hawkbill
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 3,210
My daughter drew a once in a life time Moose tag in Idaho this year and she started her freshman year N A U studying Micro biology. First I will tell you she worked her tail off during COVID at home everyday working on her grades, then she went after scholarships and by god she got them. She got accepted into 12 different University’s and NAU in Flagstaff became her choice, it sure seems that she wanted out of Idaho. She joined a sorority and now has real friends, loves being there and told me she has never been happier. I finally got her to commit on dates for a Moose hunt and it was going to boil down to 3 days of hunting with two travel days, not much time on her part, in the middle of Oct. I decided there was only one thing to due put off my hunting and scout for her if were to be successful. I spent a weekend in September scouting, then a week before she was to fly in I took off into the mountains, the storms and snow started and the Moose started moving. The weather was bad, very few people were out hunting but the Moose were moving. I crawled in on two big bulls fighting they saw me and didn’t care, the snow was falling hard so I crawled into 30 yards and filmed them with my cell phone I was just part of the forest. I had several other instances with big bulls up close in the in the storms. It was truly one of the best weeks with wildlife I have ever had a week of Moose Madness. The big day when my daughter Sailor is flying in I hire a kid to pick her up at the airport so I could be out scouting, that didn’t go over to well. First morning had a pretty good game plan, we got on a big Bull early following a cow, he had broken off one of his paddles and soon found the other Bulls and we passed on them. That’s when we had the talk about going after only the biggest Bulls and eating the tag or if we see areal nice bull taking him but not shooting young bulls. Sailor and I were moving down a ridge later in the day when a cow and calf crossed in front of us and here comes the Bull I grunted and he stopped and threw that big head around. Sailor said dad The trees in front of me, I move up 10 yards and threw my trigger stick up, I heard Dad I’m taking him, I grunted again he threw his head at us, I heard a shell rack in her rifle and she shot him threw the heart I said shoot him again, she did threw the heart and he fell over. It was a really special time I had with her, I’ve watched her grow into women. I told her that even though it was a very short hunt,it was one of the best 10 days I’ve ever had in the woods, she said I know Dad this is what you love and live for. I have a feeling she will not be hunting for along time, because of her studies but she‘s got it in her when the next time arises.
