Ontario Hunting Articles
Setting Goals for Hunters
It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. 2011 is long gone ...we're well into 2012. And with a new year comes hopes of better days ahead. It is a time when the slate is wiped clean, and we have the opportunity to make the new year better than the last. Many of us began 2012 with resolutions. For some, those included plans to eat healthier, exercise more, and hopefully to weigh less. For others, it may have included a promotion, a career change, or maybe the beginning of a new business venture. Very rarely, though, do you hear any of us diehard hunters talking about our hunting resolutions for the new year.
Winter Scouting
For the deer hunter, winter is a long period of nothing but waiting. The fall hunt is over and there is little activity related to hunting deer, plus it seems like the new season is such a long way off. Around here, winters are tough, so even the fun stuff like getting out and shooting the bow or going to the rifle range is out of reach. There is one thing winter is great for, and it is a way to stay connected to your favorite hobby. Winter is the best time to get out and scout to see what the deer have been doing at your hunting spots.
Lessons Moose Have Taught Me
In the first light of day and the last grayness of evening, there are imagined sounds which seem real and real sounds which might be imagined. And between the two is the muffled silence of the northwoods in autumn, sodden still from the pre-dawn drizzle and musty already with the change of the season. Somewhere in the distance drifted the faint song of high flying geese headed south. But my mind had registered another sound, the sharp snap of a twig behind the screen of alders that crowded the edge of the marsh.
Finding Coyotes
I live far enough north that when mid-winter rolls around the amount of daylight available to hunt coyotes can be less than eight hours. That means I need to be spending my daylight hours hunting, not scouting for someplace to hunt. But any coyote hunter worth his skinning knife will tell you that to be successful, you have to hunt where the coyotes are. The more coyotes, the greater your success will be. The key then is to have a scouting method that finds concentrated amounts of coyotes - fast.
4 Tips for Hunting Late Season Moose
We don't often hear about hunting moose in the late season. An undeniable romance focuses on calling and attracting bulls during the peak of the rut; but what about when all that hormone-driven activity subsides? Where do the moose go and what do they do? More to the point, how do we hunt them in the late season? Allow me to share the events of a late season moose hunt and offer four tips that helped me close a tag last fall. Whether we're talking about Shiras, Canada, or Alaska/Yukon moose, for much of the year bulls are reclusive by nature.
Get High on Whitetails
Today, the vast majority of deer hunters take to the trees. So popular is this movement that an entire industry has evolved along with a paradigm shift in how hunters approach the deer woods. Despite the effectiveness of tree stands, some ask if this strategy is creating a new generation of unskilled reactive hunters. More to the point, there are pros and cons to hunting from the trees, but in the end, it's hard to deny its effectiveness. Let's take a look at what it means to get high on whitetails.
For the Traveling Sportsman
Every year thousands of hunters across the continent book outfitted hunts. Some are booked in their home state or province; others require considerable travel by air. For those with the means, exotic trips abroad are a unique privilege. But regardless of where a hunter goes, the research, booking and travel aspects are imminent. Simple or complex, logistics are a part of the game. I've seen it more than once with first time traveling sportsmen.
Foul Weather Whitetails
A cold November rain beat down on the hunt camp's old tin roof, forcing everyone in the bunkhouse to crack open one eyelid and smile quietly in the dark. The hard rain brought relief as well as a tinge of guilt - the former because it provided the tired hunters of our camp with a good excuse to sleep in; the latter because it was only day three of our hunt.
Whitetail Scents & Sensibility
"Always hunt into the wind" - Sage words of wisdom, this is perhaps the single most important tip any neophyte hunter learns at the outset of their hunting career. Deer rely heavily on their sense of smell. So it stands to reason that if we're to avoid detection, we should use the wind in our favor. Combine this with the appropriate use of scents or scent-blockers, and you're off to the races!
Surviving Mother Nature: Remember the FSFS Rule
Have you ever been in a survival situation? Most of us have not. Would you know how to survive in the wilderness in a crisis? Believe it or not, most of us would not. With the advent of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) we've been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that we can escape any predicament by following our handy little electronic devices to safety. While basic wilderness survival skills were commonly learned by generations before us, recent generations are much less savvy in this regard. As hunters, our activities often take us into remote areas. It behooves us to learn the essential skills required to survive if we ever find ourselves stranded in the wild.
Choosing a Hunting Bullet
Thinking back several decades, I remember one of my early visits to a gun shop. I was hoping to buy some ammunition for a new hunting rifle. Leaning over the gun counter, I was confused. Subconsciously scratching my head, I wasn't sure what to do next. I scanned from left to right, then back and forth several times. The first thing I noticed was the labeling. "Fine," I thought to myself, "I'll start with a popular brand." Names like Winchester, Federal, and Remington were familiar. As a neophyte hunter, it was all so new and, frankly, a bit overwhelming.
Branching Out For Timber Turkeys
When most of us think of turkey hunting, we picture green fields and forest edges alive with songbirds and new leaves. This, after all, is where we generally set up our ambushes. It's where the classic game is played. But there are times when turkeys don't want to play the classic game - at least not out in the open.
Hunt Year Round
When we talk about hunting season, most of us think about turkeys and whitetails, basically because they're the most accessible. Truth is there are loads of other opportunities for every month of the year. Following are a few suggestions.
After the Shot: Deer Tracking Tips
You wait until he's broadside, then, as the big 12-pointer lowers his head; you raise your rifle and centre the crosshairs behind his shoulder. You breathe, control your nerves, and squeeze the trigger... In a perfect world, he'd drop right then and there. But, as any experienced deer hunter knows, that's not always the case.
Still-Hunting: The Woodsman's Dance
Though it's certainly no Swan Lake, in a very real sense, still-hunting is the dance of the woodsman. Done properly, it is choreographed and precise. It's planned out so that every movement combines agility, grace, and stealth, so that each step, head turn, and pause serves an artful purpose - to collect venison.
Rattling & Calling Whitetail Deer
"Clatter-clack, clatter-clack- clatter" ...as the sound of antler on antler resonated through the woods I sensed something was about to happen! Almost instantly I heard grunting and glimpsed a magnificent buck approaching from my left. Intent on seeing what the commotion was all about, he maintained a brisk pace. At the same time, another, slightly smaller buck could be seen ghosting in from my right. The situation couldn't have been more perfect.
Satellite Bucks: Making the Most of Your GPS
Not that long ago, it would take the average hunter a few seasons to truly learn the ins and outs of a new area. Typically, he would gain knowledge of the local topography bit-by-bit, mostly by hunting near obvious landmarks such as watercourses, trails, ridgelines, meadows, and clear cuts. And, for a while, this would work just fine.
Communicating with Big Game
Minutes after climbing into my stand I began my calling and rattling sequence. First grunting, then working the antlers, I stared down at the mock scrape I'd been religiously anointing with doe-estrus scent for the previous two weeks. I hadn't even finished my first round of clashing antlers together when I saw a nice buck run in from the heaviest cover. In a magnificent display of dominance all four feet were planted firmly in the center of my scrape as he swung his head back and forth in defiance! My efforts to communicate had sent this buck a clear message and he responded on cue.
Hunter Etiquette & Responsibility
Respectable hunters live by both a written and an unwritten code. Most of us acknowledge our responsibility to follow the formal and informal rules of etiquette. Webster's dictionary defines etiquette as, "rules governing socially acceptable behavior." Unfortunately there are those among us who choose to ignore etiquette, conducting their hunting activities with only self-serving interests in mind. At a time when our heritage activities are under constant scrutiny it behooves us to heed the importance of etiquette and ethics. As I contemplate this issue I can't help but conclude that it's really all about respect - respecting the law, landowners, the land, as well as non-hunters and hunters alike.
Small Seeds + Small Plots = Big Bucks
Like many hunters, I can be a slow learner. We know that hunting food plots will increase our chances to get a big buck, but our attempts to create them have failed. But how many of us have a farm tractor or ATV in the garage? Is it possible to make a killer (no pun intended) honey hole food plot with small equipment, even hand-held power tools?