February 26th, 2025 – We are off in 11 days!
Hi All,
Well, it has proven to be every bit of busy of a winter as one would expect when getting ready to leave for a little over a month – haha. I apologize I haven’t gotten much up here this winter, but to be honest we haven’t had a lot to write about lately. After getting home from hunting this fall in early December, and then getting through the holidays, we have been in full go mode. Lindsay and I have only been ice fishing once this winter together, and I got out twice more with a couple buddies on an annual trip near Thunder Bay. I think this is the 6th year we have done this trip and we are finally getting a few spots figured out. 4 of us were able to limit out on these 8 beauties in under an hour. We still have some work to do on a reliable walleye spot though.
Mom is doing well, but definitely needs a little more help. We are at her place a couple times a day usually to visit and give her a ride anywhere she needs to go. She is still very involved in various activities in the community and at Silver Tops, our local seniors center. Some days I’m bringing her to and from there 2-3 times! It’s good to see her so involved still, and now that we are seeing some warmer temperatures, we have been getting out to walk Cedar almost daily as well.
The weather has remained a yo-yo all winter, still cycling from very cold to quite a bit warmer and precipitating. That precipitation had been a lot of snow until this week, where the warmer temperatures climbed above freezing and we got some rain/freezing rain. The wetness is annoying but the warm temps have been a really nice change! I’m sure we are yet to get some more snow this winter, but we are already in good position for the spring and we should expect decent water levels at the very least. Definitely needed after the low water conditions we have seen a couple of the last few years.
We didn’t go out west this fall to chase elk and muleys, but instead toured across the Midwest to visit friends, and to refill our freezer with venison after losing one and it’s contents this summer. It wasn’t as big of an adventure so I figured I wouldn’t do a dedicated hunting journal, but just talk about our trip a bit here. The fall started with a quick week down at our deer cabin with friends. The weather was a little warm and we were a little early for the rut, so we saw lots of does and a couple spikers but nothing that really grabbed our attention. Linds took a spiker for some meat for some friends of ours that weren’t able to get out hunting as much this fall.
Afterwards, we came home from the cabin for about 10 days before we were headed south of the border to Michigan. We spent a week there visiting, shooting a couple deer, and of course drinking too many beers. Lindsay and I each took a small buck there and I shot a doe as well. It was an absolute blast as it always is, it’s hard to beat a classic Midwest deer camp.
After Michigan, we headed to Indiana for another week of more of the same, lots of time spent up in a tree. It was another great week, and we saw a ton of deer in both states. I was able to take the best buck of the trip there, a decent 8 pointer. By no means a giant but a decent deer and more meat for the freezer. Linds was holding out for a big guy, and had a glimpse of a really good one we had trail cam pics of, probably in the 150-160 class, but unfortunately had no shot. We also enjoyed a couple of nightshifts doing some predator management on some coyotes. It was our first time doing that, and we had a blast hunting them at night with thermals and night vision. Definitely stuff we are not allowed to do up here – haha.
When we got home, I headed back down to our deer cabin in mid December to close out deer season with a buddy. We were able to shoot him a spiker for the freezer so he went home with a bit of meat as well. All in all, it was a very fun and productive fall, and we have been enjoying the spoils of a freezer full of venison again! Now we have a couple very short weeks before we are off again, hopefully returning with a little more meat.
As I believe we told most guests this summer, we have a very exciting and big trip coming up on the near horizon. On March 9th, we are headed to Winnipeg where we will fly out the next day for close to 5 weeks in New Zealand. We land in Auckland, but immediately fly down to the bottom of the South Island, starting our trip out in Queenstown. We will be spending a week there and will be getting married on the 17th! It’s just the two of us heading down, and we have hired a company that takes care of the whole process for us, and we get to spend the day in a helicopter with a photographer and officiant travelling around and landing in 5 different locations to get a taste (and a bunch of really amazing pictures) of all the different and diverse scenery New Zealand has to offer.
After Queenstown we will be driving north up the west coast quite a ways before cutting across through Arthur’s Pass and heading to Christchurch for a couple nights. From there we will be heading farther north to the top of the south, Nelson. There we have hired another helicopter to drop us off in “the tops” as they call it down there, which is in the alpine above tree line to spend a week doing some semi-DIY backcountry hunting. I say semi-DIY because we are going without a guide and it will be just the two of us hunting, but the pilot is an experienced hunter and will be dropping us off in some good country. This first leg of the hunt will be extremely physically demanding as we will be in some very steep and rugged country chasing red stag and chamois. We have spent a lot of time in the gym this winter getting ready for what I think we would consider “sheep country” over here. I don’t think it will be quite full-blown mountain goat type terrain or closer to full on mountaineering, but this will definitely be our biggest test and adventure to date!
After a week in the tops, we are getting relocated to 800 acres of private land equipped with a little hut and even running water, for 4 more days of hunting. This property is down in the valley and will still be a bit of hiking and climbing, but will be nowhere as difficult of country as the beginning of the trip. The property is backed by more public land, and the animals on it are totally free range, not any different then a standard whitetail lease here at home. There we will have another chance at red stag, and will also add in fallow deer, but it does not have any chamois as they live up in the very tops of the mountains. We are viewing this last leg of the hunt as a sort of “honeymoon hunt” as it will be easier and a nice way to relax a little more while still hunting before returning to being a tourist for the rest of the trip.
After coming out of the mountains (hopefully with some meat and racks for the wall) we have just short of two weeks to continue north. We will be ferrying to the north island and will spend the rest of our trip working our way back to Auckland where we will fly home mid April, just in time to get ready and back to work opening up camp for the season! Planned highlights on the last couple of weeks are mainly sight seeing, but we plan on doing some whitewater rafting, visiting Hobbiton, enjoying some of the native Māori culture, and of course sampling all the local food and drink!
To say we are getting excited for our trip would definitely be an understatement! We have a very busy two weeks left at home to get everything taken care of to prepare for being gone for over a month, and to make sure everything is in place to make things easy for mom while we are gone. It is going well, but of course the closer the trip gets the more it feels like there is to do. But that’s always the case, and things seem to always get done. We will be available until March 9th for any questions or inquiries, but after that we will be basically unreachable for 5 weeks. We will have our email and phone messages set up to reflect that as a reminder if anyone reaches out while we are gone. We will be answering any messages and getting caught up on all correspondence once we get home mid-April, and like normal all reservation inquires will be taken in the order they were received by date.
I’m sure it will take a while for us to get caught up on life, mail, and messages once we get home, but I plan on journaling about our trip here and will be posting lots of pictures of our whole trip. We will try to take the time to update our personal and business socials a little bit while we are away as well, for a few little tastes of what we are up to halfway across the world. I suspect this will be my last post before we leave, but keep an eye on the socials in the meantime for some updates and we will hopefully get something up here shortly after arriving home. And of course just after that we will be opening up the gate and welcoming you guys back up in mid May!
Ryan