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The bull moose literally appeared out of nowhere.

My hunting partner, Logan Ricketts, and I had stopped at a spot that we knew was “moosey.” After hunting the same river for the past 10 years — Ricketts would shoot me if I divulged the name of the river — we have come to know certain areas as moosier than other areas.

We were on the 10th day of an 11-day hunt, and we still didn’t have a moose. On top of that, it was the next-to-last day of the season.

Time was running out and I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we were going to go without a moose for the first time since we started hunting together. Ricketts, on the other hand, was his usual confident self.

“At any moment, a moose can step out of the woods,” is the motto Ricketts has repeated to me over and over during out hunting time together.

There was a tent set up on the gravel bar we had stopped at but we knew it was empty, a ploy undertaken by a group of airboaters that hunt the same stretch of river to dissuade people who are floating or boating by not to stop and hunt there. The fake camps spring up every year, and we have learned to recognize and ignore them.

We scouted out a large beaver pond right next to the river, and Ricketts issued a cow call before deciding to take care of some “personal” business. Let’s just say he had to answer nature’s call.

As I walked over to the raft to grab my rifle, Ricketts demanded some privacy.

“Hey, you remember what happened the last time we did this,” I responded defensively while grabbing my gun. “I’ve got to be prepared.”

It was three years ago that we were in a similar situation — mooseless on the next-to-last day of the season — when we stopped so Ricketts could go to the bathroom. I walked up a small slough to issue some cow calls while he was relieving himself and a few minutes later I heard shots. He had shot a small bull that walked out of the woods and crossed the river right next to where we had pulled over.

This time, I returned to survey the beaver ponds and deliver a few cow calls while Ricketts took care of business.

It hadn’t been more than about a minute when I heard Ricketts whistle, a signal we use to alert each other while hunting. I figured he had completed his mission and didn’t give it much thought so I whistled back. Then I heard him whistle again, which struck me as odd, since he was only about 50 feet away and could have called to me just as easily.

Then I heard a grunt. It’s an unmistakable sound every moose hunter loves to hear because it means there’s a bull close by.

My senses suddenly heightened, I turned back toward the river to see a bull moose standing on a small patch of gravel directly across the river, not more than 50 yards away, staring in my direction. Camouflaged by willows, I crouched down out of sight while at the same time chambering a round into my rifle. Fortunately, the empty tent that was set up on the gravel bar was in perfect position to hide behind so the bull couldn’t see me.

At that point, I wondered why Ricketts didn’t shoot the bull. He should have had a perfect broadside shot. That’s when it hit me. Ricketts didn’t have his rifle, which was still sitting in the raft, and he couldn’t move for fear of frightening the bull off. It was up to me. The bull grunted again, looking for the cow that he thought was calling him, so I plugged my nose, cupped my hands around my mouth and moaned a short cow call in an attempt to draw the bull across the river.

I could hardly believe my eyes when the bull stepped into the water to cross the river. It was too good to be true. If he crossed the river, we could shoot him within 20 feet of where we parked the raft.

The bull stopped about halfway across the river and grunted again so I let out another short cow call. This time, though, the bull turned his head and started walking back the way he came.

Not wanting to take a chance on letting the only bull we had seen in 10 days get away, I stood up, took aim and shot the bull in the neck, even though he was still standing in the river. He kept walking so I shot him twice more.

The wounded bull stood in the river, about 5 feet from the gravel patch on which he had appeared.

“Don’t shoot again,” Ricketts yelled, having watched the whole scene play out from his outhouse. “Let him get to land.”

For a second, it looked like that might be what the bull was going to do. But then he started wobbling. The bull tried to move but his legs weren’t cooperating. At least it looked like he was going to fall toward the shore rather than farther out in the river. At the last second, though, the bull toppled the other way and fell into the river. And then, as quick as it all had played out, it was over.

The fact that we now had to winch a bull moose out of the river didn’t seem to bother either me or Ricketts. We whooped and hollered, exchanging high fives. We had our moose, a nice 38-inch bull that would provide enough meat for Ricketts and I.

“At least the meat is cooling,” Ricketts said with a smile as we looked at the half-submerged moose.

Ten minutes later, an airboat appeared. The driver pulled in, obviously there to check things out. He wasn’t upset — not that he had any reason to be so — and we chatted for 10 or 15 minutes. He acknowledged that it was he who had set up the “dummy camp,” as he called it, and seemed to relish the fact that we had to winch the moose out of the water. We asked him if we could sleep in his empty tent and he had no objections.

It took us about an hour to winch the moose far enough onto land to butcher it, and we finished that job as it was getting dark. We loaded the meat onto a log frame and floated back across the river to camp, where we spent the next few hours celebrating and reliving the hunt over dinner before crawling into the tent to sleep.

Even after 10 years of moose hunting, it never ceases to amaze me how unpredictable it can be. We spend 10 days camped on gravel bars and prowling the woods, looking and listening for moose, and we finally find one when we stop to go to the bathroom on a gravel bar for five minutes.

It just goes to show you that at any moment, a moose can step out of the woods and you’d better be ready when it does.

And when all else fails, just stop and go to the bathroom.