David Giguere said his first few days of the 2007 moose hunt were unsuccessful, and he began to doubt his chances. But patience and perseverance turned unsuccessful into unforgettable.

“The one time I wasn’t competing in my life, I got the prize,” said Giguere, who shot the largest moose during this year’s hunting season.

The bull’s dressed weight, with the organs removed, was a whopping 900 pounds, and Giguere estimated it at 14 feet long.

“The Fish and Game people said they’ve never seen one this big,” he said. “I heard the only one bigger from this state was hunted about 16 years ago.”

But the accomplishment took time. The Epsom resident followed tracks off and on for three days.

“The moose got very skittish when we would get anywhere close,” he said.

Giguere was getting desperate.

“We were in moose alley for days,” he said. “I thought if I can only see a few moose the whole time, we must be in the wrong spot.”

On the fifth day of the hunting season, Giguere seized his opportunity and took the animal down with five shots from a Smith and Wesson revolver.

“I couldn’t believe how big it was when I got near it,” he said.

To remove the bull from the woods, Giguere received help from some locals, who loaded it on a snowmobile trailer with a winch.

“We couldn’t budge it at first,” said Giguere, who hunted in area A1, the northernmost part of New Hampshire, near Colebrook.

Giguere started hunting small animals like deer and birds at age 12 in Claremont, where he grew up.

“My father and uncles taught me to hunt. We lived with a lot of woods around us,” he said.

Kristine Rines, moose project leader for New Hampshire Fish and Game, said Giguere’s feat was impressive and unusual.

“Larger moose are more wily and smarter since they have been through multiple hunting seasons,” she said.

Rines said hunters usually pursue the first animal they see, which can stop them from finding and bagging the big one.

Unless you are patient, your chances of seeing a moose that large are slim,” she said. Giguere was lucky to even join in the hunt.

“I’ve applied for a New Hampshire permit to hunt moose since 1988, and this was the first year I got it,” he said.

This past spring a record 16,779 people entered a lottery for permits. Roughly 675 were issued for the season, which runs from Oct. 20 to 29.

Rines said the statewide success rate for hunters this year was about 71 percent.

“Moose tend to stay in the shade more when there is warmer weather, as there was this year, but this percentage was higher than we thought it would be,” she said. Giguere was thrilled to be a part of it. “I wasn’t looking for a trophy, but I’ll take it,” he said.