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Based on my camp's experience, conversations with other camps/hunters and conversations with Conservation Officers, WMU 47 is improving as far as the hunting near the farms and villages goes.
However the, the deer hunting in the back-country remains generally poor (I think we are into year 7of the deer drought). Results may differ depending on local logging activity.
What are you folks who hunt in WMU 47 seeing?
I hunted the second week. I filled my doe tag early in the afternoon on my first day hunting. There were few deer in the group. I also noticed alot more hunters up there than previous years and I heard a few gun shots.
Pretty much desolation in the bottom part of 47 near Maple Island.
We hunted first week. 6 hunters. 2 doe tags. First 2 days were nice temperatures. Then 3 way too hot and I was the only 1 to go out on Saturday which was nice and cool.
Things are pretty bad when you see next to no deer crap.
Monday I saw a doe and fawn at around 30 yards in fairly heavy brush.
Friday a guy saw a flash of a tail.
Saturday I heard a fast crash, crash, crash, but I never got an eye on it. Also saw a big cow moose and there was something else with it as it took off. Could of had a clear 60 yard shot.
1 of the warm days we had lunch on a protected hillside and sunbathed. 1 guy had a nice nap. Lol.
No real bear sign cuz there weren't any acorns. Only saw a couple fresher flipped over rocks.
Pretty good moose sign out there. Could of gathered sap from some of the moose bites on the maples. As always, lots of moose beds in our clearing around the camp.
Pretty dry. Not much water in the water holes on the trail and our well was down quite a bit.
Had the Argo floating across a small water crossing that usually is pretty shallow. I had a really big load including a woodstove. Load was probably at least a foot over my head when I was seated. I was starting to tip a bit drivers side, so I stood up in the centre. Too many dam beavers around lol. And it was down more than a foot when I crossed. 3 guys in our camp got there ahead of us and drove across it without breaking the dam first. Crazy! 1 guys Kawasaki quad conked out for awhile, after he crossed fortunately and not in the middle of it.
Bush was pretty noisy for walking with the leaves and dead ferns.
Grouse were way down, not that we have huge numbers. The highest I saw per day was 3 and I did that 3 times.
There was some buck sign. Scrapes and rubs in 2 areas. 1 guy must have been pretty big. Big scrapes. I was following his line more or less. Counted 18. Nobody could find them though. 1 scrape appeared on 1 of our trails sometime between Tuesday and Friday.
Some shooting. More to the south near the Magnetewan river.
Deceased past member here, Rick_Teal's camp got 2 does. That's all we know about from the handful of camps around. A camp to our SW, only does drives. We can hear them dogging. No shots fired. Some camps didn't see anything.
Some camps park their vehicles at a farm. In that farmer's estimation, our little area had a hard winter last year.
This is the worst year for sightings we've had since the great winter kill off, of 14 I think it was. We used to have between 60 to 100 sightings in a week. And they weren't migrating either.
Deer seen: 3
Moose: 2
Bear: 0
Some guys were pretty discouraged. I still had fun hiking around the bush.
Lots of evenings sitting outside in t shirts listening to the Leafs or just conversing. Went up on the Friday so that weekend was hot!