BuzzH
Well-known member
When the Montana draw results came out I found out that my brother Matt drew his second Montana bull moose tag and another friend I've known since I was 9 years old also drew a cow tag.
The units were in bordering units, which was convenient.
Got in touch with @Point Creep about the areas and he gave me some good intel on both areas.
The day after I retired, hit the road for Montana. Got camp set up and waited for my friend to show up. We looked around the first evening and saw a pretty nice bull moose, but no cows. The next morning we didn't see any moose all but explored the area a bit. Saw decent numbers of pronghorn a fair few upland birds and then did a bit of fishing. Caught some decent brookies out of the creek.
Right towards dark I happened to see a good bull moose come out of the conifer trees and head to the creek bottom. About 5 minutes later, a lone cow followed him down to the creek. We made a quick move and my buddy was able to kill the cow right at dark. Got it all quartered for the pack the next morning. While getting our stuff together the next morning to pack his moose, I heard a bull right from the wall tent. The bull was about 60 yards behind the tent...pretty good one as well.
A few pics:
My buddies cow:
Bull that walked behind the tent:
Spent a day looking for moose in Matt's area before heading back to Wyoming and set up an elk camp for some buddies (headed up today to hunt with them). Then back to Montana to hunt for Matt's bull.
Got down there and looked the evening before saw maybe a dozen or so bulls, a couple looked interesting. The next morning we looked over a bunch more bulls, nothing really stood out. Decided to head North and found a good bull that Matt was interested in trying to take. We made a long walk to avoid about 150 elk or so and ended up walking through a swamp for about a mile. Got to where we thought the bull would be with a smaller bull and a cow. My friend Isaac joined us and he started calling and within about 10 minutes the younger bull made an appearance:
We could hear the other bull grunting so we edged around and sort of pushed the smaller bull toward the one grunting. Sure enough, the bigger one was there with the cow. We had to wait quite a while until the bigger bull moved into a place where Matt could shoot over the willows. Eventually he did and one shot later, Matt had his second Montana bull.
Smaller bull to the left bigger bull to the right, waiting for him to move into a shooting lane:
Matt with his moose:
Another look:
Was pretty darn fun time the last couple weeks. Between my Dad, Brother, and I this was our 9th Shiras moose permit (6 in Montana, 3 in Wyoming). Hopefully get to hunt a few more in the future. Very interesting animals and I learn more about them each time.
The units were in bordering units, which was convenient.
Got in touch with @Point Creep about the areas and he gave me some good intel on both areas.
The day after I retired, hit the road for Montana. Got camp set up and waited for my friend to show up. We looked around the first evening and saw a pretty nice bull moose, but no cows. The next morning we didn't see any moose all but explored the area a bit. Saw decent numbers of pronghorn a fair few upland birds and then did a bit of fishing. Caught some decent brookies out of the creek.
Right towards dark I happened to see a good bull moose come out of the conifer trees and head to the creek bottom. About 5 minutes later, a lone cow followed him down to the creek. We made a quick move and my buddy was able to kill the cow right at dark. Got it all quartered for the pack the next morning. While getting our stuff together the next morning to pack his moose, I heard a bull right from the wall tent. The bull was about 60 yards behind the tent...pretty good one as well.
A few pics:
My buddies cow:
Bull that walked behind the tent:
Spent a day looking for moose in Matt's area before heading back to Wyoming and set up an elk camp for some buddies (headed up today to hunt with them). Then back to Montana to hunt for Matt's bull.
Got down there and looked the evening before saw maybe a dozen or so bulls, a couple looked interesting. The next morning we looked over a bunch more bulls, nothing really stood out. Decided to head North and found a good bull that Matt was interested in trying to take. We made a long walk to avoid about 150 elk or so and ended up walking through a swamp for about a mile. Got to where we thought the bull would be with a smaller bull and a cow. My friend Isaac joined us and he started calling and within about 10 minutes the younger bull made an appearance:
We could hear the other bull grunting so we edged around and sort of pushed the smaller bull toward the one grunting. Sure enough, the bigger one was there with the cow. We had to wait quite a while until the bigger bull moved into a place where Matt could shoot over the willows. Eventually he did and one shot later, Matt had his second Montana bull.
Smaller bull to the left bigger bull to the right, waiting for him to move into a shooting lane:
Matt with his moose:
Another look:
Was pretty darn fun time the last couple weeks. Between my Dad, Brother, and I this was our 9th Shiras moose permit (6 in Montana, 3 in Wyoming). Hopefully get to hunt a few more in the future. Very interesting animals and I learn more about them each time.
