Failure is Just a Dress Rehearsal for Success

This is the story of my wife's 2017 Montana Shiras moose hunt, but the inspiration for this title came during an elk hunt earlier this year with Dave (elkaholic) and Rueben. https://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?278230-First-archery-elk-(Mt-Bull) While in elk camp Rueben had relayed to Dave and I what his fortune cookie said as he ate in the airport lobby on his trip out. "Failure is just a dress rehearsal for success." While I personally think it is bad luck to be superstitious, this little saying proved to be correct as we went from a disappointing failure to incredible success in the same afternoon. It became our motto every time something didn't go the way we were hoping for, keeping our mindset positive until success was finally achieved.

Before the draws came out this spring, I had planned a couple OTC hunts in general units with friends and fellow hunttalkers. I'm always hopeful our family will score one good tag in the draws and that would have complemented my planned hunts nicely.

I checked the Deer and Elk permit drawing results when they came out in April and was excited to see I had drawn a Missouri Breaks bull permit after ten years. I checked my childrens' draw results next and was shocked to see that my daughter Olivia had drawn the same tag. My schedule had just gotten a lot fuller and I was thinking this might be a bit too much of a good thing.

As the application deadline for Montana's big three approached, I briefly debated whether to even submit applications for myself and my family. However, the low odds of drawing and the desire to stay as current as we could on bonus points convinced me that the cost was worth it even if it would be difficult to add another hunt to my already full schedule. With that in mind, I applied for highly desirable units to lesson the drawing odds and ensure we would have a great hunt if we did draw.

When results were posted in June, I checked my wife's results first. Imagine my surprise to find out she had drawn a moose tag after 14 years of applying! I have to say I almost scared to check the rest of our results and was relieved when no one else drew anything.

The support and PM'ed offers of advice and information from fellow hunttalkers was amazing and incredibly helpful. I have to give a huge shout out of thanks to Greenhorn for offering me his maps and advice despite his memorable thread designating those of us who drew special tags to be posterior orifices. Many other hunttalkers offered help and tips in PM's for which I am extremely grateful. A big thanks to those of you who did that.

Due to work commitments and other hunts, I made the calculated decision to defer scouting of the unit before we started to hunt. I have spent a lot of time in other years hunting other species in this unit and had a pretty good idea of where to find moose. With confirmation of some of my plans and extra info from hunttalkers I felt like we would have a good chance of finding a nice bull in the week we planned to hunt. Due to work, we couldn't hunt opening week so we planned to spend Sept 24- 30 on our first hunt.

Adding another special twist to this hunt was the fact that our 15th wedding anniversary was this summer and we weren't able to take a celebratory trip. This was the first time in 15 years that we had been able to spend an entire week together without our children and spending that much together time while our kids stayed at their grandparents was wonderful.

We scored a booking at a USFS cabin for our lodging. It was comfortable and a welcome change from the wall tent that I normally set up. Even though most of the moose action ended up being a good distance away from where we stayed and required several hours of driving, we were glad to have stayed there.

Our first day was spent driving to different parts of the unit and glassing as much likely terrain as possible. A lot of beef cattle in the likely areas closest to where we were staying and a cow and calf sighting at last light in a different part of the unit convinced us that making an hour and a half drive the next morning was our best chance to find more moose. We covered a lot of ground and saw a lot of wildlife and interesting terrain.

We rose well before daylight the next morning and ate breakfast on the the drive in order to get to where we wanted to be by daylight.


Good glassing light had just arrived when a small bull moose popped out of the willows next to the road and started walking out the road several hundred yards away. We stopped the truck and watched him even though Irene had no desire to shoot him.

While watching the tiny bull, I swung my binoculars to a different area and picked up two more moose nearly a mile away. One was clearly a bull and was deserving of a closer look. I set up the spotter and we contemplated the pros and cons of this almost big enough to be interesting, but not nearly big enough to shoot on day two, bull that was in a perfect spot for a stalk. He had one cow with him but didn't have much for width or mass and only three points per side.

Gerald Martin said:

While I personally think it is bad luck to be superstitious

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Now that is some good writing! Cant wait for the rest of the story to unfold....

Joe Hulburt said:

Now that is some good writing! Cant wait for the rest of the story to unfold....

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Yes. Me too!
I was waiting for this one...

We spent nearly half an hour watching the medium sized bull and his cow until concluding that if we weren't going to shoot him we should probably go find one big enough to get Irene excited. Tiny bull was still working the sage ridge behind us looking for a cow that he was bull enough to impress.

Another half mile down the road and I picked up another bull bedded in a small opening in the dark timber. Even though he was another tiny bull, the spot got me some admiration and praise from my wife. Two hours after daylight, four moose, three of them bulls and we were all smiles.

We got to the trail head at about 9:30 a.m. and decided to walk up the main trail to check out an area that has always intrigued me even though I had never stepped foot in it. I know it holds moose, but I suspected that getting a bull packed out of the drainage would be difficult since it didn't have a good trail in the bottom. With that in mind and good willows along the creek and trail for a few miles in front of us we made the decision to check out the easy terrain first in hopes a good bull had dropped down to the bottom to rut. Our intention was to check the side drainage on the way out.

...gonna settle in on this one with a fresh cup of coffee early in the morning.

I'm in. Carry on.

Are you doing a dress rehearsal for the rest of the story? Come on with it!

Sounds like the Martin house is going to be buying more freezers based on the tags your family drew. This moose hunt is sure sounding good so far. When are you going to complete your inner Paul Harvey and give us "the rest of the story?"

Sorry for being impatient, the full version will be worth the wait I'm sure.

Working on it fellows.... Good cooking takes time to prepare. Unless you just want the fast food version...

Since I can never tell a short story when a long story sounds just as good, I'll throw in a bit more background info. My wife has been suffering the effects of Lymes disease for about five years now. After treatments she seems to be recovering and feels better now than in the past. However, her hiking stamina and ability to carry a pack have diminished from what she once could do and if she pushes it too hard it takes her several days to bounce back from fatigue and not be in pain.

I thought that setting a goal of trying to keep our hikes less than two miles from where we could drive would make it doable to hunt every day without taking extra rest days and would also make it possible for me to pack out a moose with the amount of help available to us. Several hunttalkers were hunting or lived within about 40 miles of us and had offered to help should we need extra backs. I was hoping to keep the pack under two miles, way under would be even better.

We were nearing that two mile self-assumed limitation when we took a break on an open knob with great vantage to glass. I figured this was a great place to spend a couple hours glassing and resting.

We were eating, glassing, and enjoying the scenery when I spotted a nice bull elk and several cows picking their way off the ridge behind us. Even though it was a general unit and I could have pursued him, I had purposely left my bow at home so I wouldn't get distracted. It was probably a good idea because while he wasn't a true monster he would have been bigger than any I have killed so far, probably @ 310" or so. The bull and his cows got within about 600 yards of us and were working their way closer. At that point I spotted a bow hunter coming down the trail behind us and got his attention before the elk noticed him. I showed him the bull and after watching him for a little he tried to close the distance and disappeared into the scattered timber where they were headed.

I was feeling like I had done my good deed for the day and remarked the same to Irene, wondering if something good might come our way in return. I'm not certain God rewards us in that manner, but regardless it wasn't ten minute later I picked out a black spot with legs on a distant hillside. Then, there was another, and another and another. Four moose and one was a bull with wide paddles that flashed in the sun. I only had ten power binos and couldn't see just how good he was, but from a mile away I could tell he was at least another notch above the medium sized bull we had elected not to stalk.

At this point it was a brief gut check time. We were already two miles in, the bull was another mile further from the truck. If we killed this bull, the recovery and pack out would be extremely demanding.

On the positive side, it was only 1 p.m. and we had plenty of time to get to the moose. Temperatures had been below freezing for the past few nights. I knew that the meat would keep for several days without spoiling if necessary to take that long packing it out.

Irene could see the excitement in my face and pushed aside any doubts she had about being able to go in another mile and make it back out. She was fully on board with my philosophy of getting a moose killed and then figure out how we could get it out. I figured to call in every favor from everyone whom had offered to help if we got this bull killed and if that didn't work, I'd pack him one load at a time for several days.

We quickly packed up and headed out as fast as we could. The moose were slowly feeding toward and open ridge and while I didn't think it likely they would cross it during the middle of the day, I wanted to cover a lot of ground as fast as we could. We had to cross a few ravines and the moose were out of our sight for about fifteen minutes. When we made it back to the open ridge top there were no moose to be seen.

We continued heading up to where we had last seen them. Finally at about 800 yards out we spotted one of the cows up and feeding. We knew the other moose had to be close.

I had elected to stay on top of the open ridge for our approach due to a steady updraft on the entire hike in. I wanted to be above them and thought we could keep a good wind when we tried to find them again.

It might have taken us half an hour to forty-five minutes to close within a hundred yards of where we had last seen the cow, but by now no moose were visible. They had all bedded in the scattered aspens and fir trees below us.

When I have encountered moose while elk hunting in the past, it had been my experience that they seldom ran without taking a long look at what had startled them. I have to say that this experience caused me to be a lot more aggressive in my approach to finding the moose than I would have been had they been elk. Another factor in trying to walk in and find the bedded moose was that I didn't really want to be trying to butcher a moose after dark when we were so far back in. I was pretty certain we could stalk in, find the bull and have enough time to get a good shot before they spooked. As we made our final approach, I was very confident we would kill this bull.

Then that thing all hunters dread happened. What had been a steady wind for the entire hike over shifted and we had a strong down draft coming from directly behind us towards the moose. We were within 100 yards of where I knew they had to be. I had a critical decision to make; back out now and try a stalk from a completely different direction that would add a lot more distance to Irene's already exhausting hike or move forward quickly and try to make it happen before they got our wind and figured us out.

I opted to be aggressive and get this bull killed. It was open terrain and I expected to see the moose at any time.


Suddenly, I saw movement in the trees about fifty yards in front of us. The last cow that we had seen feeding jumped to her feet and bolted down the ridge. No standing, no looking, just running. I whispered to Irene get her gun up and ready, knowing that my sure thing was quickly falling apart. In desperation I started grunting like another bull was coming in to take his cows. It worked exactly as I had hoped. The bull immediately grunted back about forty yards away and to our left. I could hear the brush cracking and saw legs and antlers coming toward us at a run. Bull behind the tree at 30 yards.

He was thirty yards away and closing but brush made it impossible to see more than bits and pieces of him at any time. He must have hit our scent stream because he stopped about three steps short of clearing the tree that would have given Irene a clear, broadside shot. He stood for nearly half a minute and I was willing him to take three more steps, just three more steps. He took the steps, but they were directly away from us. By the time we could move to our right for an opening he and the cows were lined out down the ridge never presenting a shot. I could have puked. STUPID.

We followed their tracks in the mud for several hundred yards, but they were in the dark timber now and our energy was fading fast and we were getting further and further from the truck. We finally stopped to catch our breath. I knew then that we had just experienced our dress rehearsal. Disappointment looks like this.

We took a breather and decided to push just a little further. It wasn't another 100 yards into the track when we bumped them again in the dark timber. This time when they ran we elected not to follow further and headed back up to where we had come down the ridge.

After finding several moose rutting pits dug into the hillside and abundant moose droppings we knew this was an area they spent a lot of time in and would probably return to if not pressured too much.


After all that work and disappointment some contemplation in the sunshine, a good snack, a quick nap and refills of our water bottles from a clear stream brought back our good spirits and the realistic perspective that it might have been for the best that the bull got away. Getting him out would have half killed us if he would have had to come out in my backpack. An added bonus was the old elk shed that we found in the stream. I got a good laugh when I spotted it laying there and asked Irene to fill my water bottle at that exact spot. She actually put her foot on it at one point and sat beside it for over a minute before she saw it. She thought it was pretty funny too.

We made it back to the truck around dark with no other moose sightings. We decided to sleep in a little the next morning. This was going to be a rest/easy hunt day. By the time we got to our glassing spot the moose were bedded. We headed into town in the early afternoon to get gas. All the extra driving we were doing was eating up more fuel than I thought and even with reserve jugs, I knew we wouldn't have enough to make it through the entire trip.

When I got back into cell service, I called the outfitter who is licensed for that area to see if he could pack out a moose for us if we killed one where we saw the big bull. He agreed to do that for us and we made plans to get in touch with my Garmin InReach if we needed him. That opened up a lot bigger area for us to feel confident to hunt since we knew the meat wouldn't have to come out on my back. Irene was feeling good in spite of the six miles she had walked the day before and was eager to go back after the big bull the next day.

We made it back to our hunting area with several hours to glass and hunt in the evening. We elected to glass from a ridge across from our normal access point. Things were uneventful until right before dark when we saw a cow and one of the small bulls from the day before. As the last minutes of shooting light faded, I spotted three moose about two miles down drainage. By the way he was acting, one was for sure a bull. We made a mad dash to the truck and drove as fast as we safely could to see if we could get close enough before shooting hours were over. We made it within range and in time, but it turned out to be another small bull. He was trying to prove himself to the cow, but she was having none of it. We headed back to the cabin with high expectations for the following day.

It wasn't as hard to get out of the sleeping bag the next morning. We were bright and early and made the pre-dawn drive in good time. It was barely light enough to see when we spotted the little bull and the cow from the previous night. Time was winding down in our hunt, but he was still too small to be very tempting even though the 600 yard pack to the road would have been nice.

At the trail head we quickly headed out, hoping to get up the trail in good time. The past couple days had been warmer and brighter and it seemed like all animal activity was happening fairly early and late in the day.

We made it about half a mile up the trail when we were startled by a small bull moose running out of the trees beside us. I had Irene's rifle strapped to my pack to save her neck and shoulder muscles from getting too sore. When I grunted, the bull stopped and we could see he wasn't one she was interested in. Irene was able to dig in my pack and get my camera out while I called to the bull. He was within 25 yards of us for several minutes until finally moving into the timber. He started moving closer and at that point Irene was fully prepared to shoot him if he got too close. With pepper spray that is. I told her it wouldn't have done us much good if he had charged since she hadn't taken the safety cap off. She said she would have gotten it figured out pretty fast. It was a great encounter!

Two bulls passed and we weren't even to our glassing spot! The night had been cold and there was intricate patterns of frost and ice in the trail. We also stopped to take some pics of a sign reminding us we were hunting on our own property. I like seeing those signs!

We made it to the glassing spot and I started glassing in earnest. An hour of glassing turned up nothing more significant than the ants that didn't appreciate me being seated on their anthill. The sun's warming rays made the ants more active and their activity inspired me to move my keister from their mound and head closer in to where we had seen the big bull. The thermals were still coming down so we elected to try going on the opposite side we had been on when we spooked them in hopes we could find a high knob to look down into the aspens.

As we were going up towards an open knob, we found fresh moose tracks in the patchy snow. It looked like at least three moose had been feeding at the edge of meadow either the night before or that morning. I could follow their tracks through the meadow and I wanted to track them down in the worst way. But the wind was completely wrong for the way they were heading and I knew from experience we would be better off waiting until the afternoon when the thermals were moving up slope.

We climbed to the top of the ridge and spent a spectactularly uneventful afternoon in terms of animal sightings. We did enjoy the gorgeous scenery and even got in a little nap until mid-afternoon. By that time, boredom and wanderlust had settled in an we made a loop in the drainage hoping to turn up a moose. At one point we thought we found a moose, but it turned out to be a spike elk that had either been rolling in the mud or had decided to submerge himself in a wallow. He was completely dark to the point of almost being black. Shifting wind soon spooked him an the others with him and we continued on.

By about five p.m. we started back towards the truck. That would give us enough time to try and sort out the tracks from that morning and hunt the willows on the way out if we didn't see any moose before then. We made it back to the tracks from that morning and with a favorable wind, started tracking the moose. The track ranged from being easy to follow to extremely difficult and I would follow it for a while, lose it for a little and then pick it back up again. We had covered about five hundred yards when they appeared to go down a small ridge to the creek. That proved to be an old track and I soon lost it in a jumble of old elk,moose, and horse tracks in the mud. By then it was around 6:20 and we still had three miles to go to reach the truck. I figured we just hit the horse trail and make our way out while we still had plenty of light to hunt most of the way. Just as we hit he horse trail I noticed one more small rise off to my left. It never hurts to look over one more hill so I walked the few steps to where I could see over...

As my eyes cleared the top of the hill recognition, reaction, and instinct all kicked in at the same time as I saw bull moose, tines, palms, small opening, SHOOT! Irene was reading my body language even as I turned to her and hissed, "its a nice bull, SHOOT HIM!" The bull was about 80 yards out and was slowly walking through and opening about twenty feet wide.

Irene got a quick rest across her hiking stick and pulled the trigger before the bull could make it into the trees. At the shot, I saw him react to the bullet and he took two steps and stopped. Brush obscured another shot and I could see him start to sway. As two previously unseen cows that were with him ran off, he bedded down and I thought he was done. Then he was up again and gave us a couple of anxious minutes. He was trying to get the strength to walk. If he went left Irene had a clear shot, if he went right she had a clear shot. If he went straight away from us into the timber he would be out of sight with no shot opportunity. Finally he was able to move a few steps left and she put the coup de grace to finish him. Up until that point she was laser focused and all business but when the bulls rack hit the ground and he didn't move again, her reaction was priceless!