My story starts when I found out my mom had drawn a New Hampshire moose tag, which took her 21 years. Everyone in my family had been moose hunting before except me, so when we drew that tag, it was my time to shine. My dad took multiple trips up there to scout for moose. He wanted to make sure I had a hunt-of-a-lifetime. By pure luck, my dad met a young couple who had private land in our hunting unit. They gave us permission to scout and hunt their land. Soon, the landowners were sending us updates about moose that kept coming out into his cut, and he would send us videos showing a nice bull that kept returning.
The time finally came, and my parents, my uncle, and I made the trip up into the beautiful mountains of New Hampshire with our camper. Since New Hampshire only allows two hunters in the woods for the hunt, I had to leave my dad and uncle behind and go off with my mom to try to harvest the bull we had been watching.
Day one was kind of on the warm side. We stayed at the top of the hill and looked down over the cut. The moose had beat us there that morning, and we didn’t have any quiet way of getting down there without bumping the moose out with a blind we wanted to set up. We went home empty handed that night.
Day two was cold, and it had snowed a lot before first light but stopped after the sun came up. The problem was that the ground was frozen, crunchy, and loud. The moose beat us into the cut again, but this time, we tried to sneak down the hill. We managed to get down into the bottom undercover next to a creek. We hoped that the moose would come to us and use the path to enter the woods to the left like we had seen them do before. We stayed in the freezing cold bottom for a while, but they just wouldn’t come to us. We finally decided to call it until the evening.
After two exceedingly long days and a lot of sitting and waiting, we had low hopes for day three. It was once again cold but not as bad as the day before. To our surprise, the moose weren’t in the cut when we got there at first light. We took this opportunity to get down into the cut. I made a few calls spread out over an hour. I then heard, “Waaah!” It was a bull grunting. He had finally come to the party. I grabbed my rifle and shooting sticks and crept out of the tent. I could hear him calling but still couldn’t see him. My mom was just a few feet behind me and watching the whole thing play out. I would cow call, and the bull would grunt back. He was walking straight at me. The sun was in my eyes, making it hard to see at first through all the brush to get a clear shot. I begged and prayed he’d turn just a little so I could get an opening. When he was about 30 yards away, he turned to the left. I found him as fast as I could in my scope. I had to keep turning the power down and adjusting it as he came closer and closer. I took the tiny window I had to get a clean shot. It seemed to all happen in slow motion. I pulled the trigger. He did a full 180 and ran off to my left about 30 yards and then slowed down. I decided to take another shot in case I somehow blew the first. I took the second shot, and he fell right where he stood. I was pleased with the swift and humane harvest of this magnificent animal.
I turned to talk to my mom and filled her in on some of what happened. She couldn’t see everything I saw from her angle. I called up my dad, uncle, and cousin who made the trip up to help butcher the moose if I got one. Everyone was so excited. It was one of the greatest moments and experiences I’ve ever had. It was hard; words can’t describe the difficulty of a moose hunt. There’s nothing else like it, and it’s amazing. The rest of the story is pretty much history. He came to 850 pounds field dressed with a 52 1/2" spread. This was an experience I will truly never forget. I’d never felt more connected to the earth and the wild until that day.
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