A good friend of mine and I headed up to Northwest Ontario on 9-15 for a two-week moose hunt. This was a guided hunt done by some mutual friends who own a resort a bit north of Quetico Provincial Park. The cabins were small but more than enough for two hunters and lots of gear.

 

Grouse, ruffed and spruce, were everywhere and several were brought to bag betwen daily morning and evening excursions for moose.

 

   

I thought I missed this spruce hen until I saw it fall from the tree. The sharp edge of an Ace Hex Head apparently did it's job.

 

I brought a dozen wood smal game arrows and enough components to make four dozen more. After enough "chickens", as they call them, were bagged we feasted on a huge pot of grouse stew.

 

There was no shortage of bear and wolf sign. Although I never saw a wolf (heard some howling though), I had a few encounters with the local bear population.

 

A lot of our moose hunting involved beaver ponds and cutovers with fresh regrowth for the moose to browse on.

 

Awesome pics and shooting.

Awsome Pictures, A Small Cabin, and NOT  Sleepin' on the Ground?? Thats Campin' for this Gimp!!  :rolleyes:      
 Good Luck on the Rest of Your Hunt Fellas!!      

There was another hunter in camp, a Toronto resident named Ed (left). On the evening of the eleventh he took a 12-foot shot at a small bull and made a bad hit. He and his guide, Joe (right), tracked the animal 600 yards into a spruce-choked peat bog the next morning and dispatched it with two more shots (yes, out of tune 400-grain carbons and wide mechanical heads are a lousy choice for moose hunting). Only one of the arrows made it into the rib cage, never reaching the offside of the chest cavity.

   

Off road vehicles are allowed in this area, so that's what was used for the moose extraction. That sounded like a good idea to me, especially since the alternative was packing it out through foot-thick peat moss and swamp.

Joe grabbed a chainsaw and proceeded to clear a trail through the cutover and into the bog. Ralph manned the ATV.

   

Joe was definately having fun running that saw.

   

We eventually got the ATV to the moose. It took five of us to lift its head and tie it to the rack. Ed sat on the front rack to keep the nose of the quad down while Joe walked ahead with the winch cable. It took all six of us almost five hours to get the moose to the logging road and loaded in the trailer. Not exactly your typical moose extraction, but effective nonetheless.

   

When a whole moose is hanging on the meat pole the enormity of its size becomes apparent. For the sake of comparison, Ed is about 6'2" tall.

Ed and I had yet another talk the next day about his out-of-tune bow, light arrows and big mechanical heads for moose. Hopefully he'll make the necessary changes before he hunts anything else this season.

Try as I might, I'm not sure he realizes how lucky he was to recover his moose. He should probably go buy a lottery ticket.

 

Great pics, got me all worked up to go get the dog and head out for some birds. Way to go. I wish we could shoot spruce hens in MI, I run into them all the time while rabbit hunting. They are not all that smart, alot like me.

The ruffed grouse look alittle different up there?? Down my way they have a broken band of dark feathers around there neck, similar to the band on the spruce hens on the string.

Thakns for the pickme up

Looks like alot of fun was had by all. Nice photos Thank you.

They are big animals for sure. Good pictures Jason. Mechanicals, I take it he was shooting a compound bow. Moose may die easy compared to some, but you still need to put the arrow through the vitals and use the right set-up. Hope your talk made an impression. Good work.

Shortly after sunrise that same morning I had a decision to make when a bull hung up a bit beyond my predetermined effective range. As he stood there broadside my mind briefly flashed back to a tight group of arrows I'd shot into the bag target back at camp the previous day from that same distance. I won't pretend I wasn't tempted for a half a second to put one in the air, but the moose deserved better. Bag targets at camp aren't real animals.

I've never once regretted not shooting an arrow, but there are a few I sure wish I could have taken back.

Five days later we called that same bull out of the bush and made the necessary changes to our setup. I scooted about 15 yards ahead of Ted and knelt down behind a dead bush not thick enough to hide a candy bar wrapper, let alone myself. As Ted (my guide) worked his coffee can and string call the moose closed the distance, grunting, swaying and fighting mad. It was everything I'd dreamed of.

For 200 yards I watched the bull work his way in. No doubt about it, Ted had all three barbs of the treble hook burried in the animal's mouth. The drag was locked down.

At 20 yards the bull locked up and turned broadside. I started to draw and he took away the shot, quartering toward. I let down the string.

"Uurp". Ted let out a grunt and the animal came in again, headed straight for Ted, determined to stomp him into a mud hole. When the bull passed me broadside at ten yards my arrow took him through both lungs. In one side, out the other and headed for Minnesota.

The bull never knew what happened as he walked off a short distance and collapsed.

 

Very nice!

Jason that is so AWESOME..I'm so excited for you!

Way to go brother!!!!!!

I posted to fast, Way to go. That is a great moose. Dang I just looked again, that is sweet. SOME DAY.

Can you tell us more about the coffe can call, how it was made?

congratulations, Jason! Nice bull...

Way to go  Jason .When I looked at those pics I knew that I recognize Ed from Toronto.He works for the same school board that I do.Talk about a small world.Again congrats on a great hunt.

John

:D      Too cool bro!!!

AWESOME animal.     Congrats

That is too cool Jason.  10 yards!  Doesnt get any better than that bro. Hows he eat?  

QuoteOriginally posted by Pasty Face:
Can you tell us more about the coffe can call, how it was made?

It's just a steel can with a hole drilled in the bottom. A knot is tied in the end of a flat shoelace and it's threaded through the hole. Wet the string and slide your fingers down it. Simple and extremely effective.

 

QuoteOriginally posted by Hunter John:
Way to go  Jason .When I looked at those pics I knew that I recognize Ed from Toronto.He works for the same school board that I do.Talk about a small world.Again congrats on a great hunt.

John

Ed's a carpenter for the school board, if I remember correctly. He pulled out of camp the same morning I shot my moose. Lucky guy, he missed a lot of work by just a couple hours.

congradulations, very nice moose, hoping to do the same some day, 10 yards  thats awesome

pasty face if i remember coorectly, to make the call simply take a coffee can and drill a hole in the bottom and use a heavy boot lace and place it through the hole and tie a knot. wet the lace and pull on it with thumb and forefinger the lenght of the lace, the sound echo up into the can.