By Cory Glauner

Coletti is the luckiest person I know. She decided this year to put in for moose and drew on her first try. I couldn't believe it. She should play the lottery.

A friend of ours had drawn the same tag a couple of years before and shot a pretty good bull, so we got some good information from her and her husband.

The unit is pretty small and there is a road that runs most of the way around it that you can glass from. He told us where they had seen a "fifty-incher" in one of the draws, but they were never able to get on him.

After some pre-season scouting, we were confident that we could shoot a nice bull. When the season finally came around, Dad, Coletti and I went up to start hunting. Dad could only hunt for a week and was planning on coming home early if we didn't get anything. Coletti and I planned on staying until she got one or the end of the season. Whichever came first. We set up a nice camp and got settled in.

The first morning, we were up at the crack of dawn and rode up into the middle of the unit on the mules. It was super, super windy and cold. I'm sure that the moose were all holed up in the timber. We made a big loop and all we saw was some bear sign and a few deer.

That night, the wind blew so hard that Coletti was afraid that the tent was going to blow over and didn't get any sleep. Dad and I slept like babies.

The next morning we drove the pickup along Skyline Ridge to do some glassing. Right off the bat, we spotted a nice bull, but we thought that we could do better, so we didn't go after him. We also saw a few cows that morning. We went back to camp for lunch and a nap, and while Dad was re-setting a shoe on one of the horses, Coletti and I drove back up to the ridge to glass again.

We were in a new canyon and saw another good bull and some cows. Once again, he wasn't quite what we were looking for, so we let him go.

The fall colors were in full splendor, so we drove around and took some nice pictures that evening. We had a lot of time left and just enjoyed ourselves.

The third day, we decided to ride up into where we had seen the bulls. We rode all day long and only saw one cow. We didn't get back to camp until after dark. It was a pretty uneventful day. Tired.

The next morning, we drove back up to Skyline Ridge, because that was the only thing that had been working for us, but we didn't see much. On the way back down, we stopped at a cow camp and the cowboy told us about a huge bull that hung out at a water hole. It had run some of his horses through a fence earlier in the summer and he would just as soon somebody shot him.

We drove over to the water hole, and sure enough, there were some big tracks on the banks, so we decided to come back and glass it that evening. We were running low on a few groceries, so we drove into town to stock up and go to lunch. On the way back from town, we were about a mile from camp and Dad slammed on the brakes.

"Moose!" he yelled and pointed across the creek. I looked over and saw a nice bull trotting from the creek up towards the timber. All it took was a glance to see that he was a pretty good one, and Coletti said she wanted him, so I jumped out and cow-called to him, stopping him in his tracks.

He was 220 yards away, and broadside, a no-brainer for Coletti. She grabbed her gun, got off the side of the road, sat down and shot. I saw dust fly on the other side of the bull, and thought that maybe she had missed, but Dad was looking through the binoculars and said, "Good shot· shoot again."

I looked over at her and saw that she had scoped herself. She had a big bloody circle on her forehead and her eyes were watering, but I told her she was OK, it looked fine and to just shoot again. I didn't want to get her all worked up.

She shot again, and this time I saw the bull shudder slightly, but other than that, he didn't show any signs of being hit and he was so black, we couldn't tell where she was hitting him, so I said, "Shoot him again." She shot a total of five times. I knew she was a good shot and I couldn't imagine that she was hitting him poorly, especially at that distance. The bull stood there for a few more seconds, then lay down nice and easy and died.

We were able to ride the four-wheeler right up to him. Dad and I went first, and then I went back for Coletti. Dad got her reaction on the video camera when we rode up, and she was super excited. She had wanted to shoot a moose her whole life, and this was a pretty good one. For an Idaho bull, he's a dandy.

Now for the dirty work, I knew moose were big, but you never really realize how big until you're standing next to a dead one and have to figure out how to get him back to camp. I can't even imagine an Alaska moose· they're at least a third bigger! WOW!

We caped and quartered him and found that all five of Coletti's shots had hit him right in the boiler room; he was just one tough customer I guess.

In two loads on the four-wheeler, we were able to get him to camp. It was really pretty easy, could've been a lot worse. We spent that night there, packed up the next morning and headed home. Fun hunt, and now she wants to go to Canada· works for me.

Species: Moose Location of Hunt: Idaho Weapon: Winchester Model 70 30.06 Equipment: Leupold 3x9 Scope, Docter 15x60 Binoculars, Danner Boots