There’s a lot of prep that goes into a moose hunt, so don’t blow a shot at one of these majestic beasts because you can’t call it in. Check out the video below from Ontario Out of Doors for some great tips to help get you ‘in tune’ for when the time comes.
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For many of us, winter means changing our wardrobes, cranking up the heat and cutting back on outdoor activities. For forest wildlife, especially in the north, no season has a greater impact than winter. Those animals that can’t flee south must kick into deep-freeze survival mode or perish.
Some small insects such as orb weaver spiders, mantises and most butterflies die with the first frosts. But they leave freeze-resistant progeny as their legacy. In the case of butterflies, that usually means larvae (caterpillars) or pupae in their protective “wrappers.” But some butterflies, including the mourning cloak, hibernate in a sheltering crag or crack. Unlike orb weavers, other types of spiders hibernate beneath rocks or under tree bark, where wandering flocks of watchful chickadees, nuthatches and brown creepers may find them.
Toads and terrestrial frogs such as peepers try to dig or shelter in places that protect them from hard freezes, including cracks in logs or thick leaf litter. But even a hard freeze usually will not kill a temperate-area frog. Breathing and heartbeats may stop, but with a thaw, thanks to elevated blood glucose, the frogs come “back” to life. Turtles often dig down into the mud, and their metabolisms slow to a crawl.
Even birds that we assume are always warm and active have coldweather adaptations. Chickadees, for example—the most common small songbirds wintering in northern woods—may enter a “regulated hypothermia” while they sleep, their body temperatures dipping to conserve precious energy.
Chipmunks will hibernate but emerge during warm spells, while the restless red squirrel changes its schedule from early to late morning, even tunneling through snow to transport snipped conifer cones to its bulk storage area, known as a midden.
So, much of your property’s wildlife may be out of view this time of year but with the exception of migratory birds and monarch butterflies most of it remains, just on some form of “pause.”
This time of year, some of the best things you can do for wildlife are simple—often involving doing nothing at all. Here are some tips:
• Leave dead meadow stalks standing until later winter thaws come. Meadow plants shelter, among other things, butterfly caterpillars and pupae and mantis egg cases. From fall into winter, their seedheads nourish overwintering songbirds, gamebirds and rodents that in turn feed foxes, owls, hawks and other creatures.
• Hold off on clearing logs, if possible. Logs and snags (dead trees) are always important components of a diversified wildlife habitat, and the shelter they provide during winter is crucial. If you remove this resource during cold weather, you might harm hibernating wildlife.
• Leave dense conifer stands to provide cover for owls, rabbits, grouse and other hardy active critters while other cover is sparse.
• Keep bird feeders topped up. This will provide you with hours of entertainment, and you also will be helping supplement birds’ diets at the toughest time of year. If you want to feed a wide variety of birds, offer not only mixed seeds but also black oil sunflower, thistle and suet. Raisins and mealworms may bring in bluebirds, thrashers and mockingbirds. Also, you could buy a birdbath or pond heater to provide water during the coldest days.
• Hold off on cleaning up nestboxes, as these will provide shelter for birds, rodents and invertebrates during cold weather. Then, in late winter (early March in many areas), clean the boxes out just before bluebirds and other cavity nesters start seeking nest sites.
• Leave brushpiles, which provide dense shelter that can be hard to come by in winter. Wrens, rabbits, sparrows and other creatures seek these out. Bigger brush piles may shelter quail and pheasants at the field-forest edge.
• Refrain from removing leaf litter. Thick leaf litter is like a thermal blanket for hibernating salamanders, frogs and invertebrates— especially when piled around stumps and logs.
Sometimes it feels like winter will never end. But before you know it, frog calls, bird songs and the buzzing and chirping of insects will once again fill the air. For now, though, you can find comfort knowing your forest provides safe havens for a variety of resting wildlife.
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Employing an old Italian method of preserving meats and vegetables called sott’olio, submerge rabbits in oil and slow-cooks them until the meat is tender and rich. Then dress the warm meat in a salad for a perfect counterbalance. The only difficult part of this recipe is pouring that much oil into a pot—but it’s worth it. Be sure to fish the garlic out of the oil for later: Spread the cloves on toasted bread for a killer snack.
Ingredients
– 2 whole wild rabbits, cleaned
– About 3 quarts vegetable oil
– About 1 quart, plus
– 1 Tbsp., plus 1⁄4 cup, olive oil
– 2 whole heads garlic, broken into individual unpeeled cloves
– 6 sprigs fresh thyme
– 1⁄3 cup, plus 1⁄4 cup,
– red wine vinegar
– 1 red onion, sliced
– 2 carrots, peeled and chopped into 1⁄2-inch pieces
– 4 cups baby arugula
– 1⁄4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
– 1⁄4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, shaved or grated
– Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Rub the rabbits with salt and pepper and place in a Dutch oven. Pour in about three parts vegetable oil to one part olive oil, enough to fully submerge the rabbits. Add the garlic and thyme, and cover the Dutch oven. (A sheet of aluminum foil underneath the lid is a good idea.) Place in the oven and cook for about 11⁄2 hours, or until the meat is tender and falling off the bone. Let cool.
2. Meanwhile, combine the 1⁄3 cup red wine vinegar in a small saucepan with 1⁄3 cup water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Put the red onion slices in a bowl, and pour the vinegar mixture over the onions. Stir, add salt and pepper, then allow the onions to pickle at room temperature.
3. Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil over low heat in a saucepan, and add the carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the carrots are tender but not mushy. Add salt and pepper, and reserve.
4. Make a vinaigrette: Put the remaining 1⁄4 cup red wine vinegar in a bowl and gradually whisk in 1⁄4 cup olive oil, until the oil and vinegar are thoroughly integrated. Add salt and pepper.
5. When the rabbits are cool, remove the meat from the bones and reserve.
6. To serve, reheat the rabbit meat in a pan with some of the oil, over low heat, just to warm through. In a large mixing bowl, gently toss the arugula with the red onions (drained), carrots, pine nuts, cheese, and about 3 Tbsp. vinaigrette. Divide the salad among four plates, and top with the rabbit, adding a few more shavings of cheese and salt and pepper as desired. Serves 4
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Wawang has always been synonymous with great trophies. We have also be recognized as one of the most photographed filled brag book holders amongst our peers. Believe me, when you have this much to be proud of, you want the world to see it 🙂
It is for this reason that we announce that we can now be found on Instagram! With so many photos of successful fishing and hunting, it just makes sense to share it with the world.
We have always lived by a principal here: Show me, don’t tell me!
Join us and see what we can show you…..because remember, what you show, shows what you know!
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Attach a 6-foot lead or cord to a scent-infused training dummy or the wing of a bird. (Freeze wings during hunting season and thaw them out when ready for training.) Use this to create “drags” of scent the dog will follow.
Start with 10-yard straight-line retrieves on short grass. Gradually increase the challenge: curved drag lines, taller grasses, abrupt turns, short gaps in the scent trail by lifting the dummy off the ground for a foot or two.
To stay on track, some dogs need reinforcement in the form of small bits of dog treats dropped along the trail. Use treats if you need to keep your dog excited, but sparingly. The point is to find the big payoff at the end of the trail, not the little goodies along the way.
Once your dog is trailing enthusiastically, dial up the difficulty. Run the scent trail over a log, make a sharp turn, and drag it along the log as if the wounded bird ran down the log. Run the scent trail in and out of the water along a creek or pond edge. Run it across a creek and continuing on the other side. Create longer and longer gaps.
To really hone a dog’s tracking skills, make a dragging pole. This is a particularly good drill for dogs that will hunt in the heavy cover of beaver ponds and thick timber. Cut a piece of PVC pipe about 5 feet long. (The diameter doesn’t matter—use whatever is cluttering up your basement.) Run a 10-foot section of parachute cord or other cordage through the pipe, and tie a slip loop to one end.
Attach the loop to a bird wing or training dummy treated with duck scent. Hold the pipe out from your body, and drag the wing or dummy along a scent trail through yard. The pipe prevents your own foot scent from contaminating the trail.
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Thanks to the prevalence of electronic calling devices, anyone can become a decent coyote caller with the press of a few buttons. But if you really want to step up your game, you need to first understand what makes these animals tick.
Prey Distress
Coyotes are nature’s great omnivores. Studies of stomach contents have found that coyotes will swallow almost anything that they can get in their mouths, including rocks, plastic packaging, harness buckles, and even the occasional rabbit. Knowing this, it doesn’t matter much which sort of prey distress call you use—most modern electronic callers offer everything from a whitetail fawn to a house cat—as long as you set up within a coyote’s earshot.
The manner in which a coyote approaches a distress call depends on its security level, which is influenced by its latest experiences. An unpressured coyote will often come in quickly and boldly to almost any distress sound. A pressured coyote, however, will take much longer to approach a call. He’ll wait downwind of the sound before slowly slinking in, wary nose to the air.
Upon hearing the initial prey distress cries, the test coyotes would usually run to a downwind position without exposing themselves and remain there until we left. They would later approach our stand area to investigate. One wary old alpha pair (the male was 10 years old) waited 17 hours before approaching the calling location, and then spent 45 minutes at our stand site sniffing around.
The takeaway? One of the biggest mistakes you can make with a distress call is leaving a location too soon. Spend at least 30 to 45 minutes on stand.
Another important factor is the time of day you target coyotes. Only 10 percent of respondents in a recent poll of about 1,400 coyote callers said dawn was best. More than half the hunters chose 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., followed by 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then dusk, each of which got about 20 percent of the vote.
Whines & Yelps
These nonaggressive vocalizations—often made by pups—are probably the most effective sounds in a coyote caller’s repertoire because they trip so many behavioral triggers at once. With the press of a button you can target social interaction, territorial instincts, and protective maternal/paternal instincts. At certain times of the year, a case could probably be made that you’re appealing to their hunger, too, since several studies have documented coyotes cannibalizing pups.
Before switching to a different sound, we’ll increase the volume and intensity of the whines and yelps for three or four series in order to reach out to distant coyotes. This has proven extremely effective in all seasons and geographic locations, and at any time of day.
Challenge Howl
The challenge howl is a misnomer. A challenge is an invitation to fight, to do battle, such as a monarch bull elk bugling at a satellite bull. Coyotes don’t do that. Biologists call this vocalization the threat-bark howl because it more accurately describes the intent of the coyote: to threaten and demand that the intruder leave. Now. Field observations have shown that coyotes (unlike wolves) will avoid fights whenever possible. A wolf pack will run down an intruder and kill it. A pack of coyotes will run down an intruder, make him submit, and then let him leave the territory.
For these reasons, callers should use this vocalization only if they know they are set up in a pack’s core territory. If a caller sets up near a den during whelping or denning season, the results can be spectacular. Having resident coyotes charge in on a close, loud, aggressive call rivals any approach of a rutting buck or strut of a spring gobbler. However, if you set up in overlapping home ranges and demand that every coyote within hearing distance leave, they probably will.
The key to locating a pack’s core area is to home in on their group-yip howls. Listen for a pack’s group howl night after night. If you are able to pattern their howling with some regularity, you should be able to determine their core area. Once you’ve plotted that on a map or GPS, study the terrain. Coyotes will typically hide out in the thickest, most secluded cover in the area. Make an educated guess and move in close before threatening the pack.
Many callers will break off a stand when a coyote bark-threat howls in response to their distress calls because they believe that it means the coyote has busted them and will not approach. That’s not always the case. The coyote may simply be protesting the source of the sound even if it hasn’t identified it. You can often get a barking, threat-howling coyote to expose himself for a clear shot if you wait him out and weaken your return howls, keeping them less aggressive than the coyote’s. Another tactic is to retrace your steps and then circle around to a different location. If the coyote doesn’t see or scent you, you can call him in to the new setup with whines and whimpers.
Group and Solo Howls
Coyote calling is a numbers game. You want to offer sounds that appeal to the largest number of coyotes without alarming or intimidating them. The most effective howl to draw them in is a lone howl that is low frequency, high pitched, and long. It announces the presence of an unknown, young, small, nonaggressive coyote that any other dog within hearing distance will be willing to investigate.
Louder, long-range howls are more likely to get howls in return, but they are less likely to draw a coyote in to your stand.
Knowing that, here’s a simple formula for success: Locate coyotes with a group-yip howl (the collective yowling that you have undoubtedly heard on calm evenings) and call them in to gun range with a lone howl.
Most of those vocalizations are aggressive in nature. This is important to know because such vocalizations will alarm and/or intimidate most coyotes. Submissive coyotes will often retreat to their core areas after howls are broadcast and remain there until joined by another group member or until enough time has passed for them to call back or investigate. That’s the exact opposite of what you want your howls to do.
It is important to remember that coyotes will sometimes investigate the source of your group-yip howls, so don’t get caught unprepared.
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We practice with our bows all summer long, but after opening day its easy to get wrapped up in the hunting and forget about practicing. But even if you’re spending your time in the field and can’t hit the archery range every day, you can still keep your edge. Shooting in hunting situations is obviously different from target shooting. In the real world, weather conditions, shot angles, brush and other obstacles can impact your shot. Also, when the time comes to take a shot during a hunting situation you’re usually either stiff and cold from sitting in a treestand or sucking wind from running up a hill. All this combined with the fact that you must make a clean shot with the first arrow makes it all the more important to keep your shooting skills sharp. Here are a couple tips.
Practice Drawing
One of the biggest challenges to making a “cold shot” is that often the muscles I use for properly drawing my bow are stiff. The simplest way to cure this is to periodically pick a target, draw your bow, aim, hold, and let down your draw. This keeps you loosened up, plus drawing and aiming without actually shooting helps you focus on the target.
Practice Shooting
Although just drawing and aiming will help a lot, the single biggest help is to actually shoot while out hunting. A common practice among traditional shooters is to carry one or two blunt pointed arrows in your quiver so that you can stump shoot in your down time. Stump shooting is fantastic for keeping you warmed up, but unlike just drawing, actually completing your shots will bring your release into play, as well as give you all sorts of angles and situations to practice.
Small game is even better than stumps (grouse and rabbits taste a lot better too). Grouse can be deceivingly tough to hit. You want to aim for the base of the neck or the head. Sometimes they flush at the shot, but grouse will go in the direction that their head is pointing, so if you use a snaro point, you can either take their head off or hit them in the body as they flush. The best thing about grouse is they often give you extremely challenging shots, and if you can become consistent at taking them, you will be ready for the big game (make sure to check your local regulations before taking any small game with a bow).
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With the bear hunt just around the corner, we will cover the basics 🙂 Pictures have been withheld due to graphic nature.
1. Clear an area surrounding the black bear. Make the area large enough to allow room to move around and roll the animal away from the entrails. The lowest part of the ground should be reserved for the entrails. Move the bear onto its back. Spread the rear legs and either have your partners hold them apart or secure them with ropes. Repeat with the front legs.
Proper field care will ensure less weight and trouble with removal and transportation from the hunt site.
For more information on black bear hunting, visit us at http://www.wawangresort.com
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So our 2014 moose hunt has come and gone again with fantastic results! Due to reduced tag number across the province, we were concerned that the hunt would be sparse. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. This year we harvested 1 mature bull, 1 cow and a calf with 3 more bulls, 2 cows and 2 other calves spotted! There was sign evident everywhere around us and made for excited hunters!
With both new groups in camp and some here that are 14 year Wawang Veterans, each party worked together to help the overall success of each other as a whole. As usual, the hunt was a complete community effort 🙂
We are proud to keep our tradition of excellence strong and look forward to 2015!
We have limited availability for 2015.
Reserve your spot early for great accommodations during your next moose hunt in 15A or 15B.
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ON TARGET in CANADA 