2012 moose hunt

My friends and I just spent the past week in the Red Lake area of Ontario's Sunset Country Region hunting moose.  It has become a tradition for us to spend the last week or so of the season up there chasing these big, awesome critters around.  We had pretty good luck this year and were fortunate to come home with four moose - two cows and two calves.  We did have a couple of bull tags that went unused but that's the way it goes!  We had some close encounters every day but that's hunting.  All in all, a great trip!  Unfortunately I didn't really get any nice photos of the moose.  I was not in on any of the shooting so when I arrived to help get a couple of these animals out it was already dark.  Here are a few photos from the trip...

Dave Bennett with a beautiful wolf that he got on the first day of hunting while we were doing a drive.  There was another jet-black wolf with this one that he couldn't get a shot at.  

Here is a cool picture of a large cut area that we were hunting.  It was super cold this morning...like a legitimate -30!  Beautiful country!

Brian McNanney holds up a large moose shed that he found while we were doing a drive as Matt Rydberg looks on.  

An interesting moose rub on a tree...it looks like an oversized deer rub!  Except it was like 7 feet high!  

Here is photo of the cow that Matt Rydberg shot on the second day.  The animals are so big!  And so good to eat!  

Here is a BIG owl that I saw one day while on a walk.  Pretty awesome bird that you don't get to see very often!  

One last photo of Dave's beauty wolf!  

We stayed up at Five Lakes Lodge in Red Lake for our trip, you can find them online at http://www.fivelakeslodge.com/

Giant whitetail!!!

Check out this GIANT whitetail that my friend Dennis Chevalier took this past week Ontario's Sunset Country Region.  He took this 17 point buck with archery gear on November 19.  My fishing partner Chris Savage and Dennis had been hunting this deer for most of the season and Dennis finally got him within range.  What a great deer!  Just to be clear, I did not have any part of finding or setting up for this animal, this was all them but it shows the quality of deer that are around.  It is one of the biggest bucks that I hae ever seen!  

Congrats boys!  That is the deer of a lifetime!  

The Deer Report

I had some friends up hunting from Minnesota this past week and they were able to see some good bucks.  We had a few big ones that just didn't show themselves but considering the tough weather conditions we did pretty good.  The rut was in full swing this past week, the guys got to see quite a few bucks chasing does around.  There were also a lot of wolf sightings, there are plenty of them around right now.  

Adam Kuntz with a big 8 pointer that he tagged on the last day of the season, November 15.  We've been chasing this deer around for the past 3 years so there was a lot of time into waiting for this guy to show himself.  

Kyle Minke with a nice 10 pointer that he got earlier in the week.

Jake Kuntz with a heavy 10 pointer that he got this past week.  

Here is a trail cam photo of Adam's deer.  If you look back at the 2010 and 2011 trail cam photo galleries you can see pictures of this deer.  His antlers did not grow a whole lot over the past couple of years, he was an old buck, probably 7 or 8 years old.  

For more trail cam and hunting photos, check out the galleries on the left. 

Deer season is here!

Since I got back from Texas a few weeks ago I have been chasing whitetail deer around in Sunset Country!  The deer numbers are getting a little better but at still not where they were at five or six years ago.  Hopefully we get another good winter and things will really be starting to look up.  There are a lot of smaller 2 and 3 year old bucks out there and really good numbers of fawns from this past spring, which is great news!  Here are a few deer that I have caught on my trail cams and a couple of nice ten pointers that my friends Scott Bonnema and Dave Hartig harvested.  

Dave Hartig with his heavy 10 pointer

Scott Bonnema with his nice buck

This is a really nice deer that I have had pictures of for the past three years.  I even have the sheds from this guy from 2010.  

This is the biggest buck I have ever had on camera that actually has a drop tine...I have had pictures of this deer for the past three or four years as well.  It's a nice one!  

For more pictures, check out the Trail Cam Gallery and the Hunting Gallery

Rayburn FLW Tour and Lake Fork

The last FLW Tour Open of 2012 took place a couple of weeks ago at Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas.  I had a little bit of a tougher time at this event but managed to squeak in and cash a check so I was happy with that.  Rayburn was a tough with only three days of practice, it is a huge lake with a lot of options for catching fish.  I ended up getting most of my fish shallow during the event.  We caught a couple big fish deep on the first day of practice but were unable to replicate that throughout the rest of our time there.  

I had a week off before the Rayburn tournament so my fiance August came down to Texas and we spent the week fishing at Lake Fork, one of the most famous big bass fisheries in the World.  We had a great time there and caught a few big fish.  The lake was pretty treacherous to run around on because there are stumps EVERYWHERE, it's crazy!  

Here are some photos from the past few weeks.  

This was a good one that we caught during practice (my buddy Jamie Bruce from Kenora was down with me and fished the tournament as a co-angler).  

Here is Jamie with a big fish he caught during practice, around 6 pounds.  

Here is Jamie on-stage at his first FLW Outdoors tournament.  He ended up with a 34th place finish, which was great!  

One of the highlights of the event was getting the chance to chat with the legendary Rick Clunn before the blast-off on day one.  This was very cool!  He ended up beating me by one ounce in the tournament!  Great guy!    

Here is a big one from Lake Fork - 8 pounds.  

Overall the trip was great!  I was gone from home for about a month to fish the FLW events at Wheeler and Rayburn, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot!  

Just tonight I sent in my registration to fish the 2013 FLW Tour...can't wait to get the season started in February at Lake Okeechobee!