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Having been passed over last year, our group was successful this year in drawing tags for moose. The area we like is called 'The Chilcotin' and is in west-central B.C. When a group of 4 applies and is drawn, the group gets a total of 2 tags.

On the third day of our quest, I accessed some very nice but remote meadows. Luck was with me and I encountered a bull in the company of a cow. Pulling the trigger at 7:45 AM after a lengthy pre-dawn hike was the easy part; it took me and the rest of the crew until dark to get him out and back to camp.

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I drew a mule deer doe tag for an area about 100 miles from home, with the season starting on October 20. At the same time, the general open season for bucks was on. Two of my cousins and I went out, looking for a doe for me and bucks for them. When we blundered into a bunch of 4 bucks, we each took one so I came home without a doe.

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The firearms season ends on November 24 but archery season goes on until December 10. During this final 2+ weeks, both whitetail bucks and does are open. This is often a fine time to hunt with archery gear because the number of hunters is greatly reduced and the rut is still on to some degree.

I was determined to have some quiet archery time, utilizing rut activity this year. A couple of times, I set up a 3D target as a decoy, used all the recommended hot scents, and grunted alluringly on my calls. It was all a dismal failure.

Reverting to the old standby tactic of setting up on a well used trail behind some natural cover, I had several close encounters with good bucks over a few-day period. Finally, on December 4, the following buck came up the trail and posed broadside at 30 yards. My arrow with a G5 Montec broadhead took both lungs and passed completely through. He trotted half-heartedly for less than 100 yards, and just as he was about to travel out of my sight, he appeared to topple over. Nonetheless, I waited for half an hour before following up but found him piled up exactly where I thought he would be.

So that's it for this year. It has been a very successful season - a moose in early October and a mule deer in late October, both with rifle, and an archery whitetail in December. After last year's shoulder surgery, I doubted that I'd be able to bowhunt this year. But I coerced it into shooting form just in time and have been bowhunting for the last month. Lots of different territory was covered this year, from marshy moose habitat to sagebrush mule deer to farmland/forest interface for whitetails. It was a pleasure all the way.

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