Just returned from a moose hunt in North Western Ontario, Savant Lake to be more specific. This hunt was a total bust and rip-off! This was my third (and last) hunt in Ontario. From the beginning, things we were screwed by the outfitter, guide and the Ontario MNR. Were told we would be hunting from truck in the cut-overs. What we were not told that we were expected to provide the four wheel drive trucks. (Which neither of us own) so we ended up using my GMC SUV Arcadia Kudos to GMC for building a strong machine. There was another party of three hunters from central Minnesota that had the same issue. this was SUPPOSED to be an area with a very high moose population. When we left after three days, we had seen exactly ONE moose and did not have the proper tag to shoot it. Same experience with the other party, only saw one moose and had the wrong tag.
The guide and I use that term loosly, did not have a clue about hunting moose. He could not tell a fresh track from a track weeks old. The last ay he told my SIL that a track was a week old. My SIL disagreed, they walked around a corner in the road and there stood a moose in the tracks. The guide either wanted to walk (not stalk) through cut-overs ten to fifteen feet high or drive through very recent cut-overs with no regrowth higher than eighteen inches(ergo: nothing for a moose to eat). Three evenings we did sit on beaver ponds but the guide seemed afraid of the dark and would leave a half hour before dark, just when the moose would likely come out. My SIL overheard the camp owner tell our guide NOT to take us to certain lakes of beaver pond because the "locals" had 'dibs" on those moose!
Then to top it off, we found out that the Ontario MNR is trying to whipe out the moose population in Northwestern Ontario,(by issuing extra cow tags), so they can introduce Caribou because this is "a Wildereness region" and caribou are a more appropriate game animal. Sounds like the loco liberals and the wolf introductions around where I live. The ultimate stupid statement by the guide was' there are all kind of moose around here in the winter!" And its wasn't winter, it was warm Fall weather and moose migrate!!!
This hunt was a repeition of a fly in hunt in the same region several years ago. Ontario is really ripping off Americans that come up to hunt. That fiasco cost me over seven thousand dollars.
