12-year-old girl bags a moose in hunt-of-a-lifetime

Kelly Holmin knows she is a very fortunate.

Not only did the 12-year-old from Nicollet, Minn., get drawn for a once-in-a-lifetime moose hunting license, she bagged a 1,100-pound bull moose with antlers that spanned 58 inches last week off the Gunflint Trail in northeastern Minnesota.

She's apparently the youngest hunter to legally kill a moose in Minnesota since at least 1922 when the state began restricting moose hunting, said Lou Cornicelli of the Department of Natural Resources. The Legislature last year reduced the minimum age to hunt moose from 16 to 10, opening the door for young hunters like Kelly. And she was the youngest of 104 hunters who registered a moose this season, which ended Sunday.

"I feel really happy and proud,'' Kelly said Wednesday. "Shooting a moose is an accomplishment whether you're 12 or 38 – you're going to put the same amount of effort into it. It's a big sense of accomplishment because I am 12. The moose is as wide as I am tall. I can sit inside his antlers.''

Kelly was accompanied by her dad, Jeff, who couldn't hunt – or even help her call in a moose – because he got a license, and a moose three years ago. A limited number of licenses are issued in a lottery drawing, and since 1991 hunters have been allowed just one in a lifetime.

"My father waited for 23 years to get a moose license, and my mom (Barb) has been putting in for 10 years without getting one,'' Kelly said. "It's not very often a 12-year-old girl who has put in one year would get a license.''

She hunted with an uncle (two to four hunters can apply for a group license) the first weekend of the season, then returned with her dad on Oct. 10. "It rained and snowed the whole time we were up there,'' Kelly said. And the moose she shot was the only one they saw in seven days of hunting.

"We had picked out this spot, sort of a cliff overlooking valley, and we were going to sit there for the afternoon,'' Kelly explained. "We walked in very quietly, then heard this big crushing noise. Straight below us was this moose rubbing on a pine tree. We didn't have to call it in or anything.''

Kelly couldn't get a clear view, so the pair moved to get a better vantage point. She put the cross-hairs on the animal. "I tried to pull the trigger, but the gun wouldn't go off. My dad was almost crying.'' The action on the bolt-action rifle hadn't been properly closed, so they put another shell in and Kelly fired. The moose took a few steps and fell.

"My dad started jumping up and down and said 'you got him' and he came up and hugged me and I started crying, I was so happy. There were so many different things going through your mind.''

Dad, a taxidermist, field dressed and butchered the animal and hauled it out of the woods. It was an ordeal. Kelly shot it at around 3 p.m., and they didn't get out of the woods until 10 p.m. Jeff Holmin plans to do a full-body mount of the moose. The rack will score about 184 inches, he said.

Kelly, who hunts deer, turkeys and ruffed grouse, is looking forward to a meal of moose meat. And she's hoping to bag a deer this fall. Meanwhile, she doesn't tire of telling her moose tale.