Idaho Moose Hunting

Joe Hulburt

Joe Hulburt

Active Member
Mar 14, 2011
392
1
Oregon Coast
bghunter said:
Congrats! Nice bull! Would you share short story?
Click to expand...
My wife and I spent two weeks up there scouting over the summer. It's really thick country and in all that time we laid eyes on 3 moose. 2 cows and a calf.

My son and buddy and I headed back up on September 28th to get down to hunting. The first evening there right before dark my son and I headed in to a pond to check a trail cam I had left to see if any moose had been around. On the way in be spooked a bull about 20 yards off the trail and down in a creek. I was able to get him to grunt but he wouldn't budge. The following day we were glassing one of the few open areas when my son said he heard a bull grunting up the creek in a large alder field. We circle above it just in time for the wind to switch and spooked out a cow and calf moose. They were shortly followed by the bull I posted the picture of with his nose in the air. Just not moose looking enough for me so we passed him up. The days were hot and things were pretty quiet except for first light and last light. Over the next few days I got three bulls going with my cow calls and all three were coming on a string until they got to about 60 yards at which point the downward thermals kept letting them know we were above them. The stuff was so thick it wasn't really possible to get below them as they were all in creek bottoms. It was fun but frustrating!

Finally we got a weather change and kept hunting until late morning one day. Right about the time we were going to head back camp to grab some more clothes due to the temperature drop I spotted a cow on an open hillside about 626 yards away. We couldn't see a bull but based not he rut activity we had been seeing I felt sure one would be around. We finally headed down in near her and set up and called in a few places but never got a reply. Finally I spotted this bull coming down into the creek above where the cow had been. My son got the video camera rolling and zoomed in on him and told me he looked good. I took another look with my binocs (thru steamed up glasses) and confirmed he looked like what we were after. I ranged him and laid down and shot him thru the lungs. He lunged forward a couple lunges and stopped. I was about to hit him again when I saw his head raising and his rear going down. He just laid down and was dead in seconds. Moose down!

We spent a few more days looking around and never spotted another moose then headed for Oregon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom