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'Ole Berke is more fit than I am, if skinny old man is better than fat old man - HA!

If I wasn't so long bodied, my gut would be as bad as my bros- maybe? I'm still sitting right on 240 pounds - up from 190 when I quite smoking 21 months ago, but I was not healthy according to my wife.

Taylor and I will probably be hunting moose with LB (he's a HOOT to have around - funny guy) this fall, looking for a 2 point (1 1/2 yr. old moose - open season) or maybe 3 calves in October. They're easy, but have to be careful of the cows if you shoot their calf - can be dicey.

We've put in for group hunt tags 3 years in a row without being drawn, yet others we know have received their group and single submission tags every year - some lottery, eh? Put in for an area a LOG ways away and you have a better chance of being drawn. Not sure how they've got the computer's programed, but that seems the norm - in other words it's FRUDULENT.

A 2 point (no more than 2 points on one side) bull moose is the most rare of moose these days. They've been running that restriction for so long, without having an open big bull season that the gene pool has improved to the point, that what would normally be a 2yr. old(1 1/2 actual), instead of having a couple spikes, or a spike and a 2 point, or two 2 point antlers, they will have up to 7 or 8 points on each side making them illegal to take as a "long yearling", 1 1/2 year old moose. They've become mature according to the regs. There is still the odd 2 point, but here are VERY rare over the North around here.

Along with the antler growth, they've increased in size. Where, 35 years ago, a normal 1 1/2 year old, 2 point or spike bull moose would yield 275 pounds of meat, nowadays they can run on average 375 pounds to over 450 pounds of meat. I got one about 8 years ago, shot on a mature bull drawn tag, that had 3 points each side - looked like a huge mule dear antler but only a 3 point (6 eastern, I guess) and weighed 499 pounds hanging in skinned quarters at the butcher shop, hocks cut off. That would have been close to or over a 1,000 pound moose live weight - yet he was only 1 1/2 years old. We do get some big 'calves' here, now and then.

The very next year, in a different local during the special weapons season, I shot one with the .69 Sporting Rifle, that weighted only 300 even in quarters, yet had 7 points on one side and 8 on the other. He looked "the villiage runt".

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V