Manor Gaudreau, Farnham, Quebec, Canada
- October 2006
This was a weekend hunt organized by the Archery Group at The Andover Sportsmen’s Club. Because the location and overall scenario is so similar to a previous hunt at the same ranch in 2004 I will not repeat most of the details I put in that chronicle.
However, there were a few differences; the primary one being that on this trip we hunted both Boar and Bison and I was fortunate enough to get one each. Both are great eating with almost no fat or strong flavor. Another difference was that there was no snow but instead we had a veritable sea of mud following many days of heavy rain. In many places the ground was easily traversable but in others we were sinking up to our knees in mud instead of snow. A third difference was that this time, due to recent rotator cuff and knee meniscus surgeries I used a shotgun with deer slug loads.
There were a couple of lighthearted moments I enjoy remembering. One occurred when I was taking a shower trying to get the mud off of me following a long day at the hunt when I realized that my hunting boots were caked with at least an inch of dried mud. Therefore, as I was too tired to clean the boots in the normal way, I decided the most energy affective way to do that little chore was to wear the boots in the shower. You can imagine the strange looks I got from some of my fellow club members who delight in telling everyone that I am so weird I even wear boots when taking a shower.
Another incident occurred at the US border during our drive home. Because (so we were told) of the “mad cow” disease scare the US was not allowing any agriculture products into the US from Canada (apparently including “Mud”).. Some of our group were traveling in open bed pickup trucks with their gear tossed in the back. After passing though Canadian customs we were stopped by US customs when one of the border guards noticed muddy boots in the back of one of the trucks. He made us send one person back through both borders with all of our boots to a special “boot wash” facility they had set up at a cost of $5.00 per boot. The boot wash appeared to be a well thought out, permanent facility. Hmmmmm !!!, does anything about this picture strike anyone as being something of “set up” or “rip off”? Especially as I now understand that was snot happening at any other border post.
