The moose hunt

[Ultradog]

Elkoholic's post about the moose hunt got me thinking about this story.
My good friend Dick is a retired Minneapolis cop. He worked with a bunch of guys who every year would apply for the moose lottery. There had to be 4 people apply together and if you got picked, win, lose or draw, it was a once in a lifetime deal.
His coworkers applied for several years but never got picked. Then one year one of them retires and moves to a warmer state so they need to find a 4th guy to apply. So they ask Dick to join.
Dick is kind of reluctant to go but they keep bugging him. So he mentions it to his wife, who happens to be dying of cancer and she strongly encourages him to go. So kind of reluctantly, he's in, never thinking they'd get drawn for a tag.
But by golly they did get drawn.
So the opener comes and they get into the woods and are just letting Dick out of the jeep by the blind they have set up for him.
He gets out and looks around and says to the others "Say fellows, there is a  moose over there. Should I shoot it?"
Well, they all go apoplectic on him to shoot it so Dick, once a Marine and member of the MPD Swat team, calmly  loads his rifle, takes aim over the roof of the jeep,  pulls the trigger and BANG!

The moose, not a huge one but a good mature bull, runs about 50 yards and drops.

This all happens about 10 minutes after legal shooting time on opening morning.
Then they have to figure out how to get the big moose outta there. So they hire a young kid with a 4X4 pickup and a farmer with a front end loader on his tractor and spend half the day getting it loaded and in to the local butcher shop to be processed.
All is good and there's lots of celebrating that night.
So back at work on Monday, Dick gets a call from the butcher who tells him there was a fire at the butcher shop and everything was burned to the ground. I don't remember what caused it.
Dick is suspicious of course so he calls the local sheriff up there and tells the guy; "Hey sheriff, I'm a Minneapolis cop so as one LEO to another will you level with me on what happened with that fire up there?"
And the sheriff tells him the facts of the fire, how it is still technically under investigation but it does Not look suspicious at all. "It was just one of those flukes."
So Dick, the hapless moose hunter, loses his trophy and the only proof that it ever happened is in the memories of those who were there.
And no, the DNR wouldn't make an exception and let them go again.
Once in a lifetime means once in a lifetime.

And that my friends, is the end of the story.

 

[wtnhunt]

Moral of the story........  Take plenty of pics?

[Strut10]

EPIC bummer...…………………..