Texas Hunting Network

We were up about 5 a.m. that Saturday morning, ate an exceptional breakfast, then got ready to leave camp.

Unlike deer hunting in Texas or Elk hunting, for caribou and moose, especially considering the areas where these animals are hunted, hunters don't leave camp until it is light enough to shoot, as animals may be encountered fairly close to camp.

My guide and I were assigned to hunt the area northwest of camp that first day.

We ran onto our first group of stags about 3 miles from camp.

One strange item, was or is, the Newfies refer to male Caribou as stags, while most people refer to them as bulls.

Another point about the caribou on the island of Newfoundland, is that they are the only ones considered by Boone and Crockett as Woodland Caribou.

I missed a shot on a decent stag and then we could not catch back up to the group.

We continued hunting and about a mile and a half later, came up on another small group.

I glassed them, and one of the animals, while having a small set of antlers, did have the highly sought after "Double Shovel" configuration of its brow tines.

My guide asked me if I wanted to get closer, and I probably should have, as the open country where we found these animals at, proved quite deceptive as far as range estimation.

I did take the best rest available, and the bull fell at the shot.

I am not going to even hazard a guess as to the range, but feel in retrospective that it was a lot farther than I should have tried.

When we got to the bull, even though he was down and not able to get up, he was not dead and rerquired a finisher.

My first shot was a high shoulder shot, that broke both shoulders and injured the spine enough to paralyse everything from his neck down.

My hunt was off to a good start, with the exception, that on Newfoundland and a few other places around North America, hunting is not permitted on Sundays.

So after killing my first caribou, the next day I got to set around cmp with everyone else and twiddle our thumbs.

Monday morning we changed hunting blocks, rotating to the southwest block, and started my hunt for a moose.

We did see a moose that day, a cow at what my guide estimated at 400 yards.

Back then I did not feel it was that far out, but now I am not so sure of my estimate.

Regardless, we were not able to get into position for me to take a shot and ended up back at cmp after what the guide estimated a short hike of 6 miles or so.

Tuesday and wednesday were basically repeats of Monday, except the we changed blocks each day and walked farther each day.

On Wednesday our loop took us about 15 miles from start to finish.

After supper Wednesday night, I went to my room and was somewhat down, realizing that the next day would be my last to try for a moose, and had basically given in to the idea of not killing a moose of any kind.

The license I had was an either sex license, and I did not really care what I killed as long as I killed a moose.

I guess I have enough Apache or Comanch in me to be concerned about luck or omens or such, and as many of you that have met me know, I wear a necklace which is my hunting totem.

On the day I killed the caribou, I had one necklace on, but when I started hunting moose on Monday, I put on a different necklace to see if it would bring me luck.

I wore that necklace all week, and saw moose, but none close enough to shoot.

On Wednesday night, as I laid out my gear for the last days hunt, I decided to wear the necklace I had on the day I got the caribou.

After breakfast, my guide and I started out from camp, hunting the southeast quadrant of the hunt concession.

We worked our way into an area about 8 miles from camp, to check out a gut pile from a cow moose that another hunter in camp had killed earlier in the hunt.

I had a bear tag, hoping to get a Newfie Grand Slam - Caribou/Moose/Black Bear.

I was hoping to at least get a chance at a bear since it appeared that the moose was going to elude me.

After checking the gut pile, and not finding anything, we moved off to another spot, still hoping to find a moose.

At this point my spirits were beginning to flag, and I had resigned myself to coming back to the state with only a caribou to my credit.

We had only gone about a mile from the gut pile, I was lagging behind my guide feeling sorry for myself, when he stopped and throwed his hand up and started waving for me to catch up to him.

I eased up off to his side, figuring we had walked up on another really good caribou stag like the one we had seen earlier in the week.

I looked over to where he was pointing and finally made out a very large, very long black and white leg.

As my gaze traveled up that leg, I saw a massive chest and then, what seemed miraculess  to me a small set of antlers.

I was standing in the open, looking at a bull moose, small, but still a bull at about 50 or 60 yards, and it was not moving.

I brought up my rifle, a 340 Weatherby, and try as I might, for about 5 seconds I could not get the gun to shoot.

I realized after what seemed an eternity, with the bull that close and staring at me, that Weatherby makes wonderful, working safety's and until I clicked it off, that gun was not going to fire no matter how hard I squeezed.

I finally got my act together, clicked the safety off, put the post and cross hair between the neck and right shoulder of the bull and fired.

The bull rocked back on his haunches and then stood up and spun to his right trying to run.

As his left shoulder came around, I fired again, aiming slightly behind the left shoulder.

I was not sure if the second shot connected, but was sure that the first shot had been good.

Things were happening really fast, and as I reloaded after the second shot, the bull disappeared into the trees and I heard nim crashing thru the brush, but not for long.

We gave the animal a few minutes to settle down if he was wounded and allow him to bleed down, but when we entered the woods looking for him, we found that he had covered about 20 yards from the initial shot before going down, and was dead when we reached him.

I was able to recover both slugs, the first, entering between his neck and right shoulder, ending up under the hide on his left hip, the second entering a couple of inches behind the left shoulder and ending up under the skin on his neck.

It was an exciting adventure even though I did not get a bear, and I hope anyone that read this enjoyed it.