood broad side at 15yards. I said to my son "moose", He looked and said its a cow, I said I know do you want to take her its been tough. He said I really want a bull and I said then dont shoot and we will keep on looking. I told him to just enjoy watching her and she stood there eye balling us for five minutes then walked off. I was very proud of my son for sticking to his guns of wanting to shoot a bull. But after that of course we were wondering if we made the right decision but there was no looking back. After searching over the area we could see there was a good bull in the area so we hung there for the rest of the day. With no luck finding the moose in the big choping the next day my father and I decided while my son was in school we split up and cover a lot of ground scouting for a bull. The next mornng I went back to work trying to find that bull that I had seen while bear hunting. After four hours I had to cut my loses. I called my father and told him what I had found and he had about the same luck so we said we would meet up to our camp and take the wheelers on a long ride on this high mountain trail and see if any moose had crossed it or traveled it. I unloaded my wheeler at our camp and started out the trail looking around while waiting for my father. Thats when it happened I saw a smoking track in the trail. I stopped the wheeler and investigated it. It was a nice bull track headed down into the same swamp that we had seen the cow. I also had my game cam there earlier in the season and got a couple pictures of a good bull. When my father showed up we started making a game plan for in the morning.
After thinking about our early morning tacktics all night and hoping that the bull had stayed in the rabbit swamp all night that we know every inch of.
With and half hour before it got light we met at camp. We started the fire and sat there waiting for the light to start cracking. We didn't want to get in there in the dark and spook the moose as they sometimes hang out close to where we were going to go in.
Finally it started geting light enough to see so we were out the door.
We got to the first spot to set up right where I had my game cam. My father did some cow calls and I raked a tree with and oil can on a stick to make it sound like a bull and a cow in the area.
We thought we heard something but it turned out to be nothing as what was the case so many times. We worked our way around the thick rabbit cover skirting the swamp. There were lots of moose tracks but no sign of the fresh moose that had come into the area. We were working with a quartering wind so it was going to be tough so we decided to do one more set up behind an old dry beaver pond that was mostly mud now. Then take the trucks around and come from a different area to get the wind right.
We stood on the edge of the beaver pond where we had stood many a day while hunting and always thinking to our selves what a place to shoot a big buck or a moose. Of course it seems in those spots rarly does it happen. We set up and took our packs off and my father started cow calling very softly at first and louder about five or six times. Then I started grunting softly and raking the beach wips with the oil can and making some grunting noises. About every minute for about two minutes I either raked the trees or just shook the small beach wip next to me with leaves still hanging on it to sound like a moose feeding. As we sat there the sun broke threw the morning high mountain fog. It wasn't a minute later I heard a crash a few hundred yards away. I looked over to my son but he didn't look like he heard it and after so many times saying "did you hear that" I decided to not say anything. After a couple more minutes there was another crash and I again looked at my son and he looked over at me and I asked him if he heard that. He said "yup" . I turned to my father and he nodded. Thats when we heard the soft grunt. Thats when the old ticker got going. ha ha
I turned to my father and said here comes a moose get the video camera out. He started digging it out off his pocket. As the moose got closer he was dirrectly on the other side of the pond witch was about five acres in size. As he walked closer we could only see his silowet in the thick softwood on the other side of the pond. I could clearly see his rack. I kept asking my son if he could get him in his scope but with the sun in our eyes and the moose in the dark shadow of the large spruces we could only see him with our naked eye. He was about 150yards away. He slowly walked skirting the edge of the pond working his way down wind of us. The wind kept shifting but we were good for about another fourty yards and he was gonna wind us. He walked out into what looked like a clear broad side shot and I grunted to him twice and stoped him but when he stoped my son or eye could just not pick him out of the foggy shadows with the sun in out scopes. I told him to just stay still and wait! After what seemed and eterety wich was probably one or two minutes. The bull continued towards the beaver dam end of the pond. As he was almost to the dam he started his way down the bank and out in the grass that had grown up on the pond bank. There was no problem seeing him now. My son and I had agreed that if we had the chance we were both going to shoot. I would just follow his shot. As my son took a bead on him he fired and so did I. The moose went down like a pile of bricks out of site into the tall grass.
My son kept his rifle on him for a few minutes in case he got back up but we could see his antlers only wigling a little. I turned to my father and said "yes high five we did it" he said " No , not till we are over to the moose I have done this before". Wich is another story all together.
All together we made our way around the pond and came onto a glorious site. A great bull lay there. I told my son to finish him as we could see his chest still moving. I told him to shoot him low in the chest. That was when the high fives started. After a good time gutting the bull, ha ha
We went back to camp and made a few phone calls and got some gear.
We had two wheelers with winches and a chain saw and so we headed right back down to the moose. My son drove a wheeler and my father drove one while I ran the chain saw cutting down the dead falls on the logging road that went right to the beaver pond. We only had to cut a trail a few hundred yards parallel to the beaver pond after getting off the logging road to get to the moose. It only took us a half hour and we were at the moose again. we had a tape with us and we measured the moose it had a spread of 55.5inches.
We then winched him up out of the pond and tied the mooses antlers to the rack on the back of my 700 sportsman. I hooked my winch to the hitch of the other wheeler and kept about 4 feet of cable out. With my son driving the front wheeler and me behind on the other we started out of the swamp. my father kept the ropes and ratchet straps tight and a friend of our that showed up worked on the trail with his saw straitening out some of the tighter turns we had made on the way in.
We shot the moose at 8:15 and had him back to camp and hanging up by 12:00.
Hope you all enjoy the story I know it is a time that I will treasure forever. Three generations of Birch's on a hunt of a lifetime.
Here are some pictures from our hunt.
And the video