We had selected the outfitter we were to hunt with in Quebec the first day of bowunting season last year at Bowhunter’s camp. It was our first hunt outside the province of Nova Scotia and none of us knew exactly what to expect when we would get there. This was a major undertaking we had planned and most of it would hinge on our being able to make it there for the hunt. It would have been an 18-hour drive from my place to our selected hunt location with no stops. We decided to make the trip in three legs so we would be fresh and alert when we got to our destination.

Getting there

I (Ricky Comeau aka archer2) left home at 5:00 P.M. Friday evening after getting all my things packed into the smaller fish box, one of two I had put on the trailer. We would use these to keep our things dry for the trip up and back. In one of these boxes we were also hoping to bring some meat back to Nova Scotia on the return trip. I arrived at Bowhunter’s (Blake Milbury) house in Bear River at about 5:45 P.M. and we got his things in place in the bigger fish box. We moved on a mile down the road to get Bearslayer (Bradley Isles) and his things in place for the ride to Greyfox’s (Frank Oram) place in Dartmouth .

We made a stop in Greenwood for a few minutes to get a headlamp from GaryM12 (Gary Micklethwaite) for Bowhunter then off we went.

We got to Dartmouth and after changing the trailer I had towed from my place onto Greyfox’s truck for the ride to Quebec we settled in for the night dreaming of things to come in the following days. Bowhunter said I dreamt out loud that night so he had to move to the cellar to get some peace and quiet and some sleep.

Early the next morning we took off to get breakfast at a local eatery and then set out on our road trip to Otter Lake , Quebec . As promised when we got to the Shubenacadie near Stewiacke I waved good luck to huntwisely (John) who would be out hunting by the time we went by there.

The trip up through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and eastern Quebec were pretty uneventful seeing deer here and there on the roadside and in fields along the way though we did see a bull moose on a trailer when we stopped to eat supper near la Pocati è re , Quebec .

We stayed at Bill Melanson’s place for the night. He’s a friend of mine who lives near St. Romuald , QC . This gave us a nice evening with a former and soon to be again Nova Scotian as well as a good night’s sleep before we left for the last leg of our journey on Sunday morning at 5:00 A.M. We left him a taste of Bowhunter’s bear meat and he wished us good hunting in the following week.

We arrived at the outfitter’s at about noon on Sunday.

Settling in

Upon our arrival at Domaine Montée Pierre, Debra, Pierre ’s wife greeted us. She informed us Pierre would be back shortly. She then escorted us to and showed us our much more than adequate lodge a mile or so past their cabin/house where we would spend the next six days.

Pierre Dorion the outfitter and our guide soon came over to welcome us officially to his outfit. After we unpacked some gear from the truck and unhooked the trailer Pierre walked the four of us around to a number of stand sites he had selected for us for the next morning’s hunting. We each picked the one we liked the best out of the ones we saw.

The whole place at first seemed small while riding around in the truck but we soon found out what expanse the piece of land had. The outfit is a 130-acre piece of land with a lake bordering it on two sides and an expanse of forest on the other with a mountain to the riverside on the property. The lake, Otter Lake is 7 miles long and makes up the border of the property on the east and south sides. A river runs from the lake on the west side and forests are to the north.

The cabin front is a pothole lake 300 or so yards in diameter. It holds a good number of speckled trout. (and I didn’t bring my fly rod). The thing we didn’t expect to see here was the 500-foot mountain on one side of the property and the vast amount of game it holds. But that would all be seen later in the week.

We met the Grants, Bill Sr. and Bill JR. from New York State . Bill Sr., at 70 years young, shots a longbow and Bill Jr. his son shoots an Oneida Eagle, a compound. There had come in a few days earlier and had hunted on Saturday taking Sunday off. These two would occupy the other lodge situated less than 100 yards from ours. Both these lodges had showers with hot and cold running water. The hot water being supplied through a propane water heater. The lights were from the 12-volt batteries and the 110-volt generator and inverter both lodges shared usage of. We also had a TV and VRC on which I showed the video footage I got during the week.

We left shortly thereafter and headed out to get our non-resident licences at the local store in the village of Otter Lake situated about 15 or so minutes away. Pierre mentioned they were on winter hours and would only be open till 10:00 P.M. At this we exclaimed what are their summer hours and he informed us that they closed at 11:00 P.M. in the summer. This included Sunday too as Sunday shopping is in effect in Quebec . Otter Lake isn’t that big with two gas stations and two grocery/hardware/whatever-you-need stores and a couple of restaurants. Houses and farms are few and far between hereabouts except right in the village.

Hunting is legal in Quebec on Sunday so when we got back and while the others unpacked and settled in I grabbed my bow and quiver and set out to explore the place we were to hunt on the next 5 days. I found ample deer sign, browse and lots of feed. That was a good indicator to me that this place, Domaine Montée Pierre, would be an excellent place to hunt in the following days.

Quebec turkey hunt

Along with being able to hunt deer with our Quebec deer hunt package the Outfitter also allowed to also hunt the wild turkey on the Domaine Mont é e Pierre properties with a limit of one per hunter. We all thought getting one would be a breeze since shortly after arriving and on the following day we saw a flock of 7 turkeys, another flock of 8, one of 9 and a few smaller bunches here and there on the property.

On Monday morning I hunted the roadside stand for deer. This stand is set at an intersection of two woods roads and where a deer trail intersects these. I saw one doe come in and walk off but way too far for a shot opportunity. At 10:00 A.M. I decided to take a walk towards the guide’s cabin ½ a mile or so down the road. On the way I spotted a group of 7 turkeys in the process of crossing the road about 150 yards away.

I got to about 50 yards from them and got a shot away hitting just under one of them and scattering the bunch in the process. I had guessed the yardage to be 45 or so but when I paced it off it was actually 50 yards. Most of the flock stayed together. They were going down a hill to my right feeding along the way so I decided to try and cut them off. I backed off and went into the brush on the side of the road and headed down a hundred yards or so and then cut across on an intercept path.

I got to where I thought they would cross ahead of me and settled down. A few minutes later I noticed movement to my right further down the hill and saw a turkey head bobbing about lower on the slope. They had beat me to the spot and had crossed there ahead of me. They were feeding along at a faster pace than I had anticipated.

I was intent on trying to get close enough to one to get a shot if I could and was moving slowly in their direction when I heard something behind me. It was two turkeys heading my way and right behind me at 40 yards. I slowly turned a bit at a time but the lead bird noticed something was amiss. He or she was at 25yards by this time and just looked my way stretching its neck what seemed way too far up even for a turkey. It then turned slowly around, started clucking, hunkered down low and headed slowly back the way it had come.

The second bird, a jake, (immature male turkey) was about 30 yards from me by this time and went right by his partner and was still heading my way. I guess to rejoin with the group of turkeys on the lower slope.

At this time I was caught halfway turned towards the turkeys on the top slope with the arrow on the bow and ready to draw but way out of position for a shot. As for the second bird, when he got to the place the first had seen me did the “stretch and see” trick and as the first did, turned, hunkered down and started back up the hill after the first.

As he turned I finished my pivot to a better shooting position and proceeded to draw my bow. I remembered on a turkey hunting video I’d see where the hunter had made a clucking noise to get the tom turkey to lift its head for a shot with shotgun so I decided to try my imitation of a turkey cluck on this one. I’m sure it didn’t even sound like a turkey but the jake just stopped and stretched out straight up listening for the sound and where it was coming from.

When he turned his head he was facing directly away from me at 30 yards. I released the arrow hitting him in the back between the wings and the arrow went out the front into the brisket to the fletching. The jake only went 10-20 feet with a few beats of his wings and he was done.

The shot severed the backbone, took out both lungs and cut the top of the heart right off. The arrow was so hard to pull out of the brisket that I cut a fletching right off in the process of removing it.

At least one of us saw turkeys every day of our 5 days of hunting but no one even got a shot off at another one though one of us did try but that’s another story.

The turkey was shot at 30 yards with a Martin Scepter III set at 61 lbs.

Arrow used was an A/C/C 3-39s.

Broadhead used was the NAP, Scorpion XP cut on impact expandable.

Deer and turkey everywhere you look

The next morning Tuesday, still in the roadside stand, a doe came in and was just settling in to feed when it suddenly just took off for no apparent reason. I had been trying to videotape the doe and had just got the camera on her when she took off so I have no footage at all of her. What I did get on video are the 8 turkeys coming in right after that. I had just put the camera down when I saw the turkeys coming in one after the other till there were eight. They walked right in and started feeding on the grain our guide had put out. I have good video of them while they are coming in. They soon spooked and ran off too.

I thought the turkeys had spooked the doe but it was actually something else. It was Bearslayer walking back to the camp that had spooked it. I only realised this when I heard Pierre driving towards me with his truck. He stopped 100 yards short of where I was though. I heard voices soon afterwards and recognised that they were Bearslayer and Pierre’s. Bearslayer not knowing I was still in the stand and that the doe was there had just been walking slowly back to the lodge still-hunting as he went along when he noticed the turkeys near my stand and was watching them when Pierre rolled up with his truck. Oh well! Better luck next time.

Quebec spike (or was it a doe, LOL)

As I said earlier I hunted the roadside stand for deer. Pierre our guide has a name for it but I forgot what it is. The stand is a 21 foot high permanent stand with a 4’X4’ platform and railing all around it. It wasn’t the most productive stand in deer numbers but was the most wide open area for a shot opportunity except for the field Bearslayer where was hunting. I wanted an unobstructed shot if I could get one.

I could see 70 yards to my left as I sat, where I only had to draw and shoot with only slight movement and that’s where the deer were coming in and walking across the road at 40 yards. This stand is at the junction of two woods roads with the stand at the bottom of the “Y” formed by the roads and on the left side of the “Y”. Only thing was that the deer were coming in and walking towards me from the left fork and that didn’t give me any shot opportunity before or when they reached the 4-5 apple bait site. The apples were there more just to stop the deer for a few seconds thus giving the bowhunter a shot opportunity. It was not set up as a food source where the deer could feed. It was more of a nibble and walk sort of thing. My best shot would be when they left the area from what I could see.

On the Tuesday afternoon, just before dark, a spike (I though I had shot at a big doe till we found it) came in. He walked right to the apples, smelled them and then just stood there for 30 or so seconds standing facing in my direction and just looking around. I had stood up as soon as I had spotted the deer. All the time he stood there I was at full draw and waiting for it to turn.

It then decided to walk towards me instead of doing the obvious, which would have been to turn and give me a quartering away shot. But no it, it turned alright and quartered away too. Right under the protection of a big pine branch and I mean a “BIG” pine branch. It stood there for again 30 or so seconds and started to walk away from me and to the right.

All this time I’m looking ahead trying to find an opening for a shot opportunity. The deer started to walk straight away from me then. 10 yds, 15 yds, 20 yds, 25 yds, 30 yds. At this time I was still at full draw and frantically looking for a hole to try and get a shot through. The deer was walking away under the protection of the big pine branch and there was nothing I could do about it. I had marked a spot on the sandy soil of the woods road at 35 yds and the deer was fast approaching it. This is where the deer would reach the outer limits of the protection of the pine branch and where I might get an opportunity for a shot.

I decided to try a deer bleat with my voice when it got there. I bleated and the deer turned giving me a hard angled quartering away shot. I had my sight set at 30 yds so I knew I had to shoot 4” or so high for a 35 yd shot. I released the arrow when the deer stopped. I heard the arrow slam into the deer and after that all seemed to go into high gear.

I’m used to shooting 3-D targets. They don’t usually move when hit. This thing just took off. I saw the deer jump twice and then heard it running off into the woods on the right side of the road and after a few seconds thought I had heard a crash.

The blood trail (or lack of it)

Now the story takes off on a different twist. I shot the deer about 15 minutes after sundown so the light was fading fast. It seem to do that even faster in the mountains than I’m used to in N.S. This is one of the only stands that’s in the open so the light is better there later than most of the other stands but it still fades fast when the sun goes down.

I waited 15 minutes and got down from the stand. Grayfox had by this time come out of his stand inside the darker woods and got to me at about the same time I got down from mine. I explained to him what had happened and we walked to the arrow where it lay on the sandy roadside. I checked it for hair and blood. The arrow was bloody alright but it was wet with other matter also.

I had not seen where the arrow had hit in the deer so I didn’t know exactly where the shot had penetrated. I was sure of where I was aiming on it and there should not have been anything but blood on the arrow if it had hit there.

While waiting on the others to walk back past us to camp we found where the deer had been standing and the hair on both sides of the hit. The arrow lay 5 yds beyond that at 40 yds. The sandy soil the arrow had hit after the shot had wiped most of the blood from the front of the arrow after skimming then penetrating 4” into the sand after passing through the deer. By then Bill Grant Sr. a bowhunter from New York State and a member of the New York Bowhunters Association had also come out and confirmed my suspicion of the possibility of a gut shot.

When Pierre Dorion, our guide and outfitter came to us soon after. He wanted to check the trail for blood but I persuaded him not to go any further than 15 yds so as not to spook the deer in case it had been gut shot which was now looking like a possibility. We walked back to camp and I waited for the next morning to arrive.

Finding the deer (we hope)

Pierre came into camp bright and early Wednesday morning. Well before sunrise. The others left soon afterwards to get to their stands and blind locations. As soon as it was light enough to see well without need of flash lights Pierre and I went to look for the deer I’d shot the evening before. We got to the spot where I had shot and found the hair I had seen the night before but no blood at the hit site.

We then took off on the trail the deer had taken and walked 40 yds down it then checked for blood. I at this time found a few drops and marked them with 1”x1” pieces of orange flagging tape. This was the first time Pierre had seen this done with flagging tape instead of tissue paper and after all was finished said he’d probably use this method in the future on hard bloodtrails. It enhances the trail much better and lets you see the actual path the deer took.

Pierre went further down the trail looking for more sign and I started to backtrack on the trail checking for more blood. I found drops back to 20 yds from the spot where I had hit the deer and another 10 yds further than the first drops I had found. So I had a 50 yard blood trail.

Pierre came back after going 200yds down the trail and finding no blood at all. We then walked 30yds up the trail and did a grid search since we knew the deer was dead if it had been hit in the guts from peritonitis. This will cause the deer to die in a few hours to 8 hours. We were searching for a dead deer. I knew from the blood evidence I didn’t need my bow to finish the job. We had good foamy blood where I had found the first drops.

We searched out 100 yards to the left to the base of the mountain and into a gully formed there. We then searched the other side of the trail where there was a patch of thicker woods but to no avail. It was no use looking for tracks as there had been deer activity there all night from what we could see from the tracks in the sandy soil of the road when we came in. At least 4 deer had crossed the road and taken the same trail the deer I shot had gone into.

We then did a grid search of the right side of the trail with the same results. By this time Pierre was thinking my shot hadn’t been as good as I thought it had. He’d checked the known escape routes for any sign the deer had gone through with no luck finding any sign at all.

What to do next?

We had searched for more than 2 hours altogether and then went back to the last drops of blood to look around again. Pierre by this time had to go feed his animals so he asked me what I wanted to do. I said, “I’m going to find the deer”. He said, “OK, good luck. I’ll be back in a while to help you.”

I started to look again at the spot I had seen the last blood I found. I might add here that most of the blood I found was by looking on hands and knees not walking about. The sun was just starting to shine above the trees and on the ground by this time. It shone on the leaves I was looking at and right on a drop of blood to my left at 90 degrees from to the trail about 50 yards from where I had shot the deer and where I had found the last blood.

We had been searching further up the trail 30 yards further up the trail and beyond. I then saw another drop a foot or so from the first, again to the left of the trail the deer had run up on. Pierre by this time had just reached the spot where I had hit the deer so I called to him that I had found the two drops of blood to the left side of the trail.

I had barely uttered the words when he came up to me in a flash. We started to look in the direction I had seen the two drops and Pierre said, “I see another one there.” I looked a little further and he said, No there.” He was looking at blood on the ferns and leaves 10 feet away.

Needless to tell you that in no time flat we had covered the 30 yards on a great bloodtrail to the very dead deer. It seemed to have opened up the wound when the deer veered off to the left and it was very easy to follow from then on. The blood had sprayed onto the leaves and ferns up to 3 feet high and was much easier to spot than on the mostly bare earth and trigs of the trail.

I had hit 4” back of where I had intended the shot to hit.

The arrow had entered just back of the ribs hitting the intestines then taking out the liver, diaphragm, both lungs and exiting as Pierre said in the perfect spot, the forward end of the McKENZIE deer target “10” spot. My guess is the deer moved ahead between the time I released the arrow and the time the arrow reached it. I had been aiming at a spot 4” ahead of where I had hit the deer.

Looking back on the now well marked bloodtrail Pierre commented laughing that it would have been much easier to follow if it had been those 1”x1” flaging tape pieces than blood where the deer had veered off and got us to look in the wrong direction.

We soon had the other three of our group coming in to us since we had war whooped (YAHOO) when we found the deer so they knew well that we had found it. It was soon field dressed and then washed out at the lodge near the lake and placed in a cooler Pierre had made with insulated doors. Along with some ice from the local store this kept the deer pretty cool for the next few days.

The deer weighed 124 lbs field dressed. It was shot at 35 yards with a Martin Scepter III set at 61 lbs with really great looking blue and red camo. LOL

Arrow are A/C/C 3-39s. Broadhead is the NAP, Scorpion XP cut on impact expandable which did a number on this deer cutting a big hole coming and going.

On the lookout for bear

I spent the next two evenings looking for bear at a 100-acre cornfield situated about 50 minutes from our lodge. The bears had been devastating the cornfield pulling down stalks of corn and gorging themselves with the sweet kernels. We walked down the recently harvested 50-acre soybean field along the south side of the cornfield to where the line of oak trees separated it from another field. The spot I picked out was the greenest piece in the cornfield. It was on the edge of the field with the corn just ripening at that point. I could see this spot from a stand where another hunter Pierre guided had taken a bear two weeks before.

Pierre and I set up the portable tree stand the other hunter had used about 100 yards further into the row of oak trees which bordered the cornfield. We set it up in a huge oak about 3 feet across. Pierre and I put the screw in steps op one by one. We went up 15 feet to where I would get a good view of the devastated piece of ground and secured the treestand.

The bears had levelled the corn for about 70 yards along the row of oak trees and 25 or so yards deep into the cornfield. The row of oaks separates this field from an old hay field that was being overgrown with shrubs. This is one place where the bears had been coming into the cornfield, climbing over the 5-foot wire fence to do so.

I had lots of visitors to that stand in those two evenings but no bears ever came in while I was there. I think most were now coming in at night. Two deer came walking by just inside the corn stalks at 30 yards on the first evening. I couldn’t tell if they had antlers or not. It didn’t really matter I had already shot mine by then.

I had a racoon come in and eat corn near where I was. I had another come up the tree with me. I had others walking about under my stand and in the cornfield where the bears had mowed it down. Some of these I video taped. I almost stepped on one racoon the last night there as I was leaving the edge of the cornfield. It soon decided it had to move and went up an oak a few feet away. I tried to tape it but it was too dark by that time.

Why hunt in Quebec ?

Why hunt in Quebec ? Why not hunt in Quebec would be a better question to ask? After all is said and done it’s not the kill or the place you’re at that makes the hunt. It’s the friends you make and the camaraderie you enjoy while you’re there. That we will continue to have whether we hunt in Nova Scotia , in Quebec or some other place lord knows where.

If you want to see lots of deer Domaine Mont é e Pierre is definitely as good a place as any I’ve seen. I saw a total of 7 deer while hunting and another 5 while driving to and from where I was hunting bear and 2 while hunting bear at the cornfield. That’s more than most hunters in Nova Scotia see in a whole season especially in the area I hunt.

I took videos of lots of the goings on while I was in the deer and the bear stands and also a few pictures of the areas I hunted. I’ve got some pre-shot and post shot and some tracking video of the deer too. I wasn’t able to get any live deer on video. Even when I went in with Bowhunter to the most productive stand we had in deer numbers. He got to see 3 deer that morning but they were just out of the field of vision. I was situated 10 yards behind his position and they passed by to his right giving me no opportunity to film.

We were a little sceptical of Pierre when he told us via e-mail that there were so many deer there. We soon saw for ourselves that it was no lie and actually it was even more than even we had dreamed of in the past year since we had decided to book the hunt with him. I’ve only put my own sightings here but the 5 other hunters there had many more than I did.

We left the lodge at about 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time on Friday evening and I arrived home at 9:00P.M. Atlantic Time on Saturday evening so it was a 24 hour trip for me to get back home.

We decided to hunt Quebec for many different reasons. For me it was an opportunity to get away from it all and do something I’ve done most of my life each fall but in much different surroundings. Where I am in Nova Scotia we don’t get to hear the acorns falling like rain on cool fall mornings and hot afternoons. The deer just loved hearing that sound and were not at all hesitant to get under those trees that were bearing their crop for them to eat.

When asked if I would go back next year by one of the guys while we were coming home I said, “ I’d go back next week and I would most certainly go back next year if the opportunity arose.”

We all had a great time hunting and just being there.

Great friends and great hunting that’s what it’s all about.

Remember:
Wait!!! The ethical shot may just present itself if you wait for it.
Wait!!! The recommended time before pursuing an arrow shot game animal.
The "best" broadhead is a razor sharp one.
Wear your fall restraint while hunting from an elevated stand.

Always check your equipment, be prepared and hunt safe.

Good hunting,

Ricky Comeau

/member/f ishlog/fishlogphoto/2149_20041003185523_1.jpg

Whitetail spike I shot in Quebec.

/member/fishlog/fishlogphoto/2149_20041003184244_1.jpg

Quebec turkey. A Jake with 4 ¾” beard.

/member/fishlog/f ishlogphoto/2149_20041013150611_1.jpg

Devastation caused by bears in cornfield.