Maine Moose 2006

[DLuke]

Haven't been on here in years but I figured I'd tell the story of my 2006 Maine Moose... This was the second tag my father has drawn for Maine. I shot a cow back in 96 as well. Anyhow, we had seen very few moose by the third day, but had got into a motherlode of sign the afternoon before. We came right back in the morning and started up a twitch road. Our friend did some calling and raking the alder and pine with a moose shoulder bone...sounds just like an antler. I spotted the bull coming down out of the staging area at the top of the road. He was rocking side to side, showing off his horns....He was a good ways out, but the road made a huge dip between the moose and me, so I got down in a crouch and scooted up. I cut the distance to 110 yards and got down sitting indian style. He kept coming slowly, but never turned broadside. At 100 yards I put it right between his shoulders, Center chest right below the beard and let'er rip with my 7600 270 with a 150 Partition. Down right there, never moved except for a few kicks.... Weighed 785lbs with a 49.5" rack.....

[Bill Gunn]

Really nice moose...

How do you get them in the pick-up ?

[Altjaeger]

First, welcome back DLUKE! Glad to see you.

That looks like a great trophy! The hunts I am sure was exciting and the heart pounding...before and after the shot!

[Bushman]

Outstanding DLuke, we've been waiting for your moose story since you logged back in a couple weeks back. Do you figure that you clipped the spine with your shot? My buddies that have shot moose tell me that they mostly just leave when you shoot them. I see that your eastern moose have white on their lower legs. We were discussing this last year about driving at night and the Ontario moose that we see over here are nigh on near invisible at night because they don't have those white stockings. Now we need the explanation of how you get a whole moose into a pick up truck. Just loading up an 8 point deer, I've resembled a Keystone Cop episode.

[DLuke]

We actually hunted out of a bigger Ford F250 or something... To get the moose into that truck, we took the tailgate off and used it as a ramp for the moose. A chainsaw winch pulled him up the tailgate and in... As for getting him in the Tundra once we got him up on the scale in the third picture, we pulled the big pickup out and backed the Tundra in under it...with his butt right up against the back of the bed, he fit just fine.

The liver on that moose had a hole in it, so if it hit spine in there it couldn't have been a real direct hit, as the bullet, or part of it, continued back a good ways to get that liver...

On the way in out of Ashland, we saw a few moose in the headlight on the 35 miles of dirt road we'd drive every day. The only thing you could see with the low beams on was the grey legs...the upper body blends well in the darkness, and their eyes don't reflect like a deer....

[alan]

We actually hunted out of a bigger Ford F250 or something... To get the moose into that truck, we took the tailgate off and used it as a ramp for the moose. A chainsaw winch pulled him up the tailgate and in... ...

Great details DLuke; Could you explain that chainsaw winch?

[Bushman]

Alan, look at: www.Simpsonwinch.com for the lowdown on those chainsaw winches. Some years back I dumped a 210 pound dressed buck on the back side of a set of hills that you could have hidden Packer Stadium in. Probably why he lived back there too as just walking up those hills took the starch out of a guy. I knew that my buddy and I couldn't pull him up that hill so I used a boat winch with rope on it and tied it off to trees all the way up. It took all day to get that deer out of there and back to the truck. That manual winch worked, but my arms felt like they wouldn't after that kind of workout. WI. isn't exactly mountainous, so when I got home I asked the guys that hunted out west what they used to get bigger animals out and over big hills? The Simpson winch seemed to be the best one that I found so I called them. The owner told me that while they do make the chainsaw powered one, in his experience alignment problems to the winch can create problems and he recommended the one with the on-board two stroke motor. I bought that one along with a hundred yards of no stretch rope and have used it numerous times to get deer back out of hilly country. Sixteen pounds and it fits in a backpack.

Being a capstan rope winch, it always has the same amount of pulling power and speed which is about walking speed. I also use it every year to pull in my father-in-law's steel boat lift. My chainsaw body alone weighs as much as the entire winch and motor does.

A couple of years ago I was watching a Batman movie and they had a battery powered ascender shown that the military uses to scale buildings or cliffs. The thing is made out east somewhere, Maryland I think, and would be a great thing for getting a downed animal out of a canyon to my way of thinking. That one might pop up if you Google "Ascender".

I just looked at that Simpson site again and see that my two stroke Tecumseh engine is being replaced by a four stroke Honda engine. I've never had trouble with the two stroke, but Tecumseh was in Wisconsin not far from here and I think that they closed the plant. The two stroke only runs at one speed and you can vary the speed by slipping the rope on the capstan if need be.

[WoodMoose]

real nice DLuke,,,,thanks for sharing