Cynthia Tomah of Princeton shot the biggest bull moose she or Tobey Brook Guide Services have ever harvested.
But it wasn’t her first time with black powder. She has harvested all of her large game animals with a muzzleloader, her husband and guide service co-owner Toby Tomah said Tuesday.
The guide service was started four years ago by Toby Tomah and his brother Charles Tomah. Before that, the Tomahs worked with other lodges in the area. Toby and Charles’ grandfather worked as a registered Maine guide for 40 years in the same area.
Cynthia’s moose weighed 834 pounds, with an antler spread of 61.5 inches and 25 scorable points. The antlers are big, but not a record as it turns out. They received a gross green score of 183 ⅜ , Toby said. They will be entered in the Maine Antler and Skull record book.
They had been scouting the area for a month and saw the big bull when they checked the cameras on Sunday morning, Toby said. It was the only time they had seen it on camera.
Cynthia and Toby hunted off one woods road and Charles took another with a client, all hoping the big bull would show up again.
Cynthia and Toby heard the bull in the morning but couldn’t call it in because there were other hunters in the vicinity. They saw the animal that evening and tried to call him in. The bull responded once and grunted back 10 minutes before he actually answered the hunters’ call.
Toby and Cynthia were doing bull grunts and breaking brush with a scapula, making it sound like a competing male was in the vicinity, for about 45 minutes before the big moose finally showed itself.
They were surprised when they saw which bull it was.
“I didn’t know what moose it was until seconds before I shot him,” Cynthia said.
She said she was busy focusing on her breathing and on trying to stay calm so that her shot would be accurate.
It was her very first moose. She achieved a double lung shot with her muzzleloader at 5:50 p.m. The moose ran another 30-40 yards and Toby followed with a shot from his .308-caliber rifle, dropping the animal.
The bull looked like it had already been fighting other males as part of the annual rut — the quest for mating with a cow moose, Toby said.
Both the butcher and the Waite General Store tagging station indicated it was the widest antler spread they had seen.
The guide service is a side job for Toby. He works as a high-pressure boiler operator at the mill in Baileyville. Cynthia is a stay-at-home mom for their three children ages 7, 5 and almost seven months, plus runs her business Custom Clothing and Cups.
Toby said the guide service is just getting into guiding deer hunters.
Cynthia and Toby are having the bull butchered for its meat and will do a European or skull mount that includes the antlers.
The only problem is, the mount will have to hang in the garage because there’s no wall space in the house for it, Toby said.
