Of Tipis, Wolves, SIBs & Whitetails

[prairie tuber]

Well its that magic time of year again, when the whitetail deer are in the full rut, and the general (rifle) season opens. Normally by this time of year all of the lakes are iced over and use of the SIB is not an option. This fall has been a mild one, and about once every 4-5 years most of the lakes around here are still ice free and navigable. The SIB is the perfect craft for hunting on back country lakes when freeze-up is imminent. I was also fortunate enough this year to be able to take a full week off work to hunt.

I got away last Thursday afternoon and headed to the eastern part of the province, where I would set up camp for the week. If it were earlier in the fall, I would set up camp at a boat access only location. At this time, that is not a good plan since a lake could ice over overnight, potentially leaving you stranded for a long time. I set up camp at a nice spot near a remote forestry road that gets very little use at this time of year. The tent set up was an '8 man' (if jammed in like sardines) tipi (~8 lbs) and a foldable stainless steel stove (~4 lbs), both from Kifaru. This system works extremely well even at very cold temperatures.





You can run these stoves extremely hard (as shown here when stuffed full of oak) without burning them out.



With camp set up, I went to check up on 3 friends who had come out from Ontario and had set their camp up not far from where I was set up. They were on the 2nd last day of a 10 day hunt. While they only got 2 whitetails between the 3 of them, they did get these!:



Those 2 on the ends won't be dancing with Kevin Costner anytime soon. The wolf population has been extremely high here for the last couple of years, and have decimated the deer populations in the area. Hunters are encouraged to take them, should the (rare) opportunity arises. A high wolf population will have many times the impact on the deer population than hunters will. While completely inedible, wolf rugs make incredibly beautiful wall hangings. These Ontario hunters will now have some gorgeous souveneirs of there time spent in Manitoba which simply can't be bought in some trinket peddling souveneir store, all while doing their part to benefit the ecology of the region.

The next morning, I launched my SIB along the edge one of the many lakes in this area. The general idea was to get access to some remote shoreline with alot of high ridges to walk along. The intention was to get to the south end of the lake where the topographic map showed ideal terrain, however this was thwarted by ice covering the south 3/4 portion of of the lake. While the ice was thin enough that the outboard was more than capable of pushed the boat through, it certainly was not worth risking potential damage to the fabric. I was pretty much restricted to the outflowing river at the northern portion of this lake;






It's late and I have to get up early, so I'll continue this story tomorrow...

[willk]

Originally Posted by prairie tuber

Well its that magic time of year again, when the whitetail deer are in the full rut, and the...

... Annual PanCanadian Trolling Championships begin again .

Nice tipee, BTW

[Jono]

Originally Posted by willk

... Annual PanCanadian Trolling Championships begin again .

Nice tipee, BTW

....... Git !

I go with a canvas bell-tent (oo err missus) myself... if weight isn't a real issue...

[willk]

Originally Posted by Jono

....... Git !

... not petrol sniffing after all

[PeterM]

Looks like a nice place - but any chance of binning the pics of the dead animals ? Not against hunting at all - just feel I dont want to see it on a boating site.

[willk]

Originally Posted by Blackroady

Looks like a nice place - but any chance of binning the pics of the dead animals ? Not against hunting at all - just feel I dont want to see it on a boating site.

[hushed tones] ...and so Mr. Blackroady makes his delicate trademark cast Trolling a little fluffy complimentary lure with a carefully concealed double barb. Hours pass and barely a ripple disturbs the surface of RibNet NA; are they sleeping or just sated on Rye? This impass cannot go on much longer...

[willk]

...HANG THOSE DAMN WOLVES GOOD 'N' HIGH GUYS!

[PeterM]

Come on Will............Fair enough , but if the wolves have decimated the deer population why go out to shoot some more?

Like I said I'm not against it & love the the outdoors - great tent , stove , situation - just rather see more of that than dead deer.

Pete

[prairie tuber]

Why take more deer? - Because they taste great and there are not enough hunters that go into this particular region to have a significant negative impact on the deer numbers. On the other hand, a single small pack of 4-5 wolves can easily wipe out over a couple hundred deer in a year.

Bin the dead animal pictures? - Nope. There are plenty of threads on this SIB forum with pictures featuring (dead) fish obtained via the useage of SIBs (which I have no problem with) so pictures of other animal food sources obtained via the useage of SIBs should be fair game as well.

Canvas bell tents (when weight isn't a critical issue)? - Yes, they are indeed an excellent choice, especially for very cold weather when used with a centrally located wood burning stove.


Back to the story at hand, I landed the SIB at a few spots and climbed along the various ridges in the area on the first day & saw absolutely nothing. The daylight hours burn up so quickly at this time of year and your out of light before you know it. I landed the boat and loaded it back on the trailer and headed back to my camp site for the night. The next day I headed back to the same lake to see if the ice situation had changed overnight (was warm and windy). The lake was wide open, so I launched the SIB and headed down to the south east end of the lake where it's feeder river flows into this lake. Went up this river until I reached these falls & landed the boat.







I worked this area for a couple of hours, then headed back down river and found another area with high ridges & landed there.



I walked several km along these ridges, saw no deer but was able to watch a couple otters playing in the river for about 1/2 an hour from a ways up a ridge. On day 3 I tried getting into a different lake via a chain of lakes, but it was blocked off by more ice at the halfway point.





Day 4 involved going to a different area of lakeshoreline of the lake that the first 2 days were spent along. Again many kms of walking, but no deer seen all day.







Day 5 was the full day I had left to hunt. I launched the boat on a different lake, crossed it and again made my way up some ridges between the adjacent lakes. Again several km of walking without seeing anything. I sat down on a rock to check my location with my GPS, and while watching the GPS screen, I heard soft steps to my left and behind me. I slowly turned to my left and saw a large, mature buck that seemed so intent on tracking the scent of a doe that he was completely oblivious to me being a mere 25 meters away. My 35 Whelen was quite effective or this large bodied whitetail. My estimate is that he had a body weight somewhere around 250-280 lbs, so there was no way I was going to carry him whole for over a kilometer back to where the SIB was. This meant cutting the meat up on the spot and doing a couple of trips to carry the meat, head & hide. It was well after dark and very windy when I got the last load back to the boat. The 3km ride back across the lake in the dark with 3 foot waves made the return trip that much more lively.

[Polwart]

Originally Posted by prairie tuber

pictures of other animal food sources

what does wolf taste like?