Wyoming moose story

[fishdoggydog]

The third day of a 4 day hunt, last week of a 75 day season, 2:30 in the afternoon. After a fruitless day of looking for any kind of game, we were in the jeep traveling across miles of sage, going up to another patch of trees. Mule deer started to show up out of the sage, and then a cow moose and a calf about a half mile away drop below a ridge. We drive up to the top of a rise and those two are running to our left about 200 yards away with a bull moose behind them. I jump out of the jeep, sit down in front, and get a shell in and safety off. First shot I lead him about a foot, he runs and I shoot at him quartering away, third shot away from me a little down hill, farther away now, but he slows down. I stand and tell Jim, my unpaid moose guide that I think I hit him, he agrees and says I hope he is dead. I tell him I only have two more shells, he says in your pocket, I tell him no, with me. We go out and look for this bull and see his antlers in the sage moving around. I try a shot from a rest when I see the back of his head, and he drops the head. I think great, I got him, but then his head goes back up. I tell Jim to move around him and get him to stand, I shoot when the bull stands up, and he still stands, but then goes down. A 40 inch Wyoming bull is just fine. I paid my dues with 8 years of applications and a bow hunt slash scouting trip in September. Met a great guy in September who let me stay at his house, and lined me up with his buddy Jim, who I was with the day of the kill.

[MtnMike2]

Congratulations on getting your moose! What caliber and bullet weight were you using?

[fishdoggydog]

I was shooting a Remington 700, 7MM Mag with 175 gr Remington bullets. I think I did not lead enough on first shot but hit him with the next 4 rounds. One lunged him on both the 2nd and third shots, opened up the neck above the spine on what was going to be the finishing shot, and last round went through the ribs and stopped under skin on the far side, the bullet all intact and mushroomed out.

[Dan Morris]

Wyoming...something wrong with the picture...NO Wind......
LOL, nice bull, my congrats!
Dan

[gspsonny03]

Good job. Hope you enjoy him.

[Brithunter]

Yes Congratulations indeed


A question pops up thout:-

Why hunt with so little ammo? I have a small leather wallet which holds 10 rounds in elastic loops and folds ove on itself to cover the ammo. Fits on the belt or in the pocket, backback. I put 3 or 4 cartridges in the rifle and carry the wallet. On my 10 day trip to Missouri I took two boxes of ammo just in case I had to re-zero after the plane trip. It took three shots to check zero as the rifle had a clean bore to one fouling shot and two to confirm zero.

Only once on a trip have I had to reach for the wallet and that was on that trip with a Button Buck as after head shootign him at abou 35 yards, as I walked towards him he got up and I missed the second shot as he jinked and I rushed, two further shots through the head finished it but I reached for the wallet and reloaded before approaching him just in case . Have a fear you see of not being able to finish up a wounded deer so always start out with 14 rounds, heck th extra 10 rounds don't weigh much .

[fishdoggydog]

Well to answer Brithunter on why so few rounds with me, we changed to a different vehicle than I had been out in, and the rest of the box was 45 miles away. Why so few on me? I am used to hunting with a muzzleloader, one shot challenge and all that. I have never shot at running game 200 yards away before this moose, so never needed more than 5 or 6 rounds with me, and that was in my pocket from the day before. I did want one more, but glad I didn't need it. The guys with a bandolaro of shells always bring a smile to my face, but a couple more would have been worth having, to avoid this conversation that has come up a few times, as you can imagine.

[Dom]

Waidmannsheil. Great looking country and sounds like you enjoyed that hunt immensely, thanks for sharing, Dom.