Moose! First big game handgun kill
Sept 28, 2021 16:31:55 GMT -5
Ken O'Neill, Robster, and 15 more like this
Post by vanceinak on Sept 28, 2021 16:31:55 GMT -5
Finally!!! A big game animal with a handgun!
Summer was crazy and I wasn’t out shooting at all. Actually it had been a couple years since I had shot a big bore handgun enough to matter. With a moose hunt scheduled to begin Sept 12 I began shooting my Ruger Super Redhawk in 480 around the first week of August but it didn’t take me long to figure out that my lack of practice had cost me dearly in the accuracy department. I would have felt comfortable freehand at maybe 25 yds… At that point I figured the handgun was out for this year but snuck in enough time to shoot 12 rds at a time about 3 times a week for the next month with a couple of 40ish round sessions thrown in.
A few days before we were leaving I was hitting consistently offhand at 50-75 yds so with the encouragement of a couple of individuals from here and my wife, I decided to take the handgun along with my rifle.
Polaris Ranger 6x6 and it’s tandem axle pull behind trailer loaded on my flat bed car trailer I fell in behind my partner with his Polaris Big Boss 6x6 & trailer & we headed out for the 400+ mile drive to where we would park & unload our machines for the 10 mile trail ride in. We spent the night at a friends place about 2 hrs shy of our destination so we could get a fresh start in the morning. The 10 mile trail takes us right at 4.5 hours through swamps, steep climbs, rocky areas, & one significant moving water crossing. It’s no cakewalk & both our winches came in handy more than once.
We got the wall tent & wood stove set up along with the rest of our gear for our home for the next 9 days & still had a little time to glass the huge valley in front of our camp from our almost ridge top observation area near our home for the next 9 days.
Nothing spotted that evening or the next day. Tuesday we spotted one cow. Wednesday one not-legal bull (In the area we were hunting bulls are required to have a spike, OR a fork, OR four or more brow tines on one side of their antlers OR have a rack over 50” wide. Anything in between is not a legal bull). Thursday nothing. We were frustrated. This was not the norm for this area, but we were seeing fresh grizzly, & black bear tracks daily & a few wolf tracks too.. We had covered some miles and hunted 2 different drainages.
Friday was a beautiful day (25* at 7am warming to mid 40s & clear) so we decided to take a trail into an area we had not hunted before. It was about a 4 mile ride to another drainage that we would head up.
Just as we started up the trail in this new drainage a bull jumped up not far off the trail. The area is a mix of alder, birch, & black spruce & visibility is limited. He was probably only 75yds away and though it appeared close neither of us were sure he was 50+” and we couldn’t see brow tines in the few seconds he gave us well enough to count them. He busted out & disappeared. We called & walked the area a few minutes but decided to move on so we wouldn’t pressure him out of the area. We saw a lot of beautiful country that day but just 2 more moose, a cow with her 2nd year cow calf.
On the way out we made sure we hit the area we had seen the bull a bit before dark. We were pushing it and had less than a half hour of shooting light when we got there. We crossed a small river & turned off the machine next to it, maybe 250yds from where we had seen the bull before.
By the time we had made it into camp the first day I had talked myself into making the handgun my primary weapon this hunt so it was nestled comfortably in it’s Galco Kodiak holster. I grabbed the scapula I use to rake brush when calling, my partner grabbed his rifle & Bull Magnet call, & he whispered “Let’s go get you a bull with the handgun.” He is a selfless individual who has killed many moose & enjoys calling them in for others as much as shooting them.
Not 50yds from the machine he heard a bull quietly “glucking” off to our right. We quickly headed into the brush & then I could hear it too. As we moved I would scrape the scapula against the willows to make it sound like another bull walking through the brush. Maybe 30yds in we could here him well but not see him. He would “gluck” every few seconds as he was slowly walking. My partner was quietly bull grunting back to him & was doing some mild brush raking. It sounded like he was starting to move off. We couldn’t see him but he probably wasn’t over 75yds away. That was game on for my partner. He started pressing him & getting more aggressive. The bull started coming our way again. My partner told me to find a shooting lane & took the scapula & began grunting & raking.
Suddenly at maybe 40yds a single large antler palm appeared. That palm was all we could see. The bull started circling around to our right, glucking every step, & hoping to get our wind. We kept dancing a bit to our right to try & prevent it. Finally at about 35 yds he came out broadside to us at a slow walk from our left to our right. With every step he would gluck & slowly rock his head side to side to display his antlers to the rival in the neighborhood, in the seeming trance that they fall into. It was beautiful. BUT, with our view we still couldn’t see brow tines well enough to count & were not ABSOLUTELY sure he was over 50”. The gun was ready… I felt ready…
Finally he turned his head enough that I could see 4 brow tines for sure on his right side. The gun came the rest of the way up, the crosshairs of the 2X Burris found the area just at the back of his shoulder, & I squeezed off the shot. 25-30yds? The shot felt good & the bull lunged forward. I sent another 325gr Speer Deepcurl toward the same area. The bull was then partially obscured as he moved through the brush, probably 10-15 yds from where he was when I first shot.
He turned back to my left, went maybe 5 yds, & dropped. He never got up. He was down for the count in under 10 seconds. About 2 minutes later 1 took the first pic. 7:56pm. Less than 15 min later we were out of camera light so there are no autopsy photos.
Both 325gr Speer Deepcurls fully penetrated the animal, exiting & not to be found. Both broke ribs but encountered no other bone. One also made it through about 4” of shoulder meat on the off side before exiting for good. Exit wounds weren’t measured but were probably in the neighborhood of 1”. Both lungs were obliterated. Impacts were approx 4” apart. No complaints about bullet performance!
We got the 6x6 through the brush to where he was maybe 75-100yds off the trail. We used it’s headlights & our headlamps to field dress by. Had the last pieces loaded in the 6X6 at 12:30am, a bit over 4hrs of work that night. An hour drive back to camp. An hour to unload, lay out the meat, make cup of soup, & fall into bed at 2:30 am.
My partner hunted hard, calling from a treestand in the bottom of our valley the next 2 days, & while he heard a couple bulls calling, he was never able to get one close enough to see.
The 20th was the last day of the season but due to a severe weather warning predicting 6” of snow down at the highway (1600’ lower elevation) we broke camp & pulled out that day. Good thing. Their forecast was right on & it was a mess!
Fish & Game requires us to leave the meat on the bone in that area, so we ended up with 9 game bags. Total weight we brought home, skinned but not boned, including skull & antlers was pushing 750#. About 450#r of boneless protein to split between our freezers :-).
I can’t thank the Lord enough for putting this together! Right time, right place, right partner!
Man it feels good to have that first big game animal in the books! I carried a handgun for big game for the first time in the mid 90s, & it’s been off & on since. I took one moose with my longbow, my second one with my Marlin Guide Gun in 450 Marlin, & finally this one.I will miss my rifles but it will be the norm in the future.
Thanks to everyone on the Handgun Hunt forum & everyone at HHI that put up with me & helped make it happen, along with the info I have stalked from here over the years!
4 brow tines on his right side & 5 on the left.
My pics are on my computer not online & I'm not sure how to make them small enough to post.
Summer was crazy and I wasn’t out shooting at all. Actually it had been a couple years since I had shot a big bore handgun enough to matter. With a moose hunt scheduled to begin Sept 12 I began shooting my Ruger Super Redhawk in 480 around the first week of August but it didn’t take me long to figure out that my lack of practice had cost me dearly in the accuracy department. I would have felt comfortable freehand at maybe 25 yds… At that point I figured the handgun was out for this year but snuck in enough time to shoot 12 rds at a time about 3 times a week for the next month with a couple of 40ish round sessions thrown in.
A few days before we were leaving I was hitting consistently offhand at 50-75 yds so with the encouragement of a couple of individuals from here and my wife, I decided to take the handgun along with my rifle.
Polaris Ranger 6x6 and it’s tandem axle pull behind trailer loaded on my flat bed car trailer I fell in behind my partner with his Polaris Big Boss 6x6 & trailer & we headed out for the 400+ mile drive to where we would park & unload our machines for the 10 mile trail ride in. We spent the night at a friends place about 2 hrs shy of our destination so we could get a fresh start in the morning. The 10 mile trail takes us right at 4.5 hours through swamps, steep climbs, rocky areas, & one significant moving water crossing. It’s no cakewalk & both our winches came in handy more than once.
We got the wall tent & wood stove set up along with the rest of our gear for our home for the next 9 days & still had a little time to glass the huge valley in front of our camp from our almost ridge top observation area near our home for the next 9 days.
Nothing spotted that evening or the next day. Tuesday we spotted one cow. Wednesday one not-legal bull (In the area we were hunting bulls are required to have a spike, OR a fork, OR four or more brow tines on one side of their antlers OR have a rack over 50” wide. Anything in between is not a legal bull). Thursday nothing. We were frustrated. This was not the norm for this area, but we were seeing fresh grizzly, & black bear tracks daily & a few wolf tracks too.. We had covered some miles and hunted 2 different drainages.
Friday was a beautiful day (25* at 7am warming to mid 40s & clear) so we decided to take a trail into an area we had not hunted before. It was about a 4 mile ride to another drainage that we would head up.
Just as we started up the trail in this new drainage a bull jumped up not far off the trail. The area is a mix of alder, birch, & black spruce & visibility is limited. He was probably only 75yds away and though it appeared close neither of us were sure he was 50+” and we couldn’t see brow tines in the few seconds he gave us well enough to count them. He busted out & disappeared. We called & walked the area a few minutes but decided to move on so we wouldn’t pressure him out of the area. We saw a lot of beautiful country that day but just 2 more moose, a cow with her 2nd year cow calf.
On the way out we made sure we hit the area we had seen the bull a bit before dark. We were pushing it and had less than a half hour of shooting light when we got there. We crossed a small river & turned off the machine next to it, maybe 250yds from where we had seen the bull before.
By the time we had made it into camp the first day I had talked myself into making the handgun my primary weapon this hunt so it was nestled comfortably in it’s Galco Kodiak holster. I grabbed the scapula I use to rake brush when calling, my partner grabbed his rifle & Bull Magnet call, & he whispered “Let’s go get you a bull with the handgun.” He is a selfless individual who has killed many moose & enjoys calling them in for others as much as shooting them.
Not 50yds from the machine he heard a bull quietly “glucking” off to our right. We quickly headed into the brush & then I could hear it too. As we moved I would scrape the scapula against the willows to make it sound like another bull walking through the brush. Maybe 30yds in we could here him well but not see him. He would “gluck” every few seconds as he was slowly walking. My partner was quietly bull grunting back to him & was doing some mild brush raking. It sounded like he was starting to move off. We couldn’t see him but he probably wasn’t over 75yds away. That was game on for my partner. He started pressing him & getting more aggressive. The bull started coming our way again. My partner told me to find a shooting lane & took the scapula & began grunting & raking.
Suddenly at maybe 40yds a single large antler palm appeared. That palm was all we could see. The bull started circling around to our right, glucking every step, & hoping to get our wind. We kept dancing a bit to our right to try & prevent it. Finally at about 35 yds he came out broadside to us at a slow walk from our left to our right. With every step he would gluck & slowly rock his head side to side to display his antlers to the rival in the neighborhood, in the seeming trance that they fall into. It was beautiful. BUT, with our view we still couldn’t see brow tines well enough to count & were not ABSOLUTELY sure he was over 50”. The gun was ready… I felt ready…
Finally he turned his head enough that I could see 4 brow tines for sure on his right side. The gun came the rest of the way up, the crosshairs of the 2X Burris found the area just at the back of his shoulder, & I squeezed off the shot. 25-30yds? The shot felt good & the bull lunged forward. I sent another 325gr Speer Deepcurl toward the same area. The bull was then partially obscured as he moved through the brush, probably 10-15 yds from where he was when I first shot.
He turned back to my left, went maybe 5 yds, & dropped. He never got up. He was down for the count in under 10 seconds. About 2 minutes later 1 took the first pic. 7:56pm. Less than 15 min later we were out of camera light so there are no autopsy photos.
Both 325gr Speer Deepcurls fully penetrated the animal, exiting & not to be found. Both broke ribs but encountered no other bone. One also made it through about 4” of shoulder meat on the off side before exiting for good. Exit wounds weren’t measured but were probably in the neighborhood of 1”. Both lungs were obliterated. Impacts were approx 4” apart. No complaints about bullet performance!
We got the 6x6 through the brush to where he was maybe 75-100yds off the trail. We used it’s headlights & our headlamps to field dress by. Had the last pieces loaded in the 6X6 at 12:30am, a bit over 4hrs of work that night. An hour drive back to camp. An hour to unload, lay out the meat, make cup of soup, & fall into bed at 2:30 am.
My partner hunted hard, calling from a treestand in the bottom of our valley the next 2 days, & while he heard a couple bulls calling, he was never able to get one close enough to see.
The 20th was the last day of the season but due to a severe weather warning predicting 6” of snow down at the highway (1600’ lower elevation) we broke camp & pulled out that day. Good thing. Their forecast was right on & it was a mess!
Fish & Game requires us to leave the meat on the bone in that area, so we ended up with 9 game bags. Total weight we brought home, skinned but not boned, including skull & antlers was pushing 750#. About 450#r of boneless protein to split between our freezers :-).
I can’t thank the Lord enough for putting this together! Right time, right place, right partner!
Man it feels good to have that first big game animal in the books! I carried a handgun for big game for the first time in the mid 90s, & it’s been off & on since. I took one moose with my longbow, my second one with my Marlin Guide Gun in 450 Marlin, & finally this one.I will miss my rifles but it will be the norm in the future.
Thanks to everyone on the Handgun Hunt forum & everyone at HHI that put up with me & helped make it happen, along with the info I have stalked from here over the years!
4 brow tines on his right side & 5 on the left.
My pics are on my computer not online & I'm not sure how to make them small enough to post.
