New Hampshire moose hunt

[Dave]

For the past few yrs I've been putting in for a moose tag up in NH, along with a friend who's been trying for 10+ years.  We both put in for bull or cow, and this year he drew a cow tag.  The way it works up there is the permitee (him) is allowed a sub-permitee (me) to hunt with him (we must remain in shouting distance of each other, both of us are allowed to carry a weapon, and the hunt is over when one of us connects).  He wants to try to get one with a bow, so I'll sort of be back-up with my rifle (I'm figurin I'll be back up for about the 1st 2 hours, and then all bets are off  Can't take the chance of coming back with no moose   

  We are in one of the northern units that borders the Androscoggin River, and there is something like a 90 to 95% success rate in our area.  Has anyone here hunted, or familiar with that area of New Hampshire?  Supposed to be a lot of clear cuts.  At this point we're just starting to gather info on the area.  Hoping to scout it out a little in Sept, and then go up a day or two prior to the opening day.  It's probably 9 hours to get there from S.E. Pennsylvania, so I'm not real sure of the scouting trip.

[Hawks Feather]

To me this reads like:
1. See Moose
2. Immediate gunshot
3. Apologize while he helps you gut and drag your moose.

Jerry

[Dave]

 Shhhhhhh.   (Is it that transparent?) 

[Tikaani]

Jerry, I agree with 1 and 2, however if Dave can drag a moose, he is immediately welcome on all of my future moose hunts. 

John

[FinsnFur]

  Someone's gonna get the shaft.
Sounds like fun though, I can wait to see the pics.

Ohh man that just sounded wrong. The Hunt! the hunt sounds fun and...cant wait to see pics of the hunt!

[KySongDog]

Dragging a moose, huh?     The few I saw last year up around Denali looked like  brown Giraffes with  short necks. 

[nastygunz]

WTHHHHHHHHHH Im on year 7 and all strike outsssssss...but congrats ...id like to suggest when your hunting with your bow hunting buddy....shoot the moose then yell
"He's a-charging!!"...theres a bunch of local lads on this board that might be able to give you some inside scoop: http://nhwoodswaters.proboards.com/index.cgi, Id also suggest perhaps as you have a bit of distance and $$ involved in this you might consider hiring a guide from up there to get you dialed in...Id also roll up a good birch bark moose call and wail er around the house to liven things up 

[Dave]

THanks for the info, Gunz - I'll check out that site.  My buddy wants to do it without a guide.  We'll be up there in Sept to see how things look, and if there aren't a lot of clearcut areas that we can hunt, I'm thinking he'd want to check out a guide, too.  It's pretty much his hunt, though.  I'm psyched to be in a hunt outside of PA (something besides whitetails) and then i get to deal with it once it's on the ground!  That may sound odd, but I really enjoy the meat and would much rather handle it all than someone that's not going to take his time.

[Dave]

Well my friend (Jeff) and I scouted a little a few wks ago for our NH moose hunt coming up in Oct.   Can't speak enough of all the help both the locals and local wildlife officers provided us with.  Much different from the type of person I'm used to around here. 
There are three different areas we looked at in the zone we drew (actually Jeff drew the tag, but I'm the sub-permittee that is also allowed to hunt).  One of the areas is a quad park with 50+ miles of trails you can ride.  You must be 100 yards off the trail to discharge.  There are a lot of good looking clearcut areas along some of these trails, so we'll probably start out in this area.  We did see one cow and one bull while up there 2 wks ago.  However, I think this area will be getting most of the pressure in this zone and we end up going to one of the other spots.  The other spots showed a lot of fresh sign, but seem limited in area we can cover.  I CAN NOT believe how thick the woods are in NH.  I don't know how one would go about hunting whitetails up there.  Completely different from Pennsylvania.
       Anyway, we're going to haul up an enclosed car trailer as our bcamp.  Jeff has a place in the middle of NH with two quads that we'll pick up on our way up and then continue the 2 hrs north to our zone.  We're working on permission to park it adjacent to the quad park and go at it from there. 
Our hunt starts the 15th (Oct) and goes for 9 days.  Hopefully I'll be able to post some pics of a cow (antlerless only permit) when we get back.  If not, I'll have wished I listened to nastygunz and find out about a guide.   

[FOsteology]

Best of luck to you guys! Look forward to hearing about the hunt and viewing some pictures of Bullwinkle.

[nastygunz]

Good luck also! And thick woods, man I was raised hunting the  thick woods and hunting in open spaces freaks me out more, I hope you get the Ole Bull o The Woods !

[HaMeR]

2 weeeks & a wake-up Dave!!!!    You gotta be getting excited. 

[Dave]

Got back from the moose hunt Monday. 
The season opened Saturday morning and we were in the woods at 1st light.  We immediately saw a cow (Jeff drew an antlerless only tag), so the game was on.  Jeff tried stalking out ahead of her, but the wind was swirling and she caught his sent and was off.  About a half hour passed and all of the sudden a cow pops up about 20 yards away from us.  She was haulin ass as two small bulls were in close persuit.  The three of them were gone by the time Jeff got an arrow out of his quiver.   We continued on up through a 3 to 4 yr old clear cut and took a half hour break once we reached the top of the mountain.  We started down the backside of the mountain through some good looking cover that had a lot of fresh sign (it had been raining for a few days prior to Sat, so any tracks we saw were fresh).  Mid morning we started working our way back towards the quads when Jeff spotted a cow walking through the woods towards the area we just came from.  He was able to get out in front of her undetected and shot her at 25 yards.  He said the arrow hit her a little low.  We sat tight for about a 1/2 hour and then started to track a heavy blood trail.  Within the 1st 50 yards we decided to give it three to four hours as the trail showed she was hit not only low, but a little back, too (only dark, muscle blood and a smell of guts).  About 4 hours later we got back on the trail, tracked it probably 800 yards and found her almost expired laying by a small hemlock.  Jeff finished the job. 



I skinned, quartered and loaded Jeffs packboard with the quarters as he kept coming back.  We finally got the last load out right at last light, loaded up the quads and headed back down the mountain.



Sorry about the size of the pics -don't know why they are so small - the cow was two and a half years old and weighed approx 700 lbs (this is what a biologist told us at the check site).

[FinsnFur]

NNnnicce

[HaMeR]

Congratulations on a successful hunt Dave & Jeff!! I'm glad he scored on that one!! 

[slagmaker]

Congrats on a sucessfull hunt!! All that moose meat will go nicley in a freezer.

[bambam]

Good job !!

[coyote101]

Way to go Dave!    Glad you guys were able to make it happen. 

Pat

[Tikaani]

Congrats Dave, always a lot of work, but well worth it.

John

[iahntr]

Congratulations !!