Changed hunt camps this year, had a blast!

[John Y Cannuck]

We decided to forgo our usual hunt camp, and try hunting out of our moose camp instead. Just me and my wife for the most part, with one of our moose hunters joining us for a couple of days.
 
 The moose camp is accessible only by ATV, and is a very rough trail near Minden Ontario.
 
 We guessed ahead of going that the moose would be out in force, and were not disappointed, with all of us seeing moose. Lots of other animals too.
 
 
 
 I shot a small buck first week, and when my wife had to leave on Monday of the second week, decided it should go out too, as it was very warm.
 
 
 
 Second week I was on my own. Keeping the fire going in the old cook stove means being sure you drink enough so you get up at night to feed the fire and empty the bladder.
 
 Tuesday, it snowed, not much, but enough to track, so I went on an extensive walk, looking for track, figuring correctly that the deer would not move much with the bright new environment. I did find track, but was unable to get close enough for a look, as the snow had become noisy, crump crump crump when I walked.
 
 
 
 Back to the stand about 11:30am, I decided to stick it out 'till dark. I was using a can call, as well as a 'true talker'. I used the can call about every 15 minutes, one call only. No response.
 
 The snow began again, with wind, and it was soaking my coveralls, and freezing me up pretty good. about 4:45 I had had enough, I was shaking. I started to pack up, but decided to try one last call.
 
 I tipped the can call, and after a few seconds did a quiet "tending grunt" on the true talker. There was an immediate response! I heard a shard loud grunt, followed by the breaking of twigs as a buck stormed forward towards the stand.
 
 As he entered the blow down where the stand is located, he stopped, head up looking around for the other buck. He moved forward slowly. He was at a bad shooting angle for me in the stand, way 'round to my right, but finally I took what I knew was a good shot.
 
 He bounded over a log tail up, but then dropped it quickly, and vanished into the next gut.
 
 I was warm again!
 
 I listened carefully to the noise he made as he ran out of sight down into the gut. Thump thump thud. Thump thump thud, thump thump thud, thrashing.... silence.
 
 I was listening to get an idea where to look for him, if as sometimes happens, tracking fails, and it was now getting darker.
 
 After a ten minute wait, I had gotten down, and mode my way over to where I last saw him. Tracking was easy in the snow softened ground. No blood at all at first, then i saw where he fell, and the blood trail was two feet wide from there to where he fell again, and further to where he lay in the water at the bottom of the gut, a nice eight pointer.
 
 Dragged him out of the water, tagged and gutted him, then had a decision to make. It would be nasty coming in here with the ATV in the dark across two guts and the blow down. Chain saw work by flashlight alone probably not a great plan. No suitable trees about for hanging him, and the wolves and coyotes, not to mention the fishers would make a mess of him if I left him the night.
 
 I decided to try dragging him up to the tree stand. I stopped a few times, but the biking all summer really paid off, and it wasn't that bad. I decided to drag him the rest of the way to the main trail. Then i got the ATV, and hung him in camp for the night.
 
 
 
 Heart shots make for nice clean gutting, but are a tad wasteful to those of us who enjoy heart.
 
 
 
 That ended my season, or so I thought, and I finished out my time there doing chores, chopping a cord of wood etc.
 
 I headed home Friday, and my wife and I butchered the buck ourselves.
 
 Saturday morning I got a call from my cousin, to help a local group who had got nothing. So out I went again, this time with my old side by side shotgun, as it's shotgun only. A group of nine of us mostly guys with fancy deer shotguns, and all the right gear, hunting a small bush for an hour and a half. Three guys did a push, sweeping through the bush making like they were hounds. Out popped a small buck I fired in heavy bush using buckshot. The deer vanished, and i stood my ground until, the hunt was over. Then began trailing. The blood trail was easy to follow, and short. My third buck of the season. I donated it to the guys who had no deer, as my freezer has lots for now.
 
 Thinking about it afterwards, me with my cheap old side by side, them with their fancy guns, it was good to show that you don't really need the expensive gear to have fun.

[Rick Teal]

Bob:
 
Congratulations on a great season!
 
I'm in the process of writing an account of my deer hunts, but right now its about 1500 words long - I have to do some editing.  I managed to score on a small doe (or large doe-fawn), and the gangs went 10 deer for 12 hunters over the two weeks.  We had bear problems with one of them sampling the deer on our meat pole (the only time this has happened in the 75 year history of our camp).
 
Great story too!  Me being an antler guy, I just wish you had a better picture of the rack on that 8 pointer. 
 
Thanks for sharing!
Rick

[Rick Teal]

Here's a more detailed account of the hunt where I took my deer.

 In the first of the deer hunt week, I'd noticed a lot of rutting activity, and I took some time in week 2 trying to tie it together.  I finally picked up a pattern, and some big buck sign near a big hill near camp, known as the “Knob”.

The knob is the biggest hill in the area, and north-west of it is a second high hill that’s unnamed, but I think of it as the camp-bottoms hill because there are the remains of an old logging camp off its west side.
 
Historically, these two hills had been excellent spots to find big bucks, however, several years ago one of our hunters had decided to mark a different trail over the knob to watch “Zero“, and relocated the watch to the side of the camp-bottoms hill.  Because of this guys are continually travelling (not hunting) over these hills during the hunt, and sightings of big bucks on these hills has fallen to nothing.
 
From the sign I’d seen it was clear that there was a big buck in this area, and he was laying down some new track, but he was either nocturnal, or had moved the centre of his activity to a different location.
 
On Wednesday afternoon I decided to sit on a spot off the north end of the knob where I could see the whole valley between the hills, and overlooking a 6X4 breeding scrape.  I sat in a small depression with an evergreen at my back (south).
 
I sat there hunkered down giving an occasional soft grunt.  The evening approached with no activity, and as it began to get darker I was beginning to think about packing up. I was then transfixed by a loud snort directly behind me.  It would have been impossible for me to stand up, turn and shoot the deer through the tree at my back.  I was convinced it was a buck that snorted, so I elected to do a softer doe snort and see if he would settle down. 
 
The deer behind me were having none of it and I heard several deer running to my left (west).  I saw two deer in the lead motoring west and presenting no shot.  A third deer was following at a slower pace, and it seemed larger.  It slowed as it moved into an opening, and I put the dot on its shoulder and squeezed off.  Just as the gun went off I saw the dot above the deer’s back.  My reaction was `How did that happen.`
 
I was convinced that I missed, but looked anyway, but I didn’t have a flashlight, and darkness caused me to stop looking.
 
I was back the next morning to look some more, but I didn’t really expect to find anything.  I exhausted three different escape routes, and as a last thought tried one spot quite a bit closer to where I was watching, followed it a way and gave up on it as well.  I did one last turn around, and there was my deer.
 
It was a very small doe, but I was fooled as to its size because it was only half as far away as the other two I saw.  I’m convinced the others were does, so if there was a buck he probably turned away and went directly south from me.  I gutted the deer (the first I’ve ever done after it lay over night), and called for help.  The only response I got was Steve calling to tell me he’d shot a doe at buck ridge.  Thus our season ended. 
 
We hung these deer high on the meat pole, but mine was tasted by a bear that night.
 
We never got the bear.

[John Y Cannuck]

Congratulations. Great story.

BTW the rack on my eight pointer, absolutely sucks. Spindly little rack I was surprised it held together as handles for the drag.

[Rick Teal]

BTW the rack on my eight pointer, absolutely sucks. Spindly little rack I was surprised it held together as handles for the drag.

That's a surprise, the long range picture makes it look pretty good!

[John Y Cannuck]

Yeah I'd be embarrassed to even appear in public with that one. Never did get the set from my bow hunt buck done though. I must find the time to get over to Little Britain in the spring and get them measured.

[Rick Teal]

If you do, stop by and say hello - we've never met face-to-face.

[John Y Cannuck]

Will do, i'll be watching for the notification. It's in April if I remember right.