Hi! My name is Alex Gouthro. I am a well-known educator, outdoor writer, videographer, and video producer from Thunder Bay, Ontario.
For the past 18 years or so, aside from writing articles, I have specialized in outdoor audio and DVD video instructional productions related to moose hunting & moose calling. My six-hour instructional program, ‘The Gouthro’s Moose Madness Series On Moose Hunting & Calling’, is now well-known to thousands of hunters; and mylatest production, the ‘Award Winning’ two-hour instructional DVD called the ‘Gouthro’s Moose Madness ‘Quick-Fix’ for The Hunter’, was released in December, 2008.
When not in the woods filming I keep busy doing the writing, editing, and DVD authoring for these video productions - all done from my home in Thunder Bay.
Full information on these productions can be found at www.gouthrosmoosemadness.com.
I an avid hunter! Always a promoter of hunting education, I was an Ontario Hunter Education Instructor for over 20 years before specializing in bowhunting. I am now an International Bowhunter Education Master Instructor, and have recently taken on the task of training new instructors throughout the Northwestern Ontario region over the next year.
Finally, I thoroughly enjoy working with people, and sharing my passion for hunting and other related topics through seminar delivery. These seminars, where appropriate, are backed by action-packed video so that the audience gets to see what is being talked about. The audience always learns! Visit the www.alexgouthro.com web site to learn more about me and my seminars.
location: Thunder Bay, ON
email: agouthro@tbaytel.net
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A Hunter's Tale - Having a bad day? Sometimes you just have to seize the moment!
This year's moose hunt was different than any other I've been on. My hunting partner, Bob Pearce, and I were staying in an older camper trailer, and had enjoyed two days of exciting calling action with a couple of bulls responding to our calls. Unfortunately, neither bull presented us with good shot opportunities. But this is not unusual when bowhunting bull moose – the close-range nature of the sport demands that everything come together to harvest one of these magnificent animals. At the end of the second day Bob informed me that his partner was having a birthday the next day and he had decided to return to town to celebrate this event. This left me alone to plan the next day's hunt. No big deal…I'm a bit long in the tooth and had hunted solo many times before.
The next morning I got up well before daybreak and got ready to travel the six kilometers to our hunt site. With my ATV keys in one hand and my hunting gear in the other I stepped out of the trailer in the dark. Suddenly I found myself doing a face plant as I tripped over some dogwood on my way to the ATV – my keys flying in one direction and my bow and other gear in other directions. Not a great start to the morning hunt! I started searching for the keys.
An hour after sunrise the ATV keys were still nowhere to be found - for all intents and purposes my morning hunt was off. Disgusted with myself I decided to drive back to town, freshen up, retrieve another set of keys, and then return for the evening hunt. Throwing my cased BladeRunner bow and a Cat Quiver holding Carbon Express hunting arrows into the back seat I set off for home. Weird thoughts were going through my mind – "Maybe I'm getting too old for this!"
I had driven no more than five minutes from the camp site when a bull moose ran across the road approximately half a kilometer from me, about half way up a long grade in the road. My immediate impulse was to stop where he had entered the woods – but reason took over and I continued on, up and over the crest of the hill stopping about 100 yards down the other side. Making the least amount of noise possible I removed my bow from its case, put on my Cat Quiver, and silently walked back to the crest of the hill. After quickly estimating where the bull had crossed the road I entered the woods and still-hunted down to that point. I then cow called and listened carefully for about 10 minutes. Getting no response I quietly continued down the hill in the woods, parallel to the road, until accidently coming across an old bush road. I decided to set up my calling hunt at the edge of a small clearing adjoining the bush road, making sure the clearing was down wind. A break in some alders became a make-shift ground blind.
After first breaking a dead stick over my head and listening in silence for a couple of minutes, I again called using a low, soft cow call. There was no verbal response from the bull but the sound of brush breaking inside the woods about 90-100 yards from me told me he was there. I then switched to an agitated cow call and got the grunt response I was looking for – the bull was moving in to the call grunting on the way! Then, at about an estimated 40-50 yards from my ground blind, the grunting ceased. The bull had stopped to look for the cow, and he was hung up out of sight. I called again, but this time switching to the low moaning cry a cow makes when she is in close estrous and wants to have a bull near her. The bull immediately grunted in response to this call and came directly into the small clearing, turning his head in my direction, again looking for the cow. I was ready for him and closed the deal with a 24-yard pass-through shot that caught one lung and the liver. The bull ran about 175 yards before expiring.
It is amazing how one's mind set changes with an experience like this. While following the blood trail leading to the bull my mind was racing – "Heck, I'm ready for at least another ten years of hunting". Sometimes you just have to seize the moment and take advantage of opportunities thrown your way!
Epilogue
After finding the bull a quick cell-phone call to Bob brought him back to the hunt camp to help with the field dressing, etc. With the help of two very generous hunters who were out scouting for the upcoming gun hunt we had all meat from the bull fully removed, skinned, cleaned and ready for the butcher in under three hours.
We used a filleting technique I first learned from professional hunter Bob Folkrod when guiding him on a moose hunt out of Red Lake back in 1993. Those of you who have gone on caribou hunts in Northern Quebec will know that caribou guides use the same technique on caribou. Using this technique you don't gut the animal and thus avoid the mess associated with this part of normal field dressing. Instead, you lay the animal on its side and remove the front shoulder, hind hip, backstrap, rib and neck meat, and then the inside loin. Then you flip the animal over and repeat this process on the other side. No meat is wasted and with the exception of the bones in the front shoulders and hind hips you leave all bones behind for other critters to enjoy. The bones of a moose are heavy. When weight is a problem, such as when you have to carry your meat a long distance, or when you have to fly out your meat when on a fly-in hunt, this technique can be exceptionally useful. We use it on all our big game hunts.
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