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My kind of work horse.


Barry Willis

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Check this guy out, unbelievable. And a very privileged fellow to have such a moose. Probably right around eighty years or more ago my Dad and his hunting and fishing buddy Ora, mayor of Niagara Falls at the time harvested a moose very similar in size. They flew into a lake north of Wawa. When I was in my twenty's and in good shape I could barely lift them and hold them long enough for a picture to be taken. Took four of us and and a rope to get them hung on the wall. My brother in Owen Sound still has them. I will look for the photo of them. 

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1 hour ago, Barry Willis said:

I don't thing I'd want to upset him and have him ticked off at me. 

50 something years ago my dad and his buds were hunting up near James Bay. Dad was walking down a trail when a big ole bull came out from behind a clump of bushes and charged him. He was able to get a shot off and killed the critter but he said it was FAR too close for comfort. He kept the huge rack and had it in his home for years.

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Your father was very fortunate Lew, not necessarily for certain but chances are it was during the rut which usually begins in September for moose.  In the early 80's I done a video for a production company in Quebec of bull moose during the rut. I had a cut out of fairly large moose antlers from card board. I would call in a bull moose (taught to me by my dad) and I would hold the card board moose antlers above my head and slowly lower it from side to side as bull moose do to show off the size of their antlers to their opponent. The bulls would approach me doing the same thing, lowering  their head form side to side slowly lowering one antler than the other as they slowly came towards me. As soon a s I took my fake antlers down, folded them up and put them behind my back the bull would stop his approach and that would be it. As with the case of your dad they can be unpredictable and seemingly peeved off at the world. There was a time though this didn't go as smoothly. This day I had a real moose antler and was causing quite a ruckus with it by scraping trees and willows as aggressively as I could. A  huge bull, obviously the dominant bull in the area came charging in like a freight train straight at us and wasn't stopping for nothing thinking another bull was after his cows so my back up buddy shot him. The bull dropped less than twenty yards from us. It was a legal kill as he had his moose tag and wanted me to call one in for him. It still scares the dickens out of me every time I think of it. Thank God my buddy somehow as your dad did kept his cool with such a large animal bearing down on us at such speed otherwise I don't expect I would be sitting her typing this. So that was the end of the bull moose documentary LOL.

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Those big critters can be darned scary when they get upset Barry, musta been pretty harrowing for you guys for that few seconds.

I saw a Youtube video just this morning about tourists in Yellowstone trying to get up close and personal with bison to take selfies with them like they were baby goats on a farm. One guy got mangled pretty bad and a few others came close.

Like the old saying goes, ya can't fix stupid.

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Yes Lew it was very harrowing. Back in them days I wasn't scared of anything but I was sure scared that day. I also have a sequence of pics of a big mule deer buck that charged me. I thought it was going to gore me and leave me for dead. I will look for them, they are worth viewing, they've been published in a few magazines. It's was really something. I just stood where I was as I had no where to go as I was out in the open and just kept taking pics. I figured once they found me the authorities would know what happened and luckily again I managed to leave the area unscathed. And you're right you can't fix stupid. Bison are incredibly powerful animals. Here in Alberta I've seen them flip people twenty feet in the air with absolutely no effort what so ever. To quote my dad them big shoulders on bison and grizzly's same as eyes ears and nose on our ungulates aren't there just as ornaments.

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