Harvest the Land
09-12-2016, 07:14 PM
Well I’m still on cloud 9 after this weekend and finally had some time to post my first ever solo hunt and first time ever harvesting a big game animal.
Last fall was my first season hunting, but didn’t complete the Core until later in the season and didn’t get out till November last year. I own 2 small businesses and am very busy and can only hunt weekends as aresult, so the wife and I made sure to hunt every weekend last November. Didn’t shoot anything, but managed to sneak up on a number of does which was very cool, and when the snow fell I followed fresh tracks all over the place. So even though we didn’t harvest anything last November I still thoroughly enjoyed myself used all this intel I got last November for this fall’s hunting trips. I was determined to make it out for opening day this year.
This summer I setup a number of trail cams in the area and did some serious scouting on the weekends. I quickly determined that I was seeing more bears than bucks, so I bought 2 bear tags to go along with deer tags. The wife was supposed to come but she got offered a lucrative contract at the last minute and could not say no, so she ended up having to work this weekend and I went on a solo mission.
2 weekends ago I setup a ground blind about 100 metres intothe timber from the edge of a giant cut block where there were tons of trails congregating. This weekend I got up at 4am and started hiking the 1.5km from camp to my blind. I wasn’t sure what to expect hiking in the dark. I bought a headlamp that has a red lamp feature but I quickly realized that it wasn’t bright enough (it was cloudy with no stars or moon) and switched to white light. Shortly into my hike I spotted glowing eyes on one side of the quad road in the cutblock just staring at me(which was kind of freaky). I grabbed my much brighter flashlight and shined it towards those glowing eyes to see it was a doe staring at me from her bed, but she wasn’t startled and stayed put as I carried on. A few more steps and I start to see more glowing eyes staring at me on the other side of the quad road, shined the light on them and more does in their beds and some were feeding, but again weren’t really spooked by me. Keep walking down the road and see tons more glowing eyes – I quickly realized I was walking through a major bedding area (stopped counting at 20 deer) and need to figure out how to hunt this spot another time. Finally make it to my blind shortly before 6am, still dark. I was wondering the whole time if I should’ve just stayed close to that doe bedding area cause that’s where all the deer were, but really wanted to try hunting from my new blind.
Daylight comes quickly and within a few minutes I hear gunshot a ways away (someone got one I’m thinking to myself). Then 20 minutes later another gun shot from a different area, then half hour later another gunshot and I’m thinking to myself that I picked the wrong spot to hunt from? Heard about 8 gun shots over the next 5 hours or so and I still haven’t seen anything. So I decide to go check one of my trail cams that I have near that spot to see if anything’s been here in the last couple weeks and found the trail cam didn’t pickup any shots of anything (whereas all summer that spot was getting decent action).
So I decide to hike my way back to that doe bedding area and its around noon. As I’m slowly making my way through the cut block on a different quad trail I remembered that I glassed a bear near the doe bedding area 2 weeks ago up on a little hill just feasting on berries. So I figured maybe I’ll make my way to that spot and wait there for anything to show up. Slowly walked my way there and setup my tripod, put therifle in it, got out my binos and started glassing the cut block. Had a really great crosswind that was blowing pretty steady so I was pretty pumped about everything. After glassing for about half an hour I decided to pour some hot tea and no sooner had I poured the tea did this bear come cruising out of thetimber into the cut block about 200 yards from me. It seemed like he was oblivious to everything and was just cruising at a steady pace towards my direction up on this little hill right in the middle of his berry patch.
So I quickly got my scope on him and just watched as he quickly made his way towards me. I could feel my heart pumping faster and faster as I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I’m not yet comfortable shooting at 200 yards yet since I haven’t killed any big game before,so wanted to make sure if possible to get within 100 yards. Well he quickly was within 100 yards and my heart was pumping and I realized he was coming for his berry patch but couldn’t see or smell me at all. When he got within 75 yards I was wondering if I wasgoing to have to shoot while he was moving because wasn’t stopping at all and wasn’t sure if he was going to give me a broad side look. Then he changed his direction a little bit and started quartering towards me while he was walking. I focused my scope directly right behind his shoulder and luckily he stopped for a quick second and I didn’t hesitate – nailed him right in the lungs!
He immediately ran right towards me after the shot and I didn’t even know I had hit him at that point. There were small 10-15 foot trees below me and he ran behind those towards me, so I had no idea if I hit him and wasn’t sure if he was coming for me. So I stand up, pull the rifle out of the tripod, put another in the chamber and was anticipating having to shoot him as he was charging towards me. But he literally only ran about 10 metres from where I shot him and I heard the loud groan. I was literally in shock. He was dead within 10 seconds after the shot. I slowly walked down to where he was after I heard the groan and poked him and he was dead. I was shaking. Quickly went back to my back pack and struggled to cut my tag as I was still shaking. (no tag soup this year!) I made the perfect shot just behind hisshoulder and double lunged him (if I wasn’t using the Caldwell Magnum Dead shot Tripod I don’t think I could’ve made such a good shot).
He was smaller than he looked from a distance, but I heard that shrinkage is common with bears. But I was also relieved that he was smaller because this was my first time field dressing anything and I was by myself. Took about 2-3 hours to gut,quarter and get the hide off, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it (and surprisingly got very little amount of hair on the meat). Brought it home and we were up till 11pm last night finishing the butchering job and boning out the ribs etc. I love knowing exactly where my meat comes from and what his last moments were like before he died and how he died.
And I just wanted to say thank you to all the helpful hunters on this website. I truly believe that I wouldn’t have been successful this early in my hunting career without learning from all of your helpful posts, stories, tips, tactics, strategies that I’ve spent the last year going through (especially the older posts from years ago – they’re golden!)
What a truly amazing experience that I will never forget.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_153856.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_153856.jpg.html)
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_155148.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_155148.jpg.html)
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_190752.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_190752.jpg.html)
P.S. – any tips for how to best cook the tenderloins?
Last fall was my first season hunting, but didn’t complete the Core until later in the season and didn’t get out till November last year. I own 2 small businesses and am very busy and can only hunt weekends as aresult, so the wife and I made sure to hunt every weekend last November. Didn’t shoot anything, but managed to sneak up on a number of does which was very cool, and when the snow fell I followed fresh tracks all over the place. So even though we didn’t harvest anything last November I still thoroughly enjoyed myself used all this intel I got last November for this fall’s hunting trips. I was determined to make it out for opening day this year.
This summer I setup a number of trail cams in the area and did some serious scouting on the weekends. I quickly determined that I was seeing more bears than bucks, so I bought 2 bear tags to go along with deer tags. The wife was supposed to come but she got offered a lucrative contract at the last minute and could not say no, so she ended up having to work this weekend and I went on a solo mission.
2 weekends ago I setup a ground blind about 100 metres intothe timber from the edge of a giant cut block where there were tons of trails congregating. This weekend I got up at 4am and started hiking the 1.5km from camp to my blind. I wasn’t sure what to expect hiking in the dark. I bought a headlamp that has a red lamp feature but I quickly realized that it wasn’t bright enough (it was cloudy with no stars or moon) and switched to white light. Shortly into my hike I spotted glowing eyes on one side of the quad road in the cutblock just staring at me(which was kind of freaky). I grabbed my much brighter flashlight and shined it towards those glowing eyes to see it was a doe staring at me from her bed, but she wasn’t startled and stayed put as I carried on. A few more steps and I start to see more glowing eyes staring at me on the other side of the quad road, shined the light on them and more does in their beds and some were feeding, but again weren’t really spooked by me. Keep walking down the road and see tons more glowing eyes – I quickly realized I was walking through a major bedding area (stopped counting at 20 deer) and need to figure out how to hunt this spot another time. Finally make it to my blind shortly before 6am, still dark. I was wondering the whole time if I should’ve just stayed close to that doe bedding area cause that’s where all the deer were, but really wanted to try hunting from my new blind.
Daylight comes quickly and within a few minutes I hear gunshot a ways away (someone got one I’m thinking to myself). Then 20 minutes later another gun shot from a different area, then half hour later another gunshot and I’m thinking to myself that I picked the wrong spot to hunt from? Heard about 8 gun shots over the next 5 hours or so and I still haven’t seen anything. So I decide to go check one of my trail cams that I have near that spot to see if anything’s been here in the last couple weeks and found the trail cam didn’t pickup any shots of anything (whereas all summer that spot was getting decent action).
So I decide to hike my way back to that doe bedding area and its around noon. As I’m slowly making my way through the cut block on a different quad trail I remembered that I glassed a bear near the doe bedding area 2 weeks ago up on a little hill just feasting on berries. So I figured maybe I’ll make my way to that spot and wait there for anything to show up. Slowly walked my way there and setup my tripod, put therifle in it, got out my binos and started glassing the cut block. Had a really great crosswind that was blowing pretty steady so I was pretty pumped about everything. After glassing for about half an hour I decided to pour some hot tea and no sooner had I poured the tea did this bear come cruising out of thetimber into the cut block about 200 yards from me. It seemed like he was oblivious to everything and was just cruising at a steady pace towards my direction up on this little hill right in the middle of his berry patch.
So I quickly got my scope on him and just watched as he quickly made his way towards me. I could feel my heart pumping faster and faster as I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I’m not yet comfortable shooting at 200 yards yet since I haven’t killed any big game before,so wanted to make sure if possible to get within 100 yards. Well he quickly was within 100 yards and my heart was pumping and I realized he was coming for his berry patch but couldn’t see or smell me at all. When he got within 75 yards I was wondering if I wasgoing to have to shoot while he was moving because wasn’t stopping at all and wasn’t sure if he was going to give me a broad side look. Then he changed his direction a little bit and started quartering towards me while he was walking. I focused my scope directly right behind his shoulder and luckily he stopped for a quick second and I didn’t hesitate – nailed him right in the lungs!
He immediately ran right towards me after the shot and I didn’t even know I had hit him at that point. There were small 10-15 foot trees below me and he ran behind those towards me, so I had no idea if I hit him and wasn’t sure if he was coming for me. So I stand up, pull the rifle out of the tripod, put another in the chamber and was anticipating having to shoot him as he was charging towards me. But he literally only ran about 10 metres from where I shot him and I heard the loud groan. I was literally in shock. He was dead within 10 seconds after the shot. I slowly walked down to where he was after I heard the groan and poked him and he was dead. I was shaking. Quickly went back to my back pack and struggled to cut my tag as I was still shaking. (no tag soup this year!) I made the perfect shot just behind hisshoulder and double lunged him (if I wasn’t using the Caldwell Magnum Dead shot Tripod I don’t think I could’ve made such a good shot).
He was smaller than he looked from a distance, but I heard that shrinkage is common with bears. But I was also relieved that he was smaller because this was my first time field dressing anything and I was by myself. Took about 2-3 hours to gut,quarter and get the hide off, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it (and surprisingly got very little amount of hair on the meat). Brought it home and we were up till 11pm last night finishing the butchering job and boning out the ribs etc. I love knowing exactly where my meat comes from and what his last moments were like before he died and how he died.
And I just wanted to say thank you to all the helpful hunters on this website. I truly believe that I wouldn’t have been successful this early in my hunting career without learning from all of your helpful posts, stories, tips, tactics, strategies that I’ve spent the last year going through (especially the older posts from years ago – they’re golden!)
What a truly amazing experience that I will never forget.
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_153856.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_153856.jpg.html)
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_155148.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_155148.jpg.html)
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/tidalfraserangler/IMG_20160910_190752.jpg (http://s1199.photobucket.com/user/tidalfraserangler/media/IMG_20160910_190752.jpg.html)
P.S. – any tips for how to best cook the tenderloins?