35 yo to present: Hunting,

I’d just like to mention that a main reason I lived in BC was the hunting. The outdoors here is magnificent.  I hunted every fall. I began in Vancouver where i first came. I bought a Browning 30:06 rifle from Italian Sporting Stores.  I’d have also buy a Remington 12 guage pump action shot gun. I don’t remember the 22 I first had. I have had a few 22 rifles.

I’d shoot grouse from the beginning. My first hunting trip was Pemberton followed by Whipsaw. I’d shoot grouse but while I saw deer I never shot one. I’d climb a whole lot of mountains. I used to range from dawn to dusk. In Pemberton I’d hunt in the morning and in the afternoon come back for the Hurley River hotsprings that is no longer open since the bridge collapse. I’ve been to a lot of the hotsprings especially those up by Harrison Lake. I’d hunt in the morning and lie in a hot spring in the afternoon. In the evening I’d find some place hoping a deer would come the down the hill. Lots of times I just drove about in my vehicle exploring.  I saw a lot of mighty fine country. 

 First ‘hunting car’ was my VW Rabbit. Then I’d move up to the really great little mountain Ford Broncho II. The Ford Broncho was a famed hunting mobile but the Broncho II was smaller, better for the towns but did amazingly well on the high logging roads. Later I’d get a Vanagon. Then I’d have a Toyota Sport Truck .then an Astro Van, then a Ford Ranger. Then I moved up the the Ford F-350 Harley Edison diesel. Now I have a Ford F-350 Lariat edition 4x4 8 foot box heavy duty truck. I have the last one to haul my camper or RV.

 I’d tented for years , pup tents, 2 man and 4 man tents, mostly North Face or MEC.  I’d often camp high in the mountains and sleep in my sleeping back after cooking over an open fire or with my Coleman stove. I’d take canned stew and bread, sometimes eggs and bacon. I brought a little Weber Portable that I carried in back of the Broncho II. Nothing like barbecuing venison strap muscles or liver and onions right after an animals has been shot. Grouse barbecued well too.  I had a North Face 40 below sleeping bag I’d bought as a fly in doctor for work in the far north. 

Always I had Shinto beside me in the tent. He’d bark and let me know if anything or anyone was about.  I also had  a 12 guage, usually the defender beside me. I liked to load it with a couple of buckshots and a shell in case of bear bothering the camp. On the island it was only black bear but on the mainland I was often camped in Grizzly Bear territory and would come across them when I was hunting. The worst was coming up on a mother and cub when I was bow hunting. I was glad to slink backwards and away from that encounter. Hunting is a grand adventure. Mostly I’d go alone, often with Bill and once every year or two with Bill and a couple of guys on a moose hunt. In later years others like Luke and Sonny came on the moose hunt then even later I’d have the pleasure of coming across Dereck out hunting and continuing the hunt with him. Often I’d meet guys in the back woods. In later years I’d have a 4x4 quad. I ‘d also have Honda CRF 230 then a Honda 250 enduro and buzz all around the back country. I just traded in my Honda Pioneer 500 side by side for the KTM 690 enduro.  Everyone has its merits but I shot the most game when I walked about in the woods or sat in ambush. I got more exercise and lost more weight but I really do enjoy the quadding and motorcycling in the back woods. I shoot a lot of paper and still seem to get grouse whereas I mostly scare off deer.

I always shot grouse. I loved frying the chicken breast in butter with marmalade and haveing a great delicacy on rice.  I loved cooking wild game studying and trying recipes. My crew, also my principle hunting buddy for many years despite eccentricities , a great companion in the woods when he’s not so depressive and hasn’t been alone so long he’d talking like a cabin fever person.  A lot of hunting is driving around in the back woods with a big comfortable truck talking about women, politics and God and hoping the game find you.  The dog loves it.

The first deer I had was in Comox. Bill Mewhort had shot two and I’d helped haul them out for him the day he had a heart attack. I’d hunt with him some trip almost every other year until he died a few years ago.  I butchered up that first Island Deer and began trying very way which way to cook venison. Island deer is a red deer, a little musky, perfect for barbecuing but also great for stew. I love venison stew.

I believe Scottish folk need wild game and salmon to survive to awaken.  

Bill would take me out to hunt my first deer.  He’d already told me.

“I saw you sitting by the lake huntin with my binoculars. Why are you hunting their in the morning. The deer go up to the mountain tops in the morning and come down to the river, lakes and valley in the evening. Thereafter I’d climb mountains like he did before dawn and sit half way up to shoot the deer as they made their way up coming out high first light.”

This day he suggested I stay in the valley. It’s was dawn. 

“They’re walking along the river before they head up.” 

“Don’t smoke. Don’t move. Stay completely silent. Wait in there somewhere and there’s sure to be a deer along the trail.”

He’d hardly pulled away in his 4x4 truck when I saw a deer. He looked straight at me. It’s a spiritual thing like they realize this ‘meeting’ is their last. They also always have a kind of ‘oops’ look ,the island deer did, not the Mule or the Moose. I shot that deer through the heart and was thoroughly ecstatic. I was really like those Scottish guys in the Highlander .I was suffused in energy.  I lifted that deer on my shoulders and carried it back to the road, beaming from ear to ear.  Bill had heard the shot and come back.  

“Well done young fellow. Looks like you’re happy with yourself.”

“I sure am” I said,dropping the deer on the road side.  The blood had dripped all over my face and jacket. I was ecstatic.  It’s an extraorinary feeling that linked me a thousand generations of man. I had in that one shot joined my father ,uncles and grand father’s and countless ancestors before me. We were always a hunting and fishing clan.  

Bill enjoyed my enjoyment as much as me.  He taught me how to field dress the deer and to this day I’m still not good at getting the bladder out in tact.

He’d bore around the anus with his knife with precision and finesse. I chose to cut the pelvis bone with my ax and lift the bladder and large intestine that way.

‘Remind me never to come to you for cosmetic surgery,” Bill said.  

“I’m more a trauma surgeon type.” I told Bill.  The axe work on the pelvis got the job done.  I didn’t have to tie up the bladder with a string either. I’d read up on the whole matter and being surgically trained understood the anatomy. My way “got the job done’.  Barbaric though it appeared.  

More barbecue more stew.

I’ve now shot some 30 or 40 deer in the last 25 years.  I’ve shot them with a bow and arrow as well. I’ve shot grouse with bow too. I’ve shot 8 moose.  Bill was with me when we shot my first moose. It was up in Clinton. It was late fall and cold. Bill had booked a cabin with a wood stove for heat. We were up early hunting each day.  Driving around the back woods, sitting on mountains, sitting down by the streams. Finally the last day I saw a big deer running full out in the distance.  

I pointed it out to Bill.  

It’s a moose he said.  It was running a mile away . Bill had his binoculars on it and exclaimed 

“It’s got horns.”

He then gunned his four by four perpendicular to where we were and down the hill a ways. 

“Run as fast as you can to that tree down there and shoot it when it comes put of the woods.  Don’t stop shooting till it’s down.”

I didn’t know then but moose run in straight lines.  We’d seen it a mile away running at an angle downhill towards us. Now Bill had figured the trajectory and sent me to this treed a mile down the slope. I ran like hell despite my gear and got to that tree. It couldn’t have been a minute later but this big bull moose broke from the forest. It had crossed the clearing where we’d seen it first and crashed through these stand of woods to appear 50 yards in front of me exactly where Bill said it would.  I had my 30:06 with a 180 grain bullet up to my shoulder and even though I had a 10 power scope on 5 I didn’t need it but sighted in on the heart and pulled the trigger .The moose had conveniently stopped for just that second surprised to see me. Now it took off at the locomotive speed moose do. I shot another 4 shots at the receding rear when I heard another shot and the moose stopped wobbled and fell .The earth shook. I looked up . Bill must have been a mile away by the car , a tiny dot. He’d taken that shot.  We’d find I’d missed all my shots at it’s receding ass. But there side by side not even an inch apart were two bullet holes.  Both had pierced the heart.  My shot I’d taken at 50 yards .Bill’s was more like 1200 yards if not a mile.  Bill was the most amazing hunter and marksman.

Now we had a ferry to catch. With Bill’s help we gutted the 1400 lb beast when Bill came back.  We took out the the liver and heart. The liver was huge.  Once it was gutted Bill pulled out his chain saw and emptied out the oil to replace it with vegetable oil. Then he just quartered that moose.  Loud chain saw noise then 4 huge slabs of meat. We hitched them on rope with the hide down and pulled them behind the 4 by 4 car.  

Driving back to the cabins along the logging road I saw a   a grouse on the side of the road , asked Bill to stop.  Ishot it in the head with my 22.

Some other hunters pulled up behind as I was getting back in the Jeep.

“That’s a beauty. Where did you shoot it.”

“I know. I said, holding up the grouse.” I shot it in the head with my 22 right there. “

Bill was laughing when I got back in the car leaving the other hunters dumbfounded.

“They were asking about the moose.” 

“I know but the grouse is beautiful It was a perfect head shot.”  I said.

“You’ll always be a grouse hunter.”

I really wood. It always gave me the most joy probably because I love the tasty little nutty flavoured morsels and it reminds me of the joy I had with my brother and father hunting partridge and prairie chicken in the prairies.

Bill would put the horns on the front of the Jeep. The moose was loaded in his trailer under a tarp. The challenge was to get back in time for the last ferry to the island .  

It was a wild wild down through the river gorge.

We just made it.

On the ferry in the car an older woman , more Bill’s age than mine, would object to the bloody horns been slung across the hood and held on by rope.  

“That’s awful.”  

“Shut up you old bitch. The boys shot his first moose and it’s none of your business.”  I loved that he said that. I was ecstatic with my first moose. It was an amazing amount of meat.  We’d each have something lie 500 lbs of incredibleness when he got the boxes of wrapped and butchered meat back from his favourite Gunter Brothers Butchers up the north island. He’d fry up some liver and onions and I thought I’d gone to heaven. The taste is great but the sensation that follows eating that heavenly meat is something indescribable.  Moose meat is one of a kind and a true delicacy. 

I’ve shot 8 moose , that one included the last 25 years. My Yukon friend had shot 30 said  “they walk through my back yard, so you’re doing respectably well for a southern city fellow who has a job to go to.”  I love moose meat. Best barbecue and great stew meat. 

The other most outstanding moose I shot was with Luke and Tom. They did all the hauling and butchering after I shot the moose coming upon it riding on my little 50 cc ruckus.  Great guys to hunt with.  

I show one elk north Vancouver Island with Laura along .This was a good thing because it took me 12 hours to haul out and then I flipped my ATV and hurt my back. A local man found me and helped me load the elk in his truck get it and my ATV back to my truck 30 miles away .Then he followed me back to the cabin where I ate a bottle of Aspirin and thanks to Laura’s mostly emotional support got back down the island onto the ferry dropping off the amazing elk at the butcher. I’d keep the meat in a fridge I bought for Laura’s apartment. The roasts were the best but Laura made up a hash from the ground meat  that was so tasty Iwas addicted. No wonder it’s called Prairie Beef. 

I’ve shot three bear. The first I gave most of to my Indian chief friend. He loved bear. I was concerned about the parasite and didn’t care for the meat much that first time though ate some sausage. I had the coat and head taken in to the taxidermist because I’d shot the bear in the centre of the forehead when it came on a log bridge I was crossing and would’n’t back up.  I backed up to my side and shot it glad it didn’t fall into the fast flowing river in the gorge.  

I’d shoot a deer when I was coming back to Vancouver from up north and the mayor in a town said he’d been asking hunters to shoot bear if they wood since there’d been so many that summer and they’d over run the town. I dutifully went out thinking of the African hunters who shot tiger and came across this bear which waited for me to jump out the truck and shoot.  It went right down.

Then Shinto ran over to it and up it jump turned and raced off into the woods with Shinto after it. I followed with my ‘Sexcaliber’ the stainless steel Ruger 30:06 that I’d buy from Granlund Firearms. I was living on the sailboat at the time and this was the first of the stainless steel rifles.  It got the name of Sexcalibur because the sun caught it as i took it out of the box saying it reminds me of ‘Excalibur’s and my wife at the time said ‘it’s sexy ‘ so Bill said. ‘That’s it ‘it’s Sexcaliber’.  

I’d hardly followed Shinto a couple of dozen yards into the forest when Shinto came barrelling past me with the wounded bear chasing him. His look was as much to say “he’s yours boss’.

I shot the rest of my shells in his back, two in the lungs and another in the shoulder. I was shooting down and running backwards.  He veered up and went up the tree next to the trail. I loaded 4 more shots and fired a couple more times before he fell. I’d put a last one in his head before I was certain he was dead.

When I gutted him and took the meat and rug I’d find that my first shot had taken off the apex of his heart but had not opened the chamber. It was through the lungs as two more shots I’d made running backwards and one in his shoulder. The shots I fired up the tree had severed his spine and the head shot had been delivered when he was likely already dead. It was an object lesson in how far a wounded animal could go and how dangerous they could be.  It served me well as knowledge when I was the expert witness for a policeman who shot a man and folk thought he should have shot to wound and other such nonsense. After that experience with a beast like a bear I’m not likely to shoot to wound.  Animals and man don’t take kindly to being wounded and they have a lot of life in them even after mortal shots.

I’d shoot another black bear and while I was gutting and cleaning it look over to see that my Scotty dog Stuart had decided it was his and was kicking dirt on it’s head an burying it. Stuart thought we were pretty great hunters that day. Scottys’ are little dogs with the biggest egos.  

I’d shoot three a couple of moose one time I was hunting with Bill and a a couple of the guys. I had a cow tag . I came across a couple of bulls and a cow and shot the cow.  It was heavy snow and as I was making my way through the drifts to dress the cow I saw this bull moose bearing down on me from out of my eye. He’d made a circle and come back charging straight at me. He was going full out 30 miles per hour.  

I dropped on one knee and with my bolt action Ruger chambered a shell looking threw the scope. I actually saw the bullet bounce of the skull as I chambered the second shell. That bullet two bounce off the hard horn skull. The moose was almost on me when I shot my final shot into the neck. My previous shot having caused his head to come back. He dropped right at my feet.  It was a pretty exciting and exhilarating moment. I’ve said ever since that I prefer bolt action as fear makes one fast and an automatic rifle would have been too slow. I was certainly the toast of the hunt when the guys gathered round and saw that the trails through the snow confirmed my tail. There was the fallen moose head touching where my toe and knee prints were. Everyone was pretty excited. Bill had a bull tag. 4 guys , 2 moose. Not a bad hunt. No one cares much who shoots since a moose hunt is all about the meat. It’s  harvest time.

The Wild game are managed by the incredible government forestry and wildlife services. Hunters and fishers account for 90% of the Wild life management in the province while urban polluters run their mouths off on CBC about everything but reality. They’re simply not in touch with reality. The game wardens and wild life services count the game and manage the herds which are pretty much like a free range beef only they’re on common ground and not branded. The guides who have licenses to parts of the province are equally committed to the maintenance of this resource.  

I’ve shot and cooked up thousands of pounds of the finest meat for myself and friends for decades.  You can’t buy this in the stores and the experience.  If you could a steak would cost $50 to $100 lbs. I consider the meat priceless . It’s cost me in time and effort and equipment hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Most people are ignorant of hunting and take everything for granted . Critics are proliferating in Canada. I miss the days when there were more rural folk who were learned and less of the ignorant offended arrogant city parking lot types ruining their environment with their waste and hot air.  

I’ve a vegan for years. I’m spiritual. I love the game I shoot. I’m more a conservationist and traditional hunter than any of the natives I know especially the urban natives, some of who I admire and have had the pleasure to take hunting and fishing with me to teach them skills they’ve lost with the lust for luxury that appeals to so many.  Hunting is not easy and it’s a very skilled occupation that I’ve become good at thanks to my grandfather, my father, my brother, Bill, hours at the rifle ranges and countless hours reading, wilderness skills galore and as much time as I can out in the woods. 

Now I’m less efficient and enjoy my Camper, the barbecue, reading and writing at night in the warmth. Drinking coffee made on the camper stove, hanging with the lady and the dog. I can’t seem to get up early in the morning and like careening about the back woods on my KTM off-road motorcycle. I shoot grouse still but haven’t shot a deer I skipped a Hillary Trump debate to go out hunting in my truck . A buck was standing in a field .I shot it at dusk. Gilbert ran out to it so I shot it again as Gilbert jumped on it’s face to hold the head down till I got there. I’m afraid two deer I know saw a cockatoo as the last thing they saw before departing to deer heaven.  I imagine they think that’s what killed them Gilbert certainly took credit for bringing down that deer. 

The one I shot brfore was bounding through the air and I shot him in the air in the field at dawn.  Gilbert was off and running and straddled the head of the deer trying to lift his head with his last breath .