We headed downriver to a lake where we had seen a BIG bull a few days before. Actually, Jerry saw the tops of his palms over the grass from about 1000 yards away (seriously...1000 yards). We watched them for a while because we just couldn't believe there were two dead, white trees that looked so much alike and were so close together. :) After a few minutes the brute stood up, and it was then that we knew... We tried a stalk on him but before we got there, we ran into another different bull - this guy :
- and some cows, and that went awry, and so we came away with nothing. That time. This time, we went back with the idea that we would enter in closer to where we saw him and try to call in the evening. Because there are a lot of pike in the lake, we also brought the fishing rods, as we intended to leave early and do some fishing until the 'primetime' of the evening.
We arrived at the entrance of the slough that leads back to the lake, and things were glassy calm. At least the wind wouldn't be exactly wrong as it was last time when we saw the big boy..
When we got to the lake, things seemed awfully quiet, and there weren't any moose in sight (and you can see a loooooooooong long way...), so we decided to fish for a bit.
It wasn't more than five minutes, though, and we heard a boat coming behind us. I wondered if they were coming our way or if they were taking the other turn at the lake entrance...no dice, they were coming right for us... We pulled up the rods and moved to the side as they went by - the channel is narrow and we were right in the middle of it. The boat flew past and went all the way to the back of the lake at full throttle...not exactly what you would like to have happen. However, as soon as they got out of sight, things got interesting. :) A bull stuck his head out of the treeline about 500 yards away, at the far end of the huuuuuuuge meadow on the left side of the lake. He had heard the other boat go by, waited for it to pass (and presumably figure out where it was going) and then went the other way. Trouble for him was, the 'other way' was right towards us. And I saw him the moment he stuck his big ol' moosy nose out of the trees. Other than that, his plan was sound. :)
I said, "uhhh, guys?....there's a bull looking right at us...make that COMING right at us" They immediately saw him. As far as he was, he was a dark blob against a massive backdrop of blonde meadow grass. Now, our predicament was, we needed to pull across the neck of the lake we were in in order to get to the side he was on, now that we had moved out of the way when the boat came by. I fired up the motor, which had been off. And he heard it, and stopped: He didn't want to go back in the way he had come out, and you could almost watch him make up his mind. He turned to his right, (our left), and began walking across the meadow towards the trees.
Here are some shots, taken from video, of how it unfolded. When he first realized we were there and stopped:
And then after he turned and walked to the left a bit, as we were deciding what to do and how to do it:
Doesn't seem so far away when the camera is zoomed all the way in, does he? :) Hold on, there'll be some better perspective on that in a minute...
So, we got the boat to shore, and scoping him appeared to show that he could have been the bull we had our previous run-in with. I thought it would be pretty sweet to have a shot at sealign the dael on him, as he had eluded us once, and even now he was up to some moosy tricks to elude those pesky humans again. It was then I decided. Yep, this was my bull. Sam and I got out, walked a short distance from the water's edge, and took up crouching positions. Sam asked if this was the one, and I replied that when he stopped next, I was going to go ahead. My brain was calculating that he had a good ways to the trees, and he would likely stop once before getting there. It was also calculating that my bullet was going to drop a loooong ways 'til it got to him - maybe 30 inches was my best guess, knowing what it does at 300 yards. I decided to hold a bit above his hump and squeeze. I wrapped the sling, as always, rested my elbow on my knee, took a deep breath, and let half of it out....and the bull stopped. Ka-boom......plop! Hit! The next shot resounded even louder: Ka-boom.....WHAP!... Although Jerry wasn't able to keep the camera on him the whole time, here are the two shots, even if the camera moved off to the right of the bull...
The bull made it back into the trees as I fired the shells that were still in the magazine, and we immediately followed up, knowing the farther back he got into the thick stuff the less fun the meatcutting - and the pack - would be. Not long after the two of us took off, Jerry got some video to show a little better perspective of the scene. Here's an image taken from that clip. The purple arrows show where we had knelt down, and the black arrow points to the bull, standing and coughing after the first bullets had hit him. It was a poke!
We closed on him, and I ended up putting a neck shot into him once I finally caught up to him. For the size of the spread - only 40 inches - he had impressive brow tines, three on one side and four on the other. I still say it was our pal from the trip a few days prior, but I guess we'll never know for sure.
Sam examining him from up close:
And a parting shot of the last trip to the boat...
Here's the trailer vid again (you'll now recognize the clip of shots from this bull when you see it) for those who read this post before the others.
The fourth moose of the year, Josie's bull, will follow this post. And that's a great story...
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