Canada in the Rough

[4 point]

Just watching a recently taped show of Paul B. hunting brown bear( grizzly family) in Russia. My gosh their sitting in a building at a fish farm shooting bears over a dead fish dump. Really that isn’t hunting in my mind. Then there shooting moose being chased with dogs, can’t get my head around that either.

[.264winmag]

Seems unorthodox for sure. Not unlike the grizzly hunts that used to take place on our coastal river systems. My relatives in Norway also hunt ungulates with dogs, seems foreign to us but it's tradition to them. Cougar hunting also comes to mind...

[Big Lew]

Never been able to understand that type of animal shooting either....something that's typical of
a lot of hunting back east and in the States. I support any type of 'hunting' provided it's legal,
but 'to each his/her own'....it's just something I'm not likely to do. I watched an American show
where a woman sat in a special observation room accompanied by guides and her husband that
was above a fancy hunting lodge. She had her rifle set up for her and waited until the lodge's
large herd of elk made their daily trek along the long narrow field in front of the lodge to artificial
feeding grounds. She took a shot but missed so she just waited until they came back and tried
again, this time doing the deed. To me, that's not hunting, that's shooting. I used to do something
similar when dispatching one of our semi-wild steers for our yearly meat supply on our farm. The
steers were too wild to get close to or put in a barn so I had my brothers and sisters herd them past
my place of ambush so that I could shoot​ one at 5-10 yards.

[glennw89]

Running deer with hounds is the most traditional way of hunting in much of Ontario, including the Ottawa Valley where I live. My hunting group (three hunters) doesn't, but it is not for any particular moral issue. Rather none of us have time/desire to train/keep a hound or two. In addition, we prefer to still hunt or stand hunt.

Overall, the use of hounds is much diminished. It requires someone to look after the dog(s) all year, a large group of hunters to cover potential escape routes, GPS collars to track the dogs (they can go for kilometers), and the willingness to devote basically the entire hunting day to setting up and executing the "chase". It is also only realistic on large chunks of Crown Land where the dogs can run without worrying about property boundaries.

Despite the drawbacks above, the sound of hounds rolling through the woods on a frosty November morning is pretty exciting. You have to remember that most Ontario deer hunting is done in thick woods/swamps where visibility is often 50-75 meters. Hounds were a traditional way of getting deer moving in this thick cover.

Not much different than using a bird dog to point/flush grouse, pheasant, etc. in my mind. To each their own. Hunters already have enough enemies in 2018 within infighting. Stand together or fall separately.

[bigbuzz]

I hunt deer annually in Ontario with dogs, there is nothing like trying to shoot a fleeing buck with a hound in pursuit. Don't do it!, its addictive. Hunting deer from treestands or blinds is very effective but just doesn't seem fair. Modern weaponry, bows that are as lethal as any gun, just is not the same. I have also hunted moose with dogs and had some memorable hunts using small beagles. It takes a lot of time and commitment to train dogs and few camps choose to do so. These deer and moose are not run to exhaustion, the dogs generally are used to flush them from swamps and thickets.

[Grumpa Joe]

The breed that I and my friend have, Norwegian Elkhounds, are used extensively in some Scandinavian countries to hunt Moose. It is actually illegal to hunt without using a dog for moose in Norway. The training that they go through is extensive and their abilities are amazing. It was not all that long ago that if an Elkhound failed the hunting test on the second try that they were euthanized so as not to pass on bad genes. Extreme, yes. However, as mentioned above it is really little different than using dogs for bird hunting. It isn't allowed in BC (letting the dog to run untethered) but we do take them along on a lead in the event that we need to track an animal. They use bait for bears in Alberta and we allow bait for deer here in BC. I don't do it but there are those that do and more power to them. It is a legal method.

[ryanb]

If it's legal in that jurisdiction, who are we to judge what is and isn't ethical. That's a slippery slope.

What I do question is whether some of these hunts should be the subject of television shows.

[bigbuzz]

I agree with ryanb, some of the hunting shows are pathetic and people that believe that they are real, I have my doubts.

[HarryToolips]

I hunt deer annually in Ontario with dogs, there is nothing like trying to shoot a fleeing buck with a hound in pursuit. Don't do it!, its addictive. Hunting deer from treestands or blinds is very effective but just doesn't seem fair. Modern weaponry, bows that are as lethal as any gun, just is not the same. I have also hunted moose with dogs and had some memorable hunts using small beagles. It takes a lot of time and commitment to train dogs and few camps choose to do so. These deer and moose are not run to exhaustion, the dogs generally are used to flush them from swamps and thickets.

?????? so waiting and waiting for a deer to walk by a blind or a tree stand doesn't seem fair, yet using hounds to smell out a deer and get them to move is fair?? You got that ass backwards man....and yes modern bows can be very effective, with the technology that is in broadheads now etc, but they don't carry the knockdown energy or range of a firearm..

[guest]

If it's legal in that jurisdiction, who are we to judge what is and isn't ethical. That's a slippery slope.

What I do question is whether some of these hunts should be the subject of television shows.

Bingo!
Ryanb nailed it. I have liked some of their shows, but this choice I think is not helpful in the future or relative for hunting in Canada....... Which the show should be about.

It's CANADA IN THE ROUGH.......