Moose hunt

[SwampDonkey]

Only place I've seen mountain lions was on the west coast of BC. I've seen a few lynx here, rarely a bobcat, but I seen one of those twice last winter along highway wildlife fencing. Lynx are not all that scared of humans.

[moosehunter]

 

 
About 9 am this morning. 590lbs. Tough hunt but have moose meat being processed! Just north of Caribou ME.
mh

[Ron Scott]

Well done!

[Magicman]

Oh wow, Congratulations on a successful hunt !!!   8)

[Jeff]

Yea!!! Way ta go!!

[barbender]

Nice bull!

[Peter Drouin]

 

[KEC]

How did you get it in the bed of the truck? 

[Southside]

Broccoli and a ramp - they will walk right in around that country.   :D  Good size for eating. 

[SwampDonkey]

Nice bull, and some good eaten ahead. ;D

Season ended here 2 weeks ago.

[Stephen1]

Well done. I guess the answer is in the back of my truck. :D

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Wow, congrats. About how many pounds of meat will you have when its processed?

[Southside]

Only place I've seen mountain lions was on the west coast of BC. I've seen a few lynx here, rarely a bobcat, but I seen one of those twice last winter along highway wildlife fencing. Lynx are not all that scared of humans.

1995 or 1996 there was a confirmed mountain lion sighted on the Allagash River, I didn't see it in person but I saw the VHS tape before the State Police Crime lab VCR "ate the tape" - yea right, sure it did :.  There was no way an endangered species was going to be confirmed to exist up in those woods.  Eventually it was determined that the cat escaped from a train wreck in Quebec just a few miles over the border, no idea whatever became of that cat.  I did come across wolf tracks one spring between Lac Frontier and St Pamphille, less than 5 minutes behind that dog as it was snowing and there was no snow in the tracks.    

[SwampDonkey]

There was a confirmed timber wolf trapped and killed in the far north end of NB back about 10 years now. I've been all over a lot of remote lands in many corners of NB since I was about 4 years old. Much of it was walked. My grandfather was a guide outfitter for about 70 years and his brother a trapper. That involved a lot of walking (or canoe) in remote forests of the province fishing and hunting. However, his brother skinned out a timber wolf about 40 years ago. Turned out, he later believed that it was actually a neighbor's dog. The neighbor was searching for it and he claimed it never left home. The neighbor asked if he had seen his dog. He asked him if it never leaves home why are you looking for it. The dog had enough characteristics of a timber wolf that the Hudson's Bay Company acquired it on the fur action. Both my grandfather and his brother were dog lovers, Cocker Spaniels. There was a time when a loose dog in the woods, with no one looking out for it was considered a 'deer chaser' and DNR had authority to take it down. Typically it would have been a known nuisance dog always on the run. Many of them in that area were off reservations. I remember at least 3 dogs that were always running in the woods around there, a bit on the feral side to. I liked to be in those woods of grandfather's, there was trails and paths used for over 100 years. Some was his cousin's land adjacent to it as well.

[moosehunter]

The moose got in my truck at the register station with a hoist. It got in the guide's truck with a capstan winch / rope / half canoe and homemade ramp- table. One guy pulled the moose 100' and put it in the truck himself. I watched for snags. We hunted two days by ourselves. Found a local guide that took us on walks to places we didn't know existed. 
I would guess just shy of 300lbs of boneless meat. 
Met a lot of wonderful, helpful folks. A lot of pre planning and a little luck made this hunt a grand experience.
mh

[petefrom bearswamp]

Way to go Mike, nice bull.
I last hunted Newfoundland in the late 90s, some of us and the guides packed just the meat and racks if it was a bull out.
Still a lot of work.
there are some moose in the ADKS here but I have only seen 2 a cow and calf 2 yrs ago.
My son and friends found bull remains on one of our woods roads last winter, just skull, bones and lots of hair.
We have the skull nailed to our ATV shed.
No idea if it was old age, coyotes or ticks that did the deed.
With the amount of hair there I dont think ticks were the cause.
BTW I heard a good one while up there over the weekend.
A forester for a fair sized state holding claims that the ticks kill by sucking the blood out of the moose.
I figure it would take 10s of thousands of ticks to accomplish this, and all at once.

[Walnut Beast]

Congratulations moosehunter!!

[KEC]

Pete, I once talked to a moose biologist with the Maine Dept of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. He told me that, yes the ticks suck a lot of blood. He also said that one moose can have 70,000 ticks on it. Watch the Utube video "crows eat ticks off wallaby." If only some kind of enterprising birds would discover moose ticks as a food source. I can't see why chickadees, nuthatches, Blue Jays, Canada Jays, or something couldn't be a great thing for the tick problem. In some of the videos that I've watched, animals were very tolerant of birds picking ticks off them. They almost seemed to realize that the birds were doing them a favor. And that moose in that pickup should make some fine eating. I got a cow moose in Newfoundland in 1990. I got a lot of pleasure from eating it and sharing the meat with friends and family, including some non-hunter types who raved about it.

[barbender]

I'm surprised that cowbirds don't follow moose around. I suppose their ranges don't overlap in a lot of areas, but they do in some. I'm pretty sure I saw cowbirds on bison in Yellowstone last month.

[SwampDonkey]

Trouble is moose are in the bushes most of the time since they browse twigs. They come out into fields, but not for long. They aren't grazers like bison and cows. Sure they'll eat broccoli and such but that isn't their normal feed. They prefer aquatic plants when available. They swim and dive for the stuff. :D Put some snorkel equipment on the cow birds. ;D

What normally kills a moose is winter starvation and the ticks just finish the job. They get run down, and the ticks work like a disease, if they don't also carry something to infect them. If a moose holds up in a small fir for the winter, it's not all that great food, but they will do some trimming and leave deep piles of poo and hardly move far from them fir. I found a spot this fall where one held up all last winter. Little islands of fir in a hardwood stand. The twigs on the hardwood are too high to reach in there, mostly birch. Found dead moose bones near there and a live moose near there when working. I thought it was a deer trotting around in there. I had cut some land next to it last summer so he was probably feeding on suckers. Then a week later he was in my road 200 yards from where the truck was parked when I was driving home. He was trotting around up in there during hunting season. Way up on the highest peek out there. Moose are actually flourishing in NB and Quebec and have been growing in numbers. The hunting season had to be extended from 2 to 5 days to cull a few more. I saw a cow with two calves on Monday.

[YellowHammer]

Nice moose.  I've never seen one - dead, alive, or even on a plate.  

Around here, many deer hunters use the 300 Win Mag, 180 gr for 150 lb deer, and I tell them "That thing will kill a moose!"  I'm curious what a moose hunter actually uses?

[Andries]

YH; a buddy took this moose with a 30-06 a few weeks ago.

A few post back @oldgreenhorn mentioned that his Dad used that calibre as well.

[barbender]

 I've read many times that the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser round is very popular for "elk" (moose) in the Nordic countries. Virtually identical ballistically to the 6.5 Creedmoor everyone is so wild about. 

 I've shot elk with my 280 Remington (30-06 necked down to 7mm) and wouldn't hesitate to take a moose with one. Shot placement is everything. Heavy jacketed or solid copper bullets that can punch through heavy bone is a plus.

[SwampDonkey]

I guarantee you won't need an elephant gun. :D 

Dad's 28 point was brought full stop with a 12 gauge slug in the middle of a potato field. At roughly the same time a cow was dropped, but don't recall what caliper on her. ;D

My grandfather, being the guide outfitter he was, refused to hunt moose. He said about as much sport as shooting the horse. ;)

[Jeff]

Thought you guys might like this one. My U.P. neighbor Gary"s brother is a guide in Alaska. He sent Gary, and then he shared it with me of this client's moose last month.