My 2018 Ontario whitetail deer season

Folks here have enjoyed my sharing of my Ontario (and New York) whitetail deer seasons in recent years so with the 2018 firearms seasons having come and gone, here's my report.

This year I wasn't able to make my annual sojourn down to the Adirondacks so my whitetail hunting was on "big woods" Crown Land near my home in eastern/central Ontario. This tract of public land is thousands of acres of unbroken forest other than logging roads and ATV trails. It's heavily hunted, but the combination of thick cover and few hunters willing to venture into the woods means that we are usually able to get on mature bucks (but not always kill them!). I bowhunt, rifle hunt, and muzzleloader hunt from mid October until early December. My job limits my time to mostly weekends - but the huge amount of time I invest in scouting (I run 13 trail cams plus tonnes of offseason scouting) has helped maximize my hunting time.

I hunt primarily with my father in law and brother in law during the rifle season. At 74, my father in law had not killed a deer since 2014 and had only punched one tag in the last decade. I was moving into position to still hunt around a large cattail swamp. My brother in law and father in law were planning to slide into a large ridge that borders the west and south of this swamp in case deer were pushed out of the swamp. I had barely begun to move around the northern fringe of the swamp when five shots rang out in quick succession from their general direction. Given the shooting was only a few hundred meters away, I quickly dashed down to the swamp edge in case the deer were fleeing in my direction. The buzzing of my cell phone informed me that this particular deer would be doing no more fleeing - he was down for the count. My father in law had crested the ridge to see this buck nose down dogging along the swamp edge. The first shot was a fatal one, but the buck exploded into action and my father in law kept shooting until he went down for good. This buck was a clean 8 pointer and estimated by the butcher to weigh 160 lbs.

http://i.imgur.com/w1FiTOn.jpg

The scene actually became even more exciting in short order. My father in law was just finishing up the field dressing of his buck (about 30 minutes after he shot it) when I saw the flash of streaking doe go flying down the ridge about 60 meters away and plunge into the swamp. Given that the chase phase of the rut was in full swing, I yelled at my brother in law to grab his rifle and I moved for mine - both were resting against nearby trees. I had just reached my rifle when I saw my brother in law aim and fire - a large buck (in his words the largest buck he has had a chance to harvest in 25 years) had materialized on the top of the ridge trailing the doe. When we got to the top of said ridge (about a 65 meter shot) there was blood and optimism was high. Three hours and a kilometer later that optimism had faded. The blood pattern seemed to indicate a neck hit - but clearly not a lethal one. We ran out of light and returned at dawn the next morning to pick up the track. We trailed the buck for another two hours (ultimately ending up close to 2 km from the shot) as the blood trail eventually tailed off to nothing. My brother in law was despondent given the size of the buck and the fact he is a very ethical hunter who does not like the thought of a wounded animal. That said, we were both convinced the buck would survive given how quickly he seemed to be moving and scarcity of blood.

The next day a cold front blew in a small overnight snowstorm. Tracking whitetail bucks in the "big woods" is my favourite form of deer hunting and I was fervently hoping enough snow would accumulate to allow me to track. Having "tracking snow" in our early November rifle season is a rare treat. Sure enough, the next morning saw a couple cm of fresh snow on the ground.

From the time I stepped out of my truck before sunrise, I knew it was a “deer hunting” day - cold temperatures, raw wind, and leaden skies. I cut my first buck track just after legal light and after an hour of tracking him and several other deer he had followed, I came upon this buck standing at the bottom of a logging cut below me. A single offhand shot from 135 meters with my BLR 308 brought the hunt to an end. I can’t be entirely sure this was the exact buck I was tracking - but I had many trail camera photos of this particular buck from my summer and fall scouting. He had a typical 8 point rack and the butcher estimated him at around 175 lbs.

https://i.imgur.com/yL3ERkT.jpg

With our freezers well stocked, I spent the early December muzzleloader season (the two days on the weekend I was able to get out) searching for "Mr. Big". I was able to get on big tracks both days, but poor snow conditions (no fresh snow for over a week now) hampered my tracking and I came up short.

A great 2018 - freezer stocked, my buck at the taxidermist for a European skull mount, and looking forward to catching up with "Mr. Big" next year!

Thank you for the awesome story and congrats on the success !! Nothing tastes better than whitetail IMO besides maybe elk...


What sight are you running on that gun? Red dot I assume ? Aimpoint?
I have exact same gun/caliber. Am running a vortex sparc II on it but really debating a quality 1-6 like viper gen 2 or something. Any input would be appreciated !

Aimpoint Micro H1 - I purchased it in 2013 and have it run it on my wild turkey shotgun in the spring and my whitetail rifle in the fall. In short, it's been awesome. Extremely durable and so fast to get on target. It's expensive, but worth every penny - and the new H2 version is supposed to be even better. The Aimpont/BLR combo is hard to beat for a "big woods" deer rifle - quick handling, fast target acquisition, and rapid follow up shooting.

Very nice bucks, congrats...