Fast forward to the Sunday prior to the opening of the October season for moose.  Mike and his good friend Steve Young, arrived at the lodge for some good food, and also a good moose hunt.  Mike practiced with his bow some more, and I detailed our plan of attack.  We went to bed planning on waking early, and heading out in pursuit of moose. 

     Monday found us waking, eating muffins and drinking coffee while driving to the hunting area.  When we were within 1 mile of the place I wanted to hunt we saw a large bull and a cow in the head lights of the truck.  The bull immediately ran into the woods to our left and the cow ran down the road in front of the truck.  I stopped the truck and dimmed the lights hoping the cow would get out of the road.  We had about 45 minutes before it would be legal shooting time.  After about 10 minutes the cow wandered in to the woods to our right.  By this time we were within 100 yards of a bear blind I had in the area, so I decided we would set up there for our first attempts at calling.  Once we were situated in the blind, my mind started to replay the hunt I had 2 weeks prior.  During that hunt it took nearly 30 minutes to get the bull to come in once he responded.  I also thought the bull had continued to run off further into the woods, so I thought I would cow call gently to maybe stop him, and get it started back to our area.  Immediately after my cow call, the bull answered, and came in hard and fast.  He came in to with in 10 yards of Mike, and grunted and thrashed brush, all of this in the dark.  We were 30 feet or less from a large bull that we could not shoot, because it was still too dark.  After awhile the bull wandered off.  Once legal shooting time arrived we tried to call the bull back.   What we did not know was it never really left, hew was within 50 yards of us standing silently in the brush.  We were unable to see it, but we did hear it when it ran off.

     We drove down the road and tried calling about 2 miles away.  Shortly after calling we heard someone close by shoot a rifle, and then shoot two or three times more.  I am not sure if the bull was coming to us when the folks driving down the road saw it, or if they just got lucky, but anyway, that moose was taken by a different hunter.  We decided to hunt across country through the woods, in an area I knew held moose.  About 11 a.m. we jumped a bull and were able to call it back within 40 yards of us.  It just wasn't what we were hunting for on Monday. Our sights were on larger bulls.  As luck would have it, that was it for excitement on this day.  We hunted hard throughout the day, but could not find a willing moose.

     Tuesday found us heading back out to try again.  We began calling where we ended the night before.  About 30 minutes of calling later, none of us had heard any noise.  When we picked up to move a bit, a bull moose ran off.  He had come in silently, and stood waiting to see the cow he could hear.  We continued to hunt throughout the day.  During the afternoon we found an area crawling with bull sign.  Although nothing came in to our vision while we called, we definitely heard bulls raking brush, and sparring in the woods.  Also, as we approached my truck to head home, the large silhouette of a bull moose stood within 50 yards of my truck, right in the road.  On the way home we decided to return to this spot the next day, but instead of arrows, Mike would be carrying my 7mm Remington magnum rifle.

     Wednesday we drove with coffee and muffins to our hunting area.  We parked the truck a good half mile from where we planned on calling and silently walked to the blind we had picked the day before.  We got in position and began calling.  After about 35 minutes of nothing I decided to try to do a bit of a swing through the cut to see if I could get a moose.  I told Mike and Steve that if I saw a moose I would alert them by using my moose call.  Wouldn't you know that within 10 minutes I was standing within 25 yards of a nice bull, that had been bedded in the cut.  I worked my way back to Mike, who motioned to me to be quiet.  I went to see what was up, when he informed me that a nice big moose had briefly stepped into the road, then turned and went back into the woods.  I told Mike that moose would not come back to a call, and his best bet was to move slowly through the cut, jump it, and shoot it.  Mike headed off while Steve and I waited wondering what was happening.  After about an hour we heard a shot from Mike's direction, followed by a second shot, then a little later a third shot.  We gathered my moose tracking gear, and Steve and I headed towards the sounds of the shots.  We had only gone a little ways when Mike walked towards us and indicated that he had just killed his moose.  We walked down to where his moose lay, and listened to Mike relive the events.  I let Mike fill you in on the details if you get to meet him, but suffice it to say, he killed a nice moose.  We used the next couple of hours retrieving the moose from he woods, and then drove it to the butcher. 

     The next couple of days were spent looking for grouse with my dog Trapper, eating and laughing.  We had a great moose hunt.  Mike has been enjoying moose in many different ways since October, and I am sure Steve is looking forward to getting a chance to relive this hunt when he gets drawn for his Maine moose.