2025 is all finished and hunting season is over. Winter has set in , the snow is flying and the lakes are freezing up from north to south.
We have been fortunate to have a beautiful fall. Enabling us to hunt almost every day for the past 7 or 8 weeks! Between guiding and hunting for ourselves Aaron and I had a great fall. We try to get the hardest jobs done before we start hunting so we can concentrate on the task at hand. Getting our meat for the winter!
2025 was a great year for our moose hunt! Over our three-week season, we harvested six moose including our own bull. Almost every group had an opportunity to harvest a moose, though not everyone was successful.
The weather was warm and windy at times which is typical, but we still had some perfect days to get close. Aaron guided the largest bull of the year, a beautiful mature 46-inch bull. This year, he had returning hunters who were unsuccessful last year but were determined to succeed this time around.
Aaron was guiding three hunters which meant he had to send one guy out on his own. Thanks to the skills and knowledge he gained from Aaron, Josh confidently called in a bull on his own, in the exact spot where he had come close last season. With Aaron’s coaching and perseverance it paid off bigtime. A huge achievement and a feather in any moose hunter’s cap!
John wasn’t guiding during the first week and instead went hunting Cherrington with a longtime friend. It ended up being a hot and windy week, the last day it was blowing 30-40mph. Undeterred, John and Terry went walking into the deep burn with trees crashing down around them to where they had heard a moose earlier in the week. Against the odds, they managed to call in two bulls, a cow, and a calf to within 30 yards. They could see the bull in the thickness, visible but out of reach, and they watched him for an hour.
Finally, John pleaded with the bull enough that he walked right up on them, giving Terry a perfect 30-yard shot straight to the neck.
The following week, John was guiding Jeff M. on Loree Lake. They had hunted hard all week, getting close but never quite convincing the moose to step into the open.
The last day arrived. It started raining at 6:30 a.m. and it didn’t let up. Jeff was eager to hunt but John held him back until 5 p.m.
After all, if you’re going to get soaked, it might as well be during Prime Time.
They walked into the tall trees where a bull had been heard earlier in the week. The forest floor was a lush green carpet of moss and rain poured down all around them. John set Jeff up under a nice big tree then went downwind and let out five grunts.
Within 30 seconds, the bull came walking right toward him and passed directly in front of Jeff. That was it. Last day.
Week 3, John and Jerry hunted together. They spotted several moose, including a small bull, but couldn’t quite get them into position for a shot. On the last day, John had a bull on its way but this time, luck wasn’t on their side. No last-day moose.
Would’ve been a great story if it happened 3 weeks in a row though.
Once returning to Manitoba, there was deer to hunt and coyotes to thin out! I was able to find a nice 5×5 pretty early in the season and Aaron was able to tag out on a nice buck as well. It was a nice calm deer hunt so there was many days to hunt!
The Boys came and spent a week hunting as well. Jack hunted with me almost everyday that he could. Up at 6 am and dressed and ready to go. He had no problem sitting in the stand with me for hours on end. We just needed snacks(most important) and a note pad to draw on! We saw a lot of deer and he was able to be in on the hunt as well. They were pretty pumped when we each shot one and each ate 3 helpings of inside loins each time. They are already looking forward to next year!
Turbine Time!!!
After three long years of waiting and planning, our airplane is finally getting the new turbine engine upgrade. We finished with the Otter in mid-October and flew it to Selkirk, Manitoba, where it was completely disassembled. From there, we loaded it into a semi-trailer and shipped it to Campbell River, B.C., on Vancouver Island.
The engine installation and work will take all winter. The plan is to fly it home from the West Coast in the spring, just as the lakes begin to open. This upgrade is huge for us, but absolutely necessary as we aim to remain a leader in the fly-in industry for many years to come.
