Greetings from Ontario Canada. The firearms season for moose opened on
and Sunday. Home-stuff kept me from getting to my post on Saturday morning until 11:30. The weather was mostly sunny and no wind. I hunted from a makeshift ground blind along the shore of a long, narrow, and shallow bay. The ground blind was just a bunch of balsams that I cut from behind the blind site and placed them around me in a tight circle in between the standing trees. I brought along a folding camp chair to sit on along with a foam pad to keep my butt warm. In spite of the conditions and the frequent calling that I did throughout the day, I didn't have any action whatsoever.

Sunday was a different day altogether. Snow fell overnight blanketing the ground with 4-5 inches of the white stuff. Branches were drooping over. Good thing that I wore my rain suit as the ATV ride to my watch would have left me soaking wet. Unfortunately, we were delayed leaving camp in the morning so it was around 9:00 by the time that I was in the ground blind. It was mostly sunny and the warmth of sun was melting the snow off of the branches. A skim of ice had formed over portions of the bay overnight and it was breaking up a little against the shoreline. If it wasn't for the melt water dripping off the branches or the ice shifting against the shore, it would have been dead silent. 

Due to family stuff, I planned to go home in the afternoon, so I only expected to hunt until 11:30. I did my best moose call renditions about every 20 mins and didn't get any responses. Just after 11:00, I did another calling sequence and was thinking that I only had time for another sequence just before I planned to leave. 

After my calling sequence, I sat quietly, listened and studied my surroundings. I was hoping that, should a moose show up, that it would do so across the bay where it is marshier. Around 11:10, I heard a couple of faint snaps behind me. As I explained earlier, the woods were a bit noisy with the dripping branches and ice shifting, so I wasn't super confident that this noise was anything to be excited about. I slowly turned around and could see, about 10 yards away, a bit of a moose's head behind some balsam branches. The body was totally concealed by the standing evergreens. I stared hard at what little of the head that I could see. Eventually, I could make out a bit of antler which prompted me to bring up my rifle and pull the hammer back.

Right about then, the moose figured out that something wasn'

I think the moose might have gotten him.    john

Sorry I hit max word count.  On to the conclusion:

Right about then, the moose figured out that something wasn't right and started to make his getaway. He started trotting away to my left and I lost site of him behind some evergreens. He briefly reappeared in an opening about 25 yards away and, in that brief moment, I found the moose in my scope and squeezed the trigger. After the shot, the moose disappeared down a bit of slope. I quickly reloaded and got on the track. With the fresh snow, there was no difficulty finding his track; however, there wasn't any blood. I followed the track for another 25-30 yards and found the young forkhorn on the snow in his death throws. A final shot sealed the deal! Had I not cut the balsams for my ground blind where I did, I would never have seen that bull approach me.  Lucky! I should mention that I hunt with a 1973 Browning b78 in 30.06 caliber.  I handload and used 180 grain Nosler Partition Protected Point bullets powered by 58 grains of R22 powder!

Love my B-78's!  I bet the adrenaline was running when you saw him at 10 yards!  Tom

Congrats!  There is a nice freezer full of meat right there!

My only question is: How did you meet your schedule with meat down, to be dressed and hauled out? Nice bull.
Chuck

Nice young moose Sam so real fine eating. Save that tongue oh man it’s special. Ive shot a few and you got lots of work laying on the ground there but it’s worth it. My last cow was taken late so we gutted at night and were hand feeding those big Canadian Jays. Neat birds. Congrats