We try to use every part that we can of every animal we harvest. We consume the meat, preserve soup from the bones, eat the tongue and heart, donate the hides to the First Nations and the bottom jaw is given to the Ministry of Natural Resources to assess the health of the population.
This is the final post in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
When we went to bed last night we were still unsure of the plans for today. Dad was considering hunting all day and I offered to stay for the hunt as the camp is small. The team decided to wait for the weather to make a decision. When we woke up to rain the decision was easy – we all started to pack up the camp.
I wish I had a list of profound insights or lessons from this year. Some years seem to provide such insights while others are more mysterious. I am certain that I’ve learned lessons – but also that I’m simply too close to the hunt to figure out what they are.
This is the seventh in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
Friday morning. The weather has continued to hold. We were promised 5 or 6 days of rain and we’ve been so fortunate to have very little.
Today is the last day for four of our hunters and we headed to an area that we haven’t hunted yet this week known as the back side of Shaefer’s pond. I’m fond of the area and was excited to get going when we finally broke camp.
This is the sixth in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
Thursday morning. The weather is nothing short of unbelievable. We’re fortunate to have a moose in the shed – beautiful days are nice for sitting but they aren’t the best for hunting.
This is the fifth in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
We slept in again today. Camp broke around 8:00AM and we hunted our property all day.
We’ve been pretty fortunate so far this week – an adult moose is hanging in the shed and we’ve seen animals on every hunt so far. Fortunate but not lucky.
There are a lot of wolf tracks around this year. It seems like we’re seeing them everywhere. The wolves can help (and hurt) our efforts. Animals tend to bunch up for safety in numbers when wolves around and that’s the likely reason why we’ve been seeing so many (and so many in small groups). It’s very unusual for a hunter to see 5 moose at once (especially the combination of two adult males and two caves together) and it’s likely we can thank our four-legged friends for that. On the flipside, we’re competing with them for the same group of calves.
This is the fourth in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
We were able to sleep in today since the pressure’s off. Although I’m relieved that we have an animal down, there’s a nagging noise in the back of my head reminding me of the dangers of cabin fever.
This is the second in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
BANG!
I spun my head completely disoriented. It was barely light on the first day of the hunt and I was still en route to my watch with 3 other guys behind me.
BANG! BANG!
And, just like that we were done hunting for adult moose for the year.
This is the second in an 8-part mini-series chronicling my experiences in the 2012 Ontario Moose Hunt. You can find the entire series here (it will update daily as it’s published) or check out previous years (2009, 2010, 2011). The posts appear exactly one-week after they were experienced.
Grey and drippy. This weather makes me feel a bit like I’m living within a Salvidor Dali painting and I’m just waiting for the forest to start melting.
It`s that time of year again! This is the fourth year I`v e decided to share my diary from my moose hunt. If you`re interested in reading them first as these posts (including this one) will contain spoilers for previous years. You can find them here: 2009, 2010, 20
Regular readers will warn you that these posts can get very long; the journal is intended to be raw and is my best attempt at archiving the experience of a hunter. They are far more about the day-to-day rambling of existence rather than poished pieces we clean beginning, middles and ends like you would read in a magazine. The journal will be posted over the next 8 days and is posted exatly one-week after it was written.
Lastly, if pictures of dead animals are posted, they will be below the fold (i.e. you`ll have to scroll) and there will be warned in advance.
Sunday was a long day. The phone stayed silent and I refused to make the call. I was waiting to hear from my Father to hear the final word on our luck for the week. I knew that the longer I didn`t hear from him, the better. A call by noon would almost positively mean that they had nothing down – there would just be too much work to do to get out that early.
So I refused to call and decided to wait.
Four or five years ago this would have been less of a concern. It would have meant that I had less variety in my kitchen while now it means that I will have decidedly less meat. We don`t buy like we used to and the investment in the hunt ideally supplies considerably more than 50% of our meat for the year. Failing to harvest will result in the outright removal of that source and it won`t be replaced. On the bright side, we will learn more styles of cooking.
Coming home empty-handed is also tremendously disappointing. There`s been more than 3 months of preparation for this single week and 14 of us worked the woods for 6 days. There is a tremendous amount of effort – and build-up – in getting ready for the hunt. Being `skunked` is tough to take as a team – and as one of the leaders. It`s a feeling that will stick around for at least a year and I`ll replay many parts of the hunt over in my head until we harvest our next animal. I`ll try to learn more about hunting in the rain.
There`s also a bitter reminder about my own independence and ability to provide for my family. failure would have been disastrous to our family 100 years ago. I know of some people who still depend on the hunt for sustenance and they don`t have the safety nets we do (i.e. local year-round farmers market and the economic ability to participate). It`s humbling and does hit some of my confidence.
The phone doesn`t ring until after 5:00PM. The late call is a good sign – it`s enough time for them to have gone to a butcher, cleaned up and head home. It could also just be a sign of a call later in the day – and it was. I`m told very quickly that the hunt ended without success. The guys had a great day – 3 of them even got a look at moose (the better weather had them moving around a lot easier) but they didn`t get a good enough look to know the age and gender.
This brings moose sightings to 12 in total with 4 guys seeing them. Add the single bear and we had 13 legitimate opportunities to fill the freezer. There were multiple deer sightings as well but they weren`t in season so they don`t count. I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that hunting can be like this and that it`s not an all-you-can-kill-buffet. We`ve come painfully close and haven`t had the chance to take a single shot. The 6-day season is over and we`ll have to wait for another year.
In the days following the hunt, I reflect on options. The guys are going deer hunting and I had thought of getting into camp for a few days; a plan that fell through when an unplanned business trip popped up. Dad is hunting for 2 weeks and will share any deer he gets (I really want to make jerky). I have an invite for bow hunting in November (which I`ve never done) for a day which I`d like to try to make happen. We also have some moose left over from last year which I`ll spread out.
Of course there`s also diversifying our menu at home and learning new meat-free or reduced-meat meals which is the thing silver lining.
And that`s how hunting goes. I don`t regret the week and I`m very excited to get out here again in a year – though I`m thinking I need to do a bit more small game hunting in the fall in case we end up empty-handed again. But ending up empty-handed can`t be an option two-years in a row.
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Thank you all who`ve stayed with this series. The last 10 days has been almost 14,000 words of posting; the length of the posts and the topic are enough to significantly lower our visits to the site – these posts have cut our traffic in half each of the last 3 years. I hope you`ve enjoyed them, learned something or found something worth sharing. We`ll be back to `regular programming` tomorrow. 
This is the final post in this series. To see all of the posts in this series, click here.