Newfoundland Day 8 (9/29/17)

​Despite the difficult weather and few moose sightings, I am loving Newfoundland and enjoying this hunt. This morning I hunted with Michel Breton who is the owner of White Hills Outfitters and a rock star moose hunter. Michel teaches moose hunting and calling techniques in Quebec and has produced several instructional videos. Michel’s style is to work the timber with the wind your face while calling and scraping trees and brush with a shed antler.
 
This morning we made a four-mile loop along the Parker River. It took about an hour to climb up the mountain, then we turned and hunted the spruce-fir timber alongside the river until we reached the bottom. There was terrific sign and it was exciting to be slipping through the timber while calling.
 
At one point, about 30 minutes into our down-river hunt, we had to cross a large deadfall. Michel went first and gave a cow call just after he crossed the log. As I climbed over, Michel was in front of me, but I was perhaps four feet higher than him when standing on the deadfall. I looked right over his head and there was a cow moose coming straight for us as at about 50 yards. There was no way to shoot from amid the deadfall’s limbs, so I had to scramble down and take several steps forward to gain a shooting  position. By this time, the cow was on to us, but not badly spooked. As she ambled away and to our right, we noticed a calf with her. It was an exciting encounter…I think I might be hooked on moose hunting.
 
We worked our way down and, as is always the case here, we saw lots of fresh sign, but couldn’t drum up another moose. The weather was miserable again, with light, cold rain and winds gusting to 40 mph.
 
This morning Mario hunted with John and for more than an hour they watched a giant bull at around 200 yards. To Mario’s credit, he never had a shot angle he was satisfied with and chose not to pull the trigger. They plan to be back in the same spot tomorrow morning.
 
This afternoon, I went to a new location with Steve and Bob. Steve is a French Canadian and Bob is from St. Anthony, Newfoundland. We set up on the downwind side of a large patch of blown down timber. Steve was behind me calling and Bob was using a shed antler to rake trees and brush. About 10 minutes into the calling, we could hear two cows responding from different locations in the timber and occasionally a bull would grunt. Then things mostly fell silent and after another 20 minutes, I was thinking that perhaps the calling was too aggressive for so early in the rut and the animals had moved away. I glanced across a large pond to my right and when I looked back to the left where I expected animals to approach, I clearly saw a moose ear flicker between the trees at 40 yards.
 
It was a large cow and she came at a steady walk, angling straight to me from my left. At 10 yards she cleared the trees and was in the wide open, but always quartering to me. I was tucked in a row of head-high balsam firs and she just kept coming. At 20 feet I started to get concerned, but she just kept walking. She reached a point at around 10 FEET where I could have touched her with my bow. She towered above me and I could clearly look up into the nostrils of her fleshy nose and see her soft eyelashes. The closest thing I can compare this to is being stared down by a horse at 10 feet. By this point, I’m ready to come unglued! There’s no shot, nowhere to go, and she shows no sign of stopping.
 
Finally, she realized something wasn’t right and wheeled her 600 pounds in a crashing half circle, coming broadside at 20 yards without so much as a wisp of grass between us. I remember seeing some blondish hair behind her elbow and I remember my hand against my face, but then my arrow was going wildly in a bad direction. How you can miss something the size of a sheet of plywood at a mere 20 yards is beyond me, but that’s what happened. I think I jerked my string hand upon release and sent the arrow way high and to the left, making just a slice across the top of her butt. To be sure, we searched for blood, but found none. While she sustained little injury, my hunter’s spirit was badly wounded.
 
I always carry a judo-tipped arrow in my quiver and have been nailing spruce samplings out to 30+ yards. Ninety percent of being consistently good on game animals isn’t our physical ability, but our psychological wherewithal to make a good, “blueprint” shot in spite of heady anxiety.
 
I am putting that shot behind me and focusing on the next one. It’s all I can do.
 
Just one more day to make it happen.
 
Keep the Traditional Spirit Alive!
 
Ron