Had a great year hunting this last fall...thought I would share. I haven't done this for a long time so bear with me okay?

It all started the day the Special Permit results came out. Hunting partner called and said his 12 year old son drew a Mt. Spokane antlerless moose tag! Tristan, a great kid and a good hunter, had been tagging along with us on hunting trips since he was 7 years old. He has been with us for at least one deer kill and he himself has shot ducks, quail, pheasant, and grouse....but a moose is a big jump from birds. Had we all bit off more than we could chew?

Since none of our crew (all archery hunters for big game) had ever hunted in the Spokane area, or for moose, we had a tremendous amount of research to do....called the Region 1 bio and he gave us a general idea of where to go.

I'm sure most of you have seen the harvest stats for moose at or near a 100% success rate. I have heard people say: "Piece of cake, WDFW will take you to an area and show you which moose to shoot"....not true. It took us 4 trips from Arlington/Lake Stevens, 800 miles round trip, to accomplish our goal.

The first trip was Oct. 1-4 and was basically a scouting trip. The only moose we saw the whole trip was a bull that we obviously couldn't shoot. Weather was too warm and the moose were just getting done with the rut.

Second trip was Halloween weekend...we saw some more bulls and had a couple of good chances on a cow and calf. Locals informed us that shooting the calf (year and a half old, 500+ pounds) was a no-no...the cow would not leave the downed calf and you would end up killing Momma moose to avoid getting stomped to death. We were never able to get the crosshairs on the cow...

Third trip all we saw were bulls....and lots of 'em, like 4 or 5 per day. Very frustrating to say the least! Where were all the females? After our 3rd unsuccessful trip the ride home was horrible knowing we probably wouldn't be back and the tag would go unfilled. But Tristan talked his Dad, and then his Mom (much tougher), into going back for a fourth and final Thanksgiving hunt (tag expired on Nov. 30th). Arrived Friday, hit the hills and again saw nothing but bulls! Saturday morning it all came together....a bull, cow, and calf were spotted at over 1,000 yards. Tristan made a great shot at ~125 yards on the cow with his 300 Win Mag and down she went! There was much hooting and hollering, high fives, and stifling of tears from everybody. Can't tell you how proud I was of Tristan as I came up to him and his moose and he said "I felt like I was going to cry"....I told him I already had.

Alright, enough BS....here's some pics: