More Deer Hunting with Manitoba's Whitetail Outfitters
The Hunt for Monster Bucks
 Editor’s Note: One of the greatest adventures in the world is a wilderness hunt with Whitetail Outfitters of Manitoba. Traversing beaver swamps, rivers and creeks, hunters go into total wilderness, where they never see another footprint other than their own and the guides who direct them to their stands. Monster-sized deer, timber wolves and adventures of a lifetime await those who venture where few other hunters go. This week, we’ll learn more about the men who face the wilderness in search of monster deer. Steve Broderick of Old Tappan, New Jersey, was on his stand before daylight, when he had the adventure of a lifetime.
 One of the reasons I liked to hunt with Whitetail Outfitters was they allowed me to go with the guides and look for a stand site. Yes, they already had some stands set up, but I wanted to go with Lenny Huff, our guide, and find deer trails, scrapes and rubs in the bush and locate a place to set a stand. In the areas we hunted, most of the deer movement was along spruce ridges. So, by riding ATVs through the brush, we identified scrapes and rubs by following deer trails. At the time of year I hunted, the deer were actively working scrapes and rubs.
Over the years, Lenny and the other guides at Whitetail Outfitters had learned that by hanging stands within sight of deer scrapes, they could give their hunters opportunities to take bucks of a lifetime. Finally, after scouting most of the day, Lenny and I located a really-good scrape line, and we set up a stand late Tuesday afternoon. I spent the entire day scouting on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday morning excited to hunt the place we’d found. On Wednesday morning, I got into the stand before daylight. About 8:30 am, I spotted a nice 8-point buck. He wasn’t a huge buck, but the main beams of his antlers were about 2 inches outside his ears.
The buck came in through some evergreens and walked below me, and then wandered off to my left. I pulled out my Hunter’s Specialties True Talker grunt tube a nd grunted. I grunted a second time, giving a long, drawn-out grunt and the buck returned to within 40 yards of my stand. I got a really-good look at him. I passed on this buck, because he would only score 110 to 120 on the Boone & Crockett scale. I’ve taken a buck that scored 154 hunting with Whitetail Outfitters in the past, so I knew the size of the bucks they had in Manitoba. I didn’t see anymore deer that day, but I heard wolves again. So, I asked my guide if I could change stand locations once more to another stand site we’d found on Tuesday when we’d been out scouting. Lenny suggested I return to my stand where I’d hunted before on the following morning. If I didn’t see any deer, we’d hang another stand in the other stand site we’d picked out for hunting the middle of the day.
At 11:00 am on Thursday, Lenny picked me up, and we moved stand sites. This was the third time I’d changed stands, which I normally wouldn’t do. But, since I’d heard so many wolves, I wanted to get away from them. I felt certain that the wolves had spooked the deer in that area. I sat on that stand Thursday afternoon but didn’t see a single deer.
For more information about hunting with Manitoba's Whitetail Outfitters, write Box 70, Stonewall, Manitoba, R0C 2Z0, call (888) 398-3459, visit
www.whitetailoutfitters.ca, or email hunt@whitetailoutfitters.ca.
Tomorrow: Making It Happen |
