I shot a 42 inch bull moose 2 yards away from the base of my tree stand.
This was my first moose hunt and it lasted a whole 15 minutes. I was far from the hunter I am now; I was 100% a gun hunter back then with little hunting experience/knowledge. I had decided to pick up archery the previous summer to extend my seasons. Back in Quebec, you cannot hunt with a bow without a two day course and practical exam (shooting targets at 10, 20, 30 and 40 yards), being in the army, I ended up going away on exercise and courses which kept me from taking the bow course (but really it was just an excuse at the time). So, as I was now pretty much an archery expert
but couldn't hunt with my bow, I decided to do the next logical thing and spend my monies on a crossbow. I found a partner and we prepared a week long moose hunt at his tiny off the grid cabin. I had a horrible night of sleep, slept like shyte, being woken up by mice running up and down my sleeping bag, and woke up late. We had slept in on the moose opener... I got ready in a matter of minutes and made my way to my stand, making the world's longest cow scent trail, because when in doubt, use more?! As I was climbing up my tree stand, I started hearing branches cracking in the distance and moments later, out came this horny bull moose. He stayed at the base of my stand for what seemed like forever, looking for the horny gal. As soon as he cleared the base of the tree, I raised my crossbow and let one fly. The high angle shot made for a non-existant blood trail, to make things worst, this was early September and the leaves were still up and we're hunting in thick green stuff. We "tracked" this moose for over two hours with no blood or success. At this point, my partner figured he would go back to the cabin, get in his truck and drive home to go get his dog in an attempt to find this moose. He didn't get very far until he found it, dead in the trail, not 80 yards from my tree stand... "That'll make things much easier" he said, well, it really didn't. This was supposedly the second time he'd quartered a moose so I followed his lead. The next 6 hours involved us swearing, chainsaw projected ground moose meat, blood up to my forehead and 80F temps. We finally had this moose "quartered" and loaded in my truck. We made it to town after dark to register the moose and drop it off in a cooler. I learned A LOT that day; my biggest lesson was to never jump into a hunt unprepared and with no knowledge. As a reference, I quartered, packed and loaded my next moose several years later, alone, with nothing but a knife and hand saw, in 4 hours.
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