A Moose Hunting Trip

I’m sitting in a chair at the shooting range; a 30.06 is nestled in my shoulder. My hand shakes but, hopefully the five older men behind me don’t notice, (my dad and four other people who are related to me by marrying my 2nd cousin's uncle or something.) No matter how hard I try to concentrate on holding the big gun steady, it shakes. I take a deep breath, and push the safety so that a red dot is shown. Pointing to the target my dad had said, I slowly pull the trigger, waiting for the loud bang and the back fire, waiting for it to hit my shoulder. I keep expecting it, waiting for it, and I even close my eyes, but it doesn’t come, so I decided just to pull it. The gun jumps up as I fire, and my head pulls back from the recoil of the gun. I let my breath out, and look at my dad shakily; he looks at the target with binoculars and says I probably would have hit it if the sight was set. Great, I didn’t even hit the target, I think to myself. Shaun tells me to shot once more, and then he’ll set the sight for me. I sigh again and reload the gun. The click that it makes is an awesome sound and I grin, its like off of a Terminator movie or something. Then I point the gun at the target and fire with a little less hesitation this time. Like before, I missed what I aimed for. This is only my second time shooting a riffle, the first time was when I was ten or so and I had bruised my shoulder badly, but now I'm older, smarter and more aware. At least I hope so.1

It's the next day when we're at our camp site near Spirit Lake in Kenai, Alaska, sitting by the dead fire. It's only 10:30am or so, and we had accidentally slept in. When we got up, we made breakfast and ate quickly. It was time for the morning hunt. When we were ready, we got our bags and tied them down to our four wheelers, started them, then took off. We were going to the spot where someone had seen a huge, legal moose. An illegal moose is a cow, a calf, or a bull whose rack is less than fifty inches. So far on this hunting trip, all I've seen was cows and calves. There were four of us going on the hunt; it was Shaun and his friend Clint, my dad, and me. Each of us had a four wheeler, so when we were on the dirt road, we looked like a train, or maybe a pack of wolves with my dad at the head.2

When we got to where they had seen the moose, we parked the four wheelers, grabbed our guns, and started hiking over the mound like hill that lead into the forest. We moved slowly, so that if there was a moose around, we wouldn’t scare it. About a hundred yards off of the trail, Shaun and Clint went one way, and my dad and I went the other. I walked a few yards behind my dad, trying to be as quiet as possible, but I felt clumsy and loud, though my dad didn't say anything to me about it. The thing about looking for moose in a birch tree forest, a few trees might look like the behind of a moose, tricking you, and every time I got tricked I would stumble, and get excited, so I decided to concentrate on moving slowly, rather than looking. A few minutes later, I looked up from walking, and saw my dad had stopped; he motioned for me to hurry up. As I did, I saw what he had got excited about. About eighty yards from us, between two V-shaped trees, a bull moose stood with his head down as if he were eating. I look at my dad and ask quietly if it’s legal. He nods and then grins. He takes off his gloves, and I do too, then he raises his gun and looks at the bull again. I think he is going to take the shot himself when he lowers it and tells me to load my gun. Right then my heart starts racing. I do what he says with my hands shaking, and look up to make sure I’m doing it right. He nods to me and leans over to me and tells me to look six inches down from where his nose is. I do and nod, he asks if I have a clear shot, and I do. Again it’s hard for me to hold the gun still, this time it seems as if my heartbeat has increased by ten. My hands don’t shake because I’m skittish about shooting a moose. My grandpa had bet me fifty dollars that I would chicken out if I had the chance to shoot a moose. I knew that wasn’t the problem. I keep taking breaths, and try to hold steady. As I pull the trigger, it seems to shoot more easily than before. After the loud bang and the recoil of the gun I quickly look at my dad and ask if I hit it. He thought I did, but it just stood there, looking at us as if in shock. We start to run forward to a spot with a clearer shot and I reload the gun, the sound clicking again. This time since I didn’t hit it at all, I think to aim a little lower than I had. I think to myself that I better hurry, or the moose will run off, but it just stood there looking at us. I shot again, and this time it ran. I put the safety on as my dad starts running toward it, and follow. All of sudden the moose drops where he is. I start to grin then yell, “Yes!!”3