We had been hunting for about 8 days on the same 3” of snow we had when we arrived in Ontario. Kevin had been hunting on his own and I had been ...

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THE BUCK HUNTER May 2011  As usual when spring has sprung in most of the state, the North Country still seems more like winter. Hopefully old m...

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Finally some early snow! The deer season around Jackman Maine started off with tracking snow in the higher elevations. I hunted on my own for a few...

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Sound Advice

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A Word from Hal             About 20 years ago, when fanny packs were first getting popula...

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 Hal’s 2009 Season I started off the 2009 deer season with our annual Ontario get away. After the long road trip out which always consists of ...

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Once again my deer season kick-off was our annual guide’s trip to Ontario in mid October. This year we drove, stopping at a motel for a six hour break to stretch out and get a few winks of sleep. All of us snorers slept but some of the other guy’s didn’t! We arrived at camp to find the weather quite warm. It stayed fairly warm for the seven days we were there, and we were hunting in shirt sleeves. Needless to say the big bucks were not moving around much. Buck sign seemed to be limited to small area where a buck was spending most of his time. Overall there was lack of buck sign. By the end of the week the consensus among the guys was that the warm weather was keeping them down and that there was definately less deer than usual. I asked the guy we rent the camp from about the previous winter and he said it was colder and snowier than usual. Since a lot of the deer in that area don’t yard up, there was a pretty good winter kill. Everyone in camp saw a few bucks, but not many real big ones. There were a couple of missed shots, but I won’t mention any names! I never saw a buck that I was interested in shooting but the highlight of my trip was my son Gary shooting his first 200lb buck. He shot a nice heavy horned six point with no brow tines the first morning out. It was Gary's first trip with us. He had just returned from serving his country in Kuwait so it made it extra special.

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Preserving the memories of your hunt with quality photos in the field

As I write this column at the beginning of April, the weather is showing signs that spring is finally coming to the North Country. Yesterday I was outside in a tee shirt washing the road salt off from the vehicles. It was fifty degrees and sunny, a welcomed break from winter. We’ll still have some cold days, but hopefully there will be a lot more warm ones to come. The deer seem to be doing better around here. We got a hard crust on the snow in early March that allowed the deer to walk on top of the snow. It was a blessing for the deer as they have been able to wander around and get at food that they hadn’t been able to get at all winter. I’m still seeing quite a few of last year’s fawns and they look to be in pretty good shape. I’ll be praying that the snow disappears in a hurry.

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Last fall I started writing about points to make us all better deer hunters. I had the most comments on persistence. Many of you agreed that it was the most important thing to have and also agreed that it was the hardest thing to do. This month I'm going to talk about the one thing that will help you have more persistence and that is, practice. There are lots of thing to practice, to help in becoming a better hunter as well as making persistence a lot easier to have. Many hunters just grab there gun and head into the woods on opening day in hopes of shooting that monster buck, without any thought given to what it might take other than luck. If you rely on pure luck when you after the old moss horns, you'll never be a regular at the tagging station.

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Last month I said that I was going to start covering some deer hunting topics, to hopefully help you get zeroed in on a good buck. I thought I'd start out with what I consider the most important thing a deer hunter needs to understand and commit to in order to be consistent at tagging a buck and that is “persistence”. I've written about it before but I feel so strongly that this is the key to success that I'm going to really try and get you to understand the importance of it. Without persistence you are leaving a lot to chance or luck. Webster's defines persistence as: to refuse to give up, especially in the face of opposition. To continue insistently, to endure, remain. Of all the successful deer hunters I know, this is the trait that they all have in common. Whether they are stand hunters, still hunters, or trackers these hunters persist when other hunters would have given up.

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