Mook... how they hell do you miss a moose? Lol... I stumbled accross quite a few in Alaska... and it ain't like they are spry or anything. I could have ran up and stabbed em with a knife if I was so inclinded. Stoned 'em to death maybe.
Maybe they move faster during hunting season... I don't know.
Well, as it happens the year before my dad drew a bighorn sheep permit. It was on the Lost River Range, which features the highest peak in Idaho (Mt Borah). Anyway, I completely wore out a brand new pair of Danner boots over the course of two months trying to help him shoot a sheep. On the second to last day, he had a shot and missed. Dad's a crack shot, so we were both surprised, even though it was about 300 yards. (I suspect it was because I bumped his rifle scope the day before against some rocks. I never mentioned it.)
Anyway, he asked me if I wanted to apply for a sheep permit the next year. I thought, "Fuck that. Let's do something easy." I said, "How about a moose?" I'd always seen them in valleys being just about as stupid as you describe. I thought we'd be out for a morning, I'd shoot my moose, and be back in my own warm bed within a few days.
Heh.
Turns out that the moose who are that dumb get killed pretty quickly. I spent about three weeks on horseback going all over eastern Idaho. I finally run into some bow hunters (for deer) who said they'd spotted the biggest moose they'd ever seen in Idaho on a ridge on the top of some goddamn mountain, and their friends were up there watching it. I get a nice crossing shot at about 230 to 250 yards, not easy but not impossible. The rest is history. Shameful, shameful history. I killed the second biggest moose shot in Idaho that year, or so my dad told me. (The last time we ever spoke of the event.) Kind of a big deal, given that you only get to shoot one moose in Idaho in your lifetime.
Anyway, the next year I was deer hunting in the same area and I see these ears wiggling on the top of a ridge. I sneak up, thinking it might have been a deer. I get in this clearing, I don't seem anything. Suddenly I hear this loud, spine chattering cough. I whip around expecting to see Larry the Cable guy or something, and it's a fucking moose about 15 yards away. We just stand and stare at each other for probably five minutes. I finally get bored, turn around and start hiking down the ridge.
25 minutes later I flush out some deer and chase them down the ridge hoping to get a shot. I'm running really hard, just hoping for a clearing, but I get to a spot where I realize it's hopeless. They're gone. But I hear the same damned cough behind me! The fucking moose had stalked me down the hill, even after all my running. He just stared at me, again only about 15 yards away. I don't know why. I still wonder. I was pretty close to the main road at that point, so I dropped down and picked it up, and soon my dad found me and I got in the Suburban.
But christ was that one spooky moose. I'm not superstitious, but I still wonder about him. Did I shoot the nuts off his cousin? I dunno.
