Al and Jeff after a successful hunt

Living in Huntsville offers a little shorter hunting season compared to most deer hunting to the south of us. Once Dec 15/ 2010 had passed, I thought that was it. I had come to grips with the fact that 2010 just wasn’t my year. Well, that would all change after getting a call from Al Cavers.

Here it was the 2nd last day of deer season and my buddy Al and I decided we would giver one last try. Both of us had hunted pretty hard and we had seen a lot of deer throughout the season but the right opportunity for me, hadn’t quite presented itself. Al had harvested a deer a few weeks earlier and honestly, I thought my deer hunting days for this year were over.

Al lives down in Manilla Ontario, west of Lindsay Ontario and his deer season didn’t end until December 31. The purpose of Al’s call was to invite me to his place to hunt. He said that he had a couple of climbing tree stands and that he had permission in a couple of spots where there had been a lot of deer activity.

Al and I go way back. You know when you can say you have one, maybe two best friends if you’re lucky in a life time. Well, he’s one of those guys. He’s actually a brother! He’s a real bushman and he knows plenty about the outdoors and especially about hunting and fishing. So when you get a call from Al and he thinks we might have a good chance of getting something, you don’t hesitate. You get in your vehicle and go!

I arrived early in the morning on Dec 29th. We hunted all day in two different spots but came up short.

The next day Al had to leave. He and his family had to head down to southwestern Ontario but not before a last ditch effort morning hunt. So, there we were dragging our sorry butts out of bed at 4:30 AM, driving down a country road and hiking back into the bush in the dark. We hiked through the snow with our bows in our hands and bulky climbing tree stands strapped to our backs.

Now, I’ll be honest, I was a little skeptical about the whole climbing tree stand thing. After all, I had never used one before. I wasn’t skeptical about how they worked or if they worked. I knew they did. I just knew that picking the right tree meant picking one with minimal branches which also meant a tree without a whole lot of cover. I had been busted by deer in the past in situations just like that. In fact, that very morning as daylight fast approached a doe and two yearlings looked right up at me and I swear they grew wings. What ever it was I don’t know, they didn’t like something and in a flash they were gone.

Once again, I thought that was it. I sat down in my stand and not 20 minutes later in full morning light I heard what sounded like deer movement in the snow. I looked to my right and there he was just lightly feeding on small saplings. He began to move away from me and it was at that point I realized I forgot my grunt call. I don’t know if you’ve ever practiced grunt calling with your mouth. But it’s just typical. I can grunt call all day long using my mouth when I’m not deer hunting but stick me in front of a deer in that moment when it counts the most. Well, lets just say my grunt calls that morning weren’t the best.

Call it fate, call it luck, I might even have myself believe that my feeble attempt at calling turned that deer around. What ever it was, he did turn around and began heading my way. At first he approached directly towards me and that wasn’t good for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because there wasn’t a whole lot of ground cover between the deer and me. This can make it difficult to draw your bow. Just when I thought he was going to walk straight in on me he decided to take a little detour behind a small group of  standing cedar.

It was now or never. I took the opportunity to draw my bow. I held until he was open and broadside at about 15 yards. It was at that point after triggering my release, between the shaking and trying to draw a normal breath, I knew I had made a solid hit. After all, the WHACK sound was unmistakable.

How good of a shot was it, I wasn’t sure. Then I looked down at the snow. The red blood trail that followed him into the bush was proof enough that I must have made a good shot. After the shot, he ran and crashed through the bush and dropped at about 50 yards.  What a hunt!!

You want to talk about a celebration between friends. I’m 46 and Al is 45 years young. We’ve known each other since we were ten. It’s moments like that that make you thankful for great friends and thankful to God to be alive!

-Written and submitted by Jeff Dupuis-

So, I paused to take a quiet, deep, icy breath before I made my final approach to my ground blind.  Despite my best efforts to camouflage, reduce my scent profile and predict the wind direction there was nothing I could do about the crunching snow that plagued my every step.  All I could do was make a slow two or three step stalk along my newly cut trail.

The buck on game cam 2

I had only placed game camera #2 on the north corner of my 2-acre property a few days ago.    A deer trail exists here that extends in to the surrounding 900 acres of forest encircling my home. It became a back-up plan to the recently completed rifle season for deer on the family acreage in another location. Cameras there shot some footage of some large bucks, but none were seen during legal shooting hours.

Our redeployed game cam captured an 11-point (with a slight lobster claw) buck walking along the deer trail in my back yard for 2 straight days – just before legal shooting time ended. Which created the reason to create a small ground blind and the inspiration for my noisy stalk.

Finally, I reached a large pine tree that would shield the parts of my body that the freshly-cut evergreen wall in front of me would not. After doubly checking the broad head on my arrow, I knocked it into my compound bow’s drawstring and began ‘the wait’.

The cold wind began to work on the layers that protected my body’s core, but I smiled knowing I was downwind of game cam #2. Confident with my set-up, I grunted twice on my buck call and began to scan the forest in front of me.

Within 20 minutes, I started to hear the subtle steps of a deer. The hard snow was the only thing that helped me pick her up early. By the time I saw the doe, she was 35 yards north west of me.

Immediately, I wished I was 20 feet up in the air. I could tell she sensed that something was not quite right. Her pace slowed and every step was accompanied by numerous ear twitches and looks in my direction. Fortunately, the pine tree beside me was large enough for me to hide behind except for my knocked arrow and a portion of my bow. This was not a play from The Drury playbook.

She allowed to me to watch her for 20 minutes as she closed within 20 yards or me. I could hear her breathing in the cold air that was now starting to creep beyond the shell of my hunting coat and black fleece. For 5 minutes I watched helplessly as she profiled a full broad side shot at 20 yards.

I did not have a 2010 doe tag.

Suddenly – her head snapped back behind her.

What happened next is not clear. I think I moved too quickly from behind my pine tree cloak to see what caught her attention behind her. At that moment, she stomped her front foot and ran back in the direction she came. My cover was blown.

Somewhere, just behind her and just out of reach of game camera #2 (and a shivering bow wielder), a large buck snorted, wheezed and ran straight north into a shower of brown pine and spruce needles with a pinch balsam.

He was never seen on camera #2 until 7 days later – under the cover of a silvery moon. The kind of moon that comes out after bow season ends.

This photo is a submission from, Chris, in Barrie, Ontario. The story surrounding this buck is very interesting. By ‘all rights’ it should have been harvested by another hunter.  Chris, had this to say about his bruiser,

“My brother had told me about a large buck he had seen while hunting – which he thought was a 10 pointer. Unfortunately, for my brother, he had seen the deer twice at close quarters but was unable to take a shot as the buck never gave him that opportunity.

Fortunately for me, 10 minutes after sitting down in my tree stand for the first time out this season, I took the biggest buck of my life with 12 points. This is my first buck with a bow and unofficially scored 143 1/4.”

This Barrie buck scored (unofficially) 143 1/4

Nice work, Chris! Thanks very much for sharing this photo with me.

The antlers measured 67 3/4 inches across, with the measuring tape not being at 90 degrees. This created the conundrum for Tom. A ‘straight-across’ measurement had the rack spreading out at 65 1/2 inches. His moose has a created a media stir, in his area, and he is being visited by The Chronicle to get his story in print. Tom has this to say about his monster moose,

Tom's 2010 Nipigon Bull Moose

“I shot this moose Monday evening with a tikka lite 300 WSM at approximately 300 yards. I have been chasing him for a few days with my group of partners and finally called him in. I do not think he has what it takes to break any records but at any rate he is nice and going above the mantle.”

I appreciate you taking the time to share your photo with our blog visitors, Tom. Please let me know how your moose actually scores. It looks like you have some good people helping you now with the details.

The Boone and Crockett Club have a great online wizard to help hunters score their moose antlers. You can check it out here.

This blogger has been fortunate enough to enter the forest realm of these game birds twice this fall. Both trips have proven that the grouse still has a significant home-field advantage. A third, upcoming, trip could prove to be the end of the bird’s current advantage.

I will be armed with these ‘unofficial’ tenets of grouse hunting:

1. Where there is one grouse, there is more. Do not get frustrated when you scare one grouse out of cover. Shoulder your shotgun and scan the tree (or ground cover) it flew out of. Chances are there is another bird waiting and watching for you to make the next move.

2. Grouse can be bunkered when wet. Not sure where to start your hunt? Look low and under evergreens when hunting for grouse in inclement or cloudy weather. The branches offer protection and dry hiding spots.

3. Grouse can be sun strutters and roosters. On my last grouse hunt, the grouse were invisible until the clouds rolled out and sunny skies moved in. This was when we caught glimpses of them strutting across logging roads or roosting in sun-kissed hardwood branches.

4. Grouse have cloaking technology. When you see a grouse walking into cover, time becomes limited for the hunter. The moment you are sure of your target and what is beyond, waste little time pulling the trigger. Waiting gives the stealthy chickens time to spool up their forest-cloaks hyperdrives and the bird you thought would materialize on the other side of the log will have vanished.

5. Grouse will fly erratically into thick cover. Unless you are hunting grouse along the tree lines of large fields, expect a spooked grouse to fly in a way that makes it difficult to anticipate much lead time. Tree branches will snap, crackle and pop when a grouse flies through them to evade your shotgun’s bead. Try to get them on the ground before they launch.

6. Grouse react to a hunter’s stop. If you see a grouse on the ground, resist the urge to stop, look and raise your gun. Instead (with practice) be fluid in raising your gun while walking and stopping only to aim your bead at the bird’s feathered body. It has been my experience that the grouse become more alarmed by becoming motionless when you suddenly stop and prepare your shot. They will wait until you begin to raise your gun to take off for a more difficult shot.

A cloaked grouse

* My tenets are only generalizations. Tenets may vary in your area

Its silent melody is hard to resist.

Many times I have tried to ignore its charms, and many times the angle of the sun and the comfort of the maple backrest have ushered me into a dreamy slumber. I know I am not the only one.

One particular time, while I was under the influence of ‘The Knob’s enticing song, I awoke to the sound of twigs snapping not far from my feet. When the fog of sleep cleared, I was nearly face to face with two does within a few feet of my boots. The maple tree backdrop hid my presence. Apparently, ‘The Knob’ can mysteriously impact wind conditions because the deer had NO idea I was there!

After several, quick standing attempts and 1 empty magazine, the deer bounced away from ‘The Knob’s’ invisible tendrils without a scratch. I was left standing in the mid-day sun contemplating my next move.

At that moment, ‘The Knob’s’ silent, sleepy song rang out again across the sun-kissed hardwoods. I joined in somewhere on the third verse with a loud snoring refrain.

This was not to be the last time I did something like this. You should probably read my adventure from ‘The Throne” – another great deer watch…

Muskoka Doe used with Permission - by Dave McDougall

With an upcoming moose season, I hope we will snap a few more pictures of these wary animals. For some game camera set-up tips follow this link from Moultrie Game Feeders.

Have you captured a buck or doe (on your camera or game cam) that has reached the top of your Most Wanted List for 2010? Why not enter the Muskoka Outdoors Most Wanted Deer Photo Contest?