bear – The Outdoors Guy

October 4, 2011

Big game hunters Bragging Board

OK folks, it is that time of year again…when men are men and the bears, moose and deer are nervous.

If you have enjoyed a successful big-game hunt this fall, I invite you to share your story and photos right here at the Outdoors Guy Blog.

As someone once said, its time to show ’em if you got ’em!

Please keep in mind that all photos submitted by pm should be in a small file format. Usually less than 1/2 GB is fine.

Outdoorsguy

Thanks to Sure-shot Dave for sending in his moose story:

Made the 16 hour drive to Thunder Bay on Sept. 23^rd. Had high hopes of putting my tag on a nice bull. The scouting report was that there were some nice ones hanging around.

Spent the better part of six days chasing them around the swamps, and sitting in stands without seeing a thing. It was warm, but not as bad as 2009, the last time I was there.

Monday (day 3) I got the invite to go down to Timmins to try and fill a cow tag… Resisted the temptation. I wanted antlers. Wednesday (day 5) got another invitation to go down to Timmins… Started to cave a little bit. After the Thursday morning hunt I decided to pack it in and head for Timmins, again after some convincing from Andy. That guy is persistent. Left Thunder Bay at 7PM on Thursday, had a co pilot so was able to sleep for a couple of hours in the truck on the way. Made it to Timmins for 3AM, up and heading to the hunting spot at 5AM. I must be crazy…

Andy put me on a skidder trail and gave me instructions on where to go. Follow this trail to the hydro line, if nothing, come back half way and take the other trail out to a fresh cut. Sounded pretty easy to me. I waited until first light, and slowly made my way up the first trail. It’s amazing how many stumps, root balls and dark objects looked like moose after 6 days of not seeing a thing…

After about twenty minutes, Andy got a hold of me to say that Chris had seen a couple of cows head into a small piece of bush, and I needed to get down the other trail ASAP to cut them off. So off I go. I picked a likely looking spot, but not knowing if I was in the right area, I waited for further instructions. I then moved to the highest point so that I could see as much terrain as possible. Andy was going to wait until the rest of the group could get set up before going in after the cows. After a while, he came out of the bush and motioned for me to come over to him. He said that the cows are probably still in the patch of bush, but that I needed to get to the other end of the bush to watch the beaver meadow. Off I went at a pretty good pace so that I didn’t miss them. Andy said “look for the tamarack tree with the branches cut off one side”. Millions of trees, and I’m supposed to find that one tree. Ok I thought to myself, like that’s going to happen. I walked in to the corner of the beaver meadow, and noticed some cut brush and a small open area. Looked up, and there was the tamarack tree. Well I’ll be a monkey’s arse… I took a few steps to get out into the open meadow, and just as I look up, I see a cow come bursting out of the brush on the other side. She’s trotting at a pretty good pace on the other side of the 200 yard wide meadow, heading for the far end and the tag alders for cover. Great I think to myself, I finally see a moose, but there is no way on God’s green earth that I am going to get a shot at her. As fast as this fat ass could run, I head to cut her off. After about a 75 yard sprint, she turns and heads right across the meadow, right towards me. At this point I still don’t have an arrow nocked, and I’m not even close to being ready. Add to that that I am gasping for air, and things are not looking good. Halfway across the meadow, she stops to look back over her shoulder to see where the danger is. That’s my opportunity. I throw off my gloves, grab an arrow, nock it and hunker down in the grass. After a few seconds, she starts to run again. I come to full draw as she’s coming. 20 more yards, and she’ll be in the bush and gone. I yell “hey” and she slams on the brakes. Of course, she’s right behind a tag alder bush, and I have no shot. She sees me, and walks out from behind the bush to have a better look. Quartering towards me slightly, but I think I can make the shot. I put my 40 yard pin on her, take a deep breath and squeeze the trigger on my release. As if in slow motion, I watch my neon yellow arrow head for its target. All the while, I’m praying that it will fly true to its mark. With a thunk, it hits the cow and buries itself 2/3 of the way in. I’m pretty confident that she won’t go far. I call Andy, and he answers in a whisper “what’s up”. Huffing and puffing, I say “I got her!” He says “you got her?” I say “yeah I got her!!” The excitement in his voice grows, and the next thing out of his mouth is “who’s your daddy?? Told you I’d get you a cow!” I tell him not to get too excited yet, we need to find her before the celebrating can start.

I walk to where she was standing, and start looking for blood while I wait for Andy and Roger to come over. Andy comes across the meadow, and before I can even show him where she was, and where she went, he’s on the blood trail. It was a very easy trail to follow. Like someone was pouring blood out of a paint can. If it were a deer, it would have gone less than 50 yards. This being my first moose, I had no idea how much blood they could lose before falling over. We followed the trail for about 150-200 yards, and found her piled up on the edge of a cut over area. Now the celebrating could begin! My first moose, shot with my old reliable High Country bow. If only all things in life were as reliable as that bow! Andy laughed at me for still shooting it, but it’s never let me down. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!!

We spent the next couple of hours field dressing, and loading her into the ATV trailer. Then it was off to the butcher to get her skinned and quartered. That night we celebrated with obscene amounts of alcohol, and I was introduced to sleeping in a prospector tent for the first time. There are stories to tell about the evening, but we’ll leave those for another day. What happens in moose camp, stays in moose camp!!

I sure am glad that Andy was so persistent, and that I made the overnight drive to Timmins. It was the experience of a lifetime. Thanks to all the guys for making it a hunt that I’ll never forget!!!

Regards,

Sure-shot Dave

Our friend Rick P had a great weekend it seems!

On Sunday evening, he took what he’s calling his ‘meat buck’ at 6:30 PM with a ten yard bow shot.

Now Rick is concentrating on the big guys!

Congrats on the nice looking buck!

I finally got out yesterday for my second hunt of the season.

It was a beautiful “summer” evening, kind of hot for hunting but I needed to get out of the basement.

The wind was wrong but I decided “John’s Ridge” stand was calling to me. It is a nice hardwood ridge and I figured I would hear any deer coming. I was wrong. The wind was just strong enough with so many leaves still on the trees to muffle any approaching deer. At least that is my excuse for not hearing him coming.

At 6:30 I glanced to the east around the tree I was in and not 15 yards away was a deer.

I grabbed my bow and had to decide which side of the tree he would present me with a shot. Luckily he came around in front of me and at ten yards I let fly.

The shot was horrible!

I had changed my setup this summer and added a peep. I felt very comfortable with this setup but had not practiced as much as I would have liked. With the deer in front of me I forgot to look through the peep – aarrrgggg!

I watched him run about 80 yards in a semi-circle and then slowly hobble behind some big trees. He then slowly walked another ten yards and seemed to be in distress. I could see blood from the wound.

As the shot was not where I wanted I decided to get out of there and wait until morning to look for him even though it was very warm. I hoped/expected to find him where I had last seen him.

This morning I walked to where he was standing when I left but no deer. Some blood but not as much as I expected.

It took an hour plus to follow a some time good blood trail and some time bad blood trail some 100 yards to a dead deer.

This six point fills my meat needs, now it’s time to get the big one.

Rick P (AKA Whitetail Guru)

Thanks to Alain for sending in this screen of a nice bull taken near his camp.

As you read below, Iggy’s gang took 1 moose this fall. This beautiful 54″ bull was taken by Tony Kennedy at 7:30 on opening morning.

Great job Tony!!

Dave D’Aoust sent in this photo of the big buck he took near Carleton place this past weekend with with Excalibur crossbow.

His buck dressed out at 220 pounds. I like the forked browtines, Dave!

My old College pal Bobby Kuntz, who lives in the Yukon, sent in these photos of a caribou swimming the Teslin river and the ‘meat bull’ he took last week. (Only in the Yukon is a 34″ bull and meat moose!)

Well, our friend Keebler has finally taken his first moose..a unique looking bull I have dubbed ‘Texas Longhorn #2″ Congrats on the nice bull and I cant wait to hear the story!

Hey, when does the wife make you shave off that scruff anyway..hehe

Below is the story of Yukon Bob’s favourite moose hunt:

This is to date my favorite moose. I shot him Oct3rd 20?? The years are getting blurry.

We called him in 2 nights in a row but we couldn’t get him to come out in the open. My buddy had to return to work, so I took him home and talked the girlfriend into joining me.

The new plan was to take him with the bow and if it didn’t work out then Rebel would get her 1^st moose. The plan almost worked perfect. We sprayed ourselves with scent killer(something I’ve never done) and we went into the bush where I thought the moose was doing all the raking the previous nights. The bush was a little too thick for shooting lanes for the bow but we set up anyway. 5:45pm I gave a call and we heard him right away maybe just under a km away.

We never heard any other sounds, at 6pm I gave another call and he started raking trees about 50yds ahead of us. I new what the moose was going but the girlfriend thought he was on a dead right for us. I seen a palm of antler through the bush, I looked back to see how my back up was doing and she was shaking so bad I could have worried about my on safety if I asked her to shoot. I chose to ditch the bow and disarm her.

The moose circled to one side and I got a shot at 30yds and dropped him. It was only then that I got to see the whole rack. 58” I’ve shot wider but I liked the surprise of not knowing what he looked like.

Below is is photo of Chessy’s big buck he took on opening morning. I’m calling it the Salmon River Buck…just because it likes to eat salmon.

That’s Chessy’s son in the photo:

Rob St. Denis picked up images on his trail cam of this bad boy..he says the buck only travels at night..so far!

Below is Iggy’s pal Ron Cutbill (already famous for catching a brookie in the Ottawa river) proves his hunting skill this time, with a dandy 10-pointer.

Nice buck Ron!!

Our pal Chessy managed to bag himself another nice buck! This time he pulled it off with a blown scope and the help of his kids…but he still did it!

A dandy 8-point too:

Bob McNally, who hunts at the camp beside Iggy, took this 4-point towards the end of the rifle hunt. Congrats Bob..love that deer trailer too. Here’s is Bob’s story:

Well in almost 2 weeks of deer hunting I FINALLY got to see one!

Most movement on my trail cam has been at night in fact in the past 2 days there was 1 doe and 5 different bucks but all in darkness.

I had high hopes for today first cause the weather had finally got colder which should get them moving a bit better but also cause tommorrow I”m back to work… 🙁

There was a good frost on the ground this morning. As I got closer to where I would stand I noticed that some of the scrapes had no frost in them and looked like they had been turned recently. I moved slowly cause I was expecting to see something anytime now.

Got to my stand under a spruce next to a pond shortly after 7 am. In front of me about 30 yds was a trail that the deer have torn up with all the scrapes along it. Maybe this would be the day I would finally get some movement during daylight.

I caught movement about 9:20 to my left in some thick spruce where the lower branches were mainly dead. It was so quiet I thought it to be one of the many red squirrels that had been pestering every time I have sat in that area. I suddenly noticed the rack of a buck and then his head which was in a sneak postion. I was surprised to see how slowly he snuck in.

He moved forward about 20 ft and got in behind several large trees and offered no shot. I was hoping he would continue straight ahead as he would reach one of my shooting lanes I had cleared out on my first sit in that location. He stood behind the trees for almost 5 minutes, checking things out before he moved. He decided to go left which meant he was walking away from me and I”d have to shoot quick. He got almost 45 degrees to me at about 30 yds and I fired. I was pleased to see my aim was true and he dropped on the spot with 1 shot.

Bob

ps: I added 2 more trail cam pictures from the 2 days before. I think my buck was sneaking in cause he was the smaller of the deer and didn’t want to get his butt kicked by the bigger bucks!

Here is one of the bucks taken at Keebler’s camp up in North Bay. Sounds like he had one heck of a great year!

Avid sportsman Chris Kemp surely made his family proud this fall with the taking of a buck he is calling the ‘Memorial Buck’..in honour of his Grandfather and uncle who passed away this year:

The Memorial Buck

I took this guy on the last section of the last chase of the week, in a year that we lost two members of our camp.

My grandfather Eldon Kemp passed away in the spring at the age of 89. He was a lifelong hunter who passed on his Savage 1899 .303 to me. I used that rifle to take my first deer, and hunted this week with it his honour.

My uncle (Gord Kemp) was a firefighter who died in the summer of leukemia. A great big, tough guy, he was a tireless dogger who never carried a gun, but was a vital part of many hunts.

Chris Kemp

April 13, 2011

Bear versus Cow

This series of photographs (with captions) is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen!

As the story goes, the photos were taken at a cattle ranch in Kettle Valley, British Columbia, and show what happened when a rogue black bear took on a team of Simmental beef cattle:

Interesting photos from a ranch where every year they have to deal with some pretty weird stuff. This year, a bear had been bothering the herd and I guess enough was enough.

A couple of evenings ago, the farmer went out to check the cows and saw a very strange sight and was able to photograph the event. A black bear approached our cow herd which turned out to be a very big mistake on his part.

The blonde and white Simmental cow we know as I-12 went right for him. She is a very good cow, a very attentive mother and about 12 years old. She’s in her prime and knows that bears are bad news.

She tried her best to mash him into the ground.

There are a couple of photos where the bear is biting I-12’s leg and clawing her face but she is not giving up. Her stiff tail shows how agitated she is. Wayne said all the cows were bawling, the bear was squealing, the calves were running around with their tails in the air.

A younger cow, R-55, an Angus-Cross cow, age 7, is helping her out as best she can. It is an incredible photo to see two cows at once trying to crush the bear.

I looked up the calving records of both cows who are so aggressive in these photos and they are both good, calm cows around us and have given us no troubles whatsoever. I’ll have to add in my notes that they have a very distinct dislike of bears.

We’ll be watching I-12 over the next few days to see if she needs treatment for infection. I don’t know how willingly she’ll come to the corrals for treatment, but she might not have a choice.

Finally, the bear decided to vacate the area. We thought he’d be dead for sure, but there was no sign of him the next day.

We’ll have to keep an eye out for eagles in the trees or flocks of ravens flying up. We’re sure he’s got some broken ribs out of the deal at the very least.

Wayne couldn’t believe his eyes when he witnessed this ruckus. This is another once-in-a-lifetime photography event to add to all the others he managed to document this summer. It is amazing.

I’d like to thank Serge for sharing this incredible story with us…just goes to show what you can accomplish when you work together as a team!

Outdoorsguy

October 6, 2010

Trail camera bragging board

First off, I would like to thank everyone who participated in this first Trail Camera Bragging Board.

Without all you guys in the field, this never would have been possible.

It is truly amazing to see how many people today are using modern wildlife surveillance equipment as a scouting tool for big-game. I, for one, am a huge proponent of trail cameras for a variety of outdoor situations.

So without further ado…sit back and enjoy some of the incredible photographs provided by the many fanatical readers and contributors of the Outdoors Guy Blog!

In this first image, our friend “Trapper” sent in this photo I call ‘a covey of coons’ Trapper says it’s going to be a great trapping season at this location for obvious reasons:

Here is a fine collection of images submitted by “Billy in the Valley”. They include a shot of Billy’s ‘deluxe tree stand in the sky’, a fine-looking black bear and a great whitetail buck (Which, I’m told, he harvested shortly after that photo was taken) and a raven(or crow) that Billy calls the ‘Black Angel’.

Here is Chessy’s contribution proving that coyote’s do enjoy eating apples (among other things):

Here are some truly unique shots of ‘bucks in velvet’ sent-in by Shawn Lyons. They were taken with incandescent flash (you can tell because its the only way night images will ever appear in colour)

I suggested to Shawn that he consider changing his camera angle, but apparently it’s because the deer are so close when the images were taken. Whatever the case, Shawn’s photos offer a neat perspective:

Here is Rick Poulin with the fine buck he took in September during his annual hunting trip to Manitoba. I know its not a trail camera image, but I have been meaning to post it.

Nice job Rick!

McDan sent in these great deer feeding photos; including one spectacular ray of sunlight…perhaps that is the Deer Gods shining down on him…thanks Dan!

In these images, you’ll see ‘yours truly’ trying to contact someone on the two-way radio and delivering some apples. In the third photo a doe can be seen wondering what happened to the Acorn Rage. I’ve also included a bonus photo of my old friend Grand Daddy…for no other reason than I simply like to stare at him!

Our ‘Whitetail Guru’ friend Rick Poulin just sent-in some excellent ‘Before and After’ photos of a whitetail buck and black bear. Below, Rick Poulin’s trail cam pics show a buck and boar which were later harvested by he and his hunting partner:

Rick’s ‘Before’ bear:

Rick’s ‘After’ bear (the black animal on the left) :

Rick’s ‘Before’ buck:

Rick’s ‘After Buck’:

Finally, here is one of Rick’s favourite trail camera photos; he regards as one of the best he’s ever taken (and you can see why):

Billy of the Valley sent it a close-up shot of his Mega tree-stand which, unfortunately, rules out any chance of a Lady Gaga after party:

Sorry to Terry Alguire for over-looking his collection of trail cam images from 2009 (Obviously Terry is surrounded by a plethora of wild game):

Great looking buck but what the heck happened to his ear? I once had a German Sheppard with a lazy ear like that. Was that an old injury, Terry?

Reader Serge Picard(aka 3D Man) just returned from a successful moose hunt in 15B and provided these incredible timber wolf photos below. After tagging out on moose, Serge tried baiting some bears and these timber wolves showed up.

With all the photos we’ve seen of eastern coyotes (brush wolves) you can sure tell the difference when looking at images of bona fide timber wolves.

Jeff Scharf – who has a hunt camp in Barry’s Bay – is an avid hunter and a follower of the Blog. He told me that while over in Afghanistan he’d log onto the OttawaSun.com whenever he had the chance, just to read the Outdoors Guy. In Jeff’s words; “When you are stuck in the middle of the desert, it was sure nice to read about the hunting and fishing back home’. Thanks Jeff for the fabulous image of two very inquisitive bucks, and best of luck finding them this fall. Great looking owl too..what is that Rick, a Barred Owl??

Here are Savage Joe’s trail cam images taken in the span of just one week. SJ says he is a long-time reader and first time contributor, and from what I see here he needs to contribute more!.

Talk about variety!!!

Here is trout expert Grant Bailey’s contribution of a fine 8-point and some gobblers – showing clearly that the man is much more than just brook trout:

Now, if I have somehow forgotten your trail camera image, please let me know and I’ll post it right away. If anyone else has images they would like to share, let ‘er rip!

Ahhh, isn’t Fall a wonderful time of year when captured on a trail cam…..

Outdoorsguy