zachthebowhunter
Member
My dad has been putting in for a Montana moose tag for about 30 years and this year he was fortunate enough to draw the tag of his dreams. The one animal he has always wanted to get was a moose and this year he was given that chance!
He scouted all summer and turned up a few shooter bulls he would like to find once September 15th rolled around. Well after hunting almost every day since the 15th both morning and evening, him and my brother decided to take one more look at an area where they had seen a moose a couple weeks prior but it was too dark to tell what it was. As they were driving down the road with only about 15 minutes of shooting light left, my brother hollers "moose!" and slams the truck in park, shuts it off and takes off running/ jogging down to the clearing the moose is in. They left the windows down, truck open and everything but a rifle and binos in the rig!
They got down to the clearing and my dad took a bead on the bull with his rifle, but with him getting lasik a few years ago he couldn't tell exactly what bull it was so he had to take my brothers repeated "it's the big one, it's the big one" word for it and took a shot. The moose dropped in its tracks and he reloaded, it tried to get up so he shot again not taking any chances of losing his dream animal, it tried to move again and he put round 3 into the bread basket and the relief was almost too much. As my brother was exclaiming how happy he was and how he couldn't believe it, my dad could hardly breath let alone say anything or get excited.
That night they spent a couple hours quartering and getting the meat off and took the loins with them on the way out. I skipped class in Butte the next morning to drive to Helena and be there for this pretty much once in his lifetime opportunity to help get the rest of the meat out. I would like to again say thank you to Jethro, the Spotted Saddle Horse for the help on this one because damn those things are big! I am glad I only had to take one front quarter the half mile or so to the truck.
The best part of the story is my dad had booked a moose hunt to Canada before he ever applied for this tag last year and he leaves Sunday for that hunt. I am so happy for him to have been able to harvest this animal, because he really worked his ass off for it and it paid off!
He scouted all summer and turned up a few shooter bulls he would like to find once September 15th rolled around. Well after hunting almost every day since the 15th both morning and evening, him and my brother decided to take one more look at an area where they had seen a moose a couple weeks prior but it was too dark to tell what it was. As they were driving down the road with only about 15 minutes of shooting light left, my brother hollers "moose!" and slams the truck in park, shuts it off and takes off running/ jogging down to the clearing the moose is in. They left the windows down, truck open and everything but a rifle and binos in the rig!
They got down to the clearing and my dad took a bead on the bull with his rifle, but with him getting lasik a few years ago he couldn't tell exactly what bull it was so he had to take my brothers repeated "it's the big one, it's the big one" word for it and took a shot. The moose dropped in its tracks and he reloaded, it tried to get up so he shot again not taking any chances of losing his dream animal, it tried to move again and he put round 3 into the bread basket and the relief was almost too much. As my brother was exclaiming how happy he was and how he couldn't believe it, my dad could hardly breath let alone say anything or get excited.
That night they spent a couple hours quartering and getting the meat off and took the loins with them on the way out. I skipped class in Butte the next morning to drive to Helena and be there for this pretty much once in his lifetime opportunity to help get the rest of the meat out. I would like to again say thank you to Jethro, the Spotted Saddle Horse for the help on this one because damn those things are big! I am glad I only had to take one front quarter the half mile or so to the truck.
The best part of the story is my dad had booked a moose hunt to Canada before he ever applied for this tag last year and he leaves Sunday for that hunt. I am so happy for him to have been able to harvest this animal, because he really worked his ass off for it and it paid off!
