If you recall in Wood-n-water’s March 2004 edition I wrote an article on a record class whitetail that was poached in northwest Ontario the previous fall. The buck was close to being a new world record whitetail and was the new Ontario record whitetail. It was shot by two hunters from the U.S. after legal shooting hours. The whitetail scored 223 green and 199 dry.
I also had spoken to a couple of hunters that I knew that had hunted that area and who had shot some very large whitetails. When I was a kid my father often took us to northern Ontario (north of the Soo) to camp and fish. But during that time I had never seen a deer, lots of moose and other animals, but no deer. I had also been on several bear hunts in that area and never saw any deer, nor did the habitat look like it would support deer.
I soon discovered that northwest Ontario and northern Ontario are not alike in its make-up. Northwest Ontario, near the Manitoba border is a lot like the U.P. Lots of hard-woods, unlike the area of Ontario north of Michigan which is mostly pine and spruce. There are vast tracts of land in northwest Ontario that have no roads and not a lot of access to people. The past several years there have been very mild winters in that area which have allowed the deer herd to grow. A lot of the deer in those large tracts of land haven’t seen people before. Therefore, they are allowed to grow very old. Which means if a buck is allowed to live 4 years or longer there is a very good chance that it will be sporting some very nice headgear. In the past when the winters were very harsh, the genetics in the deer heard allowed them to grow very big in order to survive those harsh winters, the wolves and bears.
Now you are talking about an area with very large tracts of land, deer that are living a lot longer and good genetics. I think if you add all of that together you might come up with some big body, heavy antler whitetail bucks running around that haven’t had a lot of hunting pressure. Sounds like a place for me to hunt. After hunting Saskatchewan for the last 7 years, I was looking for a new place to try out.
After doing some research I found an outfitter about 70 miles east of Fort Frances, Ontario. Fort Frances is the first town you come across once you cross into Ontario from International Fall, Minn. As it turns out it is 750 miles from Grayling, MI.
The outfitter was Quentin Branch. Quentin owns a fishing lodge and has guided for non-resident black bear hunts for several years. He also has provided lodging for Ontario resident moose and deer hunters. In the past couple of years he has just started to get into guiding non-residents for whitetail deer hunts. In this area of Ontario you must hunt with a guide.
We plan our 6-day hunt for the first week of November 2005. Normally the weather is cold and there is a lot of snow on the ground during this time period. The rut is usually just starting during this time period. There were 7 of us going, several friends and most important was that for the first time in several years my son Joe was going as well. We had not been on a hunting trip together since we hunted for bears in northern Ontario about 6 years. Joe has two young children, 3-year-old son Hunter and 8-month-old daughter Haylee (my grandchildren) and with the blessing of his wife he was able to leave for a week and hunt with his Dad.
This hunt is a 2x1 guided hunt, with lodging included. We were to provide our own meals. Everything we needed to cook with was provided in the cabin we stayed in. Ron Caldwell, an avid hunter and long time friend was put in charge of planning out our meals for the trip. Almost every dinner was pre-made. We just put it in the oven and ask Quentin to put it in at a certain time and when we return each evening not only was dinner a short time away, but also there was a fire already started in the wood burner. That way we could return for a hot dinner and to a warm cabin after a long day of hunting.
If you recall earlier in this story I stated that normally it’s very cold during this time period and a lot of snow on the ground. Well, not this week. Like throughout most of Canada and the Midwest, winter had not arrived yet. Before we got there it had been warm and rained a lot and the 10-day weather forecast said the same weather was going to continue for the week we were going to hunt.
Our first day was very slow and very long. Most of us sat in out blinds all day. It was mild and rained off and on during the day. My stand was a 12 foot-latter stand. My guide Dan drove me in about 3 miles on a 4-wheeler. We had come in on what was at one time a skidder trail. The trail was about 15 yards wide. My latter stand was about 70 yards away overlooking this trail and another trail that crossed the skidder trail about 70 yards to the north of me.
Day two wasn’t a lot better, but I did manage to see a smaller 8-point buck. He walked out on a deer trail at 10:00 am. That was the only deer I saw all day. It was very mild again, much like the first day.
Day three started out much like the first two days. Except it was going to get very exciting soon enough. I had decided that since the deer weren’t rutting I was going to stay in the same stand the entire 6 days. I figured that sooner or later a bigger buck was going to walk by. This was the same strategy I use when I hunt in Saskatchewan. It works there, there is no reason to think it wasn’t going to work in Northwest Ontario. I often see a lot of hunters who like to play musical chairs when they are hunting. When they don’t see any deer, they want to start moving to other stands. Sometimes that might be the best answer if there are no deer in the area. But this isn’t the case in this part of Ontario.
At about 10:30 I climbed down from by stand. I had made plans for Dan to pick me up; we were going to go to a trailer that the guides were using as a headquarters in the bush. I thought a hot cup of coffee might break the day up a little for me. Plus I wanted to check in and see how my son Joe was doing. He had not seen anything during his first two days of hunting.
Right after I reach the ground I noticed my boot needed to be tied. As I was tying my boot I looked up on the same trail that I had seen the 8-point the day before. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was the biggest buck that I had ever seen. It was a monster; it had the body size of a horse. The antlers were very wide and very tall, with lots of mass. Believe me when I say it was the biggest buck I have every seen, it was big. I have seen several bucks in Saskatchewan that were over 170 inches. I have shot a buck that scored 163. As sudden as he appeared, he disappeared even faster. I couldn’t believe it, had I just remained in my stands for another couple of minutes, I would have had a chance to shoot a buck that would have gone over 170 inches, a booner! But, I didn’t. After kicking myself several times I headed down the trail to meet Dan.
After crying to Dan we headed to the trailer for some coffee. Dan had hunted this area for over 20 years. Even before there was a road that got you into the area. His method of hunting was finding a good deer track in the snow. One that was wilder than a 30-30 bullet that he carried in his front pocket. He would then follow the track until he was able to catch up with the deer or until it became too dark to follow the tracks. Over the years he had taken some real monster whitetails in this area. He had told me before the hunt started that he knew there was a monster 12 point, a very large 10-point and another very large 8 point in the area. He had also showed me a very large scrape and rub. The tree had been destroyed; I had not seen anything like this before in the woods. But since the weather had gotten milder, the deer had not return to the scrape or rub
I hunted the rest of the afternoon and didn’t see any deer. When I return to camp that night I was very happy to see that my son had shot his biggest deer ever. He shot an 8-point, with a huge body. Later it was weighted in at 221 lbs. You can legally party hunt in Ontario. I had told my son that on the last day of the hunt if I had not shot a deer, he could try to fill my tag. We would have to hunt at least close enough that we could hear either one of us shoot. That way we would not end up shooting two deer the last day. We had radios with us and the plan would be if one of us heard the other shoot, we would turn the radio on and talk to one another and check to see if one of us had shot a deer.
On day four after seeing the monster buck the day before I decided that no matter what I wasn’t going to leave the woods until dark. I had also decided to use a pop-up hunting blind. I thought it would give me a better advantage point while hunting the same trail. It was still mild and had rain a little that morning. At 10:45 that morning I looked up and saw a very large body buck standing on the deer trail. He had walked out into the clearing and all he had to do was take another 4 steps and he would have been gone. My Browning 270 a-bolt was leaning in the corner of the blind. I grabbed it and all in one motion I brought it up, found the buck’s Vidal’s in the my scope and squeeze the trigger. He dropped instantly.
As I walked up to him I couldn’t believe how big the deer’s body was. It was as big if not bigger then the one my son had shot. It was sporting a 10-point rack. Not the biggest rack I have taken, but certainly had one of the biggest body’s I had ever taken. I had given Dan a hand held radio, he heard my shot. I was able to contact him and he was on his way in.
I sat there for several minutes admiring my buck. After what had happen the day before and with the mild temperatures and the lack of the rut, I felt very lucky to have harvest this Ontario whitetail buck.
I walked over to the trail that the bucks had been using and noticed that there was an active scrape there. In fact, it appeared that this buck had worked the scrape before entering the opening. I also had noticed lots of deer sign and found another scrape not far from by stand. Coming into my stand in the dark I was not able to see the recent buck activity in the area. Besides the scrape, there were a lot of deer tracks and fresh deer pellets on the trail. It was beginning to appear that the rut was starting to pick up.
Dan arrived and was just as excited as I was. We looked at each other and I knew we were both thinking the same thing! How are we going to get this buck loaded on the Honda?
We drove the Honda over to a low area and drove the front end of it into it. We then had a heck of a time dragging the deer just a few feet over to the Honda. We then rolled a good size dead log over in front of the Honda. We then tried to lift the deer on top of the log and couldn’t do it. We then grabbed the antlers and tried to roll the head up onto the log, and was just able to get it up there. I held the antlers up as high as I could while Dan tied a rope around the antlers and then took the rope and tied it off to the rear of the Honda. This held the antlers and head up in the air. Then both of us grabbed the rear end of the buck and was just able to get it up on the front end of the Honda. We then tied off the rear legs of the buck to the back end of the Honda. Once it was secure, we took several bungee cords and used them to further secure the buck at various locations of the Honda.
It was quite the picture; this whitetail buck was rolled around the entire Honda 4 wheeler. It was decided that I would head back toward the truck, some three miles away. Once I got there I would leave the buck and come back and pick Dan up. Dan was going to start walking back in. I had my doubts that I was going to make it back with the deer and myself on this machine. It was very wet and muddy at several locations along the trail, from all of the rain we had received the past few days.
After a couple of close calls with the mud I was finally back at the truck. I unloaded the deer and headed back for Dan. Dan had walked over 2 miles by the time I got to him. He loaded up and we headed back to the truck. The fun was just beginning. Once we gutted the deer we had a heck of a time getting it into the back of the truck. He was too much for two men to handle. We used the Honda to drag the buck over to a low laying area, we then back the truck down into the low laying area. Then we were able to load the buck into the back of the truck.
Once we arrived back at camp it took four of us to get the buck up on the buck pole. Once I got home with the deer it weighted in at 231 pounds dressed. When I picked up both deer from the processor, I received ten paper grocery bags full of venison, on a normal Michigan deer you might get two bags per deer.
We ended up taking 4 bucks. Ron Caldwell had also seen the biggest buck that he had ever seen and he has been hunting for 40 years. He just couldn’t get a shot at it I felt if it we had the normal weather that we should have we would have seen more deer. The rut was just beginning and now it was time to leave. As we left that night it began to snow very hard. They ended up getting 6 inches of snow that night. I talked to the outfitter after I got home and the rut activity started to pick up. Several local hunters shot some very nice bucks. That is one thing about hunting that you can’t control, that is the weather.
If you going to hunt in this part of Ontario, you need to have a lot of patience. I think with the normally rut activity, cold weather and snow and if you can sit on a deer trail all day you could take a buck of a lifetime.
For further information on hunting whitetail bucks in Northwest Ontario contact Jeff Pendergraff at 989-344-9038 or at jptrophyhunts@hotmail.com
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