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January 14th, 2024 – Montana Hunting Journal Pt. 4, Days 7-10.
On the morning of day 7 we headed back into the spot where we had located elk while scouting on day 1, to be set up and glassing before sunrise. This time opting to walk the last 1.5 miles in as the road was a little sketchy for a pick up. It wasn’t long and we found a herd of elk on a ridge in the burn a little below us about a mile or so away. We sat and watched the elk feed along the top of the ridge until they disappeared over the back side as the sun started to get higher, presumably to bed. We didn’t have a good way over to them from where we were, but we knew of a trailhead we could use that would get us in pretty close so we marked their approximate location on the GPS and headed back for the truck.
It took us about an hour and a half to hike out and drive around to the trailhead and we had our packs on and were on our way in again, looking at about a 2.5 mile hike. It was pretty easy going as we were on a trail most of the way and were actually slowly dropping elevation on the way in. Along the way Linds and I had to stop to squat behind a tree so I told Jake to keep going and we would find him at the top of a little knob we were hoping to locate the bedded elk from. The plan was to circle the elk wide keeping them on our right until we got past them and downwind. We were hopeful we would be able to glass them up again from our new location and then begin to close the distance, and if that didn’t work, we would get the wind in our face and try to still hunt in through the relatively open burnt timber.
As Lindsay and I were headed to meet Jake, we were circling the elk about 500 yards out from their last known location, and suddenly we heard 3-4 “mews” from some cows inside 100 yards directly in front of us! We couldn’t see them for a small rise in front of us but we hunkered down and I checked the wind on my puffer bottle and it was headed straight to them. Worried we were going to blow this second herd of elk out of the country if they winded us, we opted to turn left hard and head straight uphill to try to get a more favourable cross wind and to see if we could see them from the higher ground. It was pretty steep country and with the small undulations in the ground we weren’t able to see into where we thought the elk were, but we could see Jake waiting for us at the top. We climbed up to him and told him what happened and we made a plan for him and I to circle around wide behind them to get the wind in our favour and to see if we could sneak within range, while Linds stayed back in case we happened to bump them back towards her.
Him and I set out making a wide circle into where we had heard the elk “talking,” and when we arrived there was nothing but a mess of tracks in the snow. It didn’t look as though they had left running as though they had winded us, but they had clearly continued on their path of travel. We also noticed the tracks had come from the direction of where the first herd of elk we had spotted that morning bedded down. We followed the tracks about halfway back to the bedding area to realize that it wasn’t a second herd of elk that we heard, but the original herd as they had gotten up on their own and were moving along. As it turns out Lindsay and I missed intercepting them by probably less than 5 minutes.
Jake and I spun around on their tracks and started going in the same direction they were headed knowing they had a pretty good head start on us by this point and followed their tracks for around a mile until they went through a saddle and dropped off onto the other side of the mountain. We decided to go back and regroup with Linds and sit the hillside until dark hoping they would come back through to feed as we were overlooking a bunch of nice grassy meadows. As a bonus we had some decent glassing from where we were sitting to keep us occupied until dark.
Shortly after settling into our spot for the evening we saw a couple of long legs coming though the trees behind us. It was enough to get our hearts racing for the split second it took to realize that it wasn’t an elk, but was in fact a horse topped with a blaze orange cladded rider equipped with a pack and rifle. We watched him go by us at about 75 yards continuing down the ridge, seeming to not have noticed us huddled under a tree below him as he went by. A little defeated that we had some competition we kept our heads up high and stuck out the rest of the evening. The herd of cows never came back through, but about a half hour before dark I glassed up a small bunch of elk in a meadow about 1500 linear yards away from us and probably 500’ or so above us. Even before we were able to set up a spotting scope, we could tell one of the animals was considerably larger than the rest and knew there was at least one decent bull in the mix. The spotting scope confirmed this and we watched as the bull and the few cows with him filtered in and out of this little micro meadow feeding. We didn’t think we had enough time to get over there and make a play that night, as there was no good shooting position to get within range, so the only play would be to try to sneak in close enough to get a shot amongst the burnt trees. We watched the elk feed until dark and begun our hike out with plans to return in the morning.
On our hike out in the dark, and not really to our surprise, we could hear the hoof beats of a horse behind us sharing the same trail. We hopped off the trail to make some room and the other hunter came through and stopped to chat a bit. He was very surprised to see other hunters back in where we were and even more surprised that we hiked in. We chatted for about 20 minutes doing the familiar dance you do with another hunter in the field, toeing the line of comrades but also competitors looking for the same prey, sharing information but vaguely enough as to not give away the animals we were both after. We talked very openly about the herd of cows that went up through the saddle as he was aware of them as well, but we kept “our” bull in our pocket and got the impression he was doing the same with some information. We left hoping we both weren’t after the same animal the next morning.
We got some snow overnight and the road into the trailhead was already a little icy so we threw the tire chains on our rear tires for our drive up. It was my first-time using tire chains and I’ve got to say, holy crap do they make difference! Almost gives one the confidence to try to drive somewhere they don’t have any business going – haha. Anyway, we reached the trailhead and started hiking in knowing we were already behind our friend on the horse as he was camped at the trailhead and we could see the fresh tracks in the snow going in. Undeterred we started out knowing there was a lot of country and a lot of elk back there and hoping we wouldn’t be on the same ones. The storm had broken but left behind a lot of fog in its wake making glassing a challenge, but as soon as we got to our glassing knob Jake threw up his binoculars and said “got them!”
On an exposed hillside made up mostly of shale and loose rock with some patches of grass and the odd burnt tree, there was a nice bull and 7 or 8 cows brightly lit up against the backdrop of the fresh snow. We were about 1200 yards from the elk, but they were on the other side of a large bowl. Going straight would mean dropping down and then climbing back up 1200 vertical feet, and doing so undetected (and safely) in the loose rock would be almost impossible. The much better option would be to side hill around the bowl into their zone, which would be about 1.5 miles from where we were. Lindsay volunteered to stay behind and watch the elk for us flagging with a spare orange vest if they moved, and Jake and I headed out, really hoping to connect as this was his last day before having to head home to Wisconsin the next morning.
We knew they had to have bedded in the timber we were working though and moved out of it to feed in the open early that morning, and we were hopeful we could get over there before the sun warmed them up too much and they moved back into the dark timber to bed. On our way around we found their fresh beds and tracks headed out of the timber from the night before, and we followed them to the edge of the open, steep, shale-y hillside. We knew we were only about 300 yards from where the elk had been feeding, but we couldn’t see them, as they were in a bit of a dip. We could glass Lindsay from our location and she hadn’t moved the orange vest, indicating that the elk were where we had left them. Deciding it would be impossible to get any closer across the loose shale we decided to set up on their tracks where they left the timber and where we had a pretty good field of view, hoping to catch them on their way back to bed.
As fate would have it, elk weren’t the only tracks we saw in the timber that morning. On our way around the bowl, we intercepted fresh horse tracks in the snow, but since we had glassed the elk up in the open and didn’t see any orange, we were hopeful our friend was working into somewhere else and didn’t know about “our” bull. As we got farther into the timber the horse tracks veered left deeper into the woods and we were headed right towards the timber’s edge, so we pushed on hoping we wouldn’t interfere with his hunt, but determined to get an elk. As we sat in the shade of the timber waiting for the elk to work back to us with the rising sun, we heard the familiar BOOM of a rifle behind us in the timber maybe 300 yards away. It wasn’t in our direction or at the elk we were watching, but as we would later learn from Linds, as soon as the shot wrang out the herd we were working took off straight downhill. The icing on the cake was the second shot a few minutes later which pushed the elk the rest of the 1200’ down to the bottom of the canyon where we lost them in the timber altogether.
As a funny side note, Lindsay ended up seeing a post on a hunting in Montana group we are in on Facebook where she recognized a hunter from his horse and dog that we were playing with at the trail head the night before. I reached out and sure enough it happened to be the same guy and we became Facebook friends and bullshitted a fair bit. He is a really good dude who had actually offered to help us pack meat with his horse when we met him on the trail had we happened to kill something. I’m not going to call him out by name but if he happens to read this, congratulations because we later learned that he killed a totally different bull bedded in the timber in behind where we were.
Anyway, Jake and I sat the hillside until the early afternoon in case all of the commotion pushed something our way. Unfortunately, it didn’t and after a while we were getting pretty cold so we made our way back across to Lindsay where she filled us in on what happened with the elk after the gunshots. We sat and glassed from that location until dark but didn’t turn up any more animals. We headed out that evening knowing Jake’s elk hunt was over but hopeful that Linds and I could turn something up with the 10 or so days we had left. We put together a plan to pack everything up in the morning and to head to Great Falls for two nights to resupply, shower, and eat some real food. When we would come back, we were planning to pack in our tent and woodstove and to spike out into where we had been seeing the elk to save the hour of driving and 1.5-2 hours of hiking in and out each day. Hopeful that after a couple of quiet days some elk new or the same, would be back in that secluded basin.
On the morning of day 9 we said goodbye to Jake and we headed off to the city where we enjoyed a lot of sleep and some really good food at a couple of restaurants. As usual, we also spent a good bit of time and a bit of money at the local Scheel’s as well! On the evening of day 10 we swapped our smaller bags for our bigger spike out bags on pack frames and packed all of the gear we would need for our first true spike out adventure the next morning.
January 7, 2024 – Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Well since my last hunting journal update (more to come this week), we spent the last week of deer season down at our cabin, came home in time to have a few family dinners and Christmas in Dryden, and then back home for a few short days before Lindsay, Cedar, and I headed into Press for New Year's Eve! We have had an extremely busy, but fun filled fall and holiday season with very brief stops at home before heading off again. We are back home for a while now that the holidays are over and it has given us a chance to slow down a bit, unpack, and start to get ready for some serious ice fishing. We don't have nearly as much travel planned for this winter as we did last year, and are looking forward to a winter with a little more time at home to adventure in our own backyard.
The end of deer season was a little slow as we had unseasonably warm weather through December. The last week of the season (closing December 15th) saw temperatures rarely dipping below freezing and virtually no snow. We were getting lots of pictures of deer but almost exclusively at night as they became very nocturnal in the warm weather. The warm weather did make for more comfortable sits in the tree stand then we are used to in December, however. We were hopeful to get one more deer for the freezer, but with only buck tags it made for a tough hunt until the last day of the season when a little broken spiker came out to Lindsay's bait pile and she was able to close out our season on a high note!
The availability of natural food sources for the deer was a lot higher this winter making them much less dependent on bait in December than they usually are. Of course this contributed to the more difficult hunting, but should be beneficial to the deer herd with such abundant food reserves and easier and warmer conditions. I don't mind a tough season of hunting every now and then if it helps out the herd health.
Coming home from the cabin marked the end of the 2023 hunting season for us and left us with about a week before Christmas to finish holiday preparations and to start to settle back into the house. We had a wonderful Christmas with Lindsay's family in Dryden and then again with Mom here in Ignace. The weather remained incredibly warm right through December with virtually no snow fall. In fact on on our drive to Dryden on Christmas Eve, it was about 40 degrees and raining. After Christmas we saw more rain and some colder temperatures which froze the rain water over night leaving virtually all of North Western Ontario covered in very slippery ice. It was dangerous even trying to walk outside for a few days between Christmas and New Years, but fortunately has gotten a lot better.
Since we still didn't have very much snow and the slippery ice was mostly covered, travel became much easier, so we decided to drive into camp for New Years. Lindsay, Cedar, and I drove up on New Years Eve and spent a very peaceful two nights out at camp. We didn't bring any fishing equipment, but just went up to check things out and to spend some quiet time together after the busy hunting and holiday season, and it was a really nice and quiet trip! This marks the first time in Press Lake Camp's history that we could drive into camp in December/January in a truck without the aid of a plow. We drove up for one Christmas up there when I was really young, but even that trip required us plowing the road open. This has been one of the strangest winters I have seen in my life.
The few times we have spent time at camp in the winter we have learned it is much easier to stay in and heat a cabin, rather than the main lodge, so we spent this trip in Cabin 2. Pictured below are some nice venison chops and potatoes we made for New Year's Eve dinner, and some pics of camp and the drive in. It sure is beautiful up there in the winter!
The weather still hasn't changed too much in the new year. Temps are getting colder with highs in the teens and lows around zero overnight. Yesterday marked the first real snowfall we have had and I would say we have maybe 6" of light fluffy snow at the most. Despite the warm weather the ice conditions are really good, as we were seeing cold enough temperatures at night to make ice as there hasn't been any snow on top to insulate it. We are actually yet to get out fishing (will be changing that here very soon) but have heard anywhere from 9-12" of good solid ice depending on the lake. I believe we will still be able to get into camp despite the fresh dusting of snow we received, so we are hoping to make at least one more trip up there before we get more. This time we will be bringing the fishing gear and snowmachine to see if we can find some walleye. Our plan is to do a little fishing around Ignace in the next couple of days, and then plan another trip up north for a few nights.
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and we wish you all the best for 2024! We are looking forward to seeing everyone again this summer! Stay tuned for more hunting journal updates from this fall and an ice fishing report once we get out on the hard water.
Ryan
December 6th, 2023 – Montana Hunting Journal Pt. 3, Days 5&6.
On the morning of day 5 we set up to glass a new section of coulee, farther down then we had previously gone. We had a slower start to the morning not seeing a lot of deer, but turning up a few pockets of does and a couple of younger bucks cruising between them. We did see one very nice buck emerge from some buckthorn that I was very interested in, but in a matter of 20 or so minutes we watched him cruise about a 1/2 mile down the canyon bottom, up over the bank to the flat top and quickly out of our sight and out of our lives. I guess he didn't find the doe he was looking for. It is truly incredible how quickly and how much ground a deer can cover out there cruising at a walking pace.
We also turned up our spike elk again this morning and to our surprise he had gained a friend, one more spike elk. They were probably another mile down the canyon from us and fed out of view so we decided to make a mid morning move in their direction. The plan was to move maybe 1/4 mile or so at a time stopping at various vantage points to glass around and see what we could turn up. Well the day was very quickly heating up as the sun rose and by around 11:00 am it was in the mid 60's. Moving along the canyon bottom we found an easy spot to climb part way up the bank on the west side of the coulee, and decided to sit down on a flat spot to cool off and eat some lunch.
When we stopped we were all sweating from hiking with our layers from earlier in the morning still on, so we took the opportunity to strip down a bit. I peeled out my base layer top and put my orange vest on without a shirt, had taken my zip off base layer bottoms off from under my pants (zip off bottoms are great for taking off without having to untie your boots), and had taken off my boots to air out my feet. We were sitting there casually chatting, eating, and enjoying the beautiful weather, not really expecting to see much for deer. With most of our focus on what we could see with our binoculars down canyon we had been ignoring what was in our immediate vicinity, until Lindsay said "Hey, there are a couple deer straight across the coulee from us on the other bank. I think one is a buck!"
Well, we all dropped our food and lowered our voices as we pulled up our binoculars to see a very nice buck cruising and feeding on the hillside opposite us with a few does. I quickly pulled my rifle off my pack and got laid down behind it building myself a shooting platform and told Jake to grab his spotter and let me know if he thought it was a shooter buck. I grabbed the range at 350 yards and dialed my scope while Jake told me it looked like a pretty good buck. I found him in my rifle scope and agreed and decided this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. 350 yards is the farthest I have shot at game thus far, although I practice at that distance and beyond as much as possible at home, so I took the time to line up and dry fire on the deer once. Everything felt really solid and I was very confident so I chambered a round and waited for the deer to turn broadside once more. That only took him a couple of seconds and I was squeezing the trigger. The rifle jumped and I saw the deer buck hard and head about 40 yards into some buckbrush with one of his front legs clearly not working properly. We knew he was hit hard and did not see him come out of the brush so we began celebrating and laughing that I had just shot a really nice buck and wasn't even wearing any boots!
After the shot we finished eating and got our gear together and headed down our side of the canyon to go start the steep climb up his side. It didn't take Jake and I very long and we found him piled up in the buckthorn exactly where we expected to, but we couldn't believe how big the body of the deer actually was. He had a very nice rack being a cool 3x3 with eye guards, but he actually scored lower than Lindsay's buck from this year, and my mule deer from 2022. But despite the size of the antlers he is by far the biggest bodied and most rutted up buck I have ever shot. At the base, his neck has to be bigger than a basketball, and the goo from his tarsal glands was running down his back legs like tree sap. He was on a very steep bank so we tied paracord to him at the front and back ends and worked him down the bank slowly to where we could work on him on flat ground and get the meat in the shade as we broke him down.
A few hours later and we had full packs again and started our 3 mile pack out while we still had some daylight. We got back to the truck shortly after dark all smiles as we had filled all 3 of our deer tags. We decided we would take the next morning off of hunting to finish butchering out all of our deer that we had been keeping on ice in Jake's HUGE Yeti 210, and a had a couple of drinks to celebrate that night.
The next morning Jake and I got to work butchering out the already deboned deer meat and Linds made a supply run to Great Falls to get us dry ice. For those who don't know, if you put dry ice on the bottom of a cooler it will act as a fridge. If you put the dry ice on top of your meat, the cold sinks and it will freeze the meat underneath it solid. Just be sure to add a couple layers of cardboard to prevent freezer burn and leave a vent plug loose as dry ice turns to CO2 as it sublimates and it can pressurize your cooler to the point of eruption - haha.
We got done our butchering midday on day 6 and decided we had enough time to go check out our deer spot one more time just to rule out if those elk were still around or not. We hadn't seen the two spikes since the morning of day 5 and were pretty sure there weren't any more elk in there, but we had to check it out one last time to be certain. We hiked almost 5 miles down the coulee in search of them and were only able to turn up more deer. And as luck would have it of course the best buck we had spotted so far was on this day, after we filled all of our tags. But that's alright we were all extremely happy with the deer we took, and satisfied there weren't any elk around we hiked our 5 miles back out in the dark planning on heading up into the mountains in the morning.
December 5th, 2023 – Montana Hunting Journal Pt. 2, Days 3&4.
Well on day 3 we decided to sleep in a while as we were pretty tired from packing deer so late the night before, and Jake would be driving through the night and arriving sometime mid morning. He was towing a camper across country with him and we got the text that he had arrived at our camping spot and was going to grab a little sleep before we got there. Linds and I packed up our motel room and headed up into the national forest to find Jake and swap the deer story from the night before. While chatting a CO from Montana FWP drove by and saw us in orange with the deer skull and stopped in to say hi. He checked to make sure we all had our licenses in order and then we all shot the shit for a few minutes and he told us there had been a herd of elk in where we were deer hunting. We had heard this information once already but he was able to show us the private land they had moved out onto in case we wanted to set up on the land we could hunt, and try to catch them coming back. We thanked him for the info and he was off!
It didn't take too long and we were settled into Jake's camper so we headed out to go verify his rifle. The day was waning but I figured if we hurried we would be able to get back into our deer spot with the last hour of daylight and thought that might be enough time to make something happen. Lindsay decided since she had filled her tag and she was still tired she was going to stay back at the camper for the night hunt, and Jake and I headed out to search for a buck.
After about a 20 minute drive and an hour or so hike we were arriving at the little cliffy edge of the coulee that we like to glass from. There is a great view of the canyon floor from there running up and down the coulee, as well as a great view of the opposing bank catching deer coming in and out of the canyon. It also sets us up to be in a position where deer will work the canyon bottom underneath the cliff edge and within rifle range without having to move. Well as we reached the cliff edge and were admiring the view of the open country Jake looked right below us and said "Hey, there's a deer!"
We threw up the binoculars and directly below us, 200 yards away, was a buck feeding with a small group of does. I asked Jake if he wanted to shoot it and his reply was "Let me get a look at it in the scope, but I think so." So we sat down quick and took off our packs. Jake built a rest to shoot off of and started checking out the buck. He was nice enough to ask me if I wanted to shoot it and I said "No, you take him. You spotted him anyway." With that we hadn't been to our spot more than 3 minutes and the first shot rang out. I confirmed to Jake it was a hit, but the buck just took a couple steps forward and was looking around as though nothing had happened. Another shot rang out and this time the buck kicked good and hard, but otherwise didn't move. I confirmed that Jake smoked him that time for sure, but the deer was seemingly unphased. It turned around and started to head the direction it had been coming from and we could see blood pouring out of the exit wounds, but the deer started to take a few steps headed for some thick buckthorn. A third shot rang out and I watched the bullet impact with the group of exit wounds from the first two shots, and to our surprise the buck was still on his feet. Well, that wasn't the case for long and he tipped over in his tracks, somehow absorbing 3 well placed shots from a .300 Win. Mag.
After getting the high fives and hugs out of the way (and some laughs about how quickly everything came together) we started off down the bank to go check out Jake's first muley.
A couple of hours later and we had packs full of meat and were headed for the trucks. My second pack out in two days and it felt great! We got back to the trailer and celebrated with a great dinner of butter and herb basted tender loins, stovetop stuffing, and instant mashed potatoes (which frankly have come a LONG way)!
The next morning we headed back out to check out some different country in the same area. We killed two bucks in two days pretty close together so figuring that area was a little blown out we wanted to go a little farther to see if we could stumble into the elk we had heard about, and to try and find another good buck. We spent the day glassing and saw quite a few deer, but no bucks that caught my eye enough to initiate a stalk. We spent the day glassing some really big country and enjoying the visibility and all of the amazing views. Of course I'm not great at taking pictures that don't have animals in them, but we did get a little excited when we saw this guy cruising solo:
Not the best picture as it is a screen grab from a video but we spotted a lone spike elk wandering near the bottom of the canyon abut a mile or so down from us. Unable to shoot a spike with our tag (branch antlered bulls, or cows only) we didn't make a play but were hopeful he wasn't alone. That was the excitement for the day as we spent the entire day glassing and didn't chase anything. Excited to come back the next morning to try to locate the elk, and hopefully our third buck, we hiked out to get some sleep.
December 4th, 2023 – Montana Hunting Journal Pt. 1, Days 1&2.
Hi All,
So this year I am actually going to get my butt in gear and get a recap of our hunt out west up on the blog while it is still fresh on my mind. I meant to do the same last year but we seemed to have a lot going on and I just didn't get around to it. I'll be starting today with a recap of our first two days in the field, and will continue with daily updates on here with single or multi-day recaps. I'll be gone to our deer cabin for a week or so on Thursday to finish up our deer season here at home, so there will be a little break in the posts but I'll be sure to finish them up when I get back next week.
We left home on November 7th this year, opting to break the drive up over 2 days instead of driving straight through like we did last year. We got the bulk of the driving out of the way the first day, and only had about 5 short hours to Great Falls on the 8th, where we make our last few stops to grab gas and the last of our supplies. Another 45 minutes or so drive south and we were checking into our motel room that would be home for the next 3 nights. We had plenty of daylight left after getting checked in, so we took the opportunity to run up into the mountains and verify that our rifles were on and ready to go after travelling and changing altitude. Once dialed we headed back to our room to get some sleep so we could start scouting the next day.
Deer and elk season were both already open and we had each had a tag for both species. Since we were in Montana for the last 17 days of the regular rifle season, we took the first day to assess access into some different hunting areas that would be new to us this year. The plan was to see how the roads getting in there were and then spend a few hours glassing around to see if we could locate any animals. Carrying our rifles in case the opportunity to take something presented itself, but ultimately just scouting and seeing what was around. My friend Jake from Wisconsin would be joining us for a week starting on the 11th, so we were hoping to get the drop on some elk up in the mountains, were hoping to have some deer located in the foothills and if possible, have one down and packed out for a head start before his arrival. We headed out early on the 9th to begin our day 1 scouting...
The weather was A LOT different this year compared to last. In the lower elevation foothills there was no snow and the temps felt like beautiful fall days hitting the mid 60s at times. At higher altitude there was maybe a 6" snow pack and temps would be cooler but still ultimately very warm for this time of year. We headed out early in the morning to drive up to a burn to start scouting. We ended up driving down a road that was certainly passable (as we were driving on other truck tracks) but was a little narrow at times for our liking with a few good 40' drops if you were to slip off the side. Unable to turn around we kept poking along knowing that there would be a spot to turn around eventually as the other trucks that had gone in there must have. Eventually reaching our destination we hiked in the last little bit to our glassing knob and within 5 minutes we spotted a herd of elk out feeding about a mile from us.
We glassed around a while longer and didn't see much more so we headed off to check access to a nearby trailhead. We drove up to the trailhead only to realize that we had both forgotten the adapters to attach our binoculars to our tripods on the ground at the last spot. In the excitement of finding the elk we forgot to put them away, so back down we went. Not wanting to drive the last part of the road again we decided to hike in the 1.5 miles to grab our gear and back out again. Leaving our packs behind and going in fast and light made for a quick, but annoying trip back in to where we just were. After reclaiming our gear we set out to go a little farther south to check out a different burn. This one was farther back in and at a higher elevation and the road looked a little too snowed in for our liking to try to get the 13 miles back in we wanted, so we decided to take that spot off the table for this season. With an unexpected free afternoon, we decided to head down to the foothills to begin scouting for deer, which we had been planning on starting to scout and hunt the next morning.
We spent a great afternoon glassing up lots of pockets of does and seeing a few decent bucks out cruising from group to group looking for a hot doe. After watching deer until dark we headed back to our room excited about what tomorrow was going to bring.
The next morning we settled into our glassing position bright and early. We had a slow morning and early afternoon glassing. We saw some deer but not as many as the evening before, but we were confident that as the evening approached things would pick up. We moved once mid day to gain a different vantage and around 2:30 Linds glassed up a really nice buck that fed over the backside of a little knob and was was feeding and bedding with a doe on a little bench. At about 3 they were still there and looking like they weren't going anywhere so we decided to make a play on them. We were hunting in coulee country and glassing from a high point on one of the banks to see the canyon below us. We would have to drop down a couple hundred feet into the bottom and work our way down towards them and then climb back up into a shooting position.
We grabbed our gear and headed out making better time then expected getting over there. Operating on waypoints that we had dropped for a rough location of the deer and a location we figured we would be able to shoot them from, we began climbing up their side of the canyon. While climbing we checked the wind and it had been swirling around and was now blowing directly to the deer making it impossible for us to get to our shooting location without bumping them. This left us with the only option of circling around past them and coming up behind them, however doing so would mean we would be climbing up onto the bench they were on and would be within archery range before we could actually see them. We started creeping up the backside of their hill dropping our packs midway. The rest of the way up was incredibly noisy as all of the leaves and grass were very dry and crispy, but much to my surprise when we slowly rose up over the hill I could see the bucks big white hind end and rack as he was browsing.
The doe was a little higher on the hillside up from their bench, and unfortunately picked us off as soon as we started to rise up. She knew something was there but didn't completely blow out, she just kept working higher up the hillside staring at us trying to figure out what she saw. Hunkered down and unable to move or make a play on the buck we had to wait as we watched this doe slowly move farther higher and across the bank stopping every few steps to look back. We expected to see the buck start to work up the hillside following her but to our surprise he didn't, and she was finally out of our sight and we could move again. We rose up to check for the buck and we couldn't see him. I figured he did one of three things, moved into the thick buckthorn he was feeding on and we couldn't see him, moved south and down off the side of the hill into the bottom of the canyon, or worked north and over a fence onto private property.
We rose over the top of the hill we had been huddled behind and I went to check the canyon bottom and Linds went to my right to check the neighboring property. After just a few steps each in opposite directions, the buck exploded out of the buck brush right in front of us and started up the hill the same way the doe went. Linds had her back to the action but I whisper yelled and got her attention. She turned and saw the buck cruising up the hill and I was able to stop him at about 100 yards with a grunt. Unfortunately he was broadside to me but too severely quartered away from Linds for her to take a shot. With her scope still on its lowest setting she dropped to one knee to get more steady and the buck started walking uphill again. Another grunt and he stopped again this time around 150 yards and perfectly broadside to her. Wasting no time I heard a shot ring out and the buck kicked hard and headed uphill towards a fence and private property. I yelled for her to shoot him again to stop him but as we went up the hill she never had another shot. We watched as his head and front end got lower and lower as he approached the fence and I knew he didn't have enough in him to jump it. As it turned out he didn't even have enough to make it and fell over a few feet shy and way laying there dead. Linds had her first ever mule deer on our second day of the trip!
We drug the buck down onto the bench where we originally spotted him to butcher him out and few hours later he was deboned and in our packs and we were starting our 2 mile pack out. It was a bit of a grind seeing as we hadn't gotten used to the elevation yet and had an entire deer split between us along with our gear, but it wasn't too bad and we got the deer out in one trip. We got back to our room after midnight and were excited to sleep in a little and to go meet Jake when he arrived the next day.
To Be Continued...
November 6, 2023 – Another Season Has Come and Gone!
Hi All,
I would like to start this off by giving a big thank you to everyone who vacationed with us this year! This was the first summer that felt truly normal since Covid and it was so great to see so many familiar faces and a lot of new ones as well. I think it's fair to say that everyone is excited to be able to travel uninhibited again (us too), and camp was as busy as ever! It was a great season and above average temperatures through the fall made it a nice and easy shut down for us.
I've got to make this post fairly quick as we are putting together the last of our gear to head off to Montana tomorrow morning for our annual elk hunting trip. After a very busy season we are really looking forward to spending a couple of weeks in the mountains chasing mule deer and elk. Closing down camp and the month of November is a bit of a blur for us, it's a LOT of fun, but it is hectic. We were home from camp for one full day and night two weeks ago, before heading down to our deer property for a week of whitetail hunting. Then home for a very short three days to do laundry and repack before heading out the door again tomorrow. Our house is a mess of boxes and storage totes everywhere, but that's December's problem!
The deer hunting was slow, despite the weather turning cold and snowy just in time for opening day, but we were there about a week too early. We saw lots of does and fawns and a couple of spiker bucks, but nothing we wanted to take with only buck tags. Of course the last two days we were there we started to see the first fresh rubs, scrapes, and signs of rut, and then the evening of the day we left my target buck came out in daylight and I have a nice picture of him in front of one of our tree stands - haha. But hey, that's hunting! That same night we actually had a new bigger buck cruise by as well and who knows what else the rut will bring. We will be back down there for a bit in December and will hopefully be lucky enough to see him.
We had a very successful moose hunt this year with two bulls being taken during archery season, another two during rifle as well as a cow. My group of friends got an additional calf so far, and we are hoping to fill our cow tag before the season closes on December 15th. Fishing through the end of the season was a little spotty. There were days where they were biting great and others that they were slower and extremely scattered. We had very strange weather this fall where it would be close to a frost and then two days later it was 70 and sunny, and then two more days later it was close to a frost again and storming. A lot of weird pressure changes and the fish didn't seem to have time to settle back into schools between storms, but plenty of walleye were found to eat and lots of good fall bass fishing was to be had as well.
With the average temp warmer than usual right through the end of our season, I noticed two big differences this year. The first is that the lake hadn't turned over by the time we left, which is very odd as it usually does early to mid October depending on weather. Secondly, a lot of the poplar trees still had leaves on them when they are usually totally deforested by the end of October. It was a beautiful but strange sight leaving camp with fall colours still in the trees. The water was at an all time low when we left camp so we need to hope for a decent snow pack this winter and a wet spring. Two years ago was the lowest I had ever seen Press, and I think this year topped it. The narrows on the north side of The Big Island was basically unpassable unless you were in a small boat and pushing through with a paddle. The southern narrows weren't a whole lot better, especially if you got out of the channel into the mud flats which usually resulted in the boat getting stuck in the mud. Here's to hoping it will look different in the spring or we could be starting at a real deficit.
Well I should get back to packing! I'll be writing up a big post when we get back with all the stories from our trip and hopefully some great pictures as well. I will be sure to get a few of the fall fishing and moose hunting pictures up then as well. Might need a two part post - haha. We will will be gone for about three weeks, but if you need to get a hold of us please just email or call and leave a message and we will get back to everyone when we get home. Booking inquiries are handled in the order that they are received, but thanks to all of you guys we have very few vacancies for next year!
Ryan
September 13, 2023 – We Had Our First Frost!
Hi All,
It has been a very busy summer so I haven't been as diligent at updating the blog as I should be, so my apologies. Lindsay has taken over updating our socials (which has been very well received!) and has been doing a great job of posting a lot of pictures on there weekly, so I hope that suffices in my absence on here. We are by no means getting away from doing the blog for those who don't pay as much attention to social media, so we will still be here as well. I will be trying to get back to monthly updates on the blog at least. We have been receiving a lot of picture submissions since she has been getting the weekly posts up, and we really appreciate everyone who has sent them in! Without pictures we can't do a Walleye Wednesday and a Fish Friday, so thank you!
The weather has been sporadic lately to say the least. Early last week we had temperatures in the 90's, immediately followed by a big cold front pushing the temps down into the 40's, and with that came a pretty major storm. We were very lucky that we didn't get hit too bad out here at camp, but unfortunately Ignace was a different story. Ignace had a half hour of extremely high winds knocking down trees all over town damaging property. Some folks had damage to their rooves or their homes and sadly our friends at Ignace Airways had their twin otter damaged pretty badly. We are happy to have avoided the storm but are really feeling for all of those affected. Since the storm we have seen overnight temperatures down in the 35-45 range, but the days have been absolutely beautiful and sunny with highs reaching 65-70. Last night was our coldest night yet however, and we did see our first frost of the season. I think it is safe to say that fall is here, but this is my favorite weather and time of year. It's great having the woodstove going in the evenings, nice and cool to sleep at night but warm during the day, and best of all: NO MOSQUITOS!
The fishing has been a little more volatile with the sudden pressure changes associated with the weather we have been having. Lately groups have been having about 2 days a week where they are a little less aggressive but otherwise are absolutely hammering as usual. I think now that the weather has stabilized a little bit we will stop seeing those slower days in the mix, or will have fewer of them at the very least. The fish are pretty much where they should be for this time of year, we are still seeing lots of numbers and size being caught on humps and structure adjacent to deeper water. As the water temps are cooling we are starting to see the beginning of the fish transitioning back into some shallower water along rocky shore lines and weed edges. My recommendation is still to work the humps, and if you want to cruise some of the other habitat nearby it is certainly worth your time. Here are a few nice fish caught since my last post (my apologies if they overlap with what Linds has been posting):
Despite getting some periodic rain, the lake has continued to drop most of the summer and the water levels are very low. I would say with the exception of 2021, this is the lowest I have seen the lake. Both narrows and the Rock Gardens can still be navigated, but require attention, and some of the reefs (7-70 for example) are shallow enough that they can be hit. Hopefully we will get a bit of rain this fall and a lot of watershed from our snow pack to bring things back to normal for next spring.
As our fishing season is beginning to come to a close we are excited to welcome that cool air that feels like hunting season. So far duck season is open and we have been out once without any luck. Sadly the big storm we had pushed most of the local birds south before the season opened, but it won't be too long before we have some more birds joining the ranks from up north. on the 15th grouse season opens and we are pretty excited to get some "bush chickens" for the freezer, and on the 23rd archery season opens for moose and we will be welcoming our first groups of moose hunters. It's crazy that another season has almost come and gone, but we are eagerly waiting for our favorite time of year and all of the hunting we have planned - stay tuned!
Ryan
July 28, 2023 – Hard To Believe We’re Almost Half Way Through The Season
Hi All,
I apologize for not getting a post up here sooner. A few weeks ago I had an aunt pass away and was gone most of the week to the Toronto area to visit family and attend the funeral. Once home, it took a little while to get caught back up and get everything back to normal, but we are all caught up again and I figured it was about damn time I get a post up on the blog - haha!
Well, despite the incredibly dry spring and early summer we had, for the last month or so we have been getting lots of rain. It was well needed as I'm sure everyone knows that Canada has been on fire. That is still the case out west, but locally we have seen our fire ban lifted, and the grass in the yard is actually green again. Not to mention the yard and the road on the drive in aren't so dusty, and smoke from the wildfires is basically nonexistent at this point. Water levels are low, but not outrageously so. However, had we not got that rain I think it would be a much different story. Getting into Hut is still possible although getting more and more difficult, especially with larger boats.
Fishing has remained pretty incredible all year. I am seriously not kidding when I say that since the border has been open I hear weekly that the fishing is the best groups have ever had, and the fish are consistently the biggest they have seen. We haven't seen a large influx of really big (say 27" +) walleye, but the average size now seems to be running 17-21". However, we did have a massive walleye caught by Laverne on his 88th birthday. This 32" giant made for a pretty special birthday present!
Lindsay has started upping our social media presence with weekly Walleye Wednesday posts, and has been reaching out for photos from everyone's trip. So far we have been getting quite a few so a big thank you to everyone sending in pictures, and if you haven't sent any and have some good ones, please forward them along! Below is a nice sample of some of the submissions and the walleye being caught this summer:
The walleye are definitely in the deeper water now and are being found on the shoulders of reefs and sharp drop offs in anywhere from 15-25' of water. 7 Pine Island, Gull Rock, Rosie's Rock, and The Flats are producing heavily as are just about any other structure found. Walleye are still being caught in good numbers in the current of the English River, whether it be upstream or down, but as the year goes on those fish tend to start running a little smaller than the ones being caught on the reefs.
The northern fishing has been phenomenal as well. We have seen several fish 40"+ so far this summer and a LOT between 35-40". The smallmouth bite had slowed down a bit a few weeks ago, but seems to be picking back up again for those targeting them. I have heard of a lot of nice bass being caught this week.
Lastly, we have received some pretty cool sunrise and shore lunch pictures, especially since the fire ban has been lifted.
Otherwise not too much is new around here. This summer has been the first to really feel "normal" since Covid and it sure is nice to be back into our regular rotation and seeing everyone up here and enjoying our fishing once again. The season is almost halfway done and like usual I can't believe how fast it goes.
Ryan
June 8, 2023 – We Are Rolling!
Hi All,
I apologize for not getting any posts up here yet, as we are already into the third week of our season. Getting into camp a little late (only 10 days before our first guests!) made our first month or so pretty busy, but we are starting to get caught up and back into our normal weekly routines. Opening up camp this spring thankfully went without a hitch. We went from battling snow and colder conditions through about the middle of May, and then everything flipped and we were faced with one of the hottest springs I have ever seen. I say "spring" a little in jest because we lost the ice on the lake in 3 days, and within that week started seeing days over 80 degrees! We didn't really get too much of a spring this year.
We were blasted with 10-12 days of extremally hot and dry weather through the end of May and into Early June. Fortunately, it has started to cool off a bit with the highs closer to a more normal 70-75, however it has remained very dry and we are currently in a fire ban. We don't have any fires too close to us here, and I'm hopeful it will stay that way. Canada of course has a number of larger fires out west which is flooding you guys to the south with smoke. I have received a few emails inquiring about the smoke conditions up here and so far we are very clear. We aren't currently affected by the smoke from out west and there isn't anything local enough to be smoking us out.
And now, for the paragraph you've all been waiting for: FISHING! So far the walleye fishing has been really good all year. Through the first two weeks of our season they were still being found in the rivers in shallower warm water. We were surprised to see them in the rivers so late this year, especially considering the hot bright weather we had for weeks in a row. As this week has progressed the walleye have begun to move out of the smaller rivers into the lake, but are still being caught in the English River at both ends of the lake, with the Rock Gardens really starting to shine. on the main lake the walleye are beginning to be found in the shallow warmer water along weed beds and wind blown rocky shores, and I imagine within a few weeks we should start to see some being caught on shallower reefs. Presentation has been very typical, a jig tipped with a minnow or your choice of live bait seems to be the best, but of course plenty of fish are being caught on artificial bait as well as lures and crank baits. Average size has been 16-21" with the biggest of the year at 28.5".
The small mouth and northern fishing have also been phenomenal all year. The smallies were on nests through the first couple of weeks of the season and were aggressively hammering just about any bait that came to close to home. I think they are still on nests in some cases but are also starting to branch out and feed a bit, and as a result are still aggressively hitting baits to recover from their spawning season. We have had a few northern over 40" caught already as well. Some were targeted, but as usually is the case most of them were caught by anglers fishing for walleye and ended up hooking into a giant that is there to feed on those same walleye. The English River towards the Old Bridge has been producing a number of very large northern, as it tends to.
We haven't received too many photos from guests yet so if you have or take any from your trip please forward them along! We love getting pictures up on here and our social media pages for all to see. Here are the few we have this year so far:
We would also like to give a big thank you and shout out to Fred and Mary Winchowky for sending us a new flag. For those who made it up last year you probably noticed we didn't have our flags flying as we usually do. This certainly wasn't by design, but was because we were having a hard time sourcing good outdoor flags that will last an entire season, and because our old ropes had broken and the poles needed to come down in order to be re-strung. Anyway receiving two new flags and a wonderful card in the mail this winter was just the kick in the butt we needed to get the poles fixed and the flags back up. Thanks again Fred and Mary!
Otherwise all is going well at camp and we really happy to be back to normal and seeing everyone again. This is the first summer since Covid that has felt "normal" and we are sure glad for it. Mom is doing well and is making a great recovery from her broken arm, she is very happy to be out of a cast and just in a brace now. She is still up on the weekends helping us out with cleaning and getting a chance to see and visit with everyone. Keep an eye out on Friday nights through Saturday if you are looking to say hi!
Ryan
BOOKED!! LAST MINUTE VACANCY – JUNE 3 – 10, 2023
Hey folks!!
We just received a cancelation for June 3rd - 10th of this year. This vacancy is NEXT SATURDAY!! I am also discounting this cabin again, waiving all minimums and offering it up at 30% off. This means if you are able to fill this last minute vacancy, it will only cost $250 per person for the week. There is a small catch though - this cabin is only available this year, as it is spoken for in future years. The cabin available is cabin #2, which is a 2 bedroom each room has a Queen bed, and twin bunks.
This discount is only being offered on this booking, this year only. The option to book this cabin next year will not be available.
Give us a call at 807-934-6911 asap to snag this spot!