A little excitement at the McDowell house this morning. I have a harvest tag for a bull moose, but they have to be at least 50 inch spread antlers, OR have at least 3 brow tines on one side. This morning, Jolene went to yoga, and when she returned, she saw this guy in our lower potato patch. Legal, or not?
She woke me up (I must have slept through yoga 😏, again). I look out and see this view in the picture above. Probably only ~40 inch spread, and clearly not enough brow tines on his right antler, but that looks like 3 brow tines on the left antler to me (on the side nearest to us in the picture). Legal? Maybe?
So I jump out of bed, get dressed, grab the rifle and head out to where Jolene saw it walk to last.
Jolene said he had crossed in front of our house, into the woods and moved toward state land along the bluff. I followed. A couple hundred yards into state land, where the trees blocked out the morning light, well away from the neighborhood, with the sun at my back and a light breeze in my face, I began calling in the crisp ~30ish degree morning air (in just my sneakers, light t-shirt and torn up jeans - because that's the clothes that were handy when I jumped out of bed a few minutes earlier).
First some bull grunts, and then one long cow call. About five minutes went by, and I hadn't seen him since I had left the house, so I began to think he may have taken a different direction in the woods.
Then, right in front of me at about 30 yards, a large willow bush begins shaking wildly, and out this bull walks - looking for the cow he had heard me mimic earlier. He grunted back at me, stood broadside at 30 yards. I leaned against a tree, put the cross-hairs on him, and waited for one more look at those brow tines (just to be sure). We stood there grunting back and forth at each other, while he sized me up, and I sized up his brow tines.
At some angles, those three points on his left side looked to be all brow tines, like the pic above Jolene took earlier in the yard. (I don't have any pictures of me and the moose in the woods, I was alone and didn't take a camera with me, only the rifle).
But at other angles, it was clear that only one of those tines on his left side was a true brow tine, and the other two, while facing forward, were attached to the main tine (as shown in this other pic Jolene had taken earlier). Tricky bull. I decided to let him walk.
But since we were sizing each other up already, and it was a beautiful Alaska Fall-like morning, I decided to practice my calls and techniques on him. I grunted, he grunted back. I put my rifle above my head to look like an antler and swayed back and forth while standing facing him. He turned to face me, put his head down and took a few steps towards me while swaying his rack back and forth. I was close enough to see blood dripping off his antlers where he had rubbed the velvet off on the willow bush earlier. Really cool!
I had sat myself up where the sun was at my back, so he couldn't see me too well. So he slowly moved around me to my right side, and checked me out with a better sun angle, staying about 30 yards away. I leaned behind a tree trunk to make it harder for him to recognize me as human, so he moved across to my left side, still at about 30 yards. This time, he eventually got a good sun angle while downwind of me, and convinced himself I wasn't a moose, and he slowly moved off, disappearing in the brush.
I had to let him walk, because I couldn't say those three points on his left side were brow tines, but hopefully everyone else leaves him alone this year too, and I'll see him again next year, when his rack is a little bigger.
So, looking at the pictures, would you have also let him walk away?
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