Staff Pick

John Gibbs 

Tylor Kelly Camps

Jason Loblein

Justin laite

Terrie Kelly

Matt Laite

Step #3 of my 2018 “Grand Slam”....

I have been applying for a Maine Moose permit for about 30 years. In 2018 I was finally drawn. I was lucky enough to get drawn for a bull permit in zone 9, which is where our family camp is located. We made several “scouting” trips up to camp in the weeks leading up to the hunt with very few moose sightings and no big ones. The week of the hunt came and we ended up with 16 members of my family at camp to share in the excitement. 4 generations of family! My biggest desire for my hunt was to be close enough to camp to have everybody included in some way. I also really wanted to get off the beaten path and to call a moose out. Sunday, the day before the hunt, my husband John and son Cody went out early to do some last minute scouting and went to checkout a big, hidden chopping we had been looking at on google earth. When they got there, they saw a decent bull about 300 yards up in the chopping. In order to get a better look at him with the binoculars, John made a cow call to get him to turn his head. He turned it alright.... He headed down across the chopping and closed the gap within a minute. They hid in the bushes and got video of him. We decided that was an ideal place to hunt and that’s where we would be for opening morning. We went back mid afternoon and made a make shift, natural blind. We spent the better part of day one and two there in that area. In the blind during a.m. and p.m. prime times, and off on foot, up over the mountain hiking skidder roads during the day. On day 3 we were back there for a.m. prime time. Mid morning on day 3 and still not even one sighting, we decided we needed to change things up. We headed back to camp for a late breakfast and to regroup. It was decided that we would pack up for the rest of the day, and head to an area that was quite a ways away, but had some area that looked like it had good potential. It was exactly what I didn’t want to do. Traveling that far from camp with a big group and 3 little kids was the recipe for a LONG afternoon! When we were nearly packed and ready to go, my sister said she was going to go on ahead because she wanted to take some pictures at a pond that was on the way and she would wait for us to catch up there. She hadn’t been gone for 5 minutes when we could hear her racing back... She said she had just seen a good bull cross the road and go into the woods, less than a mile from camp. John and I jumped into the truck, at the same time,  grabbing gear and putting our orange on... We hurried to the place where we could see her tire tracks abruptly stop and we shut the truck off and got out. We listened and listened and heard nothing... John made a couple of cow calls and we immediately heard some bushes breaking in the woods behind us, not very far in. We repositioned and John continued to make a few calls... Silence.... In reality, I’m not sure how long it was. Seemed like a long time, but we heard nothing more. I whispered to John, “try raking the bushes”... He did and then waited a few seconds and did it again. Not knowing exactly where the bull was, I was looking left and right, up and down the road.... I looked one way and when I looked back in the other direction, there he was, standing broadside in the road at about 70 yards, looking at us. I pulled up and fired and he went about 30 yards into the woods and dropped. After I fired, and he ran, a cow came out behind him, looked at us and turned and ran away, down the road. We had no idea there was a cow with him and I don’t think any amount of cow calling was going to call him off her, but when he thought he was being challenged by another bull, that did the trick. He wasn’t the monster bull that I was hoping for, but in the end, the hunt was perfect. I got everything just the way I wanted it. Close to camp and everybody involved. It was the easiest drag out ever! I couldn’t have scripted a better hunt.
I put together a video of my moose hunt and it can be watched on youtube
https://youtu.be/UrFWPplW-D4

800 pts · Moose — Terrie Kelly

800 pts · Moose — Terrie Kelly

85 pts · Saltwater fish — Terrie Kelly

500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

85 pts · Saltwater fish — Terrie Kelly

500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

612 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

640 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly