Next you hold the bow and I’ll take the picture.
Hunter vs. Moose - Moose Wins
- Thread starter Wyo
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oddshooter
Member
My wife and I trekked into a high mountain lake in Idaho probably 1974. It had giant trees and thick undergrowth. We made a sweat lodge dome with branches and covered it in plastic. We heated rocks to red hot and then moved them into the sweat lodge. Our core temperatures shot up and we were able to jump into that near frozen mountain lake and get out before hypothermia set in.
There was no place to pitch a tent so we laid out our double bag on the trail we walked in on. We put our head right up to a 4 foot drop feeling snuggled in and ready for sleep. We knew better than to be anywhere near the trail, but we really had no choice.
We woke the next morning from something snorting right above us. The first thing I noticed were the hooves hanging over the 4 foot edge of the ledge. I've been around horses all my life, but I had never seen anything this big. I hadn't even imagined it could exist. Those hooves were more than a foot across. I found myself admiring them. They were beautiful and close-up.
But as my gaze continued upward I saw the biggest head of my life. Unlike a horse, the face was extremely long; and I mean extreme. So much so that it didn't look natural. We spent lot of time backpacking in Montana and I knew what backcountry folks said about Moose being the most dangerous and aggressive animal in the woods. Our Moose just started slobbering on us. Being on your back and looking upward surely must have exaggerated the size, but I can tell you it was GINORMOUS.
And then he stomped us both to death. Well, actually that was just what we thought at the moment.
But that big beauty backed up and walked around us through heavy brush to get to the lake and start chomping on the green mossy stuff around the edge. We watched for an hour being as quiet and still as we could. He eventually just walked off through the brush like King Kong. Wow!
We had a grizzly encounter one night on the Blackfoot Reservation that was more terrifying; but the Moose was one of those "Thank you, God, for letting me experience something so beautiful and spectacular". Without dying from it.
Prescut
There was no place to pitch a tent so we laid out our double bag on the trail we walked in on. We put our head right up to a 4 foot drop feeling snuggled in and ready for sleep. We knew better than to be anywhere near the trail, but we really had no choice.
We woke the next morning from something snorting right above us. The first thing I noticed were the hooves hanging over the 4 foot edge of the ledge. I've been around horses all my life, but I had never seen anything this big. I hadn't even imagined it could exist. Those hooves were more than a foot across. I found myself admiring them. They were beautiful and close-up.
But as my gaze continued upward I saw the biggest head of my life. Unlike a horse, the face was extremely long; and I mean extreme. So much so that it didn't look natural. We spent lot of time backpacking in Montana and I knew what backcountry folks said about Moose being the most dangerous and aggressive animal in the woods. Our Moose just started slobbering on us. Being on your back and looking upward surely must have exaggerated the size, but I can tell you it was GINORMOUS.
And then he stomped us both to death. Well, actually that was just what we thought at the moment.
But that big beauty backed up and walked around us through heavy brush to get to the lake and start chomping on the green mossy stuff around the edge. We watched for an hour being as quiet and still as we could. He eventually just walked off through the brush like King Kong. Wow!
We had a grizzly encounter one night on the Blackfoot Reservation that was more terrifying; but the Moose was one of those "Thank you, God, for letting me experience something so beautiful and spectacular". Without dying from it.
Prescut
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… and a squirrel
we were driving thru one of those wildlife places in Colorado years age. A couple in a BMS 318 in front of us were feeding something to a cow moose. They decided they'd had enough moose slobber and closed the window....they forgot about the sunroof. The moose just leaned over and dropped her head right down into the car via the open sunfoof.
Moose are very unpredictable
True. Mr Moose was always getting the best of the Captain.
You are old. The Bunny Rabbit got the best of both of them.
Moose are big and dangerous. I saw a couple of them on a trip to Alaska. You realize how big when they are next to a tree, and they look right over it at you. Man can they cover ground quick just walking along. They are a Clydesdale with horns and a bad attitude.
LVSteve
Member
We don't get huge animals in England, at least not in the wild. I recall being pretty impressed by the Shire horse at the local show. But I didn't get handle on how big animals could get until I went to a place that had White Rhinos. On that day they were in their shed, and when I walked in the change of light caught me out. Where were the rhinos? Then I realized that the extensive rough surface I was seeing was the side of one rhino. Good grief, it looked the size of a big U-Haul rental van.
Rich Richardson
Member
About ten years ago I was standing on a sandbar in Cache La Poudre facing downstream changing a fly. I sensed something behind me,turned around and it was a bull wading through the shallows towards me. There was nowhere to go but into a deep fast sweeper wearing chest waders. When he was about 20 yards away I raised my arms and rod over my head waving them slowly. He finally stopped at ten yards and stared for the longest time,turned around and started feeding . I snuck past him and climbed the bluff up to the truck,shoved a pistol in my belt,grabbed a camera (nobody’s going to believe this) and had a quick smoke [emoji38]
I snuck back down and got this shot as he was leaving
Two months earlier I had stumbled across a cow and calf while bushwhacking through thick timber on Corona pass and she chased me through the trees for about 50 yards lol
I snuck back down and got this shot as he was leaving
Two months earlier I had stumbled across a cow and calf while bushwhacking through thick timber on Corona pass and she chased me through the trees for about 50 yards lol
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This moose business got me thinking. I had a friend, much older than me, a Norwegian immigrant, who had some experience moose hunting. In fact, he was enthusiastic about it. He was just a little fellow, very slight - but wirey. Through most of his 80s, he was walking two miles a day and cutting firewood with a bow saw, for exercise. 
Odd had killed maybe half-dozen moose in his lifetime (here in the US and Canada). One day we were talking about outdoor stuff and he told me had sold his old moose rifle (a .30/06 of some sort) and was making a new one - in 6.5x55 - for his next Canadian hunt.
He had bought Swedish Mauser, shortened the barrel, thrown away everything he didn’t want, and got a local gunsmith to recrown it and drill and tap the receiver for scope mounting. The stock he was literally making from scratch from a piece of black walnut he had bought for next to nothing. He had dried, shaped, inletted, and finished it himself. Subsequently I saw the finished rifle and it was very respectable. He thought he “might have $50 or so” in it.
I asked him why he would ditch the ‘06 in favor of the much lighter 6.5 as a moose weapon. He said he usually shot a moose three or four times and he saw no sense in taking all that recoil, and wasting all that lead and powder since he could just as easily shoot three or four times with the 6.5 to accomplish the same thing, probably wasting less meat. Obviously, my friend was a little on the “thrifty” side.
He planted a couple of ornamental pieces in my yard, for a wedding gift. I think of him when I walk by them. I imagine he planned it that way. A very fine friend up until the last few months, when his health deteriorated and he was taken away to die in the care of his son, who lived in Colorado. The moose are safe from Odd now - at least the ones here on Earth.
I hope I haven’t taken this thread too far off the beaten path, and if I have, I apologize in advance. Sometime you just need to tell a story, even if telling it really doesn’t accomplish much.
Odd had killed maybe half-dozen moose in his lifetime (here in the US and Canada). One day we were talking about outdoor stuff and he told me had sold his old moose rifle (a .30/06 of some sort) and was making a new one - in 6.5x55 - for his next Canadian hunt.
He had bought Swedish Mauser, shortened the barrel, thrown away everything he didn’t want, and got a local gunsmith to recrown it and drill and tap the receiver for scope mounting. The stock he was literally making from scratch from a piece of black walnut he had bought for next to nothing. He had dried, shaped, inletted, and finished it himself. Subsequently I saw the finished rifle and it was very respectable. He thought he “might have $50 or so” in it.
I asked him why he would ditch the ‘06 in favor of the much lighter 6.5 as a moose weapon. He said he usually shot a moose three or four times and he saw no sense in taking all that recoil, and wasting all that lead and powder since he could just as easily shoot three or four times with the 6.5 to accomplish the same thing, probably wasting less meat. Obviously, my friend was a little on the “thrifty” side.
He planted a couple of ornamental pieces in my yard, for a wedding gift. I think of him when I walk by them. I imagine he planned it that way. A very fine friend up until the last few months, when his health deteriorated and he was taken away to die in the care of his son, who lived in Colorado. The moose are safe from Odd now - at least the ones here on Earth.
I hope I haven’t taken this thread too far off the beaten path, and if I have, I apologize in advance. Sometime you just need to tell a story, even if telling it really doesn’t accomplish much.
Arjay / Rich - those are some pretty nice Shiras bulls. If there was a season and he was in my yard, he would be in trouble. I have been told moose is really tasty.
These guys are so big lol. Years ago my brother in law,his little brother and I backpacked into the flat tops wilderness during bow season for elk. It took most of the day to get in there and there were elk all around us. After the morning hunt the next day he asked me if I really wanted to hump an elk out of there. I burst out laughing,we packed up our camp and headed out. His brother was disgusted lol
It's much like beef, IMO, not near as good as caribou.
THE PILGRIM
Member
That was Jim Jenkins who told me the tale of the Moose and Horse.
He saw the Carnage on a neighbors ranch up near Pinedale, WY.
His Moose story goes like this. At that time, the 60s a lot of Westerner’s piled hay.
I had never seen that down South and I was fascinated by the homemade swinging log-fork stackers.
Jim thought that cows should not be allowed direct access to the hay.
So his cows were fenced off from the hay and he daily used a horse drawn sled to move hay from the pile to the cows.
He said that the track would get frozen so after a while you just around the estimated rut.
So one day he’s headed for the hay and a Bull Moose is standing on his track.
His horses are going crazy! He’s got his rifle but he really don’t want to shoot that moose.
Finally the moose tires and departs.
Do the Ranchers up that way still stack that loose hay?
Jim? Last I heard he’s down in Paonia, Colorado.
He saw the Carnage on a neighbors ranch up near Pinedale, WY.
His Moose story goes like this. At that time, the 60s a lot of Westerner’s piled hay.
I had never seen that down South and I was fascinated by the homemade swinging log-fork stackers.
Jim thought that cows should not be allowed direct access to the hay.
So his cows were fenced off from the hay and he daily used a horse drawn sled to move hay from the pile to the cows.
He said that the track would get frozen so after a while you just around the estimated rut.
So one day he’s headed for the hay and a Bull Moose is standing on his track.
His horses are going crazy! He’s got his rifle but he really don’t want to shoot that moose.
Finally the moose tires and departs.
Do the Ranchers up that way still stack that loose hay?
Jim? Last I heard he’s down in Paonia, Colorado.
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LVSteve
Member
He had bought Swedish Mauser, shortened the barrel, thrown away everything he didn’t want, and got a local gunsmith to recrown it and drill and tap the receiver for scope mounting. The stock he was literally making from scratch from a piece of black walnut he had bought for next to nothing. He had dried, shaped, inletted, and finished it himself. Subsequently I saw the finished rifle and it was very respectable. He thought he “might have $50 or so” in it.
The Scandinavians don't buy into the Col Studler koolaid of .30 caliber or nothing. Neither do I. 6.5x55 has excellent sectional density and penetrates like fury. It is a the standard meat getter in those lands.
twodog max
Member
I used to hunt elk in the Routt NF west of Kremmling Colorado. A guy in our bunch had an old Honda 90 3 wheeler he rode in an out. We saw moose or their sign in many of the willow patches along the creeks. One day as this guy was riding back to camp he managed to get between a cow and its calf. The cow began pursuit. He told us that the 90 would barely make enough speed to avoid a stomping. The pursuit lasted a long ways. We thought it funny, at the time, but in reality it was not. They can get ornery.
