Moose Droppings

Well as I promised I’d tell you all about my muzzleloader hunt. I had planned to take the entire week off and just hunt but my best-laid plans did not work out. I had work as well as other commitments that forced me to return home for part of the time. I know weather wise I missed some of the best hunting time that week but what are you going to do? I saw deer mostly a couple of little bucks that kept me entertained the whole time because they were pretty unpredictable when and where they would show up. One in particular was pretty oblivious to most things around him and was living on the edge with the risks he seemed to be taking. Check out my post about Educating a Young Buck.
The Bad
My intention was to get some meat for the freezer so I was hoping some does would show up and give me the opportunity to drop one or two of them. I saw some does but for the most part they stayed outside the reach of my muzzleloader. It was fairly warm and the end of the week rain and high winds set in making the hunting difficult.

The season ended on Friday and I had not even burned any powder but Saturday the rifle season opened and all these does I’d been seeing at 150+ yards would now be reachable with my rifle.
The Ugly
I guess the final kicker on the season was during lunch on Saturday I decided I’d better shoot my muzzleloader so I could clean it at home and put it away. I had two caps go off with out setting the charge and on the third time it was a hang fire but it did go off. I had tried hard to keep my powder dry despite the wet conditions and really thought I had but obviously not. I guess I’m glad Mr. Big Buck didn’t step out on Friday cause I’d of been mad if my gun had malfunctioned.
The Good
Although I was disappointed I didn’t get to shoot a deer that week I did enjoy a number of sunrises and sets along with a bunch of other things. The turkeys were spectacular and fun to watch. They are all flocked up for the winter and it is deafening the noise they make coming through the woods.

No deer with the muzzleloader lets hope the rifle season I have a bit of success.

Post & Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Muzzleloader season for the centeral zone of North Carolina has ended and rifle season has begun. I spent a lot of time last week with a muzzleloader in my hand but never got the chance to shoot at a deer. Well I should clarify that statement; the does stayed out of range, big bucks never appeared and the little bucks taunted me almost daily. I have a couple of small bucks that have been around my stands and for the most part pretty bold. One of these bucks I’ve been seeing 3 or 4 times a day. On Saturday the opening of rifle season I saw both bucks and had an encounter with one that will hopefully make him a bit more cautious. The weather was rough, but I’ll do another post about that latter, that at one point I decided for my own safety I needed to get out of my stand.
Once on the ground I decided to check out my game feeder and see how low it was. I was just about to it when I noticed beyond it on the field’s edge an antler in the brush. My initial thought was it was a dead deer but I wanted to check for sure. I was about 30 yards away and I brought up my rifle up and almost immediately realized it was the small buck and he was napping with his back to me. I decided to sneak up on him and give him a bit of a scare. I got within about 10 yards of him when the wind switched and carried my scent right to him. I saw him spin his head around and he about jumped out of his skin when he saw me. He jumped up and crashed off into the brush and I hope he is a bit smarter.

While on our lease we try to take older bucks other neighboring lands may not be as friendly to the younger bucks.

Hopefully I’ll see his daddy or granddaddy real soon.

I’ll post some more stories from last week soon.

Story by Dan McLaughlin aka Moose

This past Saturday was the opener of Muzzleloader started with a big mistake on my part. As everyone knows I had trouble with my breech plug and once I got it unstuck last week I had to go sight the gun in for the season. Friday evening with the gun all sighted in I cleaned it to get ready for the morning opener. After cleaning it I decided to wait and load it in the morning which is not normally what I do. (For non muzzleloader’s a bit of information, you put two pellets of black powder substitute and then with your ram rod you push a bullet down the barrel and sit it tightly on the pellets. The gun is loaded but safe because it needs a primer to set off the load. Once a muzzle loader is loaded it stays that way the entire season with only the primer being removed to technically make it unloaded when not in a hunting situation.)

The alarm goes off at 330 am so I can get going to make it to my hunting stand before daylight. I get into my stand and with my head lamp I start looking for my stuff to load my gun. Reality hits hard when you realize your black powder pellets are 90 minutes away in your garage. How did I forget them I ask myself as I dump my pack out knowing that have to be here I’m just over looking them. Nope not here now what. None of the other guys I hunt with are planning to hunt here this morning. A Wal Mart is 15 minutes away but I’m not sure they carry black powder supplies. My only hope is that I left some in the back of my truck this past week when I was sighting in so I climb down out of my stand and head back to the truck. If I can’t find any my plan is to just return to the stand armed with my camera and observe what happens. As I’m cutting across the upper field in the still semi darkness before legal light I see something moving. It turns out to be Rick one of the guys that hunts with us he had changed his mind and decided to hunt here this morning. He gives me two of his loads and I thank him and head back to the stand getting there about the time it is braking day. I load my gun and sit and wait enjoying the show of a new day arriving.

It be great to say that I got something after that but that’s not how it played out. A warm day not much moving, I heard a coyote howl about 75 yards from my stand and the turkeys and other critters kept me entertained. I saw my first deer at the end of the day with the light fading fast two does and a fork horn buck popped out at the far end of the field. Much to far for my muzzleloader but a good sign that there are some deer around.

I have most of the week of muzzleloader off so hopefully I have some chances to get some meat for the freezer. My posts this week will be a bit intermittent as I spend a lot of time in the woods. The photos are some I shot on Saturday I hope you enjoy them.

Views from my stand

Turkeys (Hens)

” I know something is over there”

Post and Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

This is the part 4 the conclusion of my Maine Bear Hunt. If you’re just joining the story you might want to check one of the early posts; Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
Thursday I knew was the last time I was going to get to hunt with the schedule I had. I had much anticipation going into the final hunt, while it hadn’t been the best week for bear hunting there was no doubt that as the week went on things seemed to improve. Some guys in camp were tagged out and just about everyone had at least one bear encounter to talk about. Many of those were encounters with sows and cubs so they had past up shots others were animals not giving good opportunities for shot placement.
I got to the field where I parked my truck for the daily hike into the blind site. As I done each of the previous days I sprayed down good with Primos Scent killer and then sprayed on the special cover spray the guides make. I got into my blind around 2 and like all the other days I had to reconstruct the blind because the bears had torn it apart the night before.
I settled in and was entertained with the antic of the squirrels and the birds all around me. About 5 pm I caught the movement of a bear coming in and once again it was the small bear I’d been seeing all week. I watched him feed and hang out at the bait site for 15 minutes or so and then he left. Realizing this maybe the only bear I see this week I was still confident with almost 3 hours to go that something bigger would show up.

With just mere minutes to go in shooting light I heard something coming off to my left. The bear popped its head out just a few feet from the bait bucket. It was real quiet but the bear paused when I clicked the safety off. I was afraid I blew it and expected it to spin and run but it didn’t. After a few seconds it stepped out into the opening giving me a clear shot. I wasted no time in making my BAR 30/06 bark. The bear dropped in its tracks and didn’t move. I waited about 2 minutes then I started to step out of the blind and the bear jumped up and ran I got another shot off before it disappeared into the brush. I went back into the blind and sat down and listened. I waited 5 minutes and by now I couldn’t see. The woods were quiet so I walked up to the bait bucket and clicked on my flashlight to look. I heard the bear get up again and try to run but then I heard it crash. Not wanting to push it I backed out to get help.

We went in about 45 minutes latter and despite the lack of a blood trail we recovered the sow within 40 yards of the bait site. I had caught her a bit high but my bullet took out both her lungs. My second shot as she tried to run caught her in the back just missing her spine I owe a big thank you to Brian, Daniel, Russ, and Chip for the assistance of getting my bear out of the woods.

This is a 4 part series on my Maine Bear Hunt, in part one I covered some of the background information and the hunt set up, in part two I talked about my first day on stand and some of the products that helped me be successful.
Bears and bear hunting for whatever reason is a lot different then many of the other hunting we do. Unless you have a lot of experience judging the size of a bear is extremely difficult. Hunters will know the term ground shrinkage and with deer it usually means you shoot what you think is a nice 10 pt and when you recover it you discover a basket 8 or maybe even a 6 pt. Hunters usually judge bears by their weights (record books actually use skull measurements) and they tend to over estimate the weight by a lot. Maine has a very good bear population with the average bear weighing in around 150-200 lbs 300 and up is a trophy bear.

I don’t know about anyone else but hunting predators can be a bit unnerving if you really think about it. No matter the size of the bear when it gets inside your comfort zone it makes your hair stand up on end and gives you an adrenalin rush. Tuesday’s hunt was going to do this because of how it all came to be.

I arrived at the blind site around 2pm to find that a bear or bears had discovered it and tore it down. I quickly and quietly as possible put the ground blind back together and put my pack in it and rested my gun against a tree. I then took the bait I brought in to the bait bucket a mere 11 yards away and dumped it in and started to return to the blind. A few feet from the blind I noticed some fresh bear droppings probably from the culprit that rearranged the blind. As I was looking at it I heard a noise I turned and looked and caught a flash of black behind the bait site. The bear was coming in fast and I wasn’t even in the blind nor did I have my gun with me. Looking back it seemed like a foot race between him and I, he going for the bait and me for the blind. I’m not sure who won because when I looked up he was at the bait.

This turned out to be a small bear probably one of last years cubs he had to stand on his tip toes to get into the bait. His initial arrival was certainly an adrenalin rush and he entertained me after that. He came into the bait early everyday to avoid any confrontations with other bears I’m sure. His approach to the bait from directly behind was not the typical approach other bears were using judging by the trails. I started calling this guy Booboo and was hopeful he would bring Yogi in with him one day.

The only other thing that happened to me on Tuesday was halfway out of the woods my flashlight died. I lost the trail out and ended up hitting a soft place in the swamp sinking almost to my knees. Luckily I had the bucket with me that I carried the bait in with that I could use it to pull myself out.
Other then Booboo I didn’t see any other bears on Tuesday or Wednesday. Everyday I arrived at the blind to find it dismantled by bears the night before and I found fresh scat close to it like he was taunting me. Thursday would have to be the day because it was the last one I could hunt. So join me for part four and hear how this hunt ends.

Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

This past week I was in Maine Bear hunting this is part two in what I think will be a 4 part series on the hunt. If you missed part one you may want to read that first.

The weather for bear hunting was not great; windy, warm, and threatening to rain. I packed my rain gear in my pack, sprayed down with Primos Silver XP,

load the gun and head for the blind. It is around 2 pm on Monday the hike in is not far but staying on the trail is important while maneuvering through the swampy terrain. I pour the bait I carried in with me into the bucket tied onto the tree and then I retreat back to my blind, which is only about 11 yards away. The blind is made out of burlap and is attached to three trees forming an L shape. Additional brush has been placed in front of the camo burlap to further break it up.

Once in my blind probably the best piece of hunting equipment that I brought with me is pulled out of my pack. The Thermecell is a portable mosquito repellent machine that works phenomenally well.

Within mere minutes of starting this up the pesky mosquitoes are gone. The Thermecell operates virtually silently and odorless off a butane canister that is inside the Thermecell and an external pad of repellent that is released when it is heated.

With the skeeters dealt with I go about making sure there is nothing to close that I can brush up against to make noise and that the chair is positioned the right way. Within a few minutes of getting settled down the woods return to normal as the Chickadees’ find the food in the bait bucket which sets off non stop flights to and from the bucket that would rival O Hare during the Thanksgiving rush.

Observing the wildlife is great fun and besides the birds the squirrels are now feeding out of the bait bucket as well. A couple of brief rain showers rolled through but I stayed pretty dry with the tree canopy overhead. The wind kept up though and none of the big critters seemed to be moving. Around 6pm I caught a flash in the woods but I wasn’t to sure what it was. I knew it was to small for a bear but it wasn’t a squirrel either. A few minutes latter a red fox exploded out of the weeds near the bait site catching an inattentive squirrel as it descended the tree the bait bucket was hanging from. With dinner in his mouth the fox trotted down the trail that past a few feet off to the left of my blind. A couple minutes latter he returned down the same trail and caught another squirrel near the bait bucket.

While theses events were very entertaining it was also very reassuring that the Primos Silver XP was working. This fox had walked by me only 3 or 4 feet away and never reacted to me being there. He did this not once but three times so I knew my scent control was good.
The first day’s hunt ended without me even seeing a bear but that’s fine because on Tuesday all that will change when I have a foot race with a bear. Tuesday’s exciting hunt will be in part three of this story.

Where to begin the story of my latest adventure is always the question I struggle with. When your adventure involves a 1200 mile drive it seems to me you have to include something about that part of the story. Suffice it to say 2 hours to drive 14miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike will be burned into my memory for a long time. The rest of the trip is pretty much a blur but I’ll tell you the slight roll back in gas prices has put a lot of the folks back on the road.

Monday morning I met up with John from R&S Guide Service and rode along with him on his bait run to refill the bait sites. John makes this run daily and the other guide Russ makes a similar run to keep the bait sites up. John’s run is about 70 miles with about 20 or so stops where he refills the buckets with a bait mixture that looks like a mixture of granola & pastries.

At some of the sites that don’t seem to have much activity he sprays a secret scent attractant that smells like a mixture of a Starbucks Coffee Shop and a good old BBQ Joint. Don’t know if it works on the bears but I’m wondering what’s for lunch and how long has it been since I had breakfast.

The use of bait when it comes to hunting is often a controversial issue with some thinking it makes it too easy for the hunter. The reality is whether it’s bears in the north or deer in the south a bait pile does not guarantee a hunter a kill. Animals coming into a bait site do not ignore their senses and if one thing be it a smell, or a sound, or movement they will be gone in a flash. The use of a bait site is also a good management tool often giving the hunter the opportunity to observe the animal closely making sure this is an animal they want to kill. In the case of bears we want to make sure we only kill boars or sows without cubs bait sites increase the opportunity for the hunter to identify the bear and whether it has cubs with it.
The bears can access the bait at any time and more often then not will access it after it becomes dark and hunting has ended. Hunting bears is important to maintain the proper balance of nature so the population does not explode impacting other species as well maintaining the natural fear of man. Baiting and using hounds are the methods most often used to hunt bears in Maine. The rural economy gets an economic boost from hunters like myself traveling to Maine for the great hunting.
Bear meat is excellent table fare, despite what many say, my family and I truly enjoy the many meals a bear will provide us.

John takes me into the place I’ll be hunting this week it’s through a broccoli field, into an overgrown hay field and down the hill into a swampy heavily wooded area. I’ll be hunting from a ground blind a mere 11 yards from the bait site. There is a bunch of trails winding through this area with a few passing on all sides of my blind. Having hunted bears before I know how silently they can come in so the multi trails especially the ones behind me give me a bit of a chill up and down my spine as we complete setting up the blind. I’ll return in a few hours to begin my hunt in the mean time we have a bait run to complete.

In part two of this series I’ll share with you the hunt and whether or not a bear came down the trail behind me and joined me in the blind.

Story & Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Success in Northern Maine on bear hunt. Last evening I had a 170lb sow come in just before dark. I’ll post the full story latter but for now I got to pack up and head South for the opening of the Canadian Goose Season.

Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Well I’m in Maine on my bear hunt so far no luck. The wind has been tough we had a couple of showers but the wind is really what is messing us up. 10 guys in camp and only one bear brought in on the opening day. Hopefully the wind will die down before this evenings hunt.

Well the last few days have been crazy as I get ready to head north for “God’s Country” and a little bear hunting. Needless to say my plan to put a radio show together has been shot to heck so I’m sorry there won’t be a show this week. I’ll have the equipment with me on this trip if I can get acess to high speed internet to do a show next week from the road.

My intention was to use my Mossberg 500 12 gauge with a slug barrel and the new Remington Core Loct sabot slugs but that won’t be happening. I was unable to get it sighted in so after shooting two boxes of shells and developing a sore shoulder I’m opting for my ‘06 instead. I need to invest in a bore sighter for sure.

Well I have a 20 some odd hour road trip ahead of me which should be fun except for that Jersey NYC streatch. Updates on the blog will depend on internet access.

Saturday Morning, well before daybreak, I was slipping across a field to reach the blind I had set up the evening before where I had observed two gobblers hanging out. I set out two hen decoys and a jake decoy in front of the Ameristep blind and then I settled into the blind to wait for daylight. Daylight came rather uneventful, I didn’t hear any gobbling and nothing was responding to my calls.

About 8am I heard a gobbler off to my west he sounded like he was in the far field. He only sounded off a few times, with this tract of land being mostly agricultural fields with minimal woods it makes it hard for us to run and gun. There is 3 of us hunting this property which means we all need to stay in our spots so we don’t spook the birds off the property and on to neighboring lands or mess up each others hunts.

The wind picked up as the morning went on and I was regretting I didn’t use stakes to hold the blind down. Around 10 am or so one of the decoys blew over so I took the opportunity to stretch my legs a bit and fix the decoy. While standing amongst the decoys I caught movement off to the west and here comes a gobbler strutting on the other side of the farm road. I duck down and the slope of the land blocks both of our views and I hightailed it back to the blind. Shortly after that he came over the top of the hill but was angling across the field away from me. I tried calling to him with a glass call but it was not loud enough to reach him over the wind. I switched to a box call but to no avail as he walked away from me and into the small strip of woods on the far end of the field.

Shortly after that I succeed in reaching him with my box call and he gobbles at me. Over the next 3 hours he circles completely around me in the sliver of woods that surrounds the field. I never see him come out of the woods but he could have but with the wavy land it is possible he came out in places that were not visible.

A little after 2 pm I catch a glimpse of this turkey approaching from the same direction as he did earlier in the morning. This time I was ready and I caught his attention with my glass call. He started heading towards me. Once he caught sight of that hen that was making those sweet sounds he hit the accelerator and raced on in. He was doing a half strut as he came along and once he got close enough to catch sight of that Jake decoy he locked up about 55 yards out. What seemed like an eternity but was just a few minutes he hung in the high weeds with just his head sticking out. I switched to the opposite side of my Away Hunting Turkey Call that has a sweet slate call. Some soft purrs put him at ease and he came on in at a trot. Once he got up on the Jake decoy he ran around it and the stood off about 10 yards behind it. I had my gun up and was able to get the shot off dropping him where he stood.

I paced it off and it was 38 paces getting close to the end of the effective range of my turkey set up. I believe that the combination of the lateness of the turkey season as well as competition from other gobblers that made this guy so difficult to get to commit to my set up. He appears to be a rare 2 year bird given the bad couple of hatches we have had. 18 ½ lbs, 8 ½ inch beard and 1 inch spurs. It has been a few years since I filled all my turkey tags but my season is over with the tagging of a second bird. In my view if you want to be successful you need to adapt and consider using all legal methods to fill your tags. PS I was wearing my Lucky Moose Hat from Mace Sports

Read about My first turkey this season.

As turkey hunts go this was quick if you only look at today’s hunt but I had already spent a fair amount of time attempting to be in the right spot. Mistakes while turkey hunting are usually costly but today I was able to over come a big goof and still wreck Tom’s day.

The alarm clock going off at 3:30 this morning woke me up from my very short slumber as I got ready to go hunting. This was the second morning in a row I answered the bell so early and to think it’s my day off from work. Rick was waiting for me when I pulled into our Alamance County lease he hunted here yesterday and had some pretty good action while I hunted in Caswell County only seeing hens. We split up based on where the birds had been the day before so hopefully one of us would be in the right spot.

I was sitting in a blind on the edge of one of our food plots with a hen & Jake decoy set out. I hadn’t been in the blind long when the first gobbler in the woods behind me sounded off. As the light increased so did the gobbling and it appeared that the birds were basically in the same places they had been the morning before. All in all it seemed we had 4 or 5 gobblers all around us so the morning was looking pretty promising. I did some soft calling once I was sure the gobblers had hit the ground. I heard a number of hens calling and moving towards the gobblers and away from me and towards the front end of the property. I just hoped one of the gobblers would come to this field.
One gobbler in particular got my attention as he gobbled and gobbled getting closer and closer to my set up. As long as he seemed to be getting closer I just kept quiet and watched the woods line where I felt he would come out. After a few minutes he didn’t show and I hadn’t heard him I switched to the slate side of my Away Hunting Fatal Attraction call and did some soft purring. He then sounded off much further down in the woods headed to the creek bottom rather then the field I was set up in.
After another brief period of silence I started to purr again and that’s when I heard him drumming as he came through the brush behind the blind. Before I could really react he was in front of the blind headed for the Jake decoy. I picked my 12 gauge Mossberg off my lap but couldn’t bring it all the way up to a shooting position because he would of busted me. Tom goes into full strut and as he turns towards the Jake decoy with his tail towards me I bring the Mossberg up to the shooting position and I eased the safety off. As he clears the decoy and puts his head up I squeeze the trigger and hear the frightful sound of my firing pin “CLICK” but no boom. Tom is now looking at me and I don’t dare move despite my urge to chuck my gun at him.

Tom is nervous and I’m sure he is about to take flight at that moment a breeze catches the decoys and they move ever so slightly and Tom goes back into strut. My lucky day so I rack the pump ejecting the shell and putting a fresh one in. There is no hiding this noise and Tom starts trotting straight away I re acquire my target and yell “Hey” enough to get him to hesitate briefly and turn his head giving me a better target this time as I squeeze the trigger the boom of the shell going off drowns out the sound of the firing pin. Tom immediately flops and my hunt is over. I look at my watch and it is 6:57 for a brief moment I think if I hurry I could get to work and not use a vacation day.. Not.
After I notch my report card to make my kill legal I go back to the blind and pick up my shells and see why my first shell did not go off. There is a dent in the primer but on closer examination it is not as deep as the one on the empty shell.

My mind goes back to early in the morning as I loaded my gun and I tried to be as quiet as possible as I racked the shell into the chamber. I believe that I didn’t get it fully closed and that small fraction was enough to prevent the firing pin from striking the primer hard enough to fire the gun. That was almost a costly mistake and one I can assure you I’ll remember in the future.

This gobbler is the biggest one I have ever taken; 11 1/4 beard 1 1/2 spur on one leg and a 1 1/8 spur on the other one that appears to have been broken off at some point, it weighed just a shy over 19 lbs.

Not one that usually believes in luck I got to wonder if my new hat is lucky. A few months ago Linda from Mace Sports gave me a new camo cap with a moose on it. I hadn’t been wearing it hunting but after a day in the rain on Monday the hat I had been wearing was wet and who wants to wear a wet hat so today I wore the Moose Hat. This is the same hat I was wearing at a quail unlimited banquet last night when I won a rifle. So who knows maybe it is lucky.

With one tag left you know these next few weeks I’ll be wearing my “lucky moose hat”