Lake of the Woods Fishing & Hunting Reports

 
 
  
The later part of the month of November has had the rut peek and fall sparatic and continue this pattern well into the month of December. We have seen an explosion of noticably “Big Buck sign” ( rubs and scrapes ) appear during the month of December which is not typical behavior. Many Timber Wolves seen thru-out the November hunt. Then again this past fall did not have typical wheather and factor in the moon phase.

 

Winter Effect on the Herd 2009
The winter has started off with a bang as most would have experienced. Our heard has braved the worst winters thus attributing to the body size of the deer. As of January 1, the deer look healthy and can be seen herding in many area’s. The smaller bucks have not dropped their antlers while the majority of the big bucks have begun to shed them since the second week of December. Surpising not to see “WOLVES” prominent as well.
The spring thaw was late this year and i have seen several deer carcauses in the area. All deer were 1-2 year old, with a couple of larger ones. The bodies were intack and were not wolf kill’s but probably were from the deep snow and prolonged winter.

Bear Hunt 

August 1, we started our bear baiting here on Lake Of The Woods and the Aulneau Peninsula. With (6) baits in place and (6) more to be set we are ready for our first (2) bear hunters who will arrive on the Aug. 18.

For several of the baits activity has been spotty. Three baits have been very active and need to be refreshed frequently. I am very confident that are first group will be successfull in harvesting a large boar.

The scat left behind by the bears has blueberries within it. The bears are still feeding on berries. The baits are enough to bring in the bears though.

First bear of the season, on the first day of the hunt and the first bear ever for Bill from Illinois.        225 lb. Boar

August 18, 2007

A front came thru and shut down the bears activties. Very windy conditions has resulted in a day of inactivity. No baits hit on.

The weather is suppose to inprove and refreshing the baits should get them back in on them.

August 22, 2007

The baits have became active once more. Andy gets his bear.

Did abit of walleye fishing to top off the week.

Walleye and crappie are closer  their fall holes. Although they are not there yet fishing is still semi awsome.

Were finding them on predictable channel and rock drop off’s that they frequent prior to their fall patterns.     16′-25′ of water.

Nebraska Bear Hunters

This hunt has been tough with the full moon faze happening and strong gusting winds daily.

Today, Chris from Nebraska got his bear.

Whitetailed Bucks 2007

Tommy was a pleasure to hunt with and I admired  his undivided persistence in hunting one specific stand thru-out his one week hunt. A member of Ken’s hunting group from Vermont who hunted with us this past November 2007.  The tree stand was set in place 2 weeks before Tom’s arrival.Tommy standed this spot thru out his hunt and seen a decent shooter buck twice but couldn’t get a good shot? He viewed a couple to as much as 12 deer in this stand each day. Tommy explained that he sat this stand for the whole week not because of the amount of deer he was seeing or the so called “shooter buck” inparticularly but that he had seen an enormous bodied monster deer. He saw this deer twice on a far ridge just out of muzzle loader range. Tom never did get the deer in muzzle loader range. My wife and I went to clean the cabin between hunting groups and we seen Tommie’s buck chasing a doe not more than a few hundred yards from my cabin.

This buck pushed 190 class typical.
‘A Monster Buck’ Easily 350 # plus. 12 point, 5 tines on each beam, 2 brow tines,  around 12 inch G2’s   Completely sementrical. “OH” the Mass on this guy’s beams. Truely Amazing.

Two days later I placed Mike in the stand that Tommy had sat the week before. On the second morning of his hunt Mike seen the big buck at 70 yards
with a wide open shot. His muzzle loader miss-fired. He got a second chance at 90 yards and had another miss-fire. Mike would not answer my radio calls to him. I found Mike’s tracks all over the place and the last track wondered off into the big bush. Mike attempted to follow this buck which he did not actually hit. I went back to the boat and located Mike close to 2 miles away on an inland lake. He was sweating heavily and had left his back pack back at his stand.’Buck Fever’, he was constantly rambling on about the buck that he had missed and I had to council him thru-out the rest of the day.
The other guys in the group told me that Mike vomited through out the night.

Mike did harvest a fine white-tailed buck later in the week.

The only constellation is that this “trophy is still out there”.

 

WINTER WEATHER & THE DEER HERD

We have had a more than average amount of snow fall this year. The larger amounts of snow that has fallen were in the month of Febuary and average amounts were seen earlier in the winter. From experience I expect this snow to melt fast with the on-coming warmer temps and the fact that the heavier snow falls occurred late in the winter months puts less stress time on our white-tail herd. There is not alot of winter left and the herd will be strong.

 A large amount of snow fall is what can effect the deer herd. Wolves with their broad paws can run the deep snow quite well and the deeper snow can also make it hard for the deer to get at their food.

The MNR or DNR have issued a local press release encouraging local people not to feed the deer and that the herd is quite healthy. There will not be a negative effect from the winter months on the white-tail herd this year.

2008 Bear Baiting

Located this year’s bear baiting location’s and will commence baiting. Will set trail cam’s up as baits are hit.

2008 trail cam

  
  

End of the 2008 season

7 out of 8 hunters harvested their black bear this year. Sizes ranged from 100 to 230 pound’s. No colour faze but some bears had destinctive white patched chest’s. Most of the hunters seen other bears and everyone expressed that they enjoyed their hunt with us.

Bear Tracked Down 

Ruth who bear hunted with us this past fall and her whitetail story

In 2006, Brian and I had seen a really nice buck where we had been bow hunting in the trees at my Dad’s farm.  We rattled and did some grunting but he wouldn’t come any closer than 70 yards or so.  He had a couple smart old does with him too so he got away to live another season. 
In 2007, early in the bow season,  from my tree stand, I spotted a few deer in some tall brush in a fence line quite a distance away and realized there was a really good buck.  Because it is so, so flat and wide open here, stalking was not an option.  We set another tree stand and a couple ground blinds, we rattled and grunted but there were quite a few does and he wouldn’t leave them and come any closer, he knew he was the dominant buck.  He stayed out in the open stuble field where he had a good view of everything but Brian did get a good enough look at him with binoculars to determine that he was not the same big buck from the previous season. 
The opening day of gun season was just a couple days away and early in the morning we spotted the buck from the previous year so now we realized that there were two really good bucks in the area.  I had a landowner tag and I was just hoping to get a chance at a shot at one of the big bucks with my 270.  Either one would be fantastic as they were both great bucks.
Gun season first day opens at 11:00 AM so at first light that morning, we scouted and bow hunted but saw only does and fawns.  We decided to drive around to where I had seen the deer in the fence line a few days earlier.  As we drove we spotted what looked like a deer grazing and thought it was odd that it would still be out so late in the morning.  We didn’t want to spook it so we parked the truck and started to sneak, using the bales for cover.  Very soon we realized that it was a buck, and then we realized it was in a struggle, holy shit!  Then we realized that it was locked up with another buck!  And then the one buck lifted it’s head and the other buck was already dead, hanging from it’s antlers.  Awesome.  And then, one shot, and then, disbelief!
We couldn’t believe what we had just seen and what had just taken place, we had both of the big bucks!  It was very exciting.
We are having them both mounted, still locked up, the Taxidermy said they should be done next week.
 

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