By Scott sargalis

December 4, 2012

On Saturday October 13th, my father, brother, our good friend Dexter and I left my house at 6:30 AM to hunt along the Mattagami River near Smooth Rock Falls, Ontario. By 8:30 AM my father Lionel and I were in one boat and proceeded down-stream, while Dexter and Barry went up. After about two hours, we passed a small creek that beavers were in the process of damming. I decided to wait atop their lodge at the mouth for Barry and Dexter to catch up with us, while my father took the boat up the creek to scout out a place for a tree stand.

Dad must have spooked the moose, because this massive bull with a 57” rack walked out onto the bank about 100 yards from me. I had a perfect broadside target. I leveled my Marlin Guide Gun and put two Hornady 45-70 Govt. rounds through his throat. He didn’t drop right away, so I put another one into his front leg and into his lungs. He was only just able to scramble up the bank before collapsing twenty feet from shore.

Since he was at the top of the bank, we decided not to quarter him after field dressing and just roll him onto the duck boat that my brother and Dexter were using. We thought this was a great idea until we discovered that all his weight was now positioned at the front of the boat and we would have been swamped moving forward. Given that he was well over 1400 lbs, we could not reposition him. We had to tow the duck boat backwards up river using our 14’ Princecraft with a 15 HP Johnson. It took us three and a half hours against the wind and current, in driving sleet and snow, to return to the boat launch.

We tied a rope to his antlers and using a pick-up, dragged him and the boat up the landing. Then we tipped the moose onto the shore, and using the boat as a ramp, pulled him onto the boat trailer. We were on our way home at 6:30 PM.