Pre-Deer Hunting

Intro

 

Eric –Welcome to episode #4 of the Canadian Prepper Podcast… Pre Deer Hunting. . . My name is Eric, and I’m the host of the show.  I am based in southern Ontario. I’m a hunter, target shooter, HAM radio operator (VE3EPN), and computer geek. I got into preparedness when I was working front line in emergency services and witnessed an over reliance on Emergency Services during major events, such has ice storms, power outages, etc. I started a small preparedness company to help get people prepared and able to look after themselves for at least 72 hours, if not longer.

Ian – My name is Ian, co-host of the show.  I live on Vancouver Island, on a small hobby farm.   I am an outdoor enthusiast, hunter, reloader, my farm’s designated handyman.

I have had a lifelong interest in preparedness, and am gladly learning new skills on a regular basis.  My professional background has allowed me to see pretty much every, province and territory in Canada. It also has taught me to prepare for various unexpected situations daily.

Eric – We have some great content for you in this episode, We’re going to start off with some news articles relating to hunting and the outdoors. Next Ian and myself will be letting you know how we’ve improved our preparedness since our last episode, we have some listener feed back to cover off (hopefully), and then were going to get into the main topic for this episode, Pre Deer Hunting.  

News

Eric – Since this episode is going to be focused on hunting I thought an article about hunting would make sense to talk about.

Oct 27 2018 - MNRF laid 132 charges in 10-day period at start of moose and deer season.

During a 10-day period from Oct. 13 to Oct. 22, conservation officers checked 4,768 hunters from Ontario and the United States and laid 132 charges and issued 329 warnings.

• The fact that there are more warnings vs charges is good to see, education always makes a big impact vs charging.

Some of the charges and warnings that were issued included failing to wear a proper helmet on an ATV, having open liquor in a vehicle, having a loaded firearm in a vehicle, not wearing proper hunting orange, night hunting, shooting from the road, and trespassing for the purpose of hunting.

• Safety is key, alcohol and hunting just doesn’t mix. Not wearing orange (common sense), and trespassing.

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/mnrf-laid-132-charges-in-10-day-period-at-start-of-moose-and-deer-season-1100849

Ian commentary– province differences.  No orange required here. Lower population density.  Interesting in the lack of caliber restrictions here too.

Boozing it up leads to accidents, maybe requiring first aid / IFAKs.  Do you sell those?

Plan to handle first aid issues?  What first aid do you bring?

 

Ian -.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/man-shoots-grizzly-video-bella-coola-bc-1.4875956

Man shoots grizzly mom in front of house.

Eric – Safety around wild life? Bears in camp, around when hunting. . .

Talking points:

-Who has the right of the space?  He erred leaving her in his yard for a while.

-Protection of family versus public outcry.  Totally different when times are bad.

-Charged outside with no real plan.

-Backup plan for when she charged was a complete fail.

Ian - The inevitable bear defense debate!   CGN is full of threads on this. .308 / Buckshot/45-70/50 BMG😊

How we’ve prepped this week

Ian-Finished splitting and stacking wood during a break in the weather.

Put on some siding on a wall of one of the coops.

Reloaded some .308 (Hunting rounds) Hornady SSTs for .75 versus 2.00 per round.  Won’t flinch when shooting based on costs per round!

Made some 9mm in celebration of my Ruger PC Carbine😊  One of the first 30 from Bullseye in London. Something for the wife and kids to enjoy.  Lots of value for money.

Eric – If you have Any questions, please ask!

Processed the last 14 of my meat birds.. .  Sold 4 before we even got them home. Canned some stock, froze some meat, and gained a sense of accomplishment & pride at knowing what went into them.  Organic food, table scraps, and better conditions than your avg bird.

My wife spent the better part of a day parting them out into compact pieces, while I vacuum bagged them. Neat trick to make better use of the freezer.  Lesson learned. Thighs in a hand grinder doesn’t work. Use a food processor to grind it up instead.

Unusually high male to female ratio this year.  About 50 males total sent to ‘freezer camp’ this year.  Females kept for eggs to rotate in some newer stock. Most kept for consumption.

But as long as they get commercially processed they can legally be sold.  (Change from the old days of a bird sold over the fence. )

Based on results from showing them at local fairs, and with those wins, we turned that into some ‘hatching egg’ sales.  

More on Chickens at a later episode!

Episode’s topic. Pre Deer Hunting

Eric – So it’s November, and along with colder weather and snow comes deer hunting season. I’ve been hunting deer for the past 7-8 years in Northern Ontario. It’s a great time to spend with friends and family. I’ve successfully harvested two deer myself during this time and there is nothing better than knowing you’re able to put food on your table using skills learned.

Ian -  Hunting history. . .  Up front, I’m more about filling the freezer than the ‘thrill of the hunt’

Hunting small game since I was a kid in AB.  Mostly grouse/small game. (Ditch chicken)

Lucky enough to have tried my hand at caribou hunting.  Northern SK. Requires a sense of humour. But not much skill.  Favorite game is moose, but none on the island.

-Ptarmigan grouse as well in both NWT and SK.  Offset food costs when I was basically broke.

I do like the aspect of the modern day labels you can attach to hunting wild meat.  Helps when dealing with the squeamish. Organic, free range, antibiotic free, ethically harvested, sustainably managed, cage free, etc…..

Last year in BC, I was successful in tagging a buck, day 1, 15 minutes in.  Did NOT prep and have another tag handy – lesson learned.

Eric – We wanted to take some time and talk about our pre deer hunting setup and how we’re getting ready to go out and hopefully harvest a deer.

• .308 rifle cleaned and oiled, scope checked at the range as well
• Boots, jacket (orange of course), and pants checked for wear and tear. Found my boots need to be replaced.
• Camp has cameras setup, monitoring them for movement and patterns, seen a few nioce size bucks and a few does.

Talking point, why .308 as a caliber choice?

Ie long range dual purpose round, hard hitting for anything in north America, wide availability.

Ian –

-sighted in my .308.  Bringing a Baikal 20 gauge for grouse.  Baikal is reliable and cheap, don’t mind getting some rain on it!

Arranged with a fellow prepper to do a two vehicle caravan.  My truck and his BOV. BC forestry campsite for base camp. My truck for scouting, wood supply, and his BOV for cooking and sleeping.

-Bought extra tags this time, based on last year.

-Bought larger cooler, and went later in year to help with meat cooling.

This year I am heading to an island in the straight of Georgia.  I have timed my trip for the small window of open season on Does AND Bucks.

This island has no natural predators, and few hunters.  So it makes for a time efficient trip. We are also allowed three tags.  But very small deer!

More to the point of today’s topic -

This is all well and good during good times.  Hard to do this when gas supplies are low, or civil unrest is happening!

Eric - How so?     = Talking points

Ian -Basically in society we trade gasoline for food.  Whether it be trolling for fish, driving a logging road, or even travelling off the island to go to my hunting grounds

-Hard to do in a breakdown in social services

-No gas, no big trips.  Leaves you on foot to hunt.  And compete for dwindling resources.

-Myth of the bug out to the woods.  Hard to do even a normal camping trip.  Let alone a permanent move to the bush.

- Also, inability to leave the house undefended from burglars / looters.  Especially if people know you have supplies. You can’t go out hunting unless you have a mutual assistance group to protect what’s yours.

Eric - (Importance of MAGS / trained family members)

-House security

-Noise discipline.  Shooting is ringing the dinner bell for other people nearby.  Leads to imposed sharing or defending what’s yours. Perhaps a bow/crossbow?

-How to do hunting in case of a shortage of gas?

-Lastly, refrigeration and preservation issues.  What to do with a whole deer?

Ian – I  recommend live traps. (5 raccoons in a week) Something legal to practice with now.

-Snares

-opportunistic shots versus walking.  Calorie outlay versus what you get in return.

-Crab pots / shrimp pots/ Clam digging

-freshwater mussels and crawfish.

-Baiting / Gill nets / static fish lines (not necessarily legal in ROL, unless you’re status)  Not recommending you break the law.

-Rabbit only starves you out.  (Looking at you, Uvic and VIU) Meat is too lean.

What you can do today to reduce hunting costs.  Keep an eye out for sales on components for reloading.  Single stage press can save you cash, as well as when primers/projectiles/powder go on sale.  Reloading components disappeared more slowly during the Obama scare than complete ammo.

-Hit up garage sales for live traps, crab/lobster/shrimp pots.  Reloading gear, cleaning kits (Seriously)

-

Allows for stockpiling on the cheap.  Most people I know only have a box or two around the house.  Each box of projectiles or primers is 100 shots.

Keep your own hunting brass, even with no intention of reloading.  Will allow for barter or cheaper unit costs if you DO decide to get into it.

 

PODCAST CHALLENGE

 

Eric - Have you ever harvested an animal, how did you learn to do it?   

Ian - If not, your challenge is watch a video on how to do it, even if it’s just a chicken.  Youtube is an amazing resource. Matthew from Slamfire radio’s ‘MMatt’ channel for grouse and a deer video.

-Side note, you can eat for free around here if you’re willing to pick up and process a rooster.

Episode Closing

Eric/Ian - Listener Email Review, and answering of questions sent in.  If you want to send in a question, email

email from Brad

Hi Eric:

I just came across your podcast and listened to the first 3 podcasts (Ian is a good co-host).  I really enjoy your style as it is intelligent and realistic. So much of what I have heard or read is Armageddon style jargon where I should be stockpiling 1000s of rounds of ammo and work out to become Rambo.  I have shotguns a few times and had intentions to get my PAL but after taking the gun safety course didn’t go through with it. My wife is quite uncomfortable with them and I can’t say I am not also.

I live in Southern ON (45 minutes NE of Toronto).  We moved up here 10 years ago from mid-town Toronto after a lifetime of living in the city.  My wife is a horse rider so we bought a 10 acre hobby farm. It's 6 acres of trees and the rest for barn and paddocks.  I am 50 years old and have 3 boys - 15, 13, 11.

Increasingly, I have become more interested in a self sufficient lifestyle - wood burning insert which we heat house with a secondary heat source to propane.  Have a well and septic. I am learning more and more techniques and skills to do thing on my own.

For future podcasts, I'd be interested in learning about:

• Your views on necessity of firearms or self-defense in a preparedness situation. Obviously, it would depend on the permanency of the situation (will power be gone for months, years, etc) but your views on that for prepping
• Would a Canadian survival situation be different than an American one in the sense of people helping each other instead of shooting first.  Will gangs roam the neighbourhoods immediately, etc?
• How to get my wife and kids involved so they are more self sufficient - we have lots of fires in the fire pit outside, have a generator, etc. and I teach them how to start the fires, what to do in the case of a power outage, emergency, etc.

 

For the challenge that Ian suggested, I will submit Darlington Nuclear station.  It's just down in Pickering so your views on how prepared we need to be  (64 kms by car - straighter as the crow flies or should I say nuclear fall-out)?  What should we be doing, have in case of a nuclear melt-down, spill, etc.

Thanks again and I hope you get the podcast going!

Brad

 

 

Shout outs

Ian - Canadian Patriot podcast for a shameless plug of the show.  Guest hosted on ep 157

Bullseye sports in London, ON.  Always a fast shipping company, and great communications.

The Airdrie Minutemen (You know who you are) for some Car kit / get home bag inspiration.  Reminds me of how sorely lacking my setup is. (To do list)

 

Outro

Eric -  I’m going to bring episode 4 of the Canadian Prepper Podcast to an end. . . Ian where can people find the show online?

Ian- You can find the podcast on Itunes and Podbean, please help us out take a few minutes and submit a review! You can also find us at prepperpodcast.ca, Eric, how can people contact us and give us feedback?

Eric – Listeners can email feedback@prepperpodcast.ca , Ian how can people reach you?

Ian -  theislandretreat@gmail.com (I don’t do insta-snap-twitter-book) Eric how can people get ahold of you?

Eric – They can checkout Rapid Survival www.rapidsurvival.com and get me there while buying some prepper gear, can also email me at feedback@prepperpodcast.ca

Eric - Thanks for joining us, and tune in for the next episode, where we are planning to cover post deer hunting, what worked and what didn’t. Please review us on itunes, and keep that feedback coming!

Eric - Until next time, be prepared, stay safe, and (Ian) keep learning!