Like many hunters, I look forward all year to hunting season.  I am fortunate enough to be involved in the ultimate in big game hunting, Canadian moose.   Hunting moose in the Canadian Shield is no easy task.  Moose have an unlimited amount of area to roam, feed and water everywhere.  Patience and persistence are the main qualities needed in this adventure.  We hunt for 7 days because sometimes that is how long it takes.  As with any big game hunt, there is no guarantees.  Moose in Ontario do not need to roam around like deer to feed and are not like moose in Alaska that live out in the open.   This year the moose seemed to want to stay under cover even a little more than normal and took extra coaxing to bring them out in the open.

This season we had 12 hunters who in total harvested 5 moose.  Not a record breaking year by any means but Mother Nature made the hunt very challenging and frustrating for us.  Temperatures reached 75 to 80 each week, when it is usually 30 to 50, and the wind was relentless.  She did give us a small window each week of optimum calling weather and that is when moose were shot.  Any moose is a trophy if you have ever been moose hunting and know what is entailed in achieving this feat.  This season it seems the big bulls were preoccupied.  Only bulls of the younger age classes were active in coming into the calls.  Countless hours are spent calling, waiting, and listening so hard for this elusive beast to make a sound or break some brush, but there is nothing more exciting than having a bull grunting back at you, crashing through the bush!  The rut does not go by the calender and this year was different than the past few years.  I have my theories on what affected the rut and how it went but all we can do is hunt them.  Here are some pictures from this fall.