I Was Nearly Trampled by an Angry Bull Moose

This story, “Moan for a Moose,” appeared within the February 1951 subject of Out of doors Life.

Our outfit consisted of a small umbrella tent, sleeping baggage, two canoes, meals, and some cooking utensils. That was all, and it was sufficient. At that, the aircraft needed to make three journeys to fly it forty-five miles from the railroad.

Our take-off level was on the Quebec aspect of the Ottawa River, some twenty-five miles above Mattawa, Ontario. Frank Sloan and I, looking companions for years, had pushed so far as Mattawa, then taken a prepare north, and eventually transferred to the aircraft. We had been camped now with our two French-Canadian guides, Pete and Nels, on White Pine Lake, prepared to start a moose hunt we had dreamed about for a lot of weeks.

We had arrived on October 8, someday later than we’d deliberate. Because the Quebec moose season opened that morning, we had hoped to get in someday of scouting beforehand. However now we determined to content material ourselves with what we’d seen from the aircraft as we flew in, and get the hunt beneath approach immediately.

The area round White Pine Lake was wild, rugged, and exquisite in autumn colour­ing. Tough, timbered hills surrounded the lake on all sides and small islands dotted it. Birches, aspens, and maples had been aglow with all the colours of the rainbow. From the aircraft they’d regarded like a magic carpet of crimson and gold and darkish inexperienced. And among the many hills we had seen loads of swamps and bogs. It regarded like good moose nation, and Nels and Pete assured us it was each bit pretty much as good because it regarded. Better of all, we had it to our­selves. The aircraft had put us past the locations of quick access, one of many nice advert­vantages of that mode of journey for the sports activities­man who likes elbow room. In 5 days of looking we might not see one other human.

It was midafternoon when the aircraft ar­rived with Frank and me, our rifles, and private duffel. Nels and Pete, who had flown in earlier with canoes and tools, had the tent up and an excellent thick mulligan steaming on the fireplace once we landed.

Consuming was the primary order of busi­ness. 5 minutes after we completed we had been within the two canoes and the moose hunt was on. Frank and Nels headed down the lake, Pete and I up. From the aircraft I had noticed a piece of low, swampy shore at its higher finish that regarded like a really perfect place for moose to return right down to feed. There was a strip of brushy bathroom operating again from the water, with an enormous tract of swamp behind it, and I had seen what regarded like moose trails main by way of the grass and brush.

Earlier than we began from camp Pete urged that I take my casting rod and a few spoons, in addition to the .300 Savage I used to be carrying for moose drugs. The lake was alive with huge walleye and pike, he defined, and I might get in some fishing whereas we regarded for moose.

The information pushed the canoe out from shore and I dropped a spoon over the aspect and began trolling. I had a strike earlier than we had gone 100 ft, touchdown an excellent walleye. After that they got here at such a gentle clip that I virtually forgot the true purpose I used to be there!

However I used to be yanked with abrupt suddenness from my fishing to realities of moose looking whereas we had been nonetheless greater than a mile from our vacation spot.

The solar was down now, the afternoon wind had died, and the lake was like a mirror, reflecting flawlessly each is­land, the sawtooth skyline of the spruces, the yellow and scarlet of birch and rnaple, and the flaming colours of the western sky. The stillness of early night hung over the wilderness, un­damaged by any sound save the delicate rhythmic drip of Pete’s paddle blade and the little hiss of water on the bow because the canoe slid alongside.

Then out of the blue the silence was ripped by a crashing, clattering racket on the finish of the lake, about on the spot towards which we had been heading. It sounded as if an entire hillside of forest was being knocked down, with sticks cracking, brush and timber breaking, and one thing heavy smashing by way of the undergrowth. It was a tremendous and startling noise, unnaturally loud within the night stillness even though the ruckus was a mile away; for a second I questioned what was hap­pening. Then I heard, clear above the opposite sounds, the loud clashing of antlers.

“Two bulls!” Pete whispered. “Scrap!” And the canoe actually shot forward as he leaned into the paddle with each ounce of power.

The noise of the battle continued un­abated. Its website was hidden from us by a timbered level. After we cleared that time and will see the tip of the lake — lower than three quarters of a mile away — we heard the low, deep grunting of two moose, a sound that accented the repeated conflict of antlers and the break­ing of brush.

Pete was driving the canoe as quick as he might whereas I crouched within the bow with my rifle throughout my lap. Nightfall was gathering, and the bathroom by which the moose had been preventing lay in heavy shadow. I attempted repeatedly to find the bulls with my 7X binoculars, however failed. It was a protected wager, nevertheless, that we’d spot them once we got here near shore. However by that point would there be ample gentle left for capturing?

Then, as abruptly because it had begun, the moose combat ended. The noise stopped as if somebody had thrown a swap, and full silence settled over the lake. My coronary heart plumped clear down into my boots! In my thoughts I’d had a type of bulls pretty much as good as in my scope. That wouldn’t occur now, and it was laborious to present him up once we had been so shut.

However then I noticed that Pete was nonetheless sending the canoe on with no slackening of pace. He hadn’t ven­tured a lot as a whispered remark. Possibly the moose hunt wasn’t ended but, in any case.

I stored my glasses on the shore forward, looking it painstakingly. All of a sudden I noticed water splash on the fringe of the lake. I focused on that spot, and even within the deepening twilight I might see the black bulk of a moose — and a rack of antlers on his head.

He was shifting alongside the shore on the water’s edge, coming towards us. Whereas I watched, I heard a loud crash­ing of brush within the swamp past him and clearly made out the sound of huge animals shifting off.

It was straightforward to piece the story to­gether. The bull I had noticed was the loser within the combat. Overwhelmed and, as we discovered later, badly used up, he had stop the sector and are available right down to the lake, maybe for a drink. The animals I might hear going away had been the victorious bull and the cow that was the reason for the ruckus.

However with all of the drubbing he had taken, the defeated bull out of the blue confirmed that he wasn’t prepared to surrender. The noise of the opposite bull and the cow, shifting again into the swamp, was nonetheless clear, even to my ears. It will need to have been tantalizingly loud to the loser, loud sufficient to goad him into making yet another attempt. He broke right into a lumber­ing trot and, by way of the glasses, I fol­lowed him for 300 yards across the fringe of the lake, out and in of the water and rushes. My coronary heart was attempting to pound its approach out of my chest by that point, however the moose was too distant for capturing. There was nothing I might do however preserve the binoculars glued on him and watch the vary shorten a couple of yards every time Pete dipped his paddle blade.

Three or 4 minutes later, some seventy-five yards offshore, Pete put down his paddle and let the canoe slide forward by itself momentum. After I glanced over my shoulder he had picked up the birch-bark megaphone he’d common the day earlier than and was holding it to his lips. I might nonetheless hear our bull going by way of the swamp, and faintly, far forward of him, an occasional rustle of sound from the 2 different moose.

I waited for Pete’s name however nothing occurred. After I regarded round I noticed he had dipped water within the birch-bark horn and was gargling soundlessly. That blazing stretch on the paddle had left his throat too parched for moose calling!

Then he laid the megaphone towards his mouth, pointed it down towards the water, and rolled out a faint, moaning name.

The sound of breaking brush that marked the course of our moose died immediately.

“Acquired heem!” Pete’s lips shaped the phrases virtually with out sound. However his eyes had been shining with pleasure and satisfaction, and my way of thinking at that on the spot isn’t laborious to think about!

The information waited an agonizing two minutes. Then he tipped the horn up towards the darkening sky and let go a loud, clear moan. Again within the swamp we heard the bull begin for us, smashing brush in a approach that confirmed reckless, headstrong dedication. He didn’t pause till he was within the bathroom, only some yards from the lake. There he halted to find the cow that had lured him again.

At that second, in a stillness so professional­discovered that I might hear my watch tick­ing, Pete held his cone of birchbark al­most on the water and performed his trump card, a delicate, whimpering grunt.

The moose stirred once more within the brush and got here on, one step at a time. However we might nonetheless see nothing of him. He was shut now and I had the security off and the .300 Savage prepared at my shoul­der.

Now I examined the scope, attempting it towards the darkish, deep-shadowed line of the shore, and located it ineffective within the half-light. I eliminated it from its mount and laid it on the underside of the canoe. Subsequent I raised and tried the peep sight, nevertheless it, too, was ineffective, so I lowered it once more. No matter I did must be achieved with open iron sights.

The canoe now lay simply contained in the shadow shaped by the comb alongside the sting of the lake. I watched the black reflection of the shore within the water solely a foot or so from the place I sat. All of a sudden part of it moved, and an ideal rack of jet-black antlers emerged from the silhouette of the comb!

After I regarded up, I might see solely his horns above the black brush, silhouetted towards the fading glow that also lingered within the sky. That wasn’t sufficient for a goal. How was he standing? Head on or broadside? If the latter, which approach was he turned?

The entrance bead of the rifle was invisible now within the nightfall and the barrel was not more than a dim blur, however l pointed it slightly below the antlers and waited. After what appeared a full minute he took one other step forward, and sufficient of his form materialized out of the comb to inform me what I wanted to know. He was coming straight at me, going through head on. Aiming extra by guess than by sight, I attempted for the middle of the goal effectively under the horns.

The Savage stabbed a crimson finger of flame into the darkness and I noticed the antlers and forelegs of the moose go flailing up as he reared in a again somer­sault, knocked off his ft by the smash­ing impression of the 180-grain bullet within the heart of his chest. I really noticed his hind ft thrust up towards the sky as he pinwheeled fully over after which crashed closely into the comb.

There wasn’t a sound after that. No threshing, no struggling. Pete and I pulled the canoe into shore a couple of yards down the lake and waited twenty minutes for some signal that I had did not make a clear kill. Having heard nothing throughout that point, Pete took a tiny flashlight from his pack and we went ashore to get a have a look at the moose.

We labored our approach towards him a couple of steps at a time, by way of brush greater than our heads, detouring round fallen logs and the worst of the tangles. We lastly acquired the place we might see the bull. He lay immobile, half wedged between two down logs, apparently lifeless. We moved a step nearer and turned the flashlight on his head for a greater have a look at the rack. And and not using a quiver of motion to present us warn­ing, he out of the blue drove a vicious kick with a hind leg that moved like a steam piston and missed me solely by inches!

I leaped wildly backward and tumbled to the bottom, dropping my rifle within the fall. Valuable moments handed as I groped for it within the coarse, knee-high grass. Scared? I’ve by no means been so frightened in my life. A wounded bull moose will be pure poison in broad day­gentle. Now, at nighttime, I knew I wouldn’t have an opportunity if he determined to run me down. Pete, in the meantime, had lammed out of there as if he had been jet-propelled. I stumbled to my ft and backed away into the comb. Last­ly I acquired behind an enormous, snag-branched pine and waited for the bull to cost.

Seconds handed and nothing hap­pened. Lastly I mustered my braveness and yelled to Pete to deliver the flash­gentle. He did — however I’ve by no means seen a extra cautious man!

Our panic had been for nothing. The moose was nonetheless alive however his again was damaged, and whereas there have been a couple of good hefty kicks left in him he couldn’t rise up. We discovered later that my bullet, fired at a steep angle, had ranged upward from his chest and shattered the backbone simply behind the shoulders. The marvel was that it had not killed him immediately.

We completed him with a shot by way of the neck. He was an enormous bull, with a 53-inch unfold. No file, however an excellent, passable head for japanese Canada. Wedged between the 2 logs, he was too heavy for us to maneuver, so we dressed him out the place he lay, leaving the job of skinning for the subsequent morning.

We acquired again to camp at 9:30. Frank and Nels had heard the 2 pictures and had been ready eagerly to be taught whether or not we had scored. You need to have seen their eyes pop once we informed our story. 

I felt fairly pleased once I rolled into the sack that night time. In camp only some hours, I had a pleasant catch of walleyes and a moose. For as soon as, I informed Frank, we had discovered looking nation that lived as much as its guarantees. (In fact, we didn’t realize it then, however he was to get his moose, a 48-incher, three days in a while an island within the lake.)

The 4 of us went after my bull early subsequent morning. After we skinned him out we found how a lot punishment he had taken in his combat. He had a deep gouge between the eyes and one aspect of his neck was slit in a dozen locations, as if with a pointy knife. An antler tine had punched an unpleasant gap in a foreleg simply above the knee, tearing away pores and skin and muscle, and he bore too many minor cuts and bruises to depend. 

“Gosh,” stated Frank. “After that trouncing he will need to have ached throughout.”

Learn Subsequent: What I’ve Learned from the 50-Plus Moose I’ve Killed, and the Ones That Tried to Kill Me

“Yeah,” I replied. “However he was prepared for extra hassle. The one one who did any moaning was Pete. That horn of his certain did begin one other ruckus!”

Pete shrugged. “We’re fortunate dis bull is lifeless, not us. Dat rifle of yours is nice drugs for sick moose!”