THE LAND OF GIANTS
You Can Hunt Bear
Too
 Editor’s
note: For five days, I watched white-tailed bucks around
me that would score from 110 to 130 points on Boone
& Crockett Scale from my stand with my black-powder
gun. I saw one buck that would have weighed well over
300 pounds, and every day I had a chance to take a buck
bigger than any I’d seen in my home state of Alabama.
But, when you’re hunting in the land of monsters,
near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in western Canada where
hunters regularly take 140 and 150 B&C bucks, you
don’t want to pull the trigger on a lesser buck.
This week we’ll talk to some other people who
have hunted with the same outfitters. The Mo of the
Monsters is Maurice Heisler, known to everyone as Mo,
who owns Garden River Outfitters, and has 200,000 acres
of crown land, 30-miles north of Prince Albert. For
15 years, Mo has taken hunters into the bush to take
the Saskatchewan monsters.
QUESTION: How many hunters do you
usually have in camp?
MO: Generally, we have 10 to 15 hunters in camp at a
time.
 QUESTION:
How many of these hunters usually will tag out?
MO: Usually, about 75 percent of our hunters will tag
out. Most of my hunters want to take a buck 150 points
B&C or better, so some of them will go home with
empty tags, if they don’t see the bucks they want
to take.
QUESTION: What do you like about the outfitting business?
MO: I’ve made a lot of friends from the United
States who come here to hunt every year, and our hunting
season becomes a family reunion. I look forward to seeing
them every year, and am as happy as they are when they
take big deer. It’s great to see the deer they
take.
QUESTION: What do you do when you’re
not hunting?
MO: I also own a construction company. We build bridges,
blow up bridges, repair bridges and build roads.  Basically,
whatever needs doing, we do it. I work mostly in western
Canada and do construction work from the end of bear
season until the beginning of deer season, and then
from the end of deer season until the beginning of bear
season.
QUESTION: Do you hunt bear out of
this camp as well?
MO: Yes, we hunt black bear, and we have quite a few
colored-faced bears. We have black, cinnamon, blond
and brown-faced bears in this area. The average bear
will weigh about 225 pounds, and the biggest bear taken
on this property weighed 423 pounds and was taken by
Arthur Anderson. We only hunt bear in the spring. On
average, when hunters come here to take bear, 80 to
90 percent of them will be successful. We have an even
number of both bow and gun hunters.
QUESTION: How much does a bear hunt cost?
MO: The cost is $2,500 for a six-day bear hunt.
 For
more information on Garden River Outfitters, contact
Mo at (306) 978-2307, or you can write to him at Box
929, Martinsville, Saskatchewan, SOK-2TO.
To learn more about Black Powder Products, Inc. (BPI),
the makers of CVA, Winchester and New Frontier Muzzleloading
guns and accessories, call (770) 449-4687, or visit
www.bpiguns.com
TOMORROW: GUTHRIE GETS A GOOD ‘UN
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