Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Moose rut

I'm only an hour south of thunder bay and I'm looking into driving a couple hours north into Canada to do a moose hunt since I can't seem to draw a Mn. tag. Typically when will the bulls be rutting?

Usually start about the 2nd or 3rd week of Sept. However that falls into the archery season. Season for firearms opens on our Thanksgiving weekend in October. This is generally the tail end of the rut.

The 26th of September is usually the middle of the rut.

If you're dropping the coin for an outfitter hunt (and non residents have to be registered with an outfitter,) go to Armstrong or Geraldton and get flown in to where the season starts the third week of September. Success rates are way better.

We hunt in the areas where the season opens earliest but book the second week usually, to better hit the rut. In 2009 I believe this was Sept. 26th.

Jim

When I lived in the northern areas, the second week of season ie Sept 26-end was the surest rut. that was 16/ 1 etc

Randy

I went 9 years in row killing a moose on September 20th.

The moose you were getting, were they coming to the call or were they just animals in areas you knew?

Jim

Medicman probably remembers one of the last moose hunts we had with our dad up north in WMU16A. We talked to moose every day, and they were coming to the call. We killed three adult moose in a week -- two nice bulls and a cow. Season opened on the 22nd. We were there from the 21st to the 28th of September.

Great time.

Dear KKahman,

I think I met you many years ago in Nipigon. I think you were running a fishing derby.

Are they still getting big brookies out of the Nipigon River?

Did anyone ever recover the mount of the world record brookie that disappeared in the states?

What happened to Sandy Coveyduck?

Are the Indians still snaring moose on the islands in Lake Nipogon?

Indians still harvest moose--don't know any that snare them.
Coveyduck is alive and well--still grouchy as ever.
World record brookie mount burned up in museum fire several years ago--it never did disappear in the states--it was lost for several years, amongst some other junk, in a museum in Thunder Bay.
Brookie fishing has gotten better of late.
I'm the local butcher so I still wiegh fish at many of the local derbies.
I call moose for archery hunters--not killed very many my own self.

How about the RACKMAN HE shouls work fine

Dear KKahman,

It was Sandy who showed me the moose snares on an island in Lake Nipigon. I think they had either been baited with salt or the salt in the soil was already there? Big rope snares. First time I ever saw it.

I am surprised to hear Sandy is still alive. He must be pretty old. He is a bit of a grouch but I like him. I know he was sunk once and I think twice in convoys crossing the north Atlantic in WW2 so maybe swimming in the ice water shrank his cajones and made him bitter.

Nine moose in a row for nine years is very good even if you don't shoot them yourself.

What is the largest brookie to come out of the Nipigon River in the past 10 years? Are they getting good lake trout in Nipigon now or is it still too heavily netted?

I like the Nipigon River alot and wish there were no dams on it but I guess if the dams weren't there the lampreys would get into Lake Nipigon?

According to "Ecology and Management of North American Moose", rut is pretty much synchronized throughout the NA range, unlike white-tails.

From personal experience, the intensity, thus behaviors, will differ according to weatherin the same time period year to year. I've hunted the same couple areas for about 30 years. Some years I have great luck calling (maybe not killing!), other years it seems I'm blowing air up a wind tunnel in trying to get a bull to answer or come to the call!

Speaking from personal experience, I don't think I've ever seen a bull come out of velvet before Sept 1, tho Van Ballenburg- a moose biologist - claims August 26 as the most common velvet shedding start date, on average, having studied moose in Denali Park. Again from personal experience, the bigger bulls tend to shed velvet earlier than the smaller ones- I've seen yearlings still in velvet- tho shedding, in mid September. SoVixc might be right afterall- for the truly big bulls.

Once a bull sheds velvet, they will come to a call. Early in the season, use rubbing sounds, later, thrashing and cow calls, though bull grunts work through-out - better at some times than others.

The later in the season (mine ends Sept 20), the better they respond, as they are getting closer to the rut, which is about the last week of September thru mid- October. That said, I once killed a bull fully into rut (even if the cows were not) on Sept 11. Pink tongue, swollen neck, nothing in the gut. The meat was excellent, as he hadn't been fighting anyone yet.

A so called "herd bull" generally only lasts as such a few hours to a few days before being replaced by a tougher or fresher one. Not that that changes his attitude, but it does his meat quality, so I prefer to shoot my bulls as early as possible, and certainly before rut is fully underway in late September. Killing bulls in the rut is a crap-shoot when it comes to meat quality, or even edibility.

Once that starts, you are taking your chances on meat quality. A revved up bull, with gangrenous puncture marks all over his bod will be inedible, if not downright poisonous. Ask me how I know....