Sometimes the animal you’re out hunting never shows itself, and you’re forced to observe all the other wildlife you can’t legally hunt. It can be a little discouraging. Songbirds, insects, reptiles, and other non-game animals might provide a little entertainment. Still, perhaps the worst scenario is when you’re targeting, say, a deer, and a larger, more coveted big game animal waltzes right into bow range. The only problem is you don’t have the necessary tag, and you are left with no option but to sit back and watch a moose invade your hunting blind.
That’s what happened to Breann Zietz, who was recently bowhunting in North Dakota for whitetail deer. With little to no action on the deer front, Zietz nonetheless experienced a once-in-a-lifetime moment that she managed to capture on cell phone video and post to Facebook.
A curious moose, unsure what the camouflage hunting blind Zietz was sitting in was, decided to give things a thorough investigation.
I went bow hunting last week for my white-tailed deer in North Dakota. Sitting in the new Ameristep Quality Hunting purchased at Scheels, my deer did not come in. Still, I had a once in a lifetime experience. If I had to guess, I would give Nose Jammer Brand partial credit for this close encounter. As soon as this curious cow moose got downwind of me, I think it smelled the almost vanilla scent from spraying nose jammer field spray in my blind. She came to get a closer look. I will let the video speak for itself, but I will add that I was scared to death, heart pounding, shaking, but excited. I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed still as if I wasn’t there. I’ll never forget this moment. The very last second of the video, she tripped over the rope that anchors the wall down. It shook the blind so much that I jumped out of my seat to my knees and accidentally stopped the video. The next sound I heard was the moose scared and running away. I mean after all, it’s only a near thousand pound animal. #ndoutdoors #moose #bowhunting #groundblind
Posted by Breann Zietz on Monday, September 26, 2022
How’s that for up close and personal? That moose’s nostrils must have been within a couple of feet of the bowhunter sitting inside that blind!
Zietz, the hunter who filmed the encounter, mentioned that the Nose Jammer Field Spray likely did the trick.
“If I had to guess, I would give Nose Jammer Brand partial credit for this close encounter,” Zietz wrote in the Facebook caption. “As soon as this curious cow moose got downwind of me, I think it smelled the almost vanilla scent from spraying nose jammer field spray in my blind. She came to get a closer look.”
Rachell Niemann via Getty Images
Moose, the largest member of the deer family, have high current densities in the northwestern part of North Dakota, according to North Dakota Game and Fish Department, but it wasn’t always that way. Historically, moose were rare or nonexistent in the entire state around the turn of the 20th century. They reappeared in the 1950s in the northeast corner of North Dakota, then began spreading west.
The first moose hunting season was established in the state in 1977. North Dakota Game and Fish has made at least 100 licenses available to hunters annually. Too bad Zietz wasn’t one of those license holders, but something tells us this memorable experience is just as good, if not better than a successful moose harvest.
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