Spent the last 4 days chasing spring bear in the deep bush. During the spring hunt I am very particular about the bear I take if I even take one at all as the tag is still valid for 10 weeks in the fall. Fall on the other hand is about filling the freezer. Could have tagged out multiple times - once on a respectable +/-300 lb boar and numerous times on smaller 150 lb class boars but I am holding out for a 600 lb behemoth that I know lives in the area.

Certainly not wasted time though. 4 am views like this every morning are priceless and are medicine for the soul:



Four days solo totally off the grid (freaks my wife out) paddling (you can just make the front of my canoe in the above pic) and hunting with the only sign of humanity being yours truly. Not even any high flying planes to disturb me. Can't ask for more.

Pure awesomeness.....that would be a fantastic experience......

Talking about one with nature, awesome

That's a dream for most of us. I'm glad you appreciate it

That's really nice! I can see how the wife would get a little freaked out however, that would be so cool having the stars and moon as your light and having the animals to keep you company. So did you have any Northern lights?

I have only seen the Northern lights once while visiting family in the UP in early September and at that time they didn't have any color they were just white.

No northern lights on this outing but I do see them regularly. Sometimes plain white and other times bright and colorful and enough to read by.

Beautiful, hard to beat that view.

Beautiful. Wish I were there.
I just returned from NW Ontario and I agree with you on Spring strategy. I too passed on several smaller boars, had a 550 boar hang up in brush at 50 yards one evening and another morning had one pushing 600 all brown boar wind my foot step on trail and he backed out at 40 yds before presenting clear bow shot. I did take a very nice 470lb boar on last evening hunt and it only went about 50 yards. Good thing broadhead did its thing because it was close to getting down to a big creek and ravine making recovery much more difficult.

Beautiful. Are you spotting and stalking???
Adios,
Gary

Seems like a cool life you've got Hirogen.

You might consider getting one of these:

https://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=100

To give your wife piece of mind. Or not. A buddy of mine had one and really liked it.

That is mindblowingly fantastic

Doing spot and stalk and bait hunting. This is all crown land (what you guys call public) and is umpteen millions of acres of roadless wilderness. I have 3 bait sites that I set up in early May by canoe. I visit them once a week by canoe (only way in other than float plane) to check for activity and hunt them. This round trip takes 3-4 days with about half the time spot and stalk and the other half on the baits. Helps to own your own business, lets me take 3-4 days out of every week from the start of May until mid June.

This was loading up at the access point at the start of this past trip:



This was early May setting up baits - no hunting on this trip:



You may notice there are two different canoes. The top one is my preferred canoe but the bottom one is used if I expect possible rough conditions on the lake portions.

Jelly

man you're living right

I've heard mixed reviews on eating the meat. I'm guessing your opinion is that it's great. Hmm. I never knew.

That's because it can range from awful to as good as aged Angus beef. Cooling the meat super fast is critical, butchering method is also crtitcal - all the fat has be trimmed off, and last but also important is diet. Bears living on berries and insects are excellent eating. Bears that eat garbage and a lot of carrion or fish are not so good.

On trip like that if I take a bear it gets skinned and quartered right away and than packed in dry bags that i sink into about 40 feet of water that is at about 38-40 degrees. I do that as often as necessary until i get to the truck where I have 150lbs of ice (may be only 100lbs left after 4 days) in a two coolers. The bear than goes on ice until I get somewhere to hang and finish the butchering.

I do not see a rod & reel in the canoe, do you sometimes fish for dinner when you are bear hunting, if so what is your favorite fish to eat?

On the setup trip - no fishing as Walleye was not yet open. On the hunting trips after 2nd Saturday in May it is Walleye time. Top canoe the fishing tackle just hadn't been loaded when i snapped the pic.

Awesome. What latitude were you at?

Sorry for the delay in responding - off the grid for a few days again. At about 49 degrees. Also just put the wraps on the spring season - had multiple chances but was hoping for a monster so did not use my tag. Tag is still valid for the fall so will get back at it in late August Early september.