We returned from our annual N. Ontario archery moose hunt this past weekend. We had a great trip, hunting was slow but one bucket list milestone was reached. My son graduated from University this past spring and chose an archery moose hunt as his graduation present. School has prevented him from ever joining us on our annual fall hunt for the past years. He had been into the lake once when seven yrs old to fish with us. My hope was to call in a moose for him and have him arrow it. As you can see, my dream came true.
The second night out, less than 1/2 hr on the stand, I heard several grunts after my first series of calls. The radio clicked and I heard my son say "did you hear that" "yes I replied". I let out another short volley of whines and wails and the game jumped from on to overdrive. The bull came running and grunting as loud as I've ever heard. In under a minute he was in sight and headed towards us. My son was in a treestand about 80 yards from my stand. I could see the bull through the trees heading for the creek that was between us. The bull plunged in and just has he had his two front legs out on the bank I heard the Lynx growl, a quick word came over radio "I had a good shot" I glanced at the moose in time to see him go down! He never moved from the spot he was hit, down inside of 30 seconds. I said to my son over radio " great shot and take time and relax before packing up gear and that I was doing same and would be over shortly". I arrived just as he had gotten out of tree, the smile on his face said it all, big congratulations hug and compliment on his 37 yard shot and we headed over to see his moose.
The young bull was in the creek with only horns sticking out. This is first one we ever had in the water. I figured we were in for big job but it turned out to be easier than we thought. The creek was deep enough that we tied a rope onto moose and the canoe and paddled and pushed about 100 yards until we hit a beaver dam. From there we rolled bull onto dam and took pictures. Cleaned him and propped him open with cold water flowing over and around rear quarters to cool it down. Our group returned in the morning and made sort work of quartering and packing moose back to camp by canoe.
After this moose the weather turned warm and the Bulls got less responsive. We had a lot of single grunts and horns racking trees but no others worked up enough to come in. That is hunting, we cannot control Mother Nature. This was our 16th year on the lake and bull number 30. My son took his bull from our #1 tree out of 48 stands, that tree has accounted for 10 moose now. This was the same tree I arrowed the bull in my avatar from. He was using his 380 Lynx and 18" Executioners with 90 gr inserts and 100 grn G5 Strikers. He had a complete pass through at 37 yards and we found his arrow floating in creek as we paddled towards dam. It was nice and clean, no damage and still razor sharp, it was loaded every day for rest of hunt ready to do it's job again.
