WHITETAIL BUCK HUNTING!! BY NORMAN MULVANY
Hello all! So this month (Nov) saw me take my an- nual hunting trip to the States in pursuit of the mighty whitetail deer. Normally my brother ac- companies me but with other commitments un- avoidable, I was to make this trip alone. To tell the truth it was a little daunting booking just the one ticket this year and envisaging all that flight time alone as well as locating the correct terminals to make the connecting flight but once Id committed there was no turning back! So how the heck does one actually book these hunts or why you might ask?!! Well cutting a long story short my cousin immigrated to Wisconsin a number of years ago and married a local guy who was incidentally an avid deer hunter. She brought him back to Ireland a number of years ago where I arranged his hunt- ing permits and firearm necessities and I guided him to his first sika deer which was by fluke a Hummel (male deer bearing no antlers). In the week ahead he managed to shoot some really nice trophies and went back to America a happy man indeed. Being the decent lad he is he sug- gested we come out there the following year to hunt so we hummed and hawed and I managed to persuade the wife that it would be a once off trip!!!!!! Of course she hears the same story every year!!
Our first trip over there was fantastic, huge shop- ping centres, gun stores bigger than Tesco’s here. I was in bloody heaven walking around these stores with a large trolley but instead of filling it with bread and toilet roll I was lobbing in hunting DVDs, boots and camo to name but a few. I didn’t bring any guns as I didn’t want the hassle of declaring at customs a firearm and waiting for the red tape to pass. Instead we were given a se- lection of rifles to pick from Inc under levers in 30- 30, 45-70, a bolt action .338 and a Remington 870 express slug gun. I opted for the .338 and shot a nice spike, a 5 pt and does on my past trips using this gun. An absolute pig on the shoulder by the way!!
To hunt in the States you must possess a hunter’s
safety cert which I had completed here through the NARGC. The HCAP will also do. This is nearly
always requested at the customer services desk when purchasing your hunting tags. There’s no such thing as a permit like we get issued here from the NPWS. There’s also no such thing as a gun license unless you want to carry a concealed weapon where you apply to the local law enforce- ment agency. In many states the gun season only lasts 9 days so the hunting can and does be fast and furious as possibly over a million hunters in that state alone compete for food. Note that I wrote food and not money for the sale of car- casses unlike here where high unemployment has everyone out shooting deer legally and illegally for money. It’s illegal to sell deer in America; instead they have venison donation outlets where you can donate the deer to the needy where a processing plant will butcher the animal for the less well off. You can also hunt 99% of the woods over there legally. They’re state owned like here but there’s no bidding to secure the property. Instead anyone with a tag can enter the woods and hunt.
Ok so back to the present trip. I’d had some hunt- ers over here last year for Sitka and one of the hunters offered me a hunt for a buck in the state of Minnesota so I graciously accepted. This guy is a sporting consultant with a company who organ- ise and book hunts for hunters worldwide and his website is well worth a visit, www.sporting-
trader.com.
So bags packed I flew to Chicago and from there took a connecting flight to Minneapolis without a hitch other than when I got a severe telling off for failing to declare I had some fruit in my holdall bag!!!! Met Ted, sporting consultant, at the bag- gage claim and we were soon on the road to his place for a quick shower and then back on the road again for 3 hours to get to our first lot of lodgings which was owned by a good hunting buddy of Teds. There we met two Australian cli- ents who would hunt alongside me for the week. A quick introduction all around and I hit the cot, wrecked form travelling. Next day we set off to the outfitters camp,
HUNTTROPHIES.COM which was located between Winona and Buffalo County.
I Shoot and Fish E-Zine December 2011 39
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