Rebirth of Archery

Well done , well done . Is that a feral hog ? It looks to be about 33 pounds ?
Man you are making my mouth water just looking at it . My friend traps fox , beaver and a few other beasts . It is not that they are prohibited . There is a long course you must take to do it . Even our native indians have to take this course . They have been doing this for millenia they don,t need a course . Your two sapling idea sounds like a great idea to make use of what you find . What do you use for broadheads ?
 
Yep... that is a feral hog, or wild pig as we would call it.

It actually weighed thirty-something kilograms from memory (not gutted). It was about a 75 pounder. Interestingly I must have set the snare a bit low... the pig had gone right through it and was caught by just one back leg above the hoof. Still... the snare worked.

So when you've passed your trapping test.... are you permitted to use snares over there? I'd like to think so.... I think that snaring is a wonderfully simple and effective method of catching animals.

Here is a picture of a selection of broadheads in my arsenal.

arrowheadselections.jpg


The top two on the left side and the top one on the right hand side are made from sheet stainless steel. You may be able to see that I have peened the top ones with the ball of a ball-peen hammer. The idea behind this was that the peening might add a degree of work-hardening to the steel thus making the heads hold an edge longer and maybe a bit stiffer. I don't think the peening made a significant difference. These heads would be about an inch wide at the base.

The head on the bottom left has a blade made from an old saw, and a ferrule made from a rifle cartridge. The cartridge is squashed and slit at one end, then soldered to the blade. I got this idea from Saxton Pope's book called "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow".

The two in the middle on the right are the ones I prefer. The one second from bottom has a blade made from a saw, and instead of using a cartridge case for the ferrule I have some fairly substantial steel tubing. Once again it is held together with solder. The head that is second from the top on the right is ground from a saw blade (circular saw I think... it is quite thick). I now prefer the shorter, stronger design even if the theoriticians tell us that the best heads for penetration have a length to width ratio of 3:1 The shorter heads just look better to me anyway.

But the head I have used to get most of my animals is the one on the top right-hand side - the one without the tang. This design can be cut on a guillotine quite easily because it doesn't have the tang. I used to work in an engineering shop, so this was something I considered to allow me to cut out a whole lot of heads quickly. I use hot melt glue to hold the head in a split or cut in the shaft, while binding it in place with strong cord that passes through the holes in the head.

I have been tempted to buy a bunch of simple broadheads to have on hand... this would save quite a bit of time when I make arrows. But I probably have more than enough of my home made trade-style points already. Besides, I now have a hankering to make some primitive heads and fit them to arrows so I can take them hunting - just to know that I can do it.

So what do you hunt in Canada?
 
Coote I try to hunt as much as I can which isn,t very much . I had one treestand bulldozed two weeks before season . The whole forest was destroyed to make way for a new highway . The bulldozer left a few tree around the tree stand as long as he could as if he wanted to give me every chance .
Fat chance . Another man loaned me some hunting land . Nice guy it was all 18 inches underwater . It literally came up to the tops of those green rubber hunting boots . I actually tried hunting it ! Now thats desperation ! L:O:L

I have gotten two wild turkeys with my bow and one deer with a new fangled contraption called a rifle . My friend who traps lives a long way from me . I only see him at archery tournaments and rarely then . Nice guy with a great sense of humour . I think he does use snares . I confess to not know that much about it . I have seen him demonstrate a wire snare with an interesting slip knot making the noose . It was kind of a figure eight . when the noose would begin to tighten the figure eight would fold in on itself so it wouldn,t allow the noose to open up . It had a springiness in the knot that shook loose any ice that might freeze up the noose . It was something to see . I didn,t pay enough attention as we were preparing for an archery game called the warriors run . Shooting at various foam animals from atop a hill running aong the hill down half way another shot at a hidden animal then slipping down the hill another shot into the bushes and then a long shot at a moose . 100 yards away you can run closer . The closer you get the easier it is . This event is timed on a clock so the closer you run the less points the shot is worth .
If you miss you lose points big time .

Those broadheads you made are great stuff . Good enough to sell . I like the variety . 3 to 1 is the conventional wisdom . Those heads are usually very tough metal so they don,t fold . What kind of metal do you use ?
 
I think any metal would suffice to make a workable broadhead. However steel is my preferred material.

The broadheads I have used most are made from stainless steel. I was a maintenance engineer in a big fish processing factory, and we did a lot of stainless steel work. Consequently there were many offcuts of stainless steel kicking around.

The stainless I used was cut from a sheet that was about 1.6mm thick. I think it was possibly 316 grade (allegedly a tad harder than some) although there would have been some 304 grade in the workshop as well. Without finding the technical specifications I don't know the composition of the various grades... but in practical terms the 316 was meant to be more corrosion resistant - however it was more likely to crack. So my heads are not cutlery grade stainless, but I would certainly not like to be on the receiving end of one. I would happily use stainless again for my next batch of heads.

I do have some carbon steel heads. These might be typically cut from a saw blade or an old steel rule. I don't bother heat treating them.

No matter what I use I find that they get blunt fairly easily when shot into the ground etc.

Where does the average city-dwelling Canadian go if he/she wants to go hunting? Are there areas of publicly-owned land where you can get permission to hunt for free or a nominal fee?

I am fortunate to have lived in a semi-rural area for a long time. I have neigbors that let me go on to their land... and I have access to other privately owned land through being related to people or through being on good terms with them. But if I had no access to any private land I could get a permit to hunt in land administered by the NZ Department of Conservation. I believe that some forestry companies might also issue permits to hunt.

Is getting access to hunt difficult in Canada? And when I talk about hunting that includes hunting anything worth eating including squirrels, rabbits and birds.
 
Hunting access in Canada is a piece of cake. There are trespass issues, Canada is a vast land, but the population is pressed up against the southern border in cites, and the average Canadian's living conditions are much more urban than the average US citizen. The problems, therefore, are largely that a lot of people don't live where the hunting is best, and driving out of the city for miles reveals mostly private property. Still there are lots of nooks were the enterprising hunter can find access, and you can ask for access from landowners, with almost certain success if you treat it seriously.

There is what is called crown land here, and anyone with easily available permits can probably find something to hunt, nearly year round. Most of the country is a wilderness and wonderful hunting opportunities for real wilderness style hunting for indiginous species are available to just about anyone who lives here.

It's a cold climate which means the game tends to be larger in body size, but not so plentiful. Pensyvania is a half day south of here, it's a tiny US state compared to Ontario, yet it's deer harvest is similar (or has been in certain years) to the total deer population in Ontario.

We have bowhunting for Whitetail deer, Moose and Black bear. A few other species live here like two varieties of cariboo, and probably polar bears if you go far enough north, but they aren't hunted to my knowledge. Throughout the country there are several species of cariboo, elk, whitetail, mule, and blacktail deer; black, grizzly, and polar bears, Muskox, pronghorn antelope, mountain sheep. All are available to the bowhunter. There are foxes, cayote, wolves, and a variety of small game.

One problem we have is that some of these species can only be hunted by residents in a given province, particularly if one wants to avoid guides.
 
Thanks for your input.

If a visitor went to Canada, could he go hunting with a local "friend" without having to hire a guide?

I guess if I were to visit I wouldn't want to bag a large animal because I would only be passing through and I would have no need to get so much meat. But it would be nice to go out and see the wildlife... and maybe get a squirrel or something small for the pot. Would that be a problem for a non-resident?

Thanks in advance.
 
At least in Quebec Squirrels are protected . Don,t ask me why . Rabbits are fair game in season . I,m not the most active hunter in the world so I could be wrong . I,m pretty sure from whitetail sized game on down you don,t need a guide . Its the larger species that require a guide . In some places it is advisable as they know the land much better .
 
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