German Hunter Bags Huge Moose in Canada

I just read this story on CBC news. A German hunter was in the North West Territories of Canada and Harvested this giant moose!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/01/13/nwt-moose.html#socialcomments

I think that is incredible, good on him for such an adventure. I am glad we (Canadians) can showcase our wonderful country to the world. Some hunters believe all hunting should be reserved for native residents, but I believe we can share some hunting oppertunities. Especially expensive, hard to access areas. Resident hunters do not always have the resources, or the time to get into  tough areas and hunt, so to give those oppertunities to foreigners with ample money is fine with me. It supports hunting and conservation oppertunities for us residents.

My ChekMate Falcon Arrived

I went to the post office today and picked up my recurve. It is a Falcon ChekMate Recurve 60" long and 55# @ 28" draw. I was sent a dozen arrows with it so I began shooting indoor at the archery range today. I was not consistant with it, but sometimes I showed a little promise. This bow shoots fast and is forgiving but it will take me a while to master it. At 20 yards most of the time I was hitting the bale 🙂 and at 10 yards I occasionally shot a 10-12" group. I hope I get better soon, I would like to do the 3D indoor shoot on Saturday but if I am still shooting horribly I will have no choice but to continue practicing before I hit the 3D circuit. I will post pics soon.

Excellent Argument for Hunting

This article is spot on and a very good argument against the anti-hunting community. I agree with everything said in this article and actually have found myself using arguments that are parralleled in this article. My favorite part is when the author says if he loved just killing animals he would buy a carton of chickens to beat with a bat! This type of behavour is obviously not what hunting is about, have a read:

"PUBLICATION: The Kingston Whig-Standard
DATE: 2009.01.02
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion
PAGE: 5
ILLUSTRATION: 1.
BYLINE: L. W. OAKLEY
COLUMN: THE OUTDOORS
WORD COUNT: 112

——————————————————————————–

Why many urban Canadians are against hunting

——————————————————————————–

Imagine you’re in a slaughterhouse. You’re standing in front of a chicken hanging from a hook upside down by its feet. It’s squawking loudly and flapping its wings, frantically trying to escape.

You ask the chicken, "Why are you making such a commotion?"

This chicken can talk, so it replies, "Please help me. I don’t want to die."

Then you say, "But I’m going to eat you."

In your wildest imagination, do you think that chicken would answer you by saying, "Why didn’t you say so? I didn’t know you wanted to eat me. Go ahead. Slit my throat."

No animal wants to die. Not a single factory-farm animal would willingly give its life so you can put a chicken wing on the grill or a leather coat on your back.

About one billion, 300 million chickens are killed worldwide for food each year. It’s hard to comprehend killing at that level. Put simply, it means 2,500 chickens are killed every minute, all day, every day, all year, every year, because people like eating them.

The truth is that most people aren’t opposed to killing animals. Otherwise they would stop eating meat and wearing leather. People are

opposed to doing the killing. They prefer to pay for the deaths of the animals they consume. They don’t want blood on their hands or on their conscience. They do their hunting on the meat aisle in the grocery store but take no responsibility for killing. They look away and let someone else do it for them.

Before you can condemn hunting, you must first look in the mirror and ask yourself, "How can I justify being directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of animals that will be killed during my lifetime because I want to eat or wear them?"

You can’t condemn one and justify the other.

But people do. Why?

People condemn hunting not because it involves killing but rather because they believe that hunters enjoy killing.

If I hunted because I enjoyed killing, I wouldn’t hunt at all. I would just buy a crate of chickens and beat them to death with a baseball bat. It would be much cheaper and far easier.

To be a hunter, you must have a clear conscience about killing and must possess the will to kill. If you want to call yourself a hunter, sooner or later you will have to kill a wild animal. You can’t look away. It’s no accident that you look down the barrel of a gun before pulling the trigger.

On a moose-hunting trip near Espanola in Northern Ontario, seven of us hunted out of a tent for a week. We shared a single tag for one bull moose. We saw four moose cows up close that week and didn’t fire a single shot. We weren’t there to kill. That’s why it’s called hunting.

The average deer hunter kills one deer every three to four years. I know a man who hunted for 25 years before killing his first deer. Don’t forget: No chicken ever escapes the slaughterhouse.

To me, meat-eating anti-hunters seem intolerant by nature. Listen carefully when they speak. Their message sounds like this: "If everyone was like me, the world would be a better place."

When my publisher was reviewing the manuscript for my hunting book, they sent it to an editor to read and review. The editor was a Buddhist vegetarian woman working at a Canadian university. At first she didn’t want to read the manuscript and returned it to the publisher, saying, "This book is about hunting. I can’t read it. I wouldn’t even kill a fly."

But she did read and recommend it for publication. Later she wrote me a letter saying that the book opened her eyes about hunting and taught her to be more tolerant of others.

Maybe we could all be a little more tolerant. Perhaps then the world would be a better place.

Our human character was formed in the hunting and gathering stage of evolution. Hunting is the foundation of humankind. We are all descendents of successful hunters. Even though there are 3 1 /2 million square miles of wilderness in Canada, two-thirds of our population lives in cities.

Many city people are anti-hunters. They have lost touch with nature and the natural world. They sleep in subdivisions, drive SUVs, sit in work pens, talk on cellphones, eat fast food, watch TV, play with computers and take pills to feel better.

Hunting wild animals is perfectly natural. It’s a part of our heritage, a way of life, a state of mind and a symbol of democracy. * L. W. Oakley lives in Kingston and is the author of Inside The Wild, available at the publisher’s website, www.gsph.com."

 

I hope you found it as interesting and well written as I did,

cheers!

Wood Arrows as a Gift

Today my father in-law presented me with some traditional wood hunting arrows with glue on fixed broadheads fletched with real feathers . He bought them off a friend who found them for a bargain price at a garage sale. You never know what you will find there.

The arrows are painted with a little cresting in the middle, I look forward to trying them out when I get my ChekMate Falcon in the mail soon. I am not sure what species of wood the arrows are made of but they seem light. I am also unfamiliar of what type of broadheads these are. I will have to give them a good sharpen before they are used for hunting. The arrows are perfect length, cut at 29" long. I just hope they have a stiff enough spine.

Wood Arrow with Glue-on Broad Head

Using a Howitzer for Deer Hunting?

I just came across this crazy idea on the web:

http://www.buckstix.com/howitzer.htm

This guy is suggesting you to use his blue prints to assemble a mountain howitzer to hunt deer. Not only does this seem unethical and unsportsmanlike, there must be some laws against using military cannons for sport hunting.

He shows pictures of one of his deer kills suggesting that there is minimal meet damage and that only 6 lead balls connected with the deer. Seeing how he uses 148 lead balls in one shot I am left wondering how accurate and effeciant this cannon is. Some of you might think this would be a good idea but think of the logistics: hauling a cannon up a mountain to hunt cannot be an easy task.

This is just another example of the web being an outlet for good and crazy people alike. Everyone has a voice but we must be discerning in what we accept as good practise.

 

send this dude your thoughts on him hunting deer with a cannon!

Waiting for my ChekMate to arrive!

Since my compound bow and all my bow hunting stuff was stolen, I have to start all over again. I have long thought about shooting traditional archery and figured this is a great time to invest traditional archery tackle and begin a new relationship with a more primitave method of hunting.

I found this used 28" draw @ 55# ChekMate Falcon recurve here:

Hunting BC

In the for sale section.

The bow looks in excellent condition and I eagerly wait its arrival so I can begin pulling back the string.

I had to go and get some accessories like a bowstringer and shooting glove but should be good to go as soon as it arrives as it comes with 6 aluminum arrows.

 

Choosing a proper caliber

I was talking to a friend the other day and he asked me some ideas on what he should get for a rifle. He wanted a rifle that would be adequate for all game. Even though you could use some calibers for most game in North America such as; the .300 wm, .30/06, and varius other .30 caliber cartridges, it would be best to find the optimal caliber for hunting different types of game. For instance; you could use a .243 win for pronghorn, deer, sheep, goats, a .270 win for elk and black bear, and a .338wm for moose, brown bear, and bison. There are many cartridges that could be used to overlap different types of game animals, for example; a .270 wsm would be suitable with the right bullet for deer all the way up to moose. Although it would not be the first choice for moose hunting, it could do the job. A .300wm could be considered a little overkill for deer hunting, but with a 165 grain barnes bullet you could take anything from a deer to a moose. There are a multitude of calibers and bullets to fiddle with to find what you like and using the Federal ballistic software from their site is a great tool:

http://www.federalpremium.com/recommendation/default.aspx

White Tail Buck Down

I went out to hunt the interior for a whitetail hunt this weekend with my Father-in law, his Father, and his Uncle. It was good to be out with some new guys hunting in a different area. We stayed at a flee bag motel and ate decent meals at the diner so we had all the comforts of home while we hunted. We were some tough hunters eh!

Anyways, 1 hour into the hunt while driving to look for some areas to hunt, This guy stumbled accross the road and I fed him a 165grain pill from my .300wm, ’twas a free hand shot, roughly 40 yards away, give or take a couple yards. I know it is not a giant whitetail but it was a legal buck in a brand new area we were weekend hunting and I wanted to bring home some meat. It was also the first game animal I harvested with my new Weatherby Vangaurd .300wm.

 

That buck turned out to be lucky as we hunted the rest of the weekend seeing around 40 deer but only 2 were legal whitetail bucks, and they were on the run when we spotted them through the timber.

The area provided some nice walking trails and open old growth timber with ample feed I would love to try for a bigger buck as we saw 2 – 4×4 whitetails and 1- 4×4 muley along with 2- 2×2 muleys.

New Gear Reviews

I have purchased a number of new hunting products after doing extensive research and have written about the results on my web site. I always look for economical solutions as I assume most people do as well. If you would like to read about my field tests and reviews on the following items; Bushnell Scout 1000 with ARC, Leupold Gold Ring Spotting Scope, Kenetrek Boots, Avery dog training tools, just click the link and read on. If you would like me to write or test a certain item just send me an email and let me know. I hope you enjoy my field test reports!