deer hunting, goose hunting, turkey and turkey hunting

The Bruce Peninsula

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I can’t wait for the next six weeks to crawl by so that I can ‘go north’.  And in my somewhat narrow perception of the term, I’m referring to a sojourn that will take me north up Highway #6 for a little over three hours to the village of Lion’s Head.  Lion’s Head is, to be brief, a pretty little hamlet found on the Georgian Bay (read, eastern) side of the Bruce Peninsula.  If you use Owen Sound as your southernmost reference point and Tobermory as your northernmost point, Lion’s Head is about halfway up…and not four feet from the lion’s tail for you jokesters out there.
As an aside, I know that those of you who are reading this in Subdury, Cochrane, South Porcupine, or Thunder Bay will snort and tell me that I have no clue about what north ‘really’ is, and you’re right.  In fact, I spend the second week of the November deer rifle hunt at slightly higher latitude, relative to Lion’s Head, just north of Seguin Falls.  Neither are the high Arctic, but certainly both have a different environment and yes, even climate, than the mix of pastoral plains and generally urban/suburban areas that I see down here in Southwestern Ontario.  In a tongue in cheek fashion I’d retort that residents of Thunder Bay, ON do not understand the hardships to be found further north in say Churchill, Manitoba (polar bears anyone?), but I digress as this is not a post about geographical perceptions of climate or hardship.
The village of Lion’s Head serves as the launching point for my “adventures in hunting” (which, by the way, was the alternate working title for this blog…I made my choice though and I’m happy with it).  The farm where my father and uncles grew up is the home base from which I can head to any number of sites to chase after, and usually find myself defeated by, wild game.  Someday I’ll evolve into a competent photographer and have some photos that illustrate the unique beauty of this area, but for now let me take you on a virtual tour through some hunting stories alone.
As a pre-emptive defense, a lot of the places I’m about to mention don’t have much value in the way of ‘tourist’ spots.  If you’re looking for me to gush about The Grotto or something like that, I’m sorry to disappoint you.  I’ve been there (The Grotto) and it is beautiful, but I can’t even swim so it holds no real allure to me.  Same goes for Tobermory; been there (both in the high tourist season of July when it is as crowded as a Hollywood nightclub, and in the off-season when a lot of the stores aren’t even open for business during the week) and done that.  It is another great Bruce Peninsula destination but not a place where I can go hunting, so I’ll leave the point at that.  Restaurant reviews and shopping destinations will be fairly thin on this post (although I will say that the Farmer’s Breakfast at Mom’s Restaurant in Ferndale is an absolute must).
My first exposure to hunting came in a village north of Lion’s Head known as Cape Chin South, so that’s where I’ll start.
On a cool Thanksgiving weekend when I was eight years old, I awoke in the darkness early on Saturday morning and went goose hunting with my Dad.  I remember being bundled up like Ralphie’s brother Randy from A Christmas Story as I was wearing, to mention just a few of the items, long underwear, sweatpants, lined work pants that were a couple of sizes too big, and a wool sweater.  I had my Wellington boots on and my feet were wrapped in toasty wool socks.  Wool mitts and a grey toque completed the ensemble.  There was no way that I was going to get cold and want to come home early.
But most of all I remember the much-too-large olive drab hunting coat that my Dad put on me.  I imagine that to an invisible observer there was one of those tender, paternal, very Rockwellian scenes as my Dad helped me into the coat and zipped it up to my chin.  While I lacked mobility and dexterity (and frankly, I still kind of do now over 20 years later), I recall the key benefit of this particular coat being that it was big enough for me bury my whole face into it if I got cold.
And despite all the preparations, I still got cold.  Did I mention that this hunt pre-dated the common use of padded foam seats, and ‘Heat-a-Seats”?  It did.  Dad jammed a black garbage bag into my pocket that would serve to keep my derriere dry, but it was lacklustre in keeping my little tush warm.
We got out of the car and walked into the field in the grey, beetling morning before I was sat down in the nooks and crannies of a rock pile that had a bunch of old cedar rails piled up around, and upon, it.  They did a very good job of breaking up the human outline, and with the addition of a half-dozen shell body decoys we were ready for the goose hunting to commence.  I can’t recall how many geese flew around that day, but it was by no means a huge flight.  In fact I can only recall one small bunch of three of four.  Dad pulled an old Olt goose call out of his pocket and began to cluck away on it a bit and the birds circled before coming in to land with our fakes.
So long as I’m able to remember, I’ll never forget those geese hanging in the air, as big as jetliners, with their feet down ready to land.  Dad took a double with his Remington 1100, although he missed a third with his last shot, and laid the geese in the rocks by my feet.  A short, gooseless while later Dad decided that two birds were enough and we headed back to the car.  Dad carried a goose, an old feedbag with the decoys in it, and his shotgun.  I got the honour of carrying out the other goose.  I bumped and dragged that poor goose’s head through the grass for some ways before Dad turned around and told me to pick the goose’s head off the ground and treat the game a little better.  My eight-year-old biceps got quite the work out; I think I held that bird’s head almost above my knees the rest of the way to the car.  Since then I’ve hunted waterfowl all around Lion’s Head; in the Ferndale Flats, at Spry, and in Dyer’s Bay to name a few spots in weather that ran from balmy early September hunts in t-shirts to chilly mid-November pursuits in driving snow.  Still, that young boy’s first hunt on a Thanksgiving Saturday in Cape Chin hooked me in.
In the same area as Cape Chin South are Otter Lake and Cape Chin North, and this area is where the family deer hunting takes place during early November.  My Dad wrote a fine piece about Otter Lake for the Chatham-Kent Times, so I won’t pretend to best that.  Instead, I’ll just talk about deer hunting.
In 1995 at a rangy, awkward fifteen years old I found myself sitting on a blown down birch log at 6:30 in the morning with a Remington Model 14 pump action rifle across my lap.  I was in the wooded uplands just west of Otter Lake waiting for deer.  I didn’t have any calls or experience, but as a first-time deer hunter the camp elders had seen fit to place me in a reasonably good spot near some known deer runs.  At around 8am my great uncle Bower came around and checked on me; he said he’d return in about an hour.  At ten minutes to nine I heard some crunching in the leaves behind me and turned to see Bower.  Instead I saw that a doe and a fawn were loping down the ridge and towards me!  As a party we had two or three antlerless tags, including one that I had been fortunate to draw in my first year of deer hunting and I slid the safety off, raised the rifle and fired at the doe as she bounded quartering away from my right.  She never broke stride but the fawn crossed me broadside at fifteen yards.  The rifle barked again and the fawn went down after some stumbled leaps.  Then everything was silent.  I hadn’t had time to be nervous before, but I was in the moments immediately after the drama I was shaking, elated, sad, proud, and a little nauseous.  Yes, the first-time deer hunter speeds rapidly through a broad range of emotions after their first successful hunt.
I now hunt deer a bit in the Parry Sound district, and I have had offers for some hunts in the Elmira area not too far from home, but I always make sure that I get time in every November at the Otter Lake camp.  I’ve shot a couple other deer in those hardwood uplands since, including one in 2009 that I shot at nearly the same time of day while sitting in basically the spot.  That fallen birch has long since rotted away though.
I’ve turkey hunted all over the North Bruce in Dyers Bay, Lion’s Head, Barrow Bay, Ferndale, and Cape Chin (North and South) but I have not yet managed to connect on a Bruce Peninsula gobbler, despite some close calls.  That terrible record notwithstanding, these treks have taken me through some of the prettiest country I have ever walked in.  The verdure of the spring as it comes to life around you is something special to behold everywhere, but the ridges, fields, and hardwood bottoms of the Bruce seem to do it better than anywhere else I’ve been to date.  For me when I think of turkey hunting I picture sitting in the sun-dappled hardwoods of Cape Chin or watching the dew form on the balsams south of the farm in Lion’s Head with a soft Georgian Bay breeze blowing in around me.
Winter on the Bruce, in my experience, is like winter anywhere else and by that I mean that it is variable to a fault.
Some years it is bitterly cold, other years it is buried in deep snow, and one notable year it was so mild that we hunted rabbits in January with no snow on the ground at all.  The rabbits showed up neon white against the browns and grays of the woods, their fur coats having already changed colour with the photoperiod.  Despite this advantage for us we still had a tough time shooting these little escape artists and only managed to take a couple of them home to the larder.  By contrast, during a coyote hunt almost exactly a year later, it was so cold that the thermometer outside the farm bottomed out, while the outside temperature for the morning hunt (at least according to my cousin’s truck console) was -27 degree Celsius.  I’ve been out on snowy days on the Bruce where visibility was basically nil, while on other January days, although snow was on the ground, it was so warm that one could hunt without wearing a jacket, especially if you were exerting yourself.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective I guess, I haven’t hunted any public land in the Bruce Peninsula.  This is primarily because I am the beneficiary of a family tradition of hunting in the area (which I am trying to honour and maintain as the older generation might one day step aside), family held land in some locations, and a network of friends on the Bruce who put up with my nonsensical metaphors, interminable stories, and sometimes hilarious ineptitude.
Despite the occasionally misguided attempts of some to bring what they feel is urbanization and their skewed views of ‘civilization’ to the area, I have found that the hunting ethic, as part of the rural outdoors ethic at large, is still strong on the Bruce Peninsula where it is a tradition built on personal relationships, respect for the resource and the landowners, and a history where hunting played a vital role in survival for the ancestors of the longer-term residents of the area.  I think that those are the keys to any place where you love to hunt, or fish, or camp, or hike, or whatever it is that you do to get out and enjoy nature and the wilderness.
For this particular observer historical tradition, camaraderie and shared enjoyment in the outdoors all make up the fundamental appeal of hunting as a pastime.  In my mind, the Bruce has all of the above and more.
conservation, fundraising, national wild turkey federation

Reminder-NWTF Hunting Heritage Banquets

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The Halton Hills Longspurs Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will be hosting their 1st Annual Hunting Heritage Banquet on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at Granite Ridge Golf Club in Milton, Ontario.  Doors open at 5:00pm & the dinner starts at 6:30pm

If you live in the Halton Region and would like details on getting your tickets, please see the attached image for contact and ordering information.

Likewise, the Barrie Boss Gobblers Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will be hosting their 5th Annual Hunting Heritage Banquet on Saturday, April 2, 2011 at the Army, Navy, Air Force Club in Barrie, Ontario.  Doors open at 5:00pm & the dinner starts at 6:30pm

If you are in the Barrie and are interested in attending, details on pricing and how to get your tickets can be obtained by contacting Jim Terry via email.


turkey and turkey hunting

The Pines Gobbler Revisited

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After laying probably the worst beat on me ever in 2009, I was really hoping that the Pines Gobbler had made it through the winter and survived into 2010.
With almost no time to scout the location in 2010, and having already endured the most miserable ‘May 1st weekend” weather I had ever seen, I made my way hopefully north to the familiar hunting grounds of the Bruce Peninsula for the weekend of May 8th, 2010.  I had asked around and no one had seen the Pines Gobbler or another big tom matching his description, and a friend of mine had permission to hunt the property ahead of me anyways so with a tinge of melancholy I gave up the big tom for dead, or at least that he had found other, less obvious places to hang out.  Besides, at the time I worked with a woman who had a family cottage in the same area I was hunting in and she had said something to me which made me tingle with anticipation.
“You know the property along the main highway there, the one with the green steel roof on the homestead?”  I said that I did know that property, and that I knew the man who owned it as well.  “Well I was driving up to open the cottage last weekend, and I saw about a dozen turkeys in that front field, right at the back against the trees.”
When I asked her if she saw any big ones strutting, she said that they all looked pretty big from the width of a pasture field away, at which point I realized that to a non-hunter pretty much any turkey looks ‘big’.  I was heartened and worried simultaneously (any avid turkey hunter knows this feeling) because if she had seen them, certainly others, and most definitely someone with a mind to hunt the birds, had seen them as well.
I called the landowner that night.  He said no one had approached him for permission and that I was free to go in and hunt turkeys in that property if I wanted to.  Things were coming together and with no proof that the Pines Gobbler was even alive, I focused my energies on the next challenge.
There is a finger of field that runs just behind the place where my co-worker had seen the birds, and it seemed to me a place that just had to have turkeys nearby; it was isolated and hidden from the road, but close enough to the last reported sighting to be well within earshot.  I drove in on a very dark morning, just behind a passing thunderstorm and found a large turkey track in the dirt road while walking in.  Buoyed, I sat in the “V” of a very damp, very mossy, very old cedar rail fence overlooking a wedge of field not more than 70 yards across.  My Flambeau hens, one feeder, one upright, stood 20 steps away, looking first like gloomy blobs in the dark, then morphing into grey shadows, and then coming into focus under the break of a steely gray morning.
The thunderstorm rumbled in protest as the wind moved it southeast, but the low, hazy dawn persisted behind it and I was to have no sunshine that morning.  The weather was strange.  It was not quite fog, and it was not quite drizzle, it was just that kind of cold clammy dampness that gets into everything and makes your pot calls run funny.  My box call was waterproof though, and I gave some light yelps just at fly down, with no answer.  At around 7am I cranked up the volume a bit and just before 8am a gobble cut off a series of aggressive cuts from my mouth call.  The bird was in front of me, but I could not precisely tell where the tom was.  He never showed himself and never spoke again.  After two hours I left wet, bedraggled, and frustrated.  On my way out I was fortunate enough to sneak within 100 yards of some Sandhill Cranes performing their courtship dance, which is truly one of nature’s most elegant forms of entertainment, a bit like a wildlife ballet, but that single distant gobble haunted my thoughts on the drive back to the farm.
No one else in our little group of hunters had connected that morning (most had heard the thunder and did not even bother going out) so as is our habit, we had breakfast and planned an afternoon of running and gunning.  The plan was simple: drive to places where we had permission to hunt, get quietly out of the truck, make a whole bunch of turkey racket, and hopefully get a hot tom to come for a visit.  Our batting average over the years is right around .500 with that tactic so we must be doing something right.  A wicked wind picked up while we were eating and threatened to spoil our plan.  Our solution was to do it anyways, just with louder and longer calling.
The first three stops netted no answer, so we went into a spot close to where I had my 2009 run in with the Pines Gobbler, but as I said, I had put that mean old bird out of my mind.  Allegedly a gaggle of jakes had taken up residence there, and I was hungry for some turkey tenders so I was not fussy on punching my tag with a short-bearded bird.
My cousin, my brother, my good friend, and I all stepped out of the truck and let slide with a chorus of yelps and cuts that sounded like some sort of enticingly violent turkey orgy.  It worked.  Not one, not two, but three lusty turkeys answered our pleas.  With the wind blowing high it was tough to say how far they were, but when they gobbled again seconds later with no provocation it was obvious that they were running to meet us. 
Jakes.  It had to be those jakes.
We softly closed truck doors, slid some shells into shotguns, and my brother and I hastily sat down next to each other at a junction where one trail became two.  My cousin and friend, unarmed and not at all interested in shooting jakes, sat ten yards in back of us behind a knoll.  They kept pouring on the hen music.  The birds were gobbling to my right and coming hard, so I turned slightly that way and bore down on the stock of my 870.  My brother was to my left with his gun barrel pointed directly at the fork in the trail.  I had about twenty yards of space between me and an impenetrable blow down so the hope was that the birds would come between the blow down and myself and then perhaps offer my brother a shot in the subsequent turkey panic.
Now, before I go further, here’s a point that every turkey hunter (if they don’t know it already) needs to understand.  Whatever you think a turkey might do, he will invariably do the opposite.  If you try to get clever and purposely do the opposite of what you think a turkey might do so as to double-bluff the gobbler, he’ll do what you initially thought he would but didn’t account for.  Either way, you’ll almost always need to adapt or fail.
In this case I failed.  The birds found the open trail and hightailed it down to the fork…a path that took them right down my brother’s barrel.  To make matters worse, before I could see the birds I heard the unmistakeable Pffft….voooooom of a turkey spitting and drumming.  These were not jakes.
I could just see glimpses of the birds, but all three were strutting up the road on my left to my brother.  They gobbled so loudly that I thought their heads were fixing to fall off; one of the gobbles put me in mind of a bad beat I had suffered at the hands of a wily tom in the same area last year.
I was right, and I heard him before I saw him, but there was no question of who it was.  When I did finally see him, mere seconds before my brother dispatched one of the other satellite toms, there was no doubt in my mind that the Pines Gobbler lived.  He was the last of the three strutters and though I could not swing around to shoot him without spooking the lot of them, with my eyes cut left I could see clearly that thick beard and one big spur on his leading foot.  And that voice, God that voice.  I said I’d never forget it, and I hadn’t.
When my brother’s 870 barked the lead gobbler began flopping and digging his head into the trail while the Pines Gobbler and his consigliere fled straight away back from where they had come.  I leapt up but was only privy to two black blurs speeding away and even though I knew my pattern was good out to fifty yards, a running poke at such a bird was never on my mind.
It was a hunt that none of the four of us will ever forget, and while I was very happy for my brother, I was also insatiably hungry to match wits with the Pines Gobbler again.  We left to weigh and dress out my brother’s two-year old bird, but also to let the spot cool down; when I came back for the evening sit I heard not a whisper of a turkey there.  The same was true of the next morning stand.  Family commitments saw me unable to hunt the afternoon shift that Sunday (gun-hunting is permitted in that Wildlife Management Unit on Sundays) but while reliving that run and gun hunt on the drive home I resolved to get back and have one more crack at the Pines Gobbler for 2010.
The next weekend I was indisposed and could not muster a hunt, and the next Saturday on the Victoria Day holiday weekend I hunted around the Barrie area, but the birds seemed to have had lockjaw in that part of the province.
Closing weekend came slowly and my work-week (and five restless nights) teemed with nothing other than visions of getting a chance to close the deal on that bad boss gobbler.  I took the Friday afternoon off so that I could do a quick evening’s scouting before the morning hunt, but the bird was not in any of his old haunts, nor did he answer my crow and hawk calls in the vicinity of where I had last seen him.  No one had reported sighting him, but no one had likewise reported shooting a bird of his stature, so I was pretty sure he was still out there, in hiding, and just being ornery with me.  To top it off it was drizzling, with no sign of it improving until mid-day on Sunday…a Sunday, that by the way, was the final day of the season.
Driving slowly down a muddy road, feeling sorry for myself and resigned to just going back to the same spot where I had last seen him last, I slammed on the brakes.  There was a turkey track on the soft shoulder of the road.  It looked big, but it was also a little washed out.  I got out of the car and looked closer at it.  The track crossed the road into a cedar stand near a hydro cut that I had hunted rabbits in more times than I could remember.  I knew just where I would set up in there: a small clearing about 30 yards wide and 50 yards long flanked by thick cedars and the hydro cut on the south side and open hardwoods out to the north and east.  I crow called hopefully, wishing for that heavy, gravel-shaken-in-a-tin-can gobble to ring out, but still I received no response.
Yet this track was the only turkey sign I’d seen that whole afternoon while scouting, so I really only had one option.  Hunt the bird that I hoped had made that punch in the mud.
I got up at an ungodly hour that Saturday morning and in the wet, dripping darkness walked for fifteen minutes to the clearing.  I was soaked by the time I put out both my hen decoys, and for the hell of it (and because I was desperate) I put out a Flambeau “Intruder Jake” decoy as well.  I pruned myself a bower under a sopping wet hummock of balsams, sat down, and waited for fly down time.  I almost chewed my mouth call to pieces with anticipation.  I checked my watch and at the appropriate time I tried to slide my Federal Mag-Shok #6s into the action of my 870 as smoothly and as quietly as possible.  Later, but probably still a little too early, I purred and tree-yelped softly.  Instantly, and from behind me, a tom turkey roared back.  I should have been happy but I wasn’t.
I was set up close, way too close.  Think “twenty yards away from his roost” too close.  Now maybe I should have owl-called before I got that close to my stand, or maybe I should have slunk further away when he gobbled, but I was in a predicament just then and paralyzed with indecision.  Mostly I just sat there praying that the wet ground had muffled my approach and that the metallic’ snick-snick’ of me loading my gun had not sounded like a gong to this bird.  I hoped because from that one gobble there was no question that it was the bird I wanted.
He gobbled again and again on the roost, but I was determined not to yelp back.  He was already way too close and most certainly knew I was there.  Every gobble tied me in knots:  this was the bird that beat me so badly twelve months before, just across the road from where he was roosted.  I didn’t want revenge from my 2009 debacle because, as Moby Dick has shown us, wildlife has no concept of spite, pride, or vengeance.  I just wanted a chance to best this wise old tom at his own game because that’s part of the challenge and allure of turkey hunting.  I heard him fly down and gobble on the ground, but he was going away from me.  He got quieter and quieter as he marched further and further away.  I begged him to come back over and over, and once in a while he did return a few steps back to me, but never all the way.  I was going to have to move.
I pulled up my decoys and set them under the balsams.  I threw some of the boughs that I had pruned to make my stand on top of them and decided to make a wide circle around the gobbler.  I unloaded my gun to head up the road in an effort to get in front of this bird, and I’ll tell you I’ve never had that “Murphy’s Law” feeling more acutely than I did right then.  With my shotgun in one hand and three shotgun shells in the other I was almost certain that this cagey old turkey would suddenly materialize on the road in front of me while I had an empty gun, or that he’d gobble behind me and I’d turn to see him looking at me from backtrail.
The paranoia of a turkey hunter chasing a hidden, silent gobbler is nearly unmatched.  My neck was sore from all the turning around to look over my shoulder.
Finally I got to where I thought I would be in front of the bird.  I reloaded and cut hard on my box call.  He answered, and he started coming my way, gobbling constantly.  Then I saw him.  He was winnowing his way through some low gads and saplings; he was hot and in half-strut.  I thought about my decoys under the cedars and half-wished I’d brought a confidence hen.  There was no where that I could get a clear shot until he was within 20 steps or so, and he never even came that close.  He had to have seen something he didn’t like (because I was a living statue…for once) and he folded up and started half-trotting away to my right.
When he went behind a tree, I tried to twist my body to the right for a shot.  If you are a right-handed shooter like I am, you know how difficult and uncomfortable this can be, and frankly, I’m not what you would call ‘limber’.  He didn’t putt so I don’t think he saw me, but shortly he disappeared.  Again I sang on the box call; no answer.  I went into a fighting purr routine with my mouth diaphragm fifteen minutes later.  Nothing.  He had been gone for half-an-hour and I was sitting there quietly with my gun half-raised on my knee when he gobbled so near to me that I thought he was going to peck my ear off; to say he startled me is an understatement.
He was behind me again, but the next gobble told me he was coming around to my left.  I slowly raised the gun and cut my eyes to the side; there he was.  This time he was doing that ultra-slow turkey stalk.  He was spooked and frankly so was I.  Sliding the safety off, I needed him to take five steps into an opening and miraculously it looked like he was finally going to oblige me.  My mind was racing; the moment was finally at hand.  And then I did it.
I screwed it up.
Preparing to shoot, I lowered my cheek way down and pulled the butt of the gun even more tightly into my shoulder.  Milliseconds later I would have pulled the trigger, but he saw that movement and in a flurry of putting and shock gobbling the big tom half-sprinted, half-flew out sight.
It was the closest I’ve come to crying while turkey hunting.  I swore.  I said horrible things about myself out loud to any tree that would care to listen.  I cursed the Pines Gobbler, wild turkeys everywhere, and turkey hunting in general.  Then I moped back to where this had all started, stuffed my decoys in their bag and trudged back to the farm.  Halfway back across the big front field, I heard the bird again.  He was a way across the road, back in his safe pines.  He was gobbling.  It sounded to me, at that moment, like triumphant laughter.
After a very quiet, very pensive lunch I put in a half-hearted attempt to hunt the gobbler that afternoon.  After all, I knew where to find him, but I was also beaten down.  Although he gave me a momentary thrill when he marched half-way across a field towards me, my hopes were ultimately dashed when he skirted me by 100 yards and crossed the road.  I roosted him and the next morning I set up on him again in the very early hours.  I even owl-called to avoid setting up too close to him, but he never made a peep and all I saw that morning was a small red fox that was stalking my decoy setup.  I mouse-squeaked the charcoal-footed little fox to within eight steps but he caught my scent when the wind changed and he bolted like his tail was on fire.  This cheered me up a bit because I like the antics of red foxes and see no real reason to shoot one that isn’t causing any trouble in the henhouse.
So that’s how a two year odyssey with the Pines Gobbler stands to date.  Again, so far as I know, no one shot him and he just has the weather, the coyotes, and the traffic on the county roads to survive this winter.  I swore to my wife that if I run into this bird again I am just going to live and let live and not even bother hunting him; he’s obviously far superior to me in every way, and to be honest my self-esteem simply cannot take another spring flogging.
I just hope that if I do happen hear that gobbler doing his raspy, angry shouting, and see his puffed up tilt-a-whirl strutting routine that I can help myself.
Odds are I won’t be able to.
hunting ethics, taboo of the day

Unpopularity Junction, a.k.a. Taboo of the Day

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I met a turkey hunter at my day job today.  In fact he is a hunter of many species, including species that I frankly have not been able to devote time and energy to pursuing, including bears, moose, pheasants.  But it was turkey hunting that we met over; I’d never seen him before in my neck of the office but he was passing by my desk and heard me remark to another co-worker about my intention to possible extend my Easter weekend this year to include a couple of days of turkey hunting.
His question was simple.
“You hunt?”
These are two words that I have heard so often that I am simultaneously buoyed and suspicious when someone asks me that question.  Sometimes the conversation leads to a lively re-telling of stories with a potential new friend, other times it is a prelude to a vitriolic harangue from someone who is opposed to the pastime.
I told the man that yes, in fact I did hunt.  He said that I didn’t strike him as someone who goes hunting (but that debate is for another post later) before we introduced ourselves and talked for a couple of minutes about where we go, what we chase, and what kind of rifles and shotguns we favour.  Turns out he goes hours north to the Ontario/Manitoba to hunt moose every year, has a son that goes with him, and also likes going to Eastern Canada every other year to hunt bears.  I told him about my lunatic addiction to turkey and waterfowl calls and then mentioned my affinity for the Bruce Peninsula.  Then he went merrily on his way (to where I don’t know…lunch, the bathroom, home for the day?) and I settled back down to work.  It was a perfectly non-event of a conversation.  Except for one thing.
When I told him I liked waterfowling, he kind of snorted in a condescending way, almost by reflex, before relating a quick few words that I will certainly fail at telling verbatim…so I’ll just sum it up.
He said he didn’t waterfowl anymore, although he used to, because he had seen too many ‘goons’ (that is the verbatim the term that he used) out sky-busting, shooting illegal birds, abusing limits, and generally acting like clods.  He didn’t judge me (at least I don’t think he did) but he just said that he could care less for waterfowlers.  Which is too bad, because I know a lot of really good, really honest duck and goose hunters that obey the laws and respect the game and the landowners.  He also remarked subtly that he thought the possession limits on ducks and geese were too high, that he knew guys who shot more than they could eat, threw out game, and so on….which I am sure is absolutely true.  I know some guys that do that too.  And again, it got me to thinking.
Like it or not and try as we might to believe otherwise, not everyone in society is a saint, or even decent, all of the time.  And so it goes with hunting.  It isn’t savoury, and it certainly is not an excuse.  But it happens, and anyone who says they are immune to it is either a lying delusional, or is qualified for immortalization on a postage stamp.
“Slob hunting” is not the realm of the urban weekend warrior, or the young, or related to a hunter’s specific ethnic or geographical clique.  It happens all too often, and no one wants to talk about it.  Since I’m not even remotely popular enough to be concerned about ostracizing anyone, let’s not bury our heads in the sand any longer.  This will be a recurring theme here at Get Out & Go Hunting, primarily because I think (and maybe I’m being erroneously optimistic) that talking about the negatives helps the hunting community at large recognize, question, and evaluate their actions with the hopes of cultivating acceptable behaviour that is legal, ethical, and that improves hunter representation.
Today’s Topic: Laws vs. Ethics
By definition, “ethic” is the “principles of conduct governing an individual or a group”.  My thanks to Webster’s Dictionary.
Since I do not have the temerity to feel that I speak for the whole hunting community, and since this is a broad topic which has been the subject of scads of editorials, articles, and hastily written letters to the editor (yes, I’m guilty of it too), I won’t belabour this too much.  Instead I’ll just throw out some real-life anecdotes, some thought experiments, and how I myself generally approach this issue.
I was once caught by the cover headline of a national hunting magazine that boasted an article that roughly went by the title “The Thorny Issue of Hunting Ethics”.  Presumably this publication equates something “personal” with something “thorny” and therefore gives such topics short-shrift.  But I did not know this then and I excitedly purchased this magazine, only to be disappointed by the token wishy-washiness of the article that in no way wanted to offend anyone, question anything, or even promote dialogue among fellow hunters.
But they got my money and put a serious chip on my shoulder about some points of hunting ethics; a chip that still resides there, and which I will now share with you.  The squeamish or the quick to anger may want to go back to my ‘lighter’ post about labelling turkey hunters before I alienate my entire readership.
Hunting ethics should not be thorny, or murky, or cloudy, or any other euphemism that obscures the importance of this issue.  They are not hard to understand and the sooner people in the hunting community come to grips with that the better we will all be.
But before I go sounding all alarmist I will state that I believe the vast, vast, infinitely vast majority of hunters are doing their thing legally and in good ethics.  In fact that is what makes this such a hot button issue for me.  This is because when someone deviates from the law and what is generally called ‘sporting’ behaviour the actions and outcomes  receive heavy coverage and stain the integrity of the collective.  Again, whether it is right or wrong, the reality is that when these things happen (poaching, waste, accidental shootings, and so on) the media and the public do not cast the hunting fraternity (and sorority) in a positive light.  This translates into reduced acceptance among non-hunters, reduced access with private landowners, reduced political acceptance (which we sadly rely on heavily) and ultimately reduced opportunity to get out and go hunting.
So here’s my approach.  I always first ask myself, is it legal?  This takes a nanosecond to answer.  If the answer is, there really is no excuse for doing it, and I can’t feel bad for any one who experiences negative outcomes for breaking fish and game laws.  Period.  This should be the primary litmus test for all actions by anyone in society, but there are hunters out there who feel some sort of bizarre exemption from the law.
There are rules I don’t like.  For example, I’d love to hunt turkeys right until sund-down every day of the season.  But the law says unload and lock it up at 7pm in Ontario, so that’s what I do.  It has cost me exactly one turkey, but really who cares?  That bird was still there the next day….even though that did not help me harvest him.  There are ways to influence legislation (again for a future blog post) but one of those ways is not non-compliance with the law.  The penalties are steep and justifiably so.
Unfortunately, tacit acceptance of law-breaking is still common, particularly in the “everything is fair game unless you get caught” vein.  I would support some sanctions from within the hunting community, but again that’s just me.  Delta Waterfowl does a good job of this in their monthly publication with the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down section wherein they highlight their opposition to illegal activity (which is called POACHING) disguised as legitimate hunting, as well as applaud positive stories about hunting and conservation.  I’m not promoting a medieval public shaming replete with stockades, but I am talking about a nudge in the right direction from within our own community.
But let’s say that an act is not explicitly proscribed by legislation, what then?  For example, in some states it is explicitly illegal to shoot a turkey off the morning roost limb, while in Ontario there is no law (at least not one that I could find) making it illegal to shoot a turkey while it is still roosted, provided it is no more than thirty minutes from sunrise.  So which is right, and more importantly, if you were hunting in Ontario, would you shoot a tom on his roost limb?  I wouldn’t.  But I would (and have) shot ruffed grouse from tree limbs and off the ground, which some adamant wingshooters would never do.
I see it this way: the turkey is sleeping up there and his daily habit is to just stand there until he’s ready to fly down.  He is in a word, defenseless.  Ruffed grouse on the limb or walking on the ground on the other hand can, and usually do, get up and fly.  More than once I’ve been lining up a shot at a walking or standing ruffie, only to see them bust away in a flurry of thumping wings, leaving me either swinging hurriedly after them for a flying shot or just standing there looking defeated.  I have another friend who will never shoot at a flying grouse, primarily because he does not like fine shot pellets in a bird that he plans on eating.  So where do you stand on this?
I have a contentious spot for bait, as I’m not quite sure how to lean on this one.  I think food-plotting is paramount to baiting, but the law calls it “standing crops” even though all the marketing for the products seems to run counter to that definition.  I know other hunters that swear by food plot hunting because in their mind it not only improves odds for success, but can set up close range, more lethal shooting opportunities, which is ethically supportable.  I’ve hunted over apples and corn for deer with no success at all, primarily because I think the deer almost exclusively visited those locations to feed at night.  And then there is bear baiting, which is where I tend to slide into the “anti-bait” camp.  The most egregious example I ever saw?  On an internationally syndicated hunting show, I saw a nationally famous hunter who I will not name walk into a spot with a guide.  While the hunter got into position in the treestand, the guide filled two empty oil drums with garbage bags full of donuts, bagels, and white bread.  All were then thoroughly soaked in honey.
After laying the bait, the guide banged on the drums loudly with a stick and left the hunter to wait for a bear.  Inevitably, and not surprisingly, a few of them (four I think) showed up and one was arrowed by our intrepid hunter.  Again, my interpretation of this is as follows.  While this is obviously legal, this falls well shy of even food-plotting on my standard of what defines acceptable baiting.  Unlike the deer, the black bear is an opportunistic feeder, and these specific bears seemed to be well accustomed to come to what was basically a “bear feeder”.  The guide himself even said, on the record and in the show’s footage that the banging on the oil drums was the signal, the proverbial ‘dinner bell’, notifying the bears that food was there.  Again, the pro-bait camp is perfectly correct in that such a setup can provide more lethal and humane shot opportunities, as well as improve gender identification opportunities in areas with a “boars only” rule.  Still it just did not, and still doesn’t, sit right with me.
Likewise I once watched another hunting show (and in this case I use the term loosely) where first a hunter had his pick of over sixty elk that had literally flocked like birds to the only cistern on a property, and then after a commercial break a different hunter shot one of over two dozen deer that were loitering broadside around a feeder.  The deer in this case were so tame and accustomed to this set up that the hunter and the guide sat in the blind and spoke in normal, conversational tones while they were ‘choosing’ which deer to harvest, as opposed to the hushed tones or total silence of any deer blind I’ve ever sat in.  I’m probably about to earn myself hate  mail from those television producers (should they ever read this) but for my money, I’d be hard pressed to find a non-hunter anywhere that I would want to see any of those three displays.  That anyone could equate those three scenarios to ‘fair chase’ is obviously stretching to the broadest sense of that term imaginable.
Before anyone brings it up, I have a special post almost fully prepared for preserve hunting, and I’ll touch on that some other before I go on sounding like a rambling malcontent.
So now that I’ve ensured that I’ll never be invited on a bear, elk, or deer hunt by any of those unnamed outfitters (again, I don’t think they are subscribers) I’ll get off my pseudo-soapbox and close with this.
Do not let me have the last word on ethics.  I’m only qualified in the broadest sense of that term imaginable.  Again, while ethics are indeed personal, I don’t think they are thorny or complex and I believe that we as hunters can self-police ourselves and recognize something as dicey without getting self-righteous and combative.  As with all philosophies, there will be dissenters and subscribers to your specific beliefs. Have a debate about it, it is the only way we can learn.  The bottom line is this: if you don’t like it, don’t do it; just politely and articulately explain your objection and so long as no one is breaking the law learn to respect those who disagree.
After all, being courteous is an ethic we can all appreciate.

Hunting. Not Hype.