Algoma 2013 - Day 6: More Action

Beaver dam overtaking road

Yesterday both Bob and Wayne, Bruce's son, had the the opportunity to take a shot at black bears, but they passed either because the bear was not big enough or because it did not present a good broadside shot.

Wayne and Bruce left this morning and Randy and his wife Sally arrived around lunch time. Randy was here in the beginning of the season but could not get a bear at the time, so he is back for a second try.

After lunch Bob went back to his bait site at the Shanty Creek Road, Randy went with Jeff out to "Bait 5" at the Loop Lake Road, Joseph went rock hunting and I stayed at the lodge nursing my knee. By mid afternoon both Jeff and Joseph were back and dragged me to go fishing.

When we arrived at the boat lunch we saw the camp of Canadian native hunters after moose, and because of the intermittent rain we took a small pontoon boat with a top instead of Jeff's jet boat. Soon the three of us were fishing on the tea-like waters of the Montreal River. I caught a small pike on a spinner and after trying different lures and baits we all set on jigs with night-crawlers and eventually caught a nice string of walleyes.

At around 6:30 PM we heard a shot coming from the direction of "Bait 5", so we raised anchor and got back to the boat lunch where we met Randy by the time we had put our fishing gear back in Jeff's truck. Randy had shot a bear, and like me yesterday was coming to get help to track and retrieve it.

By the time we got back to Halfway lodge it was dinner time, and we decided to eat the great bear stew that Steve prepared with one of my bear's loins and decided to wait for Bob to get back so he could take part on the night adventure.

Eventually we left on party of six people, Randy and Sally, Jeff, Joseph, Bob and I, to track a wounded and potentially dangerous animal at night only armed with bear spray, a Canadian law prohibits the use of firearms after sunset, even when trailing wounded bears.

The four ATV convoy took some time to negotiate the bad logging roads and trails to get to "Bait 5" and once we were there we soon found a good blood trail and we found the dead bear with a beautiful white chevron in its chest within fifty yards of the bait barrel.

Bob and I will go home in the morning, but we are already talking about coming back.

Algoma 2013 - Day 5: BEAR!

Two predators forever connected

Yesterday everyone hunted bear for a very long time and today because we were all tired  decided to change tactics and only start bear hunting later in the afternoon, and this gave me time to go grousing. Joseph and I took my truck and went looking for logging roads that hosted suitable grouse cover. I was very distressed that my trusted pointer Bob refused to come along and decided to go baiting with Jeff instead.

We stopped at multiple logging roads and walked along looking for coverts and birds, but did not have success until we came to the "ZERO" Bait. We stopped the truck and started along the two-track. When we arrived at the bait and tree stand we found the partial skeletons of two moose. I imagine its a cow and its yearling due to the difference in size.

We continued to move along until the end of the two-track where I heard grouse calling. I entered the bushed and initially I thought that I had been fooled by a raven, but soon after I found myself in the middle of a small flock of spruce grouse. I made sure that I would locate and retrieve each bird I shot before pursuing another so I would not risk losing a bird, and after some intense minutes I had three more grouse.

When we came back to the lodge Jeff told us that three of the four baits we were hunting had been hit, and after a brief conference I decided to continue to hunt the same site (Bait 17.5) as I did the previous days, and I am on my way shortly after lunch.

The temperature is around 68F and it is very humid which makes for rather warm and uncomfortable hunting weather and I feel overdressed in my flannel shirt and wool sweeter (the same Woolrich sweeter I bought at Orvis in Traverse City in January 2003). With the warm weather come the the mosquitoes and I believed killed more than a limited those pesky flying insects.

The temperature does not seem to affect the red squirrel's energy and they chase each other around, chirp and climb the bait barrel to lick the molasses that has been poured on top of it to help attract bruins. A couple of red headed woodpecker come visiting and I think that if no bear come at least I can tell that I met Woody Woodpecker.

I kill a couple more mosquitoes and then absolutely noiseless a black bear comes up the hill and turns the trail at the tree that holds a well aged piece of beaver and looks straight into my eyes. At fourteen paces it looks like an enormous monster bear to me, and immediately after spotting me it turns into its tracks to escape back into the almost impenetrable jungle he just emerged from, but at the same time I raise my 375 Holland & Holland and shoot the bear like I shoot grouse, relying on reflexes a lot more than precise aiming to hit a fast fleeing target.

The first thought that comes to my mind is that I missed the bear, but when I come out of my improvised ground blind I soon find blood and bone fragments and I knew that The bear was seriously wounded.

I am not a good enough tracker to pursue an wounded bear alone in the thick northern woods and even if I found it, it was more than likely that I would be unable to retrieve it by myself, so I went back to my truck and drove back to the lodge where I found Jeff as he was about to go fishing with Joseph and Bruce.

When we got back I gave my bottle of bear spray to Joseph and loaded my 20 gauge Browning side-by-side with slugs. I hopped for my shot to have been fatal, but if we had a wounded bear in the woods I can shoot a light shotgun a lot faster than I can shoot a heavy bolt-action rifle, and slugs at point blank are as effective as any rifle load.

Jeff, Joseph and I started tracking and Bruce stayed at the bait to give us directions. We found a lot of blood and more bone fragments, and inside the Northern jungle the temperature rose from warm to really hot, maybe because of the claustrophobic environment and all the excitement and adrenalin rush of tracking a potentially dangerous animal under such challenging conditions.

Although the cover was very challenging we had no problem with the blood trail, and we found the very dead male bear under a tree 82 yards from the bait as the crow flies. We also found that the 300 grain bullet completely destroyed the bear's left shoulder exploding like a grenade.  The bullet behavior is clearly not what is expected from a dangerous game bullet, but the injury it inflicted killed the bear, even if no vitals were hit.

Steve now joined us and brought a sled to help us retrieve the bear, and that is when the bear revenge started. It took us over an hour to bring the 180 pounds bear out of tangled woods, and back to the truck. The last challenge was the crossing of a beaver dam. While we walked the top of the dam, we floated the bear in the sled.

After some more of the usual work that comes after shooting a big game animal we had a "wild game dinner" of grouse, walleye and northern pike, and fried bear liver with onions. The excellent dinner was washed down by a bottle Rodney Strong Pinot Noir and  another of Jacob's Creek Barossa Valley Shiraz. A fitting tribute to he bear.

Algoma 2013 - Day 4: Close Encounters of the Moose Kind

Photo by Robin Ireton

Just for a change today (I really mean yesterday, since I was too tired to write last night) we did not go grousing. Instead Bob, my new trusted "pointer", left earlier for his bait stand on his ATV and shortly afterwards Jeff and I followed to bait all four sites. Our plan was to make the run and bait mine last and I would stay to see if the bears would come earlier, like happened the previous day.

We started by Bait 16, the "Pit", and Bob's trail camera revealed that two different bears had visited it sometime after dark, a large one and the other quite small. That is the site I took the decision not to hunt. That was also the only hit bait of the four we visited. Cè la vie!

Jeff stopped to bait Bob's site at Shanty Road and Bob asked me to tell me he had seen  five grouse. Maybe he will become a bird hunter one day! When we came to the last and furthest away bait at the other pit, also on Shanty Road, I went ahead to check the bait and three grouse flushed not ten feet from me, but the 375 Holland & Holland is rather inadequate for shooting grouse on the wing!

We came back to my bait (we now call it 17.5) at around 12:30 and it had not been hit, so I decided to take my place while Jeff refreshed the bait with a large nice piece of beaver.

And I sat, and I sat, and I sat...

In order to avoid falling sleep and possibly finding a bear licking my face like my lab Tupã likes to do I got my i-Phone (No! There is no cell phone or Internet coverage here, thank you) and finished reading Aldo Leopold's Round River, a less famous work than Sandy Country Almanac, but not less important in my view, as it show a bit more about Leopold the hunter. After that I also ready some of the hilarious Galen Winter's stories on The Journals of Major Peabody.

By 8:00 PM it was getting too dark to shoot and started raining again, so I left my very comfortable chair and walked back to my truck a half mile away.

Shortly after getting the main road while i was coming around a bend in the road my headlights showed a very large dark body supported by four very long legs. It took me a few seconds to remember that they don't have horses around here and that the animal was a cow moose. I continued driving slowly as the she-moose trotted in front, but before I could snatch a picture she left the road on a pond or beaver dam and within seconds had crossed it and entered the north woods.

This may not have been such a close and personal encounter as Bob had, but it surges make you want to drive carefully. I need to drive my truck home and not leave a reck here in Ontario.

We had T-bone steaks for dinner washed down by a bottle of good French red, Chateau Haute-Tulieres. After dinner a hot sauna helped us couple with the long day and prepare us for a good night of sleep. Bing quite tired I had to write about today, tomorrow!    

Algoma 2013 - Day 3: All the grouse, but still no bear

Jeff and I at the Halfway pump

After breakfast Bob and I went after grouse following a road close to the lodge. Less than a mile away we came across a flock and I was able to shoot two ruffed grouse, including a beautiful left to right crosser.

Shortly afterwards we went out with Jeff baiting, and all but one of the sites (the one I hunted yesterday) were hit. On the way to the Shanty Creek baits we located another flock of spruce grouse and I completed a limit in no time, including a beautiful couple and a juvenile bird.

I forgot to mention yesterday that while waiting for bear I heard at least two different grouse drumming, and the sound they make reminds me of the suffering starting up of an old one cylinder diesel motor that powered the electrical generator before we had grid power in our farm Buriti do Retiro, in southern Goiás state, Brazil.

We came back to the lodge around 2:30 PM, had lunch and Bob fixed his ATV.

I got to my bait at 3:30 and the bait barrel was nocked down, but the lid as still in place and the bait had not been touched. I may have moved that bear as I came to the bait.

I was a lot more comfortable today. The temperature did not drop as much as yesterday and I dressed a lot warmer.

Towards sunset I started to hear moose calling deep in the swamps.

Shortly after I returned to the lodge, Wayne, a hunter from Grand Rapids, arrived and said that he missed a bear as soon as he came to his bait in mid-afternoon. Bob did not see anything, except for a couple grouse. Maybe he should become a bird hunter!

Algoma 2013 - Day 2: More than Grouse

A moose visiting a bear bait

Today we had a lazy start following a very nice breakfast. Bob and I went checking some bate sites, but none had been hit.

On the way to "Bait 17" Bob saw a grouse and I almost had to kick it before I could shoot it in a more or less sportive way. I was a cock spruce grouse and I think it will it very well along its also deceased relative from yesterday.

We came back and had lunch and went separate ways for our respective baits. It was almost warm when we left, but by mid afternoon the temperature started to drop and by the time I got back to the truck around 8:00 PM it was down to not so warm 36F.

There is a full moon and not a cloud in the sky, so we should have another frost tomorrow morning, and definitively I will wear my under armor.

When Bob got back about 20 minutes after I arrived he was excited for having had a very close encounter with a bull moose while riding his ATV. We all gave him a hard time for not taking a picture while both, the moose and him, sped along a narrow logging road.

I reminded Jeff that when I was here for the first time three years ago I shot my bear the first afternoon after less than two hours hunting. Considering I hunted for about six hours, I already should have shot three bears.

Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Algoma 2013 - Day 1: GROUSE!

Spruce Grouse and BSS

Following some planning and a lot of expectation my friend Bob Scott and I are again hunting bear with Jeff Helms of Agawa Canyon Outfitters (www.trophybears.com). We left my home in Traverse City at 5:30 this morning after attending the Ruffed Grouse Society banquet yesterday, and after crossing the Mackinaw and Sault Saint Marie bridges and driving the eastern coast of Lake Superior until Wawa from where we headed to Halfway Heaven in the Algoma sustainable management forest, where we arrived by mid afternoon and we immediately met Jeff, and the Halfway owners Gail and Steve, and soon after we met Joseph who came for a week of fishing and kayaking.

As both Bob and I where tired due to the short night and long drive we decided not to hunt today and went out with Jeff and Joseph scouting and baiting five or six different sites from where we will hunt during the week.

We found evidence of bear activity in all but one of the sites, and a trail camera confirmed the presence of a very large bear in one of the bait sites, and although we were not hunting bear I took my 20 gauge Browning side-by-side shotgun (BSS) just in case we would need better protection that the bear spray that both Bob and Jeff were carrying or in the case that we would come across some grouse, as I had never had the opportunity to hunt these awesome birds before.

After going all the baits Jeff drove us to a covert just by the roadside and after struggling around the dense forest for a while Bob, who earlier had volunteered to play pointer, flushed two birds. I hit one with the second barrel as it was about to reach the top of a tree. After I retrieved it Joseph spotted the second bird not ten fit above the ground on a pine. I saw the bird and could have easily killed it, but instead I flushed it, not without some effort and missed as it flew away and put not one tree, but half of a forest between us.

We tried to locate more birds but did not succeed, and as dinner time was already past we drove back the Halfway where Steve positively identified the bird as a female Spruce Grouse, the first bird of this species that I ever shot.

We enjoyed a bottle of Veo Grande, a good Chilean Cabernet and continued to talk hunting, fishing and related lies.

A 30-30 For All Seasons

Savage Model 219

It is a fast world out there with an unrelenting pace, but between all my air travels, all the talk about the “Modern Sporting Rifle” (which I sometimes shoot) and endless apocalyptical TV shows that almost ways feature zombies (which I never watch); I try to find ways to disconnect and chill out. And in order to chill out I do very little fishing, almost as little kayaking, a lot of reading, mostly about hunting, hunting whenever I can, and shooting, shotguns in bearable weather, air guns in unbearable weather (too hot, too cold or too wet don’t affect my basement), and unusual rifles on rare occasions.

Earlier this year I attended a gun show in Novi, Michigan, and among the multitude of modern firearms I found an unusual rifle that not only attracted my attention, but also my wallet. Please, don’t tell my wife. She will be mad!

That rifle was a Savage Model 219 in 30-30 or 30 Winchester Center Fire, and rather than trying to describe it myself I will quote from the 1940 Shooter’s Bible (Authentic Reproduction) where it is portrayed on page 35 under SAVAGE COMBINATION RIFLES AND SHOTGUNS:

MODEL 219 SINGLE SHOT RIFLE

Calibers .30/30, .32/20, .25/20 and .22 Hornet

Tapered, medium weight, round barrel with raised front sight base, length 26 inches. Proof tested. Barrel and lug forged in one piece. Hammerless action with Automatic Top Tang Safety. Polished and blued frame. Barrel bolted to frame with large beveled locking bolt. Forearm fastens with tension of heavy steel spring against hinge pin and forearm barrel lug. Both features designed to automatically take up wear. Selected American Walnut stock and forearm, full pistol grip stock with fluted comb. Hard rubber butt plate. Sights, adjustable flat top rear sight. Bead front sight. Weight about 6 pounds.

Model 219……………………………………………….......................…...………Price $15.00

A number of factors attracted me to this little rifle. First, I always wanted a 30-30 gun, but while I really like the Winchester Model 92 I can’t say that I have the same feelings for the Model 94. Second, I have a great appreciation for the concept of the British Rook and Rabbit Rifle, which is basically a gentle, light, single shot, center fire “small bore” rifle used to either hunt small game or control pests. And finally, the Savage Model 219 would make a nice platform to shoot my BS loads.

BS may stand for Basement Special loads, Buck Shot loads or other less polite terms. They are squib loads for high powered center fire rifles that allow them to be safely and comfortably used almost any where that you have a safe backstop that will stop a .22 rim fire bullet. The basic recipe for my BS loads is a 1½ buck shot (the .310” diameter round bullet fits about perfectly to 30 caliber rifles) sitting on top of a two to three grains of fast burning shotgun or pistol smokeless powder and a standard rifle primer. (Disclaimer: This load is safe on my gun, but I cannot accept any responsibility for it being used in other firearms.)

I already discussed similar loads using chamber adapters and 32 pistol brass in the past, but this time I wanted to make them even simpler (actually cheaper, since the adapters cost around US$ 20 each), so I just resized some 30-30 brass, put a new primer in place, poured 2.5 grains of Universal gun powder in it (an spent .22 LR shell makes a good measure), and hand sat a single 1½ lead buck shot as a bullet. It takes longer to describe the process than to make a BS center fire load.

The result is a perfectly functional all-American Rook and Rabbit Rifle, with minimum noise and no recoil at all. The load above propels the 46 grains “bullet” at about 700 feet per second producing minute of squirrel or minute of rabbit or minute of crow accuracy to about 30 yards. If you need to shoot farther just add a little bit more powder. Back in Brazil this Savage 219 in 30-30 could be used to hunt any and all game existing in the country, with the exception of feral water buffalo.

One of the virtues of single shot rifles is that you can feed them just about any load or bullet that fits the chamber. There is no repeating mechanism to worry about or malfunction. If the BS load is a bit too light for your needs, 30 caliber rifles are blessed with an almost limitless selection of bullets, from 90 to 250 grains. Besides the BS loads for small game, this little Savage Model 219 will be shooting high performance 130 grain soft points during the November Michigan whitetail deer season.

The take down and lightweight design my even allow it to travel with me down to the rather long and generous Alabama deer season, and maybe it also has the opportunity to prove itself on the local feral hogs.

If I ever stop traveling, I may also use it for cottontails, bushy tails or an unwelcome crow during the winter months. As for the remaining of the year, it is polite enough to be used in my basement or backyard.

Minute of soda pop accuracy, plus empty, BS load and 170 grain shells

A New Generation

Maria Eduarda & Sylas

My first grandson, Sylas Meirelles Mulder, was born yesterday at 5:29 PM US EDT at the Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, MI. At birth he weighted 2.932 Kg and measured 53 cm.

As his first gift he received a custom made friction folding knife that was commissioned by my father several years ago. The blade is hand forged from a diesel engine valve and the scales are from the antlers of a Michigan whitetail deer that my friend Bob Scott found dead by the roadside and gave to me.

Every man should have at least one good sharp knife as it is the one tool that will never become obsolete, and although Sylas will never have the pleasure of meeting his great grandfather Tuim, he already has a unique gift to treasure his memory, not to mention the hunter's genes.

Please, join me in welcoming the new hunter's generation.