Black bears making their presence known around Sault Ste. Marie
By Tom Pink
Black bears have been making their presence known in my little town this summer. Whether it’s because of a late start to the growing season limiting their food or an abundance of younger bears displaced from their mothers this year, or both, they have been showing themselves all over the place.
In spite of hearing stories of bears raiding garbage cans and seeing photos fellow residents had been taking of bears around town, one morning when my wife sent me a photo of our damaged picket fence – two slats had been pulled loose – I immediately thought it to be the work of vandals in our neighborhood.
I asked my wife to call the police, figuring the vandals may have caused damage elsewhere, too, but the more I looked at the photo, the more I wasn’t convinced about who or what might have done it.
The investigating officer thought the same thing. He found a tuft of black fur on the fence and concluded that our vandal was Ursidae, not Hominidae. My wife said the officer figured the bear was going after our bird feeder, which should have been brought in long ago anyway.
I asked her to hold on to the fur because it would make a good photo to go with a blog, but she said the fur was dropped during the investigation and all she could find was one hair that she graciously taped to the refrigerator for me. I asked if there were tracks, and she said the police couldn’t find any.
So, when I got home, I surveyed the damage and crawled on my hands and knees by the fence to try to find the tuft of fur. That’s when I noticed that, yes, there was a bear track. And another. And another. There were several tracks along the fence line. I guess the bear was hunting for food and smelled some delicious sunflower seeds and decided to break in. The tracks looked fairly small, so maybe when the bear broke the fence slats, it became afraid and ran off.
The next day, the local paper’s police report said the case had been closed. I suppose the bear can rest easy for now, knowing that it isn’t being pursued by the authorities, but I have a feeling it may be questioned further by someone this fall.
Good luck if you have a bear permit!
Bear hunting regulations
New regulations for 2019
Using a drum on public land
A resident may use a drum on public land but must pay a $5 surcharge per drum. Hunters can purchase of bear drum privilege anywhere hunting licenses are sold, online, or by telephone. Bait stations are still limited to a total of three per licensed bear hunter or outfitter. A "drum" means a 30 gallon or larger drum.
Requirements for placing drums on public land:
- The drum must be secured to a tree so that it cannot be moved from the site by a bear and may not include a mechanical device for dispensing feed.
- The drum must be registered as required for bear bait registration, including the GPS information on the location of the drum.
- In addition to the required bait site signage, the drum itself must be marked with (1) the licensee's name and address; (2) the licensee's driver's license number; or (3) the MDNR number issued to the licensee for a licensed bear hunter or a licensed bear outfitter.
- There may be restrictions on placing a bear bait drum on public lands open for hunting (such as county or federal lands). To be sure it is legal to use a drum, check with the local land management authority.
- A drum may not be placed prior to the legal date for placing bait and must be removed within seven days of the end of the bear season.
Use of dogs
A person may use a dog to locate and retrieve a wounded deer or bear as follows:
- The person attempting to locate the animal must have in possession a valid license to take the deer or bear.
- Dog handlers who do not have a valid hunting license must be accompanied by a licensed hunter with the license in possession.
- The licensed hunter and dog handler must be on foot and must wear blaze orange/pink
- Any light used must be an artificial light carried in the hand or attached to the person.
- The dog must be on a leash no longer than 30 feet. The hunter or dog handler must physically control the leash at all times.
- The dog owner’s name and telephone number must be on the dog while it is used to locate a wounded deer or bear.
Learn the 10 Habits of Highly Successful Deer Hunters
Consistently tag larger whitetail bucks using a few tips and tricks from hunters who do it better than anyone
By Tony HansonIf you’re a bookworm, particularly of the self-help variety, you likely know that 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most iconic self-help books ever written, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. With 25 millions copies sold, and the first audio book to ever top one million sales, 7 Habits is one of those iconic works that has helped a whole bunch of folks figure things out. The revelations in that book aren’t exactly ground-breaking. But they are, at their core, a solid foundation for success.
That said, I’ve been fortunate to hang around some pretty good deer hunters. I’ve studied their success and analyzed their failures, and noted a few things along the way. Here are 10 things I’ve noticed they all have in common that can help you have a more successful deer-hunting season.
1. Pay Attention to Details
A few years back, I attended a seminar given by whitetail legend Barry Wensel. In his presentation, Wensel talked about hunting over scrapes. I was stunned at the level of detail in his stories and recollections—the guy remembered seemingly every item of varying significance about every deer he’d ever observed working a scrape. And it wasn’t the last time I marveled over the amount of information retained by highly successful deer hunters.
Wensel pays attention to every detail because he’s learned that it’s the meanings behind those details that you have to put together to create answers. Those details are stored away, analyzed, organized and put into practical action. A less-than-successful deer hunter doesn’t sweat those details. A hunter may know he or she saw three bucks last night from a hunting stand good for a west wind. But they don’t note the wind direction was actually WSW when they saw the deer, and they didn’t notice that every one of the bucks entered the food source on a different trail, but from the same direction, because they were quartering downwind to more efficiently check for scent. When that hunter returns the next time to hunt when there’s a west wind, they won’t realize the reason they didn’t see any bucks is because the wind was due west and discouraged the bucks from approaching in the same manner. Are those extremely subtle details? Yep. But they matter.
2. Watch for Patterns
Paying attention to details is critical for consistent hunting success. But the very best deer hunters I’ve spent time around are constantly searching for deer movement patterns they can exploit.
Oklahoma hunter Jeff Danker has made a name for himself in the outdoors TV world with his ability to consistently tag giant whitetails in open country. He does this because he’s a master at patterning whitetails. Danker will invest hours conducting long-distance deer surveillance and sacrificing actual hunting time to decipher a repeatable pattern he can use to his advantage.
Highly successful deer hunters do not see a big buck and consider themselves lucky to have had the experience. Instead, they see a big buck and try to decipher every moment of that encounter to identify a repeatable pattern they can act on when that deer repeats it.
3. Be Prepared
Social media is something I love to hate. I hate that it brings out the worst in people sometimes. But at the same time, I love the insight it provides.
Follow some highly successful deer hunters that have social media chops and you’ll quickly realize that they spend an inordinate amount of time preparing. They scout; they work the land they hunt; they practice shooting; they plan.
Moving in on a trophy or once-in-a-lifetime buck is not unlike a top athlete following a daily training program. Practice and preparation will help you control as many variables in the field that you can control. 
4. Don’t Hesitate
I don’t consider myself an ultra-successful deer hunter; though I think my skills for making big buck encounters are above average. I see a fair number of big bucks each fall. But I’m still learning how to close the deal more consistently. The most successful deer hunters are the opposite. They close far more deals than they leave open. Why? Because I hesitate, and they don’t.
I’m not talking about taking skilled shots at critters, either. Yes, there is some of that in play here. Highly successful hunters are very good at taking the first good shot an animal gives them and making it count. But they’re also very good at making the right decision and making that decision in a hurry. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve agonized over whether I should change stand locations only to see a giant buck cruise past the location I was considering before I made up my mind. Highly successful deer hunters don’t hesitate. They’re confident, they’re prepared, and they make decisions and execute on them.
5. Know Your Gear
Find a highly successful deer hunter and you’ll have found someone who is highly proficient and—perhaps most importantly—highly familiar with the equipment they use. Think about some of the big deer you’ve encountered. You know, the proverbial ones that got away. How many of those deer escaped because of some minor malfunction? An instance of bad luck? Highly successful deer hunters do not believe in luck. They work very hard to prevent mishaps, and that begins and ends with proficiency and familiarity. They don’t miss shots because their gun or bow is off. They don’t miss opportunities because they were five minutes late getting on stand because they couldn’t find their bow release. Highly effective deer hunters know the ins and outs of every piece of gear they own and they are proficient with everything they use. 
6. Manage Time
Here’s another habit learned from a Wensel—this time it’s coming from Barry’s twin brother, Gene. In his excellent book, Come November, Gene writes about the importance of spending as much time in the woods as possible during the best time of each season. His reasoning involves startlingly simple math. If you hunt eight hours a day, you’re twice as likely to be successful.
Now, expand that concept. If you’re more efficient when scouting, you’ll scout more ground. If you spend less time hunting unproductive areas and more time hunting the best areas, you’ll be more successful. The best deer hunters I know don’t waste time—ever. They perform tasks with a purpose and they do so as efficiently as possible.
7. Focus on learning
Details. Proficiency. Familiarity. Time management. Patterns. Each a habit, a trait of learned behavior, a process honed through trial, error, and learned behavior.
All of the highly successful deer hunters I’ve been blessed to spend time with were unique people. Each hunter has their own theories, preferences, positions, and approach. But they also have some commonalities, not the least of which is this: All were focused on learning as much as they can about the deer they hunted.
Another commonality are three simple words: “I don’t know.” The best deer hunters I’ve encountered aren’t the know-it-all type. Not in the least. In fact, each of them is quick to note that while they may have a lot of knowledge about deer and deer hunting, there is even more that they don’t know. It’s that mystery, that pursuit of more knowledge, and more experience that makes them so successful.
Stop learning and you start assuming. Start assuming and success becomes much harder to find. 
8. Make Shots Count
The very best deer hunters I’ve been around seldom miss. Notice I didn’t say “never.” Everyone misses sometimes. But when these guys miss, it’s usually because of something unfortunate (like a small twig deflection). They aren’t missing “gimme” shots and they seldom hit a deer in a place other than where they aim. Why is this? It’s because they don’t take shots they can’t make, or can’t make regularly. This is a subtle distinction but one that makes all the difference. Lots of guys can stand 50 yards from a target and drill arrows into a 5-inch circle. But how many of them can do that in the woods when adrenaline is racing and the target is capable of reacting to the shot? I’d wager not very many of them. The best deer hunters I know don’t have to do that because they take high-percentage shots and set themselves up specifically for those shots. 
9. Shoot Deer in the Ribs
There’s a little piece of information that has made a big difference for me as a bowhunter. It’s pretty simple: shoot the deer in the ribs, not “just behind the shoulder” and not “three ribs back when quartering away.” No, the top deer hunters I’ve been around all have strikingly similar responses when I’ve asked them where they aim when shooting a whitetail with a bow. They aren’t trying for heart shots. They’re not trying to tuck an arrow tight behind the shoulder. Nope, instead they want to double-lung every deer they shoot and they do this by aiming for the ribs of the deer. This doesn’t mean they aren’t picking a spot to focus. They are. But what they’re not doing is over-complicating things. Run an arrow through a deer’s rib cage and they will not go far. 
10. Hunt More
The best deer hunters I’ve been around probably were born with some special gift that helps them understand deer and the environments they live in. But they also have spent a whole lot of time watching deer, hunting deer, studying deer, and learning a deer’s habits. Those hunters spend far more time in the woods than non-successful hunters. The fact that they routinely have success is not a coincidence or an unrelated effect. They’re successful because they make themselves so.
Turkey blinds: best features for the spring bowhunter
By Tony Peterson
It’s almost time to start scouting turkeys, placing blinds, and setting the early-morning alarms. Before the April rush that is turkey season, however, you might be considering buying a new blind. This market category has blown up during the past decade, so you have plenty of options vying for your cash.
Here’s my strategy with turkeys: I always want to own at least one oversized, rugged blind and one small, lightweight blind that works for a single person. The big blind goes into my best spot, usually a carefully scouted strutting zone that doubles as a food source and travel route.
The lightweight blind, which might tip the scales anywhere from 12 to 16 pounds, is my portable option for when my main spot doesn’t pan out. I keep this blind in my truck pretty much all season long so if I have to call an audible, it’s available.
With either type of blind, I prefer the styles with plenty of brush loops and doors that operate quietly. The brush loops allow for truly concealing a blind, a must for pressured turkeys. Doors with over-sized, quieter-than-average zippers or no zippers at all are ideal, too, when it comes to quietly getting in when birds are roosted nearby.
When it comes to windows and shooting ports, I don’t really care much about the configurations because I’m only going to open them up as much as necessary, which isn’t much. The biggest mistake I see with turkey bowhunters? They want huge windows that span the entire front of their blind, and they want to open them up to see as much as possible. The problem with this plan is that it allows in more light and turkeys will bust you much easier.
If you’re considering a new blind purchase, consider your needs and how you’ll use it. If you’ve already got a blind, buy something that will allow for a different style of hunting and open up your spring longbeard options.
Land of the Giants
The return of the giant Canada goose has been a bonanza for waterfowlers
Photo © JIM THOMPSON
By Phil Bourjaily
The call came at three o'clock on a cold December afternoon. "Can you hunt right now? Six of us are done and the geese won't stay out of the decoys." I was out the door and down the road in 10 minutes. Geese were flying overhead the whole way, but I worried that each passing flock would be the last one of the day and I'd arrive just in time to help pick up decoys under an empty sky.
I pulled into the field. Then a friend drove my Jeep back out as I jumped into a blind. Five minutes later, I took a double out of the first flock that decoyed. Several minutes after that I bagged my third goose. All the birds were giant Canada geese weighing 12 pounds or more, and one of them had been banded, as I later discovered, just a few miles away.
A BIG COMEBACK
True giants (Branta canadensis maxima) historically bred throughout north-central North America, from southern Illinois into Canada, and from the Great Plains east to Ohio. They were large birds, sometimes weighing up to 20 pounds. They were also adaptable, nesting almost anywhere, including on limestone cliffs along the Missouri River and beaver ponds in the north woods. By the early 20th century, however, unregulated hunting, habitat loss, and egg gathering eliminated these big geese from most of their original range, and they were thought to be extinct by the 1950s.
In 1962, goose expert Dr. Harold Hanson of the Illinois Natural History Survey worked with Minnesota Department of Conservation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel to trap and examine a flock of about 200 unusually large Canada geese on Silver Lake, a power plant impoundment in Rochester. The geese were so big that researchers weighing the birds assumed that the scales were faulty. The story goes that to test the accuracy of the scales and verify that the birds really weighed from 12 to 16 pounds apiece, the biologists had to send someone to a local grocery store for a five-pound bag of sugar and a 10-pound sack of flour.
Hanson's "discovery" of the giants led to renewed interest in the geese and boosted efforts that were already under way to reestablish breeding populations of these birds from the offspring of captive flocks that were originally used as live decoys or as poultry. State agencies began trapping, trading, and transplanting giant Canadas in pairs. Some private individuals released geese as well. States closed areas to goose hunting to help build flocks. And the geese took well to artificial nests made from washtubs, tires, and steel drums. In some cases, workers stacked up steel drums, shot drain holes in them with revolvers, and then mounted the makeshift structures on poles over water to provide safe nesting sites.
Restoration efforts worked so well that by the mid-1990s, states with too many geese couldn't find takers for their surplus. Every place that wanted geese had them—and so did some places that didn't want them. Today there are an estimated 3.6 million giant Canada geese in North America. Although some have worn out their welcome with homeowners and farmers, the birds have truly been a bonanza for hunters.
"Humans have created great habitat for giants," says Dr. John Coluccy, director of conservation planning in DU's Great Lakes/Atlantic Region. "Canada geese are grazers, and make great use of suburbs, golf courses, and office parks with lots of short grass for them to eat and many ponds to rest on. Also, widespread grain agriculture provides them with high-energy foods for cold-weather survival."
Coluccy, who did his doctoral work on giant Canada geese, adds that by removing wolves from most of the birds' range, we've eliminated their main predators as well. "Few animals are big enough to kill a goose," he explains. "In a safe environment, geese can live for over 20 years. A bird I banded in 1995 was just recently recovered."
STAY-AT-HOME GEESE
Giant Canadas are commonly known as "resident" geese because in most cases they don't migrate in the fall. This distinguishes them from their smaller migratory cousins. Like all Canada geese, however, giants do make a molt migration to find open water where they can safely sit out their flightless period as they grow new feathers. Some resident geese will fly hundreds of miles during the molt migration. Those banded in eastern South Dakota have been found as far north as northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The molt migration usually takes place in summer, and many early-season goose hunters key on it as the birds return to their breeding sites in September. In some cases, however, molt migrants don't come back home until later in the fall. The longest known molt migration for a giant Canada goose nesting in South Dakota was 1,300 miles—from Brookings County in that state to Ferguson Lake in Canada's Nunavut territory.
Aside from the molt migration, giant Canada geese typically stay in one area year-round. They are hardy birds, and they generally live in temperate regions where inclement weather doesn't force them to move. But when extreme cold locks up open water and deep snow covers fields, the geese will move south until they find food and a place to roost. The bands that my friends and I have collected during our late-season goose hunts bear this out. Almost all the birds were banded within 20 miles of where we shot them. The one exception is a band from Owatonna, Minnesota, which is about three hours north of where we hunt. I shot that goose on a day when the high was zero degrees, at the end of a prolonged cold snap that presumably pushed the bird into our area.
TIPS FOR HUNTING GIANTS
There's one more movement pattern you'll see with giant Canadas. Late in the season, as smaller marshes and ponds freeze, the geese will flock to rivers, larger lakes, and bodies of warmer water that remain open in winter. Generally, the colder the weather the better the hunting. Jeremy Zuend, a Hard Core Decoys pro staff member from Dixon, Illinois, is among the hunters who take advantage of it.
"It's not a migration," Zuend says, "but it looks like one if you're in the right place. A couple of good weeks of bitter-cold weather freezes up ponds and sends our birds to the Rock River. You'll find several thousand big geese rafted on the river. It usually happens just about the time our duck season goes out. That's when goose hunting gets good." According to Zuend, all the geese they shoot are giants. "Most of our geese weigh about 15 pounds. Last year we had a big-goose contest among the pro-staffers, and I won with a bird that weighed 16 pounds and some change," he says.
Late in the season geese need to consume high-energy foods, like corn, which they find in harvested grainfields. Typically, the X changes as the birds eat all the waste grain in a field, but sometimes you can find a field that you can hunt for a number of days. "Last year we had a field that was on high ground close to the river," Zuend says. "Geese were coming to it from 20 miles away. It was a seed-corn field that was picked in September, and it attracted geese all year. In the late season, we would shoot our limits, get out quickly, rest the field for a couple of days, and then go back to hunt it again. We shot almost 100 geese out of that field."
Zuend believes in increasing decoy numbers as the season progresses. He starts with smaller spreads, then gradually adds more decoys. He and his friends may put out as many as 15 to 20 dozen full-body goose decoys, and add sleeper shells when there is snow on the field. If the group can't get permission to hunt on the X, they will add even more decoys to their spread to pull passing geese into a field located between the roost and their feeding areas. "We might add five to eight dozen more decoys to our already large spread," Zuend says. "It all depends on who we can get to go with us and how many decoys they have."
When it comes to decoy patterns, Zuend tries to mimic what he sees geese doing in the field. "I don't like to do hooks or J patterns, like some people do," he says. "Instead, I'll clump decoys around the blinds to help hide them, and then run strings of decoys downwind." Sometimes he'll set the blinds in crosswind positions so the geese won't be looking right at the hunters on the birds' final approach, but he prefers having the wind at his back. "I like to see geese coming right at me," he says. "There's nothing better than having them bowed up in your face."
During the waning days of the season, Zuend will sometimes hunt directly over water. He scouts rivers, and depending on where the geese are, he'll set up a spread of floaters on the water or a mixed spread of floaters and full-body decoys on and around a sandbar. He and his buddies hunt at midday as the geese fly to the rivers to loaf between meals. And whether he's hunting over land or water, Zuend has learned to go big when it comes to guns and ammunition. "I went to 3 1/2-inch loads of T shot a few years ago, and I have a lot fewer cripples now," he says. "Our geese are already big, and late-season birds have a lot of fat and feathers to get through."
My own experience with giant Canada geese near my home in Iowa follows a similar pattern. As early December cold snaps freeze ponds and marshes, the birds flock to the rivers close to town. There they find safety and open water out in the river, below dams, and near warm-water outlets. The same movements of geese occur all over the country, and waterfowl hunters have benefited from them for decades. Ironically, however, the city that helped bring back the giant Canada goose sees far fewer geese than it used to. Hunters around Rochester still shoot geese, but the Silver Lake power plant closed in 2015, and the lake now freezes in the winter, forcing the birds to find open water elsewhere.
As I watch from my blind and see geese flying over lumberyards and car dealerships as they stream out of town to feed, I realize we've come a long way from Aldo Leopold's plaintive question in A Sand County Almanac: "What if there be no goose music?" Today there's goose music everywhere. For many hunters like me, it's become part of the clamor of modern life, something purely wild that somehow manages to coexist closely with people, and a testament to the resilience and adaptability of the once seemingly lost giant Canada goose.
