November 12, 2018 • 61 mins
Have you ever wanted to hunt the giant whitetails of Canada? On episode #8 of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast we sit with Tom Ainsworth of Grandview Outfitters to discuss an array of topics, but our focus is big Canadian whitetails. Tom has been hunting the same large tract of agricultural land for over 40 years and has guided hunters to countless massive whitetails. He himself killed a 208” buck in the early 1980s and hasn’t hunted the property himself since. The largest client-killed buck was 193”. Clay Newcomb has now hunted with Tom for two years and had some tremendous hunts, including a 152” massive bowkill buck in 2017. At the time of this recording Clay had yet to take a deer in 2018, but that would change on the final day of the hunt (podcast #10). Tom just two years ago got out of the bear outfitting business, but he briefly talks about the big bears of Manitoba.
Tom gives some history on the Ukrainians that settled this region, the agriculture, the diversity of wildlife and the way they hunt big whitetails. Tom hasn’t been educated by the trends of the modern whitetail media, but rather by four decades of experience watching whitetails on a daily basis. Some of his philosophies might surprise you. You’ll truly enjoy this podcast and it will keep you entertained and informed?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation, brought to you by
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download the Go Wild app today or visit time to
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go wild dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm
the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also
(01:06):
be your host into the world of hunting the icon
of North American wilderness, the bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation,
but will also bring you into some of the wildest
country on the planet. Chasing Bear. This is a special
episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast where we got
(01:28):
to sit down with Tom Ainsworth of Grand View Outfitting
in grand View, Manitoba, and we talked about white Tails.
We talked about Tom's history. Tom is seventy years old,
and he's a wealth of knowledge and wealth of white
tail knowledge and wealth of bear knowledge and just a
just a character of characters. Tom's a ton of fun
(01:49):
and he gives a lot of great information inside of
this podcast and you'll enjoy it. Hey, do me a
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(02:14):
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(02:34):
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We've got it twenty eight thousand subscribers all in the
(02:57):
last year, over seven million views in the last east
year on the Bare Hunting Magazine YouTube channel. And you're
gonna see hunts from these hunts on these podcasts. You're
gonna see the video of one of these hunts actually
in the very near future. All right, we're gonna go
right to Tom. So we are in tom Would you
(03:23):
say this is central Manitoba. This the southern one third
of Manitoba. We're in the southern third, probably even the
southern Cord Roads, southern quarter western Manitoba. Ah. Yes, how
far away from the Saskatchewan border. Thirty miles, No, thirty
forty miles. Forty miles from the Saskatchewan border. And we're
(03:47):
we're just north of the little town of Grand View.
You were you were born right here? Actually it wasn't, okay.
I was born in the old Canagan Valley and be
like in British Columbia, Okay. And then my dad it
was born here a Okay, that's where he was born.
So he had moved off. They come from England in
(04:08):
nineteen eleven and come into Canada. And my dad was
born in and he was born here. Okay, So your
grandfather came from England and my dad was born in
nine and he was born yes here here. Yeah. So
(04:28):
so we're on your we're in your living room right now,
and we are we're deer hunting with you. Tom is
a Tom is a long time white tail and bear outfitter.
He's been doing it for years and years. Um. Now
you just turned seventy years old. Tom, that's good. So
you've been doing this since the early eighties. I've been
(04:51):
trying to pin you down on a date of the
year you started out fitting. It'd be early eighties because
for bears on that uh, they went in to allocations
and in. But we're all most of us were doing
dear before that, so you know, we've been at it
for like forty years. They wow, And so tell me
(05:13):
about the history of your the property that we're hunting
right now, Like so, this was a lot of it
was your was your dad's and then you and deb
have accumulated land over time. But like that, so you
you're you're we're in your house now where we're staying.
Our our deer camp was that your father's house. My
(05:34):
dad was in the war and when he come out
of the war in uh through the war veterans, he
got a chance to buy land, so he bought over
there and that house was built and so that's you know,
so we either used it or losed it. So you know,
(05:55):
it's a it's a real comfortable camp. It's a real
comfortable camp. I guess to two or three miles from
we're sitting right here, so your property stretches all the
way there basically. Yeah, So tell me, just give me
a little history with your outfitting, Tom, Like, uh so,
you started with white tails back in the heyday of
(06:18):
Canadian white tail hunting, and I mean, we're right around
the corner here is a two inch white tail with
bases the size of coke cans, a drop time mass
for days. I mean, the kind of deer that I
mean made Canada what it is. And you told me
you shot that deer, and it was just kind of
(06:41):
like you actually didn't shoot it immediately because you were
I was sitting on the edge of the field and
I knew there's some big bucks around and I picked
shed horns up off them, and uh so I watched
the deer for twenty minutes at eighty yards. He was
with some doors when he come out on the field,
but it was a snowy day and when he came out,
(07:03):
he had his head down and that throws you off
a lot. I knew it was a decent deer, but anyways,
he come out on the field beside me and it
was getting close to closing time. So I shot him,
and when I went over, was pretty surprised because he's
he's probably twenty four inches on the outside, or maybe
better it'll fit over a man's shoulders. Anyways, his head. Yeah,
(07:25):
so that that really started out. You wanted to take
a really top end deer so that you could show
people really what you had here. It's kind of right.
I I just went hunting, you know, and I was
interested enough in in deer that I knew it was
(07:47):
you know, it was really important to shoot something that
big and we're lucky enough to get it. And uh
then after that, when I did start out fitting, uh
everybody kind of realized how they you know, they've seen
the deer, so they realized how big the deer was,
how good the area was, and it's just like you guys,
you've been here a week, and uh, how many hunters
(08:07):
have you seen right right, James said he's seen one.
It was over at the corner there, right, Yeah. Yeah,
So it's it's a real quiet area. So uh, it's
great for opportunity for hunters, and I think that's what
you're looking for when you come up here. A. Yeah.
And so I mean the stories that you have about
(08:31):
white tails that have come off this property, I mean
countless deer over one fifty. The biggest the biggest client
killed deer that came off this property was by a client.
And there's been lots of you two and one, eight
sevens and numbers like that. A yeah, lots of one.
(08:54):
There's been a lot of over one seventy deer shot
on here where I live. There's been more shot here
than probably anywhere I know off Hey, yeah, I know
today when you were taking me to the stand, he said,
they killed the one seventies something here on this corner
one year, and they killed one sixty something here as
we're driving to the place where last year I killed
(09:17):
a hundred and fifty inches here with my bow. So
I mean, we've we've seen it ourselves, but you also
were I mean when I first talked with you, you know,
you were you told me that Manitoba had some tough
times a few years ago. Deer numbers went down, and
and I had a lot of respect for you because
of this. You quit taking white tail hunters for a
(09:39):
few years because you just they just the deer just
weren't here. You wanted to let him recover. Well, you
can only beat people once, and so you might as well.
You know, if somebody phoned you and ask you a question,
you've got to tell them the truth, or you should
because soon as they stup out of the vehicle, they
are going to know. And so if you haven't got
(10:00):
something to offer, uh, you know, just you've got nothing
to offer and be up front. And that's what I was.
I just I couldn't give you a good deer then
a were Now how long was that span years? I
think four to five years at least, and it just
we had a bad winter. It's very cold and deep snow,
(10:21):
and that's the worst thing for depredation on deer up here.
You know, wolves and that they come and go, but
the cold weather and that just stays, and once you
knock them down, it takes a lot of years to
bring him back to You get into these bucks that
have got a decent head on him again. You see.
But we're getting right, it's getting better every year right now,
(10:41):
and uh, you know it's just getting better. And yeah,
you can't sell a hunting now, or you should be
able to. YEA. So these deer that we're hunting, we're
hunting them on alfalfa fields. We had a soybean field yesterday.
Like what do these deer doing? What's I mean like
like like we're basically hunting these deer on feeding patterns
(11:04):
right now. And you on your out your back window,
we can look and see dose and look on the
south alpha field and I mean, so you're kind of
your philosophy is keep the does, keep the food here.
If you once rut hits, if you got the girls,
the boys will come. And it's just that simple. And uh,
(11:25):
there's no use looking for them. They'll come and look
for you. And if you like, we've got lflfa fields,
fall rye fields, like we're hunting beans and stuff like
that fields and uh, it's just a deer. They're feeding.
They're looking for the highest protein they can find right now,
and so that's why they're on these fields. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And the what I've noticed is it seems like the
(11:49):
rut is it's just right when probably it is everywhere,
but it seems to be more compact. I mean, like
like I told you, like back home right now, No,
remember the SEC would be like prime time for Bucks cruising,
you know, mature Bucks movie. And what we're seeing right
now is that these big Bucks are still on a
(12:11):
kind of a feeding pattern they're on. There's still not
a buddy system yet. If you think about it, you know,
it's just like when James show it his uh you
know he sees two or three Bucks, they're all together
and they're nice bucks. Well, there's still on a buddy system.
So the young guys are maybe you know, doing a
lot of the legwork right now compared and the old
(12:31):
guys are letting them do it. But it's just not
here yet. You're gonna have to, you know, maybe get
a weather change. But they breathed the same time every year.
They have to have their calves at the same time.
They just breed. And yeah, usually when you get into
like I was saying, into November nine is one of
my dates I like, and uh, usually you've got a
(12:54):
whole bunch of Bucks looking for those last dose to
breed off that cycle. Do you think it's already happened
by then? Yea, And and that's your day at least
that cycle is. I know, usually on the nineteenth we
can look out here acrossing the road and just like Clark,
where cover you're there's a great big buck standing right
in the middle of the field. Of course at noon, Yeah,
because your big bucks are going to travel from ten
(13:15):
to two. I'm not sure you know, if you're hunting them.
Everybody's gone home for lunch and everybody's done this and
they're coming back at three o'clock, and so ten to
two is the time to do it. I'd say ten
to two. Yeah, you know, you've you've carted. You have
a unique perspective on land because very few people really
(13:37):
get to interact with a piece of property for forty
years as intimately as you have with this property. I mean,
just just like I mean, I learned from you. Know now,
I've hunted with you. We hunted with you a week
last year, we hunted with you a week this year.
So I've learned. When you say, when you put me
(13:57):
somewhere and you go, hey, be watching that corner right
over there, you better be watching it right James. James
and I were talking the other day and we were like,
every time Tom says that that's where the deer come from.
I mean, and and as a also a white tail
hunter that would be going into places sometimes I've never
huntered before, and trying to think about deer movement based
(14:20):
upon topography and and and the way the land lays.
Some of these places still don't make sense to me
as a white tail hunter. Why deer would be using
like you know, like a deer coming out on a
little point. Just for instance, when you put James out
the other day, he said, watch that little point right there,
and like you know, and and that's exactly where his
(14:40):
bucks came from. Once you do stuff long enough and
often enough, you should learn something. So we've killed deer
there with muzzle loaders the other year, you know, real
large deer, and it's just it's a natural runway. And
if you get into the you know, like a lot
of the especially where James got is over there, there's
(15:01):
paths in the bush that are beat right down in
the bush. It's turfy land, you see, because spruce trees
are growing there and uh, these paths are beat right down,
and it's just their natural runways and it's just that
you know, yeah, and you've got it, you know, if
you're hunting and if you if you care about what
you're doing, well you know where this stuff is because
(15:23):
you're watching all the time. Yeah, and that's what you do,
is you you're always watching, always looking at your job. Yeah,
that's what your job is. Yeah. If you want to
try and run a good business, you've gotta you know, right.
And so this farm though before it was well, while
you were outfitting dere on it, you were a cattle rancher.
(15:44):
You're like Todd, You're like an iconic Canadian rancher outfitter. Yeah,
you really are you. Uh, you've you've kind of got
a methodology for everything that you do and and you
I mean, your place is like pristine and everything's in order. Tom.
Tom's never late for anything. Every single morning we've pulled
(16:05):
up here, you've been ready to go in the truck.
Has he not, James supposed to be? Yeah, it's it's
like exactly no, No, these are these are things are
It's like you're you. You've got systems for everything that
you do and they work. They worked for you. Do
(16:26):
you have to Yeah, that's you know, it's it's our
job to do all this stuff. And uh, you know
if we don't do our job, well, I guess you're
not getting your anything for your nickel. You might say, yeah, yeah, Um,
tell me a little bit about the You've talked to
me some about the history of this area of Manitoba,
(16:48):
like the Ukrainians that came in, and like, so what's
the because this is this is still sparsely populated part
of the world. But about a hundred years ago basically
is when we're everybody was getting settled in here, and um,
(17:09):
you had your all your nationalities. We have basically every
national We have Russians, and we have Germans, and we
have English and Scotch and Irish, Ukrainians, Polish people and
uh to some extent. Anyways, what happened in here are
are Ukrainian and Polish people and stuff like that. They
got pushed to the poor land. So what happens is
(17:33):
when the person in the valley buys new equipment with time,
it ends up next to the bush where the stones
are and whatever, because you know, stuff like that. But
the Ukrainians learned to live off the land it's because
they had to do it, and you can just learn
a lot from them by, you know, through history and
(17:56):
watching them here and stuff like that. That's what I
was telling you about, you know, the lime kilman stuff
we had. You haven't seen it yet, but we've got
to take you and show you. We just have to.
And there were survivors. The survivors described the lamb kiln. Uh.
We had a family come in here, uh probably I
(18:17):
don't know, but probably a hundred years ago type thing.
And their name was Dubic. And I'm not sure if
they were Austrian people or what, but he um, he
was a Stonemason from where he came from. And so
in our area here, we have quite a few wells
that are dug and all they do is instead of
using cribbings and would and that he would take rocks
(18:41):
and he'd make them perfectly round the wells or you
know what I mean. And he stack all these rocks up.
And there's one thing about it. If you've got a
ten or twenty or thirty ft well done that way,
the water is just cold like ice. And the reason
is the stones keep the water cold, you see. But
they built lime kilns over here, and I only know four,
(19:02):
and I haven't even heard of them anywhere else. But
there's foreigner area two is on my land. And everything
was done with horses in them days. So um you'd
find a nold. There's an old in the bush over
here in my place, and it happens to be limestone area.
So if you're using horses, you want your limestone close
because it's slow to move them. So they'd make about
(19:28):
an eight foot circle. They dig down about eight feet
on the side of the hill, and they would stone
it all the way around and fit each stone in place,
just like cribbing on a well. And they leave like
a walkway through at the one end, and you drive
up there and you put your limestone in the bottom.
You dump it off your wagon. Then you drive up again,
(19:50):
and you'd put a whole bunch of wood on the
top and you would heat that would get it so
hot in there that the lime would crystal eyes, you
might say, or whatever, break up into small powder. Then
they drive down to the bottom of the hill with
the horses and they load all the ashes up and
take the lime home. And they used to make their
(20:11):
log cabins, and that we might call it chinking. Uh,
we have very good clay in our area. They used
it for making your stone ovens and all this kind
of stuff. They still do. It's just great clay. So
they'd go up there and they take build a log cabin.
They would clay the outside, maybe clay the inside. They
(20:32):
would whitewash it with this limestone a and then if
they wanted it colored while they'd use it could be
raspberries or strawberries or blueberries, and that's how they'd get
their color into it. But it's some real great history.
I think of what you had to do to survive
in this area, and then how creative they are. Yeah,
(20:54):
that's the thing, and they made it work. Yeah, and
so I've got one here, but I I just we
kind of keep it quiet because we don't want a
road going into it and a bunch of people. You know,
we'll show it to anybody, but yeah, you just don't
want to commercialize it. Yeah, sure, it shouldn't be done
that way. We don't pick this whole area. What I
(21:15):
was struck with when I came here last year was
the old I mean there's just old farm structures everywhere.
I mean, it's just it's just reminiscent of a time
gone by. I mean there's there's old track, I mean
back behind where we're staying. There's old cars and old
tractors with trees growing up through them, and lots of
(21:38):
wooden structures, old wooden structures and old wooden houses, and
it's it's it's kind of a we've talked to this
week about how big agriculture is coming to this area
in a major way. So it used to be like
smaller family farms, and then now for these guys to
make a living, no fault to them. I mean you've
(21:58):
got to be big and they're having Like at one
time here just about every quarter section had a house
on it, a family lived on just about every quarter section.
And where you guys are now in eight miles there,
(22:18):
eight to nine miles, there's one house. Wow. Yeah, And
that's just change there. Nobody's here. And what's what's happening
to is farmers kids have had to go elsewhere to
make a living. And so there's a lot of these
people like you that have all this land, have this farm,
(22:41):
and and the kids aren't necessarily taken back over the farms. Right,
things have changed, and it's just like anywhere else. Uh,
you've got to make a living and the kids have
to leave here because we're not like you people in
the States every every time you've got industry and jobs
(23:02):
and that, and kind of in Canada, we can't make toothpicks,
you know. For some reason, We've got to ship the
wood down to you guys and you shipping back. But
it's just how we are. We're not willing to we're
not willing to take a chance like you people are.
It's my opinion. You're willing to take a chance. You're
(23:22):
willing to invest money, right, and it's just like we're
too tight up here or something. Uh you know what
I mean. Well you don't see the investment. Yeah, I
would have never thought of it. But that's interesting perspective,
that's what it's like. Yeah, we just I don't know
if money is that tight or what it is, but
(23:44):
we just don't invest where you people do. You'll gamble. Yeah, well,
speaking of gambling, you gambled when you you you got
this some sectional land from your father and this and
then you got have accumulated land and I mean this
land back when you were originally buying it wasn't it
(24:08):
was there was nobody here that wanted it, and then
and then the the long the short version of the
story is is that now it's it's incredible for lots
of reasons, for big agg for deer hunting, for whatever.
It's just changed. Like when my dad got this half
for him on now next to the park, he got
(24:30):
it for I believe it was twelve dollars, was a
part of his mother's estate. So anyways, uh, he ended
up with this land and we bought a lot of
our land for six and seven thousand dollars a quarter section.
And now just because of the times, uh, I mean,
(24:52):
there's nothing compared to your land but our lands. You know,
it's worth a hundred thousand to a hundred fifty thousand
to two hundred thousand just for bush land and stuff
like that, because you can buy a a quarter section
of farming land dirt any day of the week you want.
(25:12):
But if you want to find a place for great
hunting where you can build a cabin or a house
where you can retire, where you can look out the
window and see dear elk and moose, it's very hard
to find that place mhm. And like on my land
here when I come here, there was twenty seven acres
(25:32):
broke on this coarter section, on this back quarter, and
there's still twenty seven acres broke on it. Uh. I
don't believe it's up to our generation to destroy everything.
And I'm just leaving it as it is and that's
always going to stay. Yeah, you really have a strong
(25:52):
land stewardship ethic when it comes to wildlife and when
it comes to tub I mean, you ran three to
five head of cattle on this on this land for
years and years, and um, that's a that's a good
segue to talk to me about the diversity of wildlife
(26:16):
on this property because people don't know that. I sure
as heck didn't know it when I came up here. Yeah, yeah,
because I mean like like when when we see like
this big agg land, like we think Iowa and what's
in Iowa's turkeys, deer and coyotes. I mean like there's not.
I mean that's pretty much yet. Well right here, Uh,
(26:40):
let's just say you went through furbrawing animals on my
landers and I live against the park. There's sixty miles
a bush behind my place, and uh, let me stop
you right there to describe that you're up against basically
what we would call national forest. So your back fields
for sixty I mean, you butt up against basically national
(27:02):
force without a road, without a road, and so there's
sixty miles of what you guys call bush, we just
called woods. Yeah, okay, I just want to split because
that's a that's an amazing feature of this property. As
part of the reason the deer hunt is great. It's
the reason. It's like, if you're going for deer, we
have deer. We have elk. It's nothing to look out
(27:25):
our window and see thirty yolk or nothing to look
out here and see uh six bull elk and they'll
stay here all winter. Of course, we have moose. You know,
we've had elk in our yard. Moose in our yard.
We have deer in the yard all the time. Um,
we have timber, wolves, we have cotes, we have foxes,
we have badgers. Uh you know. On the fur bearing
(27:46):
we've got beaver and martin, you know, mink, every fur
bearing animal there is we have here, raccoons. Uh, it's
one of them things, worry kinda. We just have it
all and uh, you know, we can see this stuff
just about every day of the week. And and these elk,
(28:07):
I mean this is like these aren't just like passing
herds of elk. You guys take elk office property almost
every year. Yes, we we hunt our elk on our
own land every year. And like it was saying a
while ago, we have good elk here because for a
long time we had the number two elk in North
America and it was about fifteen miles from here and
(28:30):
it was four hundred and seventy two and a half inches.
So you know that's a wild free ranging Now. Oh yeah,
we have quality. We have the most I'm not sure
if there's a Roseavelt or what, but we have the
most sought after elk there are right these and so
it's a it's a only residents of Manitoba can draw
these tags insteach a draw system. And and so there's
(28:55):
just a limited number, I mean, less than fifty tags
probably well very but like for US landowners in here,
well it's hard to stay. But we run a very
big area and we only get seven tags. And I'm
going to say that's in thirty Uh so you're getting
landowner tags. Yeah, okay, that's why you're able to get him.
(29:15):
But there's only seven tags and a hundred miles okay,
and so somebody will get that tag and then you
kind of you offer your land for sometimes we do
uh a lot of times, like we is free of charge.
Uh you know, if somebody gets a tag, we just
let them come and hunt free a charge. Just how
(29:36):
we are, you know, we outfitted, so we you know,
we kind of feel that we should give something back. Yeah,
and so just I mean like two or three weeks ago,
they killed an elk on this property right down where
I was hunting. Is that right where I was hunting
white tails today? Three weeks ago, two weeks ago, and
we've seen about forty to fifty elk on there, and
(29:56):
we've seen at one time Dev and I were driving
a just our pasture and there was five bull standing
out there and there were five and six pointers and
some had the real black horns at the bases and
that so they're you're real herd bulls. Yeah, you can
see that. We go for right any night. We can
pretty well go see oak most night. That's amazing. Yeah. See,
(30:18):
people don't typically don't think of manitobas, and it's because
it's such a limited hunt. I mean, like it's not
people can't come here to hunt, so we just don't
hear about it. But yeah, and then you were now
we've not seen a moose but in there, uh kind
of a sparsely populated animal anyway, I mean they're at
(30:40):
low Densty animal So, but randomly you'd have moose on
this James. Where James shot his deer, that's where my
sun shot his ilk and his buddy this year. And
while they were gotting the elk, there's a bull moose
that come out that I would say would be by that.
We've seen pictures of it, but I would say it's
from to Uh, it could have been too you know,
(31:05):
it could have been to fifty two or fifty four
in spread. That's a good that's a good moves. And
then today you and James saw timber wolf track. Yes, so,
and the wolves just kind of range in and out.
I mean there's not always wolves here, but they just
kind of right come in and out. Yeah, there's wolves.
Then they have their territories unless they get kicked out
of a pack and then they just you know, they're
(31:28):
following the French fries around and that's your deer. Something's
got to feed everything and it's the deer your French
fries around here, and so that's what they you know,
if you get kicked out of a pack, they're looking
for the small calves in the deer, whatever it is
to survive. Yeah, we saw predator killed deer today right
out here in your backyard. We don't know exactly what
(31:50):
killed it. Probably coyotes probably, I would say we see coyotes.
Not every hut, but yeah, we see clouds almost every day,
big old and they're big eats here. They're very big
kites compared to a lot of places. Say yeah, we
big kites. Yeah, it's just if you really think about it. Uh,
I don't know what it does. I guess it's the
land or something. But our deer, you know, we have
(32:13):
good deers here, big heads, big girl kids. I mean,
I've shot a fifty four inch moose, but there's bigger
moose than that here. But it just there's something in
the land that produces good horn. Here are bears, are
super bears like our big bear we got were six
hundred pounds, you see. Yeah, and so uh, I'll tell
(32:34):
you what it is. It's the black dirt man. Could
be being from Arkansas. I mean, I'm I'm kind of
being funny there, but because it's a much more technical
answer than that. But man, this dirt is like black.
There's some nutrient rich you know, I mean, lots of
minerals in the soil, and that's why it's such a
good agg land. But hey, we hadn't even talked about bears.
(32:54):
We gave, we gave all those animals that are here,
and I don't think you mentioned bear, right, did you know? Okay,
So the same place that I hunted this evening, I
saw a white tail deer there this evening. Last year
I killed a hundred and fifty two inch buck out
of that same spot. James five days ago saw a
(33:18):
color phase black bear from that stand, and you guys
killed an elk out of that stand in uh sometime
in October. I saw a coode out of that. I mean,
you got bears like crazy, and I can't believe I
hadn't even said it. We've been talking about white tails
because that's what we're hunting this week. But hey, Tom
(33:39):
is a long was a long time bear hunting magazine advertiser,
and he had a he had a how many tags
did you have? Well, we ran as highest thirty two
tags altogether. A right when we were were peaking at
the end here we were down to twenty five tags.
We'd sell them out just every year we sell a
(33:59):
hundred percent it and we had like there's people that
have come up here and uh, out of five bears,
they were all over public being honest with like with
this one guy especially, there were over four hundred pounds.
We ran from four to six hundred pounds and shot
that many bears, h you know, for weight. But so
(34:20):
you're I mean to cut to the chase. What I
was gonna say is you were a longtime bear outfit.
I just wanted to say that we were. I mean
you you were. You ran a bear outfit like a machine,
and you have some incredible bears up here. Yeah, we
had lots of bears, lots of colored bears, high color phases. Yeah,
it was. It was a very good business in here,
(34:42):
and we we put we put a lot of money
into our feed, feeding the bears. We thought that was
the way we should go and it worked for us
very good because your success rate was very high. And uh,
I I figured most people, if you just watch what
you're doing a little bit, you had the opportunity to
shoot a three hundred pound bear. Plus. Yeah, that happened.
(35:04):
Just you know, if there's five hunters in sometimes four
out of the five would shoot a bear over three
hundred pounds in the same week. It was. They were
real quality animals, you know, and good skulls. We yeah. Well,
Bernie Barons, you're one of our columnists. He's a good
friend of yours, good friend of mine too. He came
(35:25):
up here and he's got a YouTube video of him
seeing over twenty bears in one evening on a fall hunt,
which is basically just right up right up the way
from your house exactly. It's it's yeah, it's on the
same quarter I live on. And he shot bears. There's
been quite a few beers right here where I live,
(35:45):
over five hundred pounds taken out. Uh. We got second
in the whole province once for a bear here shot
right behind my house here. Yeah, lots of bears. Incredible. Yeah.
And so to clarify as l so, Tom sold his
bear business two years ago to a guy that's now
a friend of mine, a guy know, an advertiser in
(36:08):
our magazine, Baldy Mountain Outfitters. Tom Todd Walgemuth. And so
Todd has taken over your areas, got your tag. So
he's hunting all the same same baits, got the same color,
standed a bit. He bought another road, partially bought another road,
fitter road, and uh, I thought it was a good
bye myself. And he incorporated all the leaks up here
(36:29):
and that into his and uh it was a real
wind situation for him. By doing that, it was a
good business move. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so he's he's
up here now. So Tom didn't didn't have bear hunts anymore,
but you still got lots of bear on your place.
We have there's like got the site you're at tonight.
(36:51):
We've seen eight to ten coming in there, right right
where you were. Yeah yeah, and like the the bearer James,
and it was a brown bear is a black bearer,
but the brown face to it a and uh, those
bearer in there right now are running three hundred three
fifty I imagine at least that's what they are. Yeah, yeah,
(37:16):
their their coats this time. I mean it's November the two,
and we've got trail camera pictures of bears. We've got
three trail cameras out right now, just kind of as
we're hunting this week, and two of them last night
had bears on them November the two in Manitoba. But
they're gonna den right there. Build Den within a couple
of hundred yards of where we're seeing them. I know
(37:37):
what the Danis are in there. Yeah, the bear dancers
there and they come in there every fall. Yeah. Yeah,
that's it's. This is an incredible property and just an
incredible place that we've just kind of really grown to
love the last two years. We really have. And and
(37:59):
I'm still hunting. I've got one day left. I've kind
of had a tough week. Here's the truth, though, Tom,
is that if I had been muzzled hunting, I would
have killed it there on the on the first afternoon
to the hunt. I really would have. I mean, because
(38:19):
I believe that it was the first afterca It was well,
we got here a day an afternoon early, and we
hunted one afternoon. So the so the actual first day
of the hunt that evening is when we know it
was the second evening, second evening Tuesday is when we
went and put the stand. We hung a news stand
back in the bush where a bunch of a couple
(38:42):
of trails converted then in the bedding area with some
feet around it, and we we went in there hung
a stand and I know more than climbed in that
stand in the rain on that Tuesday, and I saw
a shooter buck at as he bedded down. So so
I I say that too, calibrate my statements saying that
(39:06):
we've I've kind of had a slow hunt. And he
had seven points on one Siday, he did he was
at five by seven. He sure was. Oh man, that
was carrying my bow that day. And and the other
thing that's hard about it hunt like this is you
you kind of calibrate. You calibrate the hunt based upon
(39:26):
what happens early. And so that was the first just
like right at the beginning of the hunt, saw this deer,
knew where he was, and so I was like, we're
sitting good. You know, it's just a matter of time.
I'll sit here a couple more times and I'll I'll
see him again. And uh, and the big buck sightings
for me kind of dried up. Now I didn't for
Steve and James, they killed within the first two days.
(39:47):
But right now, you know, we've seen on four different places.
If you think about it. We've seen there's a big buck,
yeah right now, but we just can't make it happen. Yeah,
that's just hunting. That's right, it's just hunting. It's north killing.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, James, what else should ask Tom?
(40:10):
What's that? Uh? Steve? Are you in here? Is Stephen?
There anything else I should ask Tom? We talked about
I can cut all this out? Yeah, where to go
hunting tomorrow? Yeah? Yeah, you better ask Yeah, that's sad.
(40:37):
Where to go? I just work here? Yeah. Now, we
talked about we talked about white tails, we talked about bears,
We talked about the land. We kind of talked about
your history with the land. We talked about the diversity
of wildlife. We talked about and see I did a
podcast a few days ago with Steve about his hunt.
(40:58):
I did a podcast with James about his hunt. So
we're covering all the bases. But now, anything else that
you'd like to say? Tom? Just in closing, just about
what you not even about your business, but just about you.
I mean, I'll tell you what we have. The fun
part of coming to hunt with Tom and dab Ainsworth
(41:20):
is you, guys, it really is. I mean it's like
it's like coming to your friend's house and he's letting
you hunt is huge property. We've always just like Peoping
ran our beer business. You know, we're kind of the
old mom and pop deal where you come in and
we treat you like friends. And you're not a number
around here. Like if you're going to go and stay
in a motel, eat out this and this, you don't
(41:43):
see your oad fitter. You don't maybe you know, see
your guide all this kind of stuff. Uh, you're a
number and Uh. To be in business the business we're in,
you have to become friends and family to in business
and to operate. That's my opinion. Now, you know, you've
(42:04):
got to be treated like you treat somebody, and if
you can't get that when you're going hunting, I guess
it's time to change places. As far as I'm concerned.
You've got to be treated, you know, just the same
way you treat people at home. And so that's what
we do, and it's it worked for us. You know,
I was in the bear business for years and I
(42:25):
never phoned a person in my life to come hunt
with me. Everybody phoned me how they found my numbers
and whatever, and your beer magazine. And I'm being real honest,
it was great for me. It was my outlet to
get in contact with more people and stuff like that.
And it's just works, you see. And uh but that's
(42:48):
you know, we just treat people the way we want
to be treated. And you've got to be foundly because
if you're a number, I don't think there's no personal
touch to it. It's just simple. Yeah, I can tell
you lots of stories are real bad things that happened,
you know what I mean. But you know, going on
a hunt, you've got to I've gone myself, so I
(43:08):
know you've got to put a lot of trust in
people when you send them your money for a depositor
a hunt and you've never even seen him and you're
talking to somebody you know, and uh, you it's kind
of tough to do. You know. I've done it myself,
and I know, like what kind of one of the times,
what am I doing? Yeah? And to do what you've
(43:30):
done for this period of time and to have the
success that you've had, I mean, you guys are you
guys are are very hospitable, your your people, people you
enjoy You've got to enjoy people I think to do
what you do. I mean you you. Every time we
get in the truck, every time driving down the road,
(43:51):
Tom's telling us about I wish I could have had
a microphone on you when we're driving down the roads.
What I wish you man, because you're like, such and
such happened here, and this happened here, and there's this,
and I do my fences this way because of this,
and I do this and this. There's a system for everything.
There's history behind everything. He's always he's like a tour guide.
You'd be a good tour guide on one of those boats,
(44:13):
you know. But it's just like when we go up
in the mountain here, I feel it's my it's my
part of my job. Like up here, like a blue lakes.
It's a hundred eighty feet deep. It's a little lake
that's about um. It might be half a mile long,
not very big. It's got the greatest trout in it
you could ever think of. And you can pull master
anglers out of there. Like nothing to me, but it's
(44:35):
a hundred eighty feet and there's uh, the large trouts.
They were catching the bottom and I'm according to them
they waited. It was sixty three pounds and it was
a sixty three pounds three pounds because they're bringing it
up milk and eggs out of them and stuff like that.
You see. Oh wow. Yeah, But it's your job to
(44:56):
if you're in business, you've got to know your area
and you've got to explain it to everybody. I think
that it's part of you. Just like you said, we're
a tour guiding or babysitting, you know, that's kind about it.
I mean, we've got to put out quality stuff too,
but it's part of your job to know that. And
if you don't, it kind of pretty quiet driving around
(45:19):
if nobody says anything right time. I'm the same way man,
when I get somebody in my truck that I know
it doesn't know anything about Arkansas and where I'm from. Man,
I'm talking to him about how these mountains got formed
in the trees and the wildlife and the deer and
the history. The history. Yeah, it's you got interpret stuff
for people because you can't assume that people can come
(45:41):
up here and appreciate this. Like someone could roll in
here and just be like, there's not much here. Man.
It's just like we would go bear hunting up in
the in the mountain here we used to go not
I guess you call them hills, and uh, we go
up there, and I tell you guys, well, you know,
in sixty two there's a family over here took some
chainsaws and they dropped for or about ten miles up here.
(46:03):
They dropped all the trees down, and they put the
highway end up north through the mountain here, right, And
they did it for two thousand dollars. That was way
back in sixty two. And that's some history. And there's
old telephone lines in the bush where they ran the
first lines through there. And there's these great big old
insulators screwing trees and that. And you know, if I'm
on the trailer, I'll show the gates, say hey, look
(46:24):
at that. Look at that that goes back to you know,
I'll be there. But that's it's it's just good stuff.
You were telling me. You were telling me the other
day when we went and hunted the swamp over here.
He said, the there's a spring over there that tell
me about the horses. Well, there's a spring in the
(46:45):
bush there that never freezes in the winter and always runs.
And it it became like a small hill in there
because of the water pressure underneath. And my uncle and
then way back I'm I don't know when, but probably
in the thirties or forties or something like that, they
had a team hooked together and they took him in
there for a drink of water. Well, one horse slipped
(47:06):
and fell in, and seeing it had a harness on it,
pulled the other horse in and they never seen nothing again.
And they took a real long pole there, like I
mean a rail, and they put it down in there
and felt all around, couldn't find them. And I've put
rails in there myself that are say fifteen or twenty
ft long, and you let go of them and they
(47:26):
just shoot right up in the air from the pressure
and not just that's just the spring over here where
we're hunting. And that's why we have that stand there,
because the animals come there to drink water, and uh
so it makes it a you know, it's a pinch
point where they're coming to, and so so unfrozen water
(47:49):
in the winter is a limiting factor here. Oh it's
great because you know, if you've got to meltdown, let's
just say, five gallons of snow through your body system,
and take all the heat units out of it. Animals
get water in the winter up here, they just licked snow.
They're licking snow and converting it to water, and so
(48:10):
you know that takes a lot of energy. It takes
a lot of energy. And if they can go and
drink a cup of nice water, okay, it's alves the problem. Yeah,
and it's better for them. Well it's not better for
maybe in the snow, but it will be better for
I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, Just so people can have an
understanding of the temperature here, because when we first started
(48:30):
coming here, we didn't really know how cold does it
get and how much snow do you get up here?
It depends on the years. But we will go in
our temperature thirty to forty below and sometimes we will
sneak over the forty below and that makes our temperatures
equal because the equal oude at forty. Uh. Usually it's
(48:51):
a short period of time would get a cold snap in.
It could be a week, could be two weeks, but
it can be a month. And we've gone through you know,
extreme the weather no days is extreme all over the world,
and so it's still it is extreme here. When you
get a cold spot in it could be a yeah.
But so when we got here on October, I think
(49:15):
it was forty eight degrees our temperature fair nheighth okay,
And then now the high temperature today was like twenty
nine or something. But I was looking at the fourteen
day forecast and you said it, you said we're almost
to the edge, and what you meant was the edge
of just freeze over. So for after like the middle
(49:36):
of next week, it's gonna freeze and and and it
won't get above freezing until probably April or May. So
it it's see for a Southerner, that's like bizarre, you know,
like didn't it James, I mean like we're we're you know,
for it to just drop below freezing and be below freezing.
Steve grew up in New York, so it's a little different.
(49:58):
But from months, well that winter, uh Canadians, man, that's it.
But we can have a decent winter too, and like
a decent wind for us is you know, it's it's
maybe you know, it just don't get that cold or
you know it's freezing all the time. But I'm just
(50:19):
saying that then then the bottom then just drop out
water here and so snow like a lot of Like
right now there's snow on the ground. We got here
there was not snow on the and probably this will
if we get another couple of other snows and if
we if it stays what it is they're talking our
temperature highs the minus six, minus seven stuff like that. Um,
(50:44):
it will stay. Unless you might have between two and
three ft of snow on the ground, you could get
it settles down. But if you get a foot of snow,
it'll settle down a lot. But our snow could vary
from a foot or sixteen inches, and it could go
up to three feet for example. It could go more
than that, and that's when you get winter. Killing these deer. Well,
(51:07):
we've gone through the mountain. Here are the hills up here,
scadoon and we've seen it where a deer would jump
off a scadoo path where everybody's traveling and it would
be level with his back and they survive. They go
into spruce bluffs and that because if you get into
a spruce bluff, the canopy, you know, they eat the
(51:28):
moss on the trees in there. They they survive somehow.
It's hard to say, but yeah, and you're bigger animals,
like that's why I like elk herds around and moose
and that, because if you've got elk, they paw, so
they open up all this ground and then your small
deer can come in. And if they all walk in
the path, you know, they're putting little highways all through
(51:50):
the bush. For so the bigger animals are opening up snow.
Because we talked about it today because I said, if
we get a foot of snow, but these deers still
gonna be in the south falfa, and he said probably not.
I mean, there's only so much they can scratch down.
They and that's why an animal, that's why your deer here.
(52:10):
Instead of going from a grass system like eating leaves
and grass and stuff like that, it's going to be buried.
So their stomach change and they go to seeds. And
the idea that is, instead of eating a whole bunch
of grass or old grass or whatever it is, they
go to seeds. Will seeds are very high in protein,
so it doesn't take too much seeds, But the stomach
(52:34):
of an animal right now is changing. Yeah, and the
seeds are always above the snow, right yeah, you know,
we think of that so it's just nature adopting. Yeah,
but that's what happens, and that's how they Yeah, and
you're moose and that, well, they're different. They can browse
on willows and whatever. And if anybody knows that, you
know that willows and all that have protein in it too.
(52:55):
You see your trees doing that day and get stuff
a pie and you're elk. Well they're long legged and
quite tall. Well they can paw. So that's how they
survived by pawn, you know what. Yeah, and so this
winter too, you'll start shooting coyotes and you don't like
to shoot him. Now. I almost pulled the trigger on
a couple of them today, I felt, I know. I
(53:18):
texted Tom, I said, do you mind if I shoot
a cut because it's legal here if you have an
unfilled tag. But as I just as I was squeezing
the trigger, I was envisioning Steve saying, hey, Clay, those
those bullets cost two dollars and forty cents a piece.
I envisioned that, and then I envisioned Tom going, Clay,
there was probably a big buck back in the bush
(53:39):
about to step out when you shot that kyote. James
and they were talking about that I knew it and
right now he would admit that he was thinking about
the two dollars. No, so I almost shot a cut
but you you like to shoot him in the middle
of the winter when we usually don't shoot him, or
(54:00):
that we try to snare them if we can with
these rams snarers and that which illegal. And uh, I
like last winter we iveraged about a hundred thirty on
our cots, okay, and uh if you shoot one now
it's worth from you know, fifty bucks okay, right, the
hot quality, it's just because you and let me. I
(54:22):
want to talk about your trapping a little bit. Tom's
a big trapper and it has been over You don't
do it every year, but over the course the last
forty years, I mean, you're a you're a trapper. We've
did fifty and fox in one year and usually not
many fox it's usually I'm a guy. Yeah, but I've
got pictures of fifty in a year. So what are
they work now? So like if we killed one of
those right now and you were trying to sell the
(54:44):
hot on markets, like if you put a hole in
it with a gun unless it was you know, a
solid shell that don't blow up for example, Uh, you might,
but I'm just gonna say if they're damaged by being shot,
they could be fifty dollars. And I probably had some
last winter that went, uh may be possible up to
two mark. And you know, pardon who's where those hides going.
(55:09):
We shipp into Ontario and that and they go to
uh I'm not sure if it's Norway or places like that.
And they're your fur bearer buyers, you know what I mean.
I mean they're making clothing out of this. Oh you bet,
they're going into your fur coats and the prim Canadian
and so so you you snare some coyoats. But you
(55:33):
were telling me yesterday to you how many pounds of
beaver caster did you? We have a place it's called
cedar Wood or something in Ontario and they ship all
this over for perfumes and that the casters, that's where
they go. And uh, we got eighty four dollars a
pounds straight across with no expenses on that per pound
(55:57):
of caster. For if you don't know what a beaver
caster is, it's a scent glands in the back of
the beaver. And they're small, I mean like one beaver
might have a quarter pounds of casters. Yes, it could
be more, but that I averaged eighteen dollars of beaver
for casters alone. That's how I averaged it. The money out.
(56:18):
But you can get a big beaver and uh, a
large beaver. You know he got have like fifty dollar
casters on him. Is what a saying? Oh yeah, and
so you had how many pounds last year? I think
we only had fourteen, but the guy that helped me
with my guide, I think he had twenty pounds. So
so I mean that's or something that's pretty good. It's something.
(56:43):
And then you got a bounty on the you got
a bounty on the tails on the tail. But the
government quit doing that because it worked, right, And that
was our joke because he said there's no more bounty
and Steve said, was there no more bounty? And what
did you say to him? It works because it was
work and so they quit it. That's true. And then
we had a big long discussion about government, right, the
(57:06):
efficiency of government. Right. So so you have trapped Martin's
and all kind of all these critters at different times.
You've trapped yeah, yeah, we trapped men skin them and yeah,
and you you've got pride when you're doing this, you're
you know, you want to produce the you know, the
nicest for pelt you can because for sells on eye appeal.
(57:29):
That's how fur sells by eye appeal. You It's got
to be appealing to the eye. So you try your
best and you do all your tricks you can to
make something work. Yeah, it's it's your challenge. Yeah. Well guys,
anything I'm missing out here? Yeah? Yeah, Well, Tom, any
(57:55):
nuggets of wisdom you'd like to share with the Bear
Hunting Magazine podcast listeners about life in the Far North.
Not really, but I'm just saying the Bear Magazine been
very good to us. Uh, it's the best thing we've
ever done. Probably was when we got a running ads
in the Bear Magazine. I mean it worked for us,
(58:16):
has sold us hunts all over It gives us publicity
you know that we needed up here. And you're dealing
with the right people. You're dealing with bear hunters and
primarily bear hunters, and they responded great to it. I mean,
they really were good to us. And I mean anybody
(58:36):
isn't Anybody that isn't with them should be. It's just
that simple, you know. And bear hunters are bear hunters
and they're all connected and you don't know it, but
they you know, the word gets out there and that's
what counts. And if you're running good business and you're
successful and have quality, I think it'll work for you
(58:58):
by just advertising with you guys. And I mean I
appreciate you saying that. Yeah, well, we've got one day
left on my deer hunt here, And if you want
to get a feel for what it's like to white
tail hunt up here with Tom, go to the Bare
Hunting Magazine YouTube channel and scroll down until you see
(59:20):
thumbnail image of a white tail. I can't remember what
the name of that video is. My mind's going blank,
but basically, I filmed my hunt last year with you,
and it was a really neat video and got it
on Got the buck on film as a bow kill,
just really pretty dear and uh so check out that
video and you'll get to see Tom, and you'll get
(59:41):
to kind of see the countryside and see some deer
and and we'll keep you informed too about what happens
the rest of this hunt. But hopefully, hopefully we'll be
able to finish out strong. I mean, that's why this
is a sixth day hunt. Because sometimes it takes six days.
You know, we try to give everybody all the you know,
give you all the time we can and if you're
(01:00:03):
come in in good time while you're hunting that night,
it's just that simple. Yeah. Uh, you know, you've got
to have the opportunity. Well, and that's what it takes
up periods, patients. I mean that just you know, it's
just there. I'm fully confident every place we're sitting has
the opportunity for a mature Canadian white tail buck to
(01:00:26):
step out. Now that just because he's a mature Canadian
white tail buck doesn't mean that he's gonna have I mean,
I think that's a misconception sometimes that American hunters have,
as if you're in Canada, all the bucks are big. Well,
it's just like at home. There's young bucks, there's small bucks,
there's bucks that don't have the genetics, but then there's
(01:00:46):
bucks that do you know and so and if you're
not going to a place where you have that opportunity
while you're you're in the wrong place. You've got to
come to where there are you know, good bucks. And uh,
you've got to come to a place where the mtunity.
So it's just so simple. Yeah, well you provide the opportunity. Well,
thanks so much, Tom, been a pleasure to be here.
(01:01:09):
And I kind of had to twist your arm to
get that microphone on your neck. But I knew if
we could get you going, man, I knew if we
could get you going, I needed to figure out a
way to get this microphone on Tom. When we're driving
around the farm, Oh, we had we had heard some Westerns.
I learned that phrase from you, Tom. It's yeah, telling Westerns.
(01:01:31):
That's Tom's description of guys exaggerating stories. No, thanks so much, Tom,
thanks for being on here, Thanks for having me. Ka
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation, brought to you by
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go wild dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm
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(01:06):
be your host into the world of hunting the icon
of North American wilderness, the bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation,
but will also bring you into some of the wildest
country on the planet. Chasing Bear. This is a special
episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast where we got
(01:28):
to sit down with Tom Ainsworth of Grand View Outfitting
in grand View, Manitoba, and we talked about white Tails.
We talked about Tom's history. Tom is seventy years old,
and he's a wealth of knowledge and wealth of white
tail knowledge and wealth of bear knowledge and just a
just a character of characters. Tom's a ton of fun
(01:49):
and he gives a lot of great information inside of
this podcast and you'll enjoy it. Hey, do me a
favor and check out Bear Honey Magazine. Our whole old
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it's a it's a really high quality, niche magazine. And
for us to keep doing what we do, we need
people to subscribe to it. And wow, think of how
awesome it would be if six times a year you
were surprised in your mailbox when you received a hard
(02:34):
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What if you just looked at printed paper. Hey, checkout
Bear Hunting Magazine and also check out our YouTube channel.
We've got it twenty eight thousand subscribers all in the
(02:57):
last year, over seven million views in the last east
year on the Bare Hunting Magazine YouTube channel. And you're
gonna see hunts from these hunts on these podcasts. You're
gonna see the video of one of these hunts actually
in the very near future. All right, we're gonna go
right to Tom. So we are in tom Would you
(03:23):
say this is central Manitoba. This the southern one third
of Manitoba. We're in the southern third, probably even the
southern Cord Roads, southern quarter western Manitoba. Ah. Yes, how
far away from the Saskatchewan border. Thirty miles, No, thirty
forty miles. Forty miles from the Saskatchewan border. And we're
(03:47):
we're just north of the little town of Grand View.
You were you were born right here? Actually it wasn't, okay.
I was born in the old Canagan Valley and be
like in British Columbia, Okay. And then my dad it
was born here a Okay, that's where he was born.
So he had moved off. They come from England in
(04:08):
nineteen eleven and come into Canada. And my dad was
born in and he was born here. Okay, So your
grandfather came from England and my dad was born in
nine and he was born yes here here. Yeah. So
(04:28):
so we're on your we're in your living room right now,
and we are we're deer hunting with you. Tom is
a Tom is a long time white tail and bear outfitter.
He's been doing it for years and years. Um. Now
you just turned seventy years old. Tom, that's good. So
you've been doing this since the early eighties. I've been
(04:51):
trying to pin you down on a date of the
year you started out fitting. It'd be early eighties because
for bears on that uh, they went in to allocations
and in. But we're all most of us were doing
dear before that, so you know, we've been at it
for like forty years. They wow, And so tell me
(05:13):
about the history of your the property that we're hunting
right now, Like so, this was a lot of it
was your was your dad's and then you and deb
have accumulated land over time. But like that, so you
you're you're we're in your house now where we're staying.
Our our deer camp was that your father's house. My
(05:34):
dad was in the war and when he come out
of the war in uh through the war veterans, he
got a chance to buy land, so he bought over
there and that house was built and so that's you know,
so we either used it or losed it. So you know,
(05:55):
it's a it's a real comfortable camp. It's a real
comfortable camp. I guess to two or three miles from
we're sitting right here, so your property stretches all the
way there basically. Yeah, So tell me, just give me
a little history with your outfitting, Tom, Like, uh so,
you started with white tails back in the heyday of
(06:18):
Canadian white tail hunting, and I mean, we're right around
the corner here is a two inch white tail with
bases the size of coke cans, a drop time mass
for days. I mean, the kind of deer that I
mean made Canada what it is. And you told me
you shot that deer, and it was just kind of
(06:41):
like you actually didn't shoot it immediately because you were
I was sitting on the edge of the field and
I knew there's some big bucks around and I picked
shed horns up off them, and uh so I watched
the deer for twenty minutes at eighty yards. He was
with some doors when he come out on the field,
but it was a snowy day and when he came out,
(07:03):
he had his head down and that throws you off
a lot. I knew it was a decent deer, but anyways,
he come out on the field beside me and it
was getting close to closing time. So I shot him,
and when I went over, was pretty surprised because he's
he's probably twenty four inches on the outside, or maybe
better it'll fit over a man's shoulders. Anyways, his head. Yeah,
(07:25):
so that that really started out. You wanted to take
a really top end deer so that you could show
people really what you had here. It's kind of right.
I I just went hunting, you know, and I was
interested enough in in deer that I knew it was
(07:47):
you know, it was really important to shoot something that
big and we're lucky enough to get it. And uh
then after that, when I did start out fitting, uh
everybody kind of realized how they you know, they've seen
the deer, so they realized how big the deer was,
how good the area was, and it's just like you guys,
you've been here a week, and uh, how many hunters
(08:07):
have you seen right right, James said he's seen one.
It was over at the corner there, right, Yeah. Yeah,
So it's it's a real quiet area. So uh, it's
great for opportunity for hunters, and I think that's what
you're looking for when you come up here. A. Yeah.
And so I mean the stories that you have about
(08:31):
white tails that have come off this property, I mean
countless deer over one fifty. The biggest the biggest client
killed deer that came off this property was by a client.
And there's been lots of you two and one, eight
sevens and numbers like that. A yeah, lots of one.
(08:54):
There's been a lot of over one seventy deer shot
on here where I live. There's been more shot here
than probably anywhere I know off Hey, yeah, I know
today when you were taking me to the stand, he said,
they killed the one seventies something here on this corner
one year, and they killed one sixty something here as
we're driving to the place where last year I killed
(09:17):
a hundred and fifty inches here with my bow. So
I mean, we've we've seen it ourselves, but you also
were I mean when I first talked with you, you know,
you were you told me that Manitoba had some tough
times a few years ago. Deer numbers went down, and
and I had a lot of respect for you because
of this. You quit taking white tail hunters for a
(09:39):
few years because you just they just the deer just
weren't here. You wanted to let him recover. Well, you
can only beat people once, and so you might as well.
You know, if somebody phoned you and ask you a question,
you've got to tell them the truth, or you should
because soon as they stup out of the vehicle, they
are going to know. And so if you haven't got
(10:00):
something to offer, uh, you know, just you've got nothing
to offer and be up front. And that's what I was.
I just I couldn't give you a good deer then
a were Now how long was that span years? I
think four to five years at least, and it just
we had a bad winter. It's very cold and deep snow,
(10:21):
and that's the worst thing for depredation on deer up here.
You know, wolves and that they come and go, but
the cold weather and that just stays, and once you
knock them down, it takes a lot of years to
bring him back to You get into these bucks that
have got a decent head on him again. You see.
But we're getting right, it's getting better every year right now,
(10:41):
and uh, you know it's just getting better. And yeah,
you can't sell a hunting now, or you should be
able to. YEA. So these deer that we're hunting, we're
hunting them on alfalfa fields. We had a soybean field yesterday.
Like what do these deer doing? What's I mean like
like like we're basically hunting these deer on feeding patterns
(11:04):
right now. And you on your out your back window,
we can look and see dose and look on the
south alpha field and I mean, so you're kind of
your philosophy is keep the does, keep the food here.
If you once rut hits, if you got the girls,
the boys will come. And it's just that simple. And uh,
(11:25):
there's no use looking for them. They'll come and look
for you. And if you like, we've got lflfa fields,
fall rye fields, like we're hunting beans and stuff like
that fields and uh, it's just a deer. They're feeding.
They're looking for the highest protein they can find right now,
and so that's why they're on these fields. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And the what I've noticed is it seems like the
(11:49):
rut is it's just right when probably it is everywhere,
but it seems to be more compact. I mean, like
like I told you, like back home right now, No,
remember the SEC would be like prime time for Bucks cruising,
you know, mature Bucks movie. And what we're seeing right
now is that these big Bucks are still on a
(12:11):
kind of a feeding pattern they're on. There's still not
a buddy system yet. If you think about it, you know,
it's just like when James show it his uh you
know he sees two or three Bucks, they're all together
and they're nice bucks. Well, there's still on a buddy system.
So the young guys are maybe you know, doing a
lot of the legwork right now compared and the old
(12:31):
guys are letting them do it. But it's just not
here yet. You're gonna have to, you know, maybe get
a weather change. But they breathed the same time every year.
They have to have their calves at the same time.
They just breed. And yeah, usually when you get into
like I was saying, into November nine is one of
my dates I like, and uh, usually you've got a
(12:54):
whole bunch of Bucks looking for those last dose to
breed off that cycle. Do you think it's already happened
by then? Yea, And and that's your day at least
that cycle is. I know, usually on the nineteenth we
can look out here acrossing the road and just like Clark,
where cover you're there's a great big buck standing right
in the middle of the field. Of course at noon, Yeah,
because your big bucks are going to travel from ten
(13:15):
to two. I'm not sure you know, if you're hunting them.
Everybody's gone home for lunch and everybody's done this and
they're coming back at three o'clock, and so ten to
two is the time to do it. I'd say ten
to two. Yeah, you know, you've you've carted. You have
a unique perspective on land because very few people really
(13:37):
get to interact with a piece of property for forty
years as intimately as you have with this property. I mean,
just just like I mean, I learned from you. Know now,
I've hunted with you. We hunted with you a week
last year, we hunted with you a week this year.
So I've learned. When you say, when you put me
(13:57):
somewhere and you go, hey, be watching that corner right
over there, you better be watching it right James. James
and I were talking the other day and we were like,
every time Tom says that that's where the deer come from.
I mean, and and as a also a white tail
hunter that would be going into places sometimes I've never
huntered before, and trying to think about deer movement based
(14:20):
upon topography and and and the way the land lays.
Some of these places still don't make sense to me
as a white tail hunter. Why deer would be using
like you know, like a deer coming out on a
little point. Just for instance, when you put James out
the other day, he said, watch that little point right there,
and like you know, and and that's exactly where his
(14:40):
bucks came from. Once you do stuff long enough and
often enough, you should learn something. So we've killed deer
there with muzzle loaders the other year, you know, real
large deer, and it's just it's a natural runway. And
if you get into the you know, like a lot
of the especially where James got is over there, there's
(15:01):
paths in the bush that are beat right down in
the bush. It's turfy land, you see, because spruce trees
are growing there and uh, these paths are beat right down,
and it's just their natural runways and it's just that
you know, yeah, and you've got it, you know, if
you're hunting and if you if you care about what
you're doing, well you know where this stuff is because
(15:23):
you're watching all the time. Yeah, and that's what you do,
is you you're always watching, always looking at your job. Yeah,
that's what your job is. Yeah. If you want to
try and run a good business, you've gotta you know, right.
And so this farm though before it was well, while
you were outfitting dere on it, you were a cattle rancher.
(15:44):
You're like Todd, You're like an iconic Canadian rancher outfitter. Yeah,
you really are you. Uh, you've you've kind of got
a methodology for everything that you do and and you
I mean, your place is like pristine and everything's in order. Tom.
Tom's never late for anything. Every single morning we've pulled
(16:05):
up here, you've been ready to go in the truck.
Has he not, James supposed to be? Yeah, it's it's
like exactly no, No, these are these are things are
It's like you're you. You've got systems for everything that
you do and they work. They worked for you. Do
(16:26):
you have to Yeah, that's you know, it's it's our
job to do all this stuff. And uh, you know
if we don't do our job, well, I guess you're
not getting your anything for your nickel. You might say, yeah, yeah, Um,
tell me a little bit about the You've talked to
me some about the history of this area of Manitoba,
(16:48):
like the Ukrainians that came in, and like, so what's
the because this is this is still sparsely populated part
of the world. But about a hundred years ago basically
is when we're everybody was getting settled in here, and um,
(17:09):
you had your all your nationalities. We have basically every
national We have Russians, and we have Germans, and we
have English and Scotch and Irish, Ukrainians, Polish people and
uh to some extent. Anyways, what happened in here are
are Ukrainian and Polish people and stuff like that. They
got pushed to the poor land. So what happens is
(17:33):
when the person in the valley buys new equipment with time,
it ends up next to the bush where the stones
are and whatever, because you know, stuff like that. But
the Ukrainians learned to live off the land it's because
they had to do it, and you can just learn
a lot from them by, you know, through history and
(17:56):
watching them here and stuff like that. That's what I
was telling you about, you know, the lime kilman stuff
we had. You haven't seen it yet, but we've got
to take you and show you. We just have to.
And there were survivors. The survivors described the lamb kiln. Uh.
We had a family come in here, uh probably I
(18:17):
don't know, but probably a hundred years ago type thing.
And their name was Dubic. And I'm not sure if
they were Austrian people or what, but he um, he
was a Stonemason from where he came from. And so
in our area here, we have quite a few wells
that are dug and all they do is instead of
using cribbings and would and that he would take rocks
(18:41):
and he'd make them perfectly round the wells or you
know what I mean. And he stack all these rocks up.
And there's one thing about it. If you've got a
ten or twenty or thirty ft well done that way,
the water is just cold like ice. And the reason
is the stones keep the water cold, you see. But
they built lime kilns over here, and I only know four,
(19:02):
and I haven't even heard of them anywhere else. But
there's foreigner area two is on my land. And everything
was done with horses in them days. So um you'd
find a nold. There's an old in the bush over
here in my place, and it happens to be limestone area.
So if you're using horses, you want your limestone close
because it's slow to move them. So they'd make about
(19:28):
an eight foot circle. They dig down about eight feet
on the side of the hill, and they would stone
it all the way around and fit each stone in place,
just like cribbing on a well. And they leave like
a walkway through at the one end, and you drive
up there and you put your limestone in the bottom.
You dump it off your wagon. Then you drive up again,
(19:50):
and you'd put a whole bunch of wood on the
top and you would heat that would get it so
hot in there that the lime would crystal eyes, you
might say, or whatever, break up into small powder. Then
they drive down to the bottom of the hill with
the horses and they load all the ashes up and
take the lime home. And they used to make their
(20:11):
log cabins, and that we might call it chinking. Uh,
we have very good clay in our area. They used
it for making your stone ovens and all this kind
of stuff. They still do. It's just great clay. So
they'd go up there and they take build a log cabin.
They would clay the outside, maybe clay the inside. They
(20:32):
would whitewash it with this limestone a and then if
they wanted it colored while they'd use it could be
raspberries or strawberries or blueberries, and that's how they'd get
their color into it. But it's some real great history.
I think of what you had to do to survive
in this area, and then how creative they are. Yeah,
(20:54):
that's the thing, and they made it work. Yeah, and
so I've got one here, but I I just we
kind of keep it quiet because we don't want a
road going into it and a bunch of people. You know,
we'll show it to anybody, but yeah, you just don't
want to commercialize it. Yeah, sure, it shouldn't be done
that way. We don't pick this whole area. What I
(21:15):
was struck with when I came here last year was
the old I mean there's just old farm structures everywhere.
I mean, it's just it's just reminiscent of a time
gone by. I mean there's there's old track, I mean
back behind where we're staying. There's old cars and old
tractors with trees growing up through them, and lots of
(21:38):
wooden structures, old wooden structures and old wooden houses, and
it's it's it's kind of a we've talked to this
week about how big agriculture is coming to this area
in a major way. So it used to be like
smaller family farms, and then now for these guys to
make a living, no fault to them. I mean you've
(21:58):
got to be big and they're having Like at one
time here just about every quarter section had a house
on it, a family lived on just about every quarter section.
And where you guys are now in eight miles there,
(22:18):
eight to nine miles, there's one house. Wow. Yeah, And
that's just change there. Nobody's here. And what's what's happening
to is farmers kids have had to go elsewhere to
make a living. And so there's a lot of these
people like you that have all this land, have this farm,
(22:41):
and and the kids aren't necessarily taken back over the farms. Right,
things have changed, and it's just like anywhere else. Uh,
you've got to make a living and the kids have
to leave here because we're not like you people in
the States every every time you've got industry and jobs
(23:02):
and that, and kind of in Canada, we can't make toothpicks,
you know. For some reason, We've got to ship the
wood down to you guys and you shipping back. But
it's just how we are. We're not willing to we're
not willing to take a chance like you people are.
It's my opinion. You're willing to take a chance. You're
(23:22):
willing to invest money, right, and it's just like we're
too tight up here or something. Uh you know what
I mean. Well you don't see the investment. Yeah, I
would have never thought of it. But that's interesting perspective,
that's what it's like. Yeah, we just I don't know
if money is that tight or what it is, but
(23:44):
we just don't invest where you people do. You'll gamble. Yeah, well,
speaking of gambling, you gambled when you you you got
this some sectional land from your father and this and
then you got have accumulated land and I mean this
land back when you were originally buying it wasn't it
(24:08):
was there was nobody here that wanted it, and then
and then the the long the short version of the
story is is that now it's it's incredible for lots
of reasons, for big agg for deer hunting, for whatever.
It's just changed. Like when my dad got this half
for him on now next to the park, he got
(24:30):
it for I believe it was twelve dollars, was a
part of his mother's estate. So anyways, uh, he ended
up with this land and we bought a lot of
our land for six and seven thousand dollars a quarter section.
And now just because of the times, uh, I mean,
(24:52):
there's nothing compared to your land but our lands. You know,
it's worth a hundred thousand to a hundred fifty thousand
to two hundred thousand just for bush land and stuff
like that, because you can buy a a quarter section
of farming land dirt any day of the week you want.
(25:12):
But if you want to find a place for great
hunting where you can build a cabin or a house
where you can retire, where you can look out the
window and see dear elk and moose, it's very hard
to find that place mhm. And like on my land
here when I come here, there was twenty seven acres
(25:32):
broke on this coarter section, on this back quarter, and
there's still twenty seven acres broke on it. Uh. I
don't believe it's up to our generation to destroy everything.
And I'm just leaving it as it is and that's
always going to stay. Yeah, you really have a strong
(25:52):
land stewardship ethic when it comes to wildlife and when
it comes to tub I mean, you ran three to
five head of cattle on this on this land for
years and years, and um, that's a that's a good
segue to talk to me about the diversity of wildlife
(26:16):
on this property because people don't know that. I sure
as heck didn't know it when I came up here. Yeah, yeah,
because I mean like like when when we see like
this big agg land, like we think Iowa and what's
in Iowa's turkeys, deer and coyotes. I mean like there's not.
I mean that's pretty much yet. Well right here, Uh,
(26:40):
let's just say you went through furbrawing animals on my
landers and I live against the park. There's sixty miles
a bush behind my place, and uh, let me stop
you right there to describe that you're up against basically
what we would call national forest. So your back fields
for sixty I mean, you butt up against basically national
(27:02):
force without a road, without a road, and so there's
sixty miles of what you guys call bush, we just
called woods. Yeah, okay, I just want to split because
that's a that's an amazing feature of this property. As
part of the reason the deer hunt is great. It's
the reason. It's like, if you're going for deer, we
have deer. We have elk. It's nothing to look out
(27:25):
our window and see thirty yolk or nothing to look
out here and see uh six bull elk and they'll
stay here all winter. Of course, we have moose. You know,
we've had elk in our yard. Moose in our yard.
We have deer in the yard all the time. Um,
we have timber, wolves, we have cotes, we have foxes,
we have badgers. Uh you know. On the fur bearing
(27:46):
we've got beaver and martin, you know, mink, every fur
bearing animal there is we have here, raccoons. Uh, it's
one of them things, worry kinda. We just have it
all and uh, you know, we can see this stuff
just about every day of the week. And and these elk,
(28:07):
I mean this is like these aren't just like passing
herds of elk. You guys take elk office property almost
every year. Yes, we we hunt our elk on our
own land every year. And like it was saying a
while ago, we have good elk here because for a
long time we had the number two elk in North
America and it was about fifteen miles from here and
(28:30):
it was four hundred and seventy two and a half inches.
So you know that's a wild free ranging Now. Oh yeah,
we have quality. We have the most I'm not sure
if there's a Roseavelt or what, but we have the
most sought after elk there are right these and so
it's a it's a only residents of Manitoba can draw
these tags insteach a draw system. And and so there's
(28:55):
just a limited number, I mean, less than fifty tags
probably well very but like for US landowners in here,
well it's hard to stay. But we run a very
big area and we only get seven tags. And I'm
going to say that's in thirty Uh so you're getting
landowner tags. Yeah, okay, that's why you're able to get him.
(29:15):
But there's only seven tags and a hundred miles okay,
and so somebody will get that tag and then you
kind of you offer your land for sometimes we do
uh a lot of times, like we is free of charge.
Uh you know, if somebody gets a tag, we just
let them come and hunt free a charge. Just how
(29:36):
we are, you know, we outfitted, so we you know,
we kind of feel that we should give something back. Yeah,
and so just I mean like two or three weeks ago,
they killed an elk on this property right down where
I was hunting. Is that right where I was hunting
white tails today? Three weeks ago, two weeks ago, and
we've seen about forty to fifty elk on there, and
(29:56):
we've seen at one time Dev and I were driving
a just our pasture and there was five bull standing
out there and there were five and six pointers and
some had the real black horns at the bases and
that so they're you're real herd bulls. Yeah, you can
see that. We go for right any night. We can
pretty well go see oak most night. That's amazing. Yeah. See,
(30:18):
people don't typically don't think of manitobas, and it's because
it's such a limited hunt. I mean, like it's not
people can't come here to hunt, so we just don't
hear about it. But yeah, and then you were now
we've not seen a moose but in there, uh kind
of a sparsely populated animal anyway, I mean they're at
(30:40):
low Densty animal So, but randomly you'd have moose on
this James. Where James shot his deer, that's where my
sun shot his ilk and his buddy this year. And
while they were gotting the elk, there's a bull moose
that come out that I would say would be by that.
We've seen pictures of it, but I would say it's
from to Uh, it could have been too you know,
(31:05):
it could have been to fifty two or fifty four
in spread. That's a good that's a good moves. And
then today you and James saw timber wolf track. Yes, so,
and the wolves just kind of range in and out.
I mean there's not always wolves here, but they just
kind of right come in and out. Yeah, there's wolves.
Then they have their territories unless they get kicked out
of a pack and then they just you know, they're
(31:28):
following the French fries around and that's your deer. Something's
got to feed everything and it's the deer your French
fries around here, and so that's what they you know,
if you get kicked out of a pack, they're looking
for the small calves in the deer, whatever it is
to survive. Yeah, we saw predator killed deer today right
out here in your backyard. We don't know exactly what
(31:50):
killed it. Probably coyotes probably, I would say we see coyotes.
Not every hut, but yeah, we see clouds almost every day,
big old and they're big eats here. They're very big
kites compared to a lot of places. Say yeah, we
big kites. Yeah, it's just if you really think about it. Uh,
I don't know what it does. I guess it's the
land or something. But our deer, you know, we have
(32:13):
good deers here, big heads, big girl kids. I mean,
I've shot a fifty four inch moose, but there's bigger
moose than that here. But it just there's something in
the land that produces good horn. Here are bears, are
super bears like our big bear we got were six
hundred pounds, you see. Yeah, and so uh, I'll tell
(32:34):
you what it is. It's the black dirt man. Could
be being from Arkansas. I mean, I'm I'm kind of
being funny there, but because it's a much more technical
answer than that. But man, this dirt is like black.
There's some nutrient rich you know, I mean, lots of
minerals in the soil, and that's why it's such a
good agg land. But hey, we hadn't even talked about bears.
(32:54):
We gave, we gave all those animals that are here,
and I don't think you mentioned bear, right, did you know? Okay,
So the same place that I hunted this evening, I
saw a white tail deer there this evening. Last year
I killed a hundred and fifty two inch buck out
of that same spot. James five days ago saw a
(33:18):
color phase black bear from that stand, and you guys
killed an elk out of that stand in uh sometime
in October. I saw a coode out of that. I mean,
you got bears like crazy, and I can't believe I
hadn't even said it. We've been talking about white tails
because that's what we're hunting this week. But hey, Tom
(33:39):
is a long was a long time bear hunting magazine advertiser,
and he had a he had a how many tags
did you have? Well, we ran as highest thirty two
tags altogether. A right when we were were peaking at
the end here we were down to twenty five tags.
We'd sell them out just every year we sell a
(33:59):
hundred percent it and we had like there's people that
have come up here and uh, out of five bears,
they were all over public being honest with like with
this one guy especially, there were over four hundred pounds.
We ran from four to six hundred pounds and shot
that many bears, h you know, for weight. But so
(34:20):
you're I mean to cut to the chase. What I
was gonna say is you were a longtime bear outfit.
I just wanted to say that we were. I mean
you you were. You ran a bear outfit like a machine,
and you have some incredible bears up here. Yeah, we
had lots of bears, lots of colored bears, high color phases. Yeah,
it was. It was a very good business in here,
(34:42):
and we we put we put a lot of money
into our feed, feeding the bears. We thought that was
the way we should go and it worked for us
very good because your success rate was very high. And uh,
I I figured most people, if you just watch what
you're doing a little bit, you had the opportunity to
shoot a three hundred pound bear. Plus. Yeah, that happened.
(35:04):
Just you know, if there's five hunters in sometimes four
out of the five would shoot a bear over three
hundred pounds in the same week. It was. They were
real quality animals, you know, and good skulls. We yeah. Well,
Bernie Barons, you're one of our columnists. He's a good
friend of yours, good friend of mine too. He came
(35:25):
up here and he's got a YouTube video of him
seeing over twenty bears in one evening on a fall hunt,
which is basically just right up right up the way
from your house exactly. It's it's yeah, it's on the
same quarter I live on. And he shot bears. There's
been quite a few beers right here where I live,
(35:45):
over five hundred pounds taken out. Uh. We got second
in the whole province once for a bear here shot
right behind my house here. Yeah, lots of bears. Incredible. Yeah.
And so to clarify as l so, Tom sold his
bear business two years ago to a guy that's now
a friend of mine, a guy know, an advertiser in
(36:08):
our magazine, Baldy Mountain Outfitters. Tom Todd Walgemuth. And so
Todd has taken over your areas, got your tag. So
he's hunting all the same same baits, got the same color,
standed a bit. He bought another road, partially bought another road,
fitter road, and uh, I thought it was a good
bye myself. And he incorporated all the leaks up here
(36:29):
and that into his and uh it was a real
wind situation for him. By doing that, it was a
good business move. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so he's he's
up here now. So Tom didn't didn't have bear hunts anymore,
but you still got lots of bear on your place.
We have there's like got the site you're at tonight.
(36:51):
We've seen eight to ten coming in there, right right
where you were. Yeah yeah, and like the the bearer James,
and it was a brown bear is a black bearer,
but the brown face to it a and uh, those
bearer in there right now are running three hundred three
fifty I imagine at least that's what they are. Yeah, yeah,
(37:16):
their their coats this time. I mean it's November the two,
and we've got trail camera pictures of bears. We've got
three trail cameras out right now, just kind of as
we're hunting this week, and two of them last night
had bears on them November the two in Manitoba. But
they're gonna den right there. Build Den within a couple
of hundred yards of where we're seeing them. I know
(37:37):
what the Danis are in there. Yeah, the bear dancers
there and they come in there every fall. Yeah. Yeah,
that's it's. This is an incredible property and just an
incredible place that we've just kind of really grown to
love the last two years. We really have. And and
(37:59):
I'm still hunting. I've got one day left. I've kind
of had a tough week. Here's the truth, though, Tom,
is that if I had been muzzled hunting, I would
have killed it there on the on the first afternoon
to the hunt. I really would have. I mean, because
(38:19):
I believe that it was the first afterca It was well,
we got here a day an afternoon early, and we
hunted one afternoon. So the so the actual first day
of the hunt that evening is when we know it
was the second evening, second evening Tuesday is when we
went and put the stand. We hung a news stand
back in the bush where a bunch of a couple
(38:42):
of trails converted then in the bedding area with some
feet around it, and we we went in there hung
a stand and I know more than climbed in that
stand in the rain on that Tuesday, and I saw
a shooter buck at as he bedded down. So so
I I say that too, calibrate my statements saying that
(39:06):
we've I've kind of had a slow hunt. And he
had seven points on one Siday, he did he was
at five by seven. He sure was. Oh man, that
was carrying my bow that day. And and the other
thing that's hard about it hunt like this is you
you kind of calibrate. You calibrate the hunt based upon
(39:26):
what happens early. And so that was the first just
like right at the beginning of the hunt, saw this deer,
knew where he was, and so I was like, we're
sitting good. You know, it's just a matter of time.
I'll sit here a couple more times and I'll I'll
see him again. And uh, and the big buck sightings
for me kind of dried up. Now I didn't for
Steve and James, they killed within the first two days.
(39:47):
But right now, you know, we've seen on four different places.
If you think about it. We've seen there's a big buck,
yeah right now, but we just can't make it happen. Yeah,
that's just hunting. That's right, it's just hunting. It's north killing.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, James, what else should ask Tom?
(40:10):
What's that? Uh? Steve? Are you in here? Is Stephen?
There anything else I should ask Tom? We talked about
I can cut all this out? Yeah, where to go
hunting tomorrow? Yeah? Yeah, you better ask Yeah, that's sad.
(40:37):
Where to go? I just work here? Yeah. Now, we
talked about we talked about white tails, we talked about bears,
We talked about the land. We kind of talked about
your history with the land. We talked about the diversity
of wildlife. We talked about and see I did a
podcast a few days ago with Steve about his hunt.
(40:58):
I did a podcast with James about his hunt. So
we're covering all the bases. But now, anything else that
you'd like to say? Tom? Just in closing, just about
what you not even about your business, but just about you.
I mean, I'll tell you what we have. The fun
part of coming to hunt with Tom and dab Ainsworth
(41:20):
is you, guys, it really is. I mean it's like
it's like coming to your friend's house and he's letting
you hunt is huge property. We've always just like Peoping
ran our beer business. You know, we're kind of the
old mom and pop deal where you come in and
we treat you like friends. And you're not a number
around here. Like if you're going to go and stay
in a motel, eat out this and this, you don't
(41:43):
see your oad fitter. You don't maybe you know, see
your guide all this kind of stuff. Uh, you're a
number and Uh. To be in business the business we're in,
you have to become friends and family to in business
and to operate. That's my opinion. Now, you know, you've
(42:04):
got to be treated like you treat somebody, and if
you can't get that when you're going hunting, I guess
it's time to change places. As far as I'm concerned.
You've got to be treated, you know, just the same
way you treat people at home. And so that's what
we do, and it's it worked for us. You know,
I was in the bear business for years and I
(42:25):
never phoned a person in my life to come hunt
with me. Everybody phoned me how they found my numbers
and whatever, and your beer magazine. And I'm being real honest,
it was great for me. It was my outlet to
get in contact with more people and stuff like that.
And it's just works, you see. And uh but that's
(42:48):
you know, we just treat people the way we want
to be treated. And you've got to be foundly because
if you're a number, I don't think there's no personal
touch to it. It's just simple. Yeah, I can tell
you lots of stories are real bad things that happened,
you know what I mean. But you know, going on
a hunt, you've got to I've gone myself, so I
(43:08):
know you've got to put a lot of trust in
people when you send them your money for a depositor
a hunt and you've never even seen him and you're
talking to somebody you know, and uh, you it's kind
of tough to do. You know. I've done it myself,
and I know, like what kind of one of the times,
what am I doing? Yeah? And to do what you've
(43:30):
done for this period of time and to have the
success that you've had, I mean, you guys are you
guys are are very hospitable, your your people, people you
enjoy You've got to enjoy people I think to do
what you do. I mean you you. Every time we
get in the truck, every time driving down the road,
(43:51):
Tom's telling us about I wish I could have had
a microphone on you when we're driving down the roads.
What I wish you man, because you're like, such and
such happened here, and this happened here, and there's this,
and I do my fences this way because of this,
and I do this and this. There's a system for everything.
There's history behind everything. He's always he's like a tour guide.
You'd be a good tour guide on one of those boats,
(44:13):
you know. But it's just like when we go up
in the mountain here, I feel it's my it's my
part of my job. Like up here, like a blue lakes.
It's a hundred eighty feet deep. It's a little lake
that's about um. It might be half a mile long,
not very big. It's got the greatest trout in it
you could ever think of. And you can pull master
anglers out of there. Like nothing to me, but it's
(44:35):
a hundred eighty feet and there's uh, the large trouts.
They were catching the bottom and I'm according to them
they waited. It was sixty three pounds and it was
a sixty three pounds three pounds because they're bringing it
up milk and eggs out of them and stuff like that.
You see. Oh wow. Yeah, But it's your job to
(44:56):
if you're in business, you've got to know your area
and you've got to explain it to everybody. I think
that it's part of you. Just like you said, we're
a tour guiding or babysitting, you know, that's kind about it.
I mean, we've got to put out quality stuff too,
but it's part of your job to know that. And
if you don't, it kind of pretty quiet driving around
(45:19):
if nobody says anything right time. I'm the same way man,
when I get somebody in my truck that I know
it doesn't know anything about Arkansas and where I'm from. Man,
I'm talking to him about how these mountains got formed
in the trees and the wildlife and the deer and
the history. The history. Yeah, it's you got interpret stuff
for people because you can't assume that people can come
(45:41):
up here and appreciate this. Like someone could roll in
here and just be like, there's not much here. Man.
It's just like we would go bear hunting up in
the in the mountain here we used to go not
I guess you call them hills, and uh, we go
up there, and I tell you guys, well, you know,
in sixty two there's a family over here took some
chainsaws and they dropped for or about ten miles up here.
(46:03):
They dropped all the trees down, and they put the
highway end up north through the mountain here, right, And
they did it for two thousand dollars. That was way
back in sixty two. And that's some history. And there's
old telephone lines in the bush where they ran the
first lines through there. And there's these great big old
insulators screwing trees and that. And you know, if I'm
on the trailer, I'll show the gates, say hey, look
(46:24):
at that. Look at that that goes back to you know,
I'll be there. But that's it's it's just good stuff.
You were telling me. You were telling me the other
day when we went and hunted the swamp over here.
He said, the there's a spring over there that tell
me about the horses. Well, there's a spring in the
(46:45):
bush there that never freezes in the winter and always runs.
And it it became like a small hill in there
because of the water pressure underneath. And my uncle and
then way back I'm I don't know when, but probably
in the thirties or forties or something like that, they
had a team hooked together and they took him in
there for a drink of water. Well, one horse slipped
(47:06):
and fell in, and seeing it had a harness on it,
pulled the other horse in and they never seen nothing again.
And they took a real long pole there, like I
mean a rail, and they put it down in there
and felt all around, couldn't find them. And I've put
rails in there myself that are say fifteen or twenty
ft long, and you let go of them and they
(47:26):
just shoot right up in the air from the pressure
and not just that's just the spring over here where
we're hunting. And that's why we have that stand there,
because the animals come there to drink water, and uh
so it makes it a you know, it's a pinch
point where they're coming to, and so so unfrozen water
(47:49):
in the winter is a limiting factor here. Oh it's
great because you know, if you've got to meltdown, let's
just say, five gallons of snow through your body system,
and take all the heat units out of it. Animals
get water in the winter up here, they just licked snow.
They're licking snow and converting it to water, and so
(48:10):
you know that takes a lot of energy. It takes
a lot of energy. And if they can go and
drink a cup of nice water, okay, it's alves the problem. Yeah,
and it's better for them. Well it's not better for
maybe in the snow, but it will be better for
I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, Just so people can have an
understanding of the temperature here, because when we first started
(48:30):
coming here, we didn't really know how cold does it
get and how much snow do you get up here?
It depends on the years. But we will go in
our temperature thirty to forty below and sometimes we will
sneak over the forty below and that makes our temperatures
equal because the equal oude at forty. Uh. Usually it's
(48:51):
a short period of time would get a cold snap in.
It could be a week, could be two weeks, but
it can be a month. And we've gone through you know,
extreme the weather no days is extreme all over the world,
and so it's still it is extreme here. When you
get a cold spot in it could be a yeah.
But so when we got here on October, I think
(49:15):
it was forty eight degrees our temperature fair nheighth okay,
And then now the high temperature today was like twenty
nine or something. But I was looking at the fourteen
day forecast and you said it, you said we're almost
to the edge, and what you meant was the edge
of just freeze over. So for after like the middle
(49:36):
of next week, it's gonna freeze and and and it
won't get above freezing until probably April or May. So
it it's see for a Southerner, that's like bizarre, you know,
like didn't it James, I mean like we're we're you know,
for it to just drop below freezing and be below freezing.
Steve grew up in New York, so it's a little different.
(49:58):
But from months, well that winter, uh Canadians, man, that's it.
But we can have a decent winter too, and like
a decent wind for us is you know, it's it's
maybe you know, it just don't get that cold or
you know it's freezing all the time. But I'm just
(50:19):
saying that then then the bottom then just drop out
water here and so snow like a lot of Like
right now there's snow on the ground. We got here
there was not snow on the and probably this will
if we get another couple of other snows and if
we if it stays what it is they're talking our
temperature highs the minus six, minus seven stuff like that. Um,
(50:44):
it will stay. Unless you might have between two and
three ft of snow on the ground, you could get
it settles down. But if you get a foot of snow,
it'll settle down a lot. But our snow could vary
from a foot or sixteen inches, and it could go
up to three feet for example. It could go more
than that, and that's when you get winter. Killing these deer. Well,
(51:07):
we've gone through the mountain. Here are the hills up here,
scadoon and we've seen it where a deer would jump
off a scadoo path where everybody's traveling and it would
be level with his back and they survive. They go
into spruce bluffs and that because if you get into
a spruce bluff, the canopy, you know, they eat the
(51:28):
moss on the trees in there. They they survive somehow.
It's hard to say, but yeah, and you're bigger animals,
like that's why I like elk herds around and moose
and that, because if you've got elk, they paw, so
they open up all this ground and then your small
deer can come in. And if they all walk in
the path, you know, they're putting little highways all through
(51:50):
the bush. For so the bigger animals are opening up snow.
Because we talked about it today because I said, if
we get a foot of snow, but these deers still
gonna be in the south falfa, and he said probably not.
I mean, there's only so much they can scratch down.
They and that's why an animal, that's why your deer here.
(52:10):
Instead of going from a grass system like eating leaves
and grass and stuff like that, it's going to be buried.
So their stomach change and they go to seeds. And
the idea that is, instead of eating a whole bunch
of grass or old grass or whatever it is, they
go to seeds. Will seeds are very high in protein,
so it doesn't take too much seeds, But the stomach
(52:34):
of an animal right now is changing. Yeah, and the
seeds are always above the snow, right yeah, you know,
we think of that so it's just nature adopting. Yeah,
but that's what happens, and that's how they Yeah, and
you're moose and that, well, they're different. They can browse
on willows and whatever. And if anybody knows that, you
know that willows and all that have protein in it too.
(52:55):
You see your trees doing that day and get stuff
a pie and you're elk. Well they're long legged and
quite tall. Well they can paw. So that's how they
survived by pawn, you know what. Yeah, and so this
winter too, you'll start shooting coyotes and you don't like
to shoot him. Now. I almost pulled the trigger on
a couple of them today, I felt, I know. I
(53:18):
texted Tom, I said, do you mind if I shoot
a cut because it's legal here if you have an
unfilled tag. But as I just as I was squeezing
the trigger, I was envisioning Steve saying, hey, Clay, those
those bullets cost two dollars and forty cents a piece.
I envisioned that, and then I envisioned Tom going, Clay,
there was probably a big buck back in the bush
(53:39):
about to step out when you shot that kyote. James
and they were talking about that I knew it and
right now he would admit that he was thinking about
the two dollars. No, so I almost shot a cut
but you you like to shoot him in the middle
of the winter when we usually don't shoot him, or
(54:00):
that we try to snare them if we can with
these rams snarers and that which illegal. And uh, I
like last winter we iveraged about a hundred thirty on
our cots, okay, and uh if you shoot one now
it's worth from you know, fifty bucks okay, right, the
hot quality, it's just because you and let me. I
(54:22):
want to talk about your trapping a little bit. Tom's
a big trapper and it has been over You don't
do it every year, but over the course the last
forty years, I mean, you're a you're a trapper. We've
did fifty and fox in one year and usually not
many fox it's usually I'm a guy. Yeah, but I've
got pictures of fifty in a year. So what are
they work now? So like if we killed one of
those right now and you were trying to sell the
(54:44):
hot on markets, like if you put a hole in
it with a gun unless it was you know, a
solid shell that don't blow up for example, Uh, you might,
but I'm just gonna say if they're damaged by being shot,
they could be fifty dollars. And I probably had some
last winter that went, uh may be possible up to
two mark. And you know, pardon who's where those hides going.
(55:09):
We shipp into Ontario and that and they go to
uh I'm not sure if it's Norway or places like that.
And they're your fur bearer buyers, you know what I mean.
I mean they're making clothing out of this. Oh you bet,
they're going into your fur coats and the prim Canadian
and so so you you snare some coyoats. But you
(55:33):
were telling me yesterday to you how many pounds of
beaver caster did you? We have a place it's called
cedar Wood or something in Ontario and they ship all
this over for perfumes and that the casters, that's where
they go. And uh, we got eighty four dollars a
pounds straight across with no expenses on that per pound
(55:57):
of caster. For if you don't know what a beaver
caster is, it's a scent glands in the back of
the beaver. And they're small, I mean like one beaver
might have a quarter pounds of casters. Yes, it could
be more, but that I averaged eighteen dollars of beaver
for casters alone. That's how I averaged it. The money out.
(56:18):
But you can get a big beaver and uh, a
large beaver. You know he got have like fifty dollar
casters on him. Is what a saying? Oh yeah, and
so you had how many pounds last year? I think
we only had fourteen, but the guy that helped me
with my guide, I think he had twenty pounds. So
so I mean that's or something that's pretty good. It's something.
(56:43):
And then you got a bounty on the you got
a bounty on the tails on the tail. But the
government quit doing that because it worked, right, And that
was our joke because he said there's no more bounty
and Steve said, was there no more bounty? And what
did you say to him? It works because it was
work and so they quit it. That's true. And then
we had a big long discussion about government, right, the
(57:06):
efficiency of government. Right. So so you have trapped Martin's
and all kind of all these critters at different times.
You've trapped yeah, yeah, we trapped men skin them and yeah,
and you you've got pride when you're doing this, you're
you know, you want to produce the you know, the
nicest for pelt you can because for sells on eye appeal.
(57:29):
That's how fur sells by eye appeal. You It's got
to be appealing to the eye. So you try your
best and you do all your tricks you can to
make something work. Yeah, it's it's your challenge. Yeah. Well guys,
anything I'm missing out here? Yeah? Yeah, Well, Tom, any
(57:55):
nuggets of wisdom you'd like to share with the Bear
Hunting Magazine podcast listeners about life in the Far North.
Not really, but I'm just saying the Bear Magazine been
very good to us. Uh, it's the best thing we've
ever done. Probably was when we got a running ads
in the Bear Magazine. I mean it worked for us,
(58:16):
has sold us hunts all over It gives us publicity
you know that we needed up here. And you're dealing
with the right people. You're dealing with bear hunters and
primarily bear hunters, and they responded great to it. I mean,
they really were good to us. And I mean anybody
(58:36):
isn't Anybody that isn't with them should be. It's just
that simple, you know. And bear hunters are bear hunters
and they're all connected and you don't know it, but
they you know, the word gets out there and that's
what counts. And if you're running good business and you're
successful and have quality, I think it'll work for you
(58:58):
by just advertising with you guys. And I mean I
appreciate you saying that. Yeah, well, we've got one day
left on my deer hunt here, And if you want
to get a feel for what it's like to white
tail hunt up here with Tom, go to the Bare
Hunting Magazine YouTube channel and scroll down until you see
(59:20):
thumbnail image of a white tail. I can't remember what
the name of that video is. My mind's going blank,
but basically, I filmed my hunt last year with you,
and it was a really neat video and got it
on Got the buck on film as a bow kill,
just really pretty dear and uh so check out that
video and you'll get to see Tom, and you'll get
(59:41):
to kind of see the countryside and see some deer
and and we'll keep you informed too about what happens
the rest of this hunt. But hopefully, hopefully we'll be
able to finish out strong. I mean, that's why this
is a sixth day hunt. Because sometimes it takes six days.
You know, we try to give everybody all the you know,
give you all the time we can and if you're
(01:00:03):
come in in good time while you're hunting that night,
it's just that simple. Yeah. Uh, you know, you've got
to have the opportunity. Well, and that's what it takes
up periods, patients. I mean that just you know, it's
just there. I'm fully confident every place we're sitting has
the opportunity for a mature Canadian white tail buck to
(01:00:26):
step out. Now that just because he's a mature Canadian
white tail buck doesn't mean that he's gonna have I mean,
I think that's a misconception sometimes that American hunters have,
as if you're in Canada, all the bucks are big. Well,
it's just like at home. There's young bucks, there's small bucks,
there's bucks that don't have the genetics, but then there's
(01:00:46):
bucks that do you know and so and if you're
not going to a place where you have that opportunity
while you're you're in the wrong place. You've got to
come to where there are you know, good bucks. And uh,
you've got to come to a place where the mtunity.
So it's just so simple. Yeah, well you provide the opportunity. Well,
thanks so much, Tom, been a pleasure to be here.
(01:01:09):
And I kind of had to twist your arm to
get that microphone on your neck. But I knew if
we could get you going, man, I knew if we
could get you going, I needed to figure out a
way to get this microphone on Tom. When we're driving
around the farm, Oh, we had we had heard some Westerns.
I learned that phrase from you, Tom. It's yeah, telling Westerns.
(01:01:31):
That's Tom's description of guys exaggerating stories. No, thanks so much, Tom,
thanks for being on here, Thanks for having me. Ka
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