It was the the first time I was invited for a controlled deer hunt in Huron County.
You know, unlike northern Ontario, there is not much crown lands in Southern Ontario that you can hunt big game animals without TOO many other hunters competing with you. Some people even said it was a war zone in the open season in crown lands!!
Unlike fishing side by side with other anglers for salmons or trouts, you really don't want to sit in the woods with rifles/shotguns shooting from all directions!!!

This year, I was lucy being invited for a controlled in a farmland (controlled hunt was introduced by Ontario MNR, it limited the amount of hunters in the time of hunting by a draw system). The season was openned on Nov 6 monday, so I needed to leave home on Sunday afternoon and have my long drive to the west coast of Ontario.

For those who doesn't fimiliar with the area, Huron county is located north of London. It consists on several towns such as Goderich, Exeter, Seaforth...most of them have 2 main roads only! and the rest are majorly farmlands.
My hunting buddy lives over there and lucky enough to get permissions for hunting in several hundred acres of farmlands, and he also did the scouting for deer before the season to locate the trails used by the deers.

The farm we got permission was only 45 minutes away from his century home, so we didn't need to rough in this time. All we need was wake up very early and got our breakfast and said hellos to fellow hunters in the area from the local coffe shop, the we headed for the hunting site before dawn.

Monday was the first day of deer hunting (firearms hunting, bow hunting was started earlier) so We had a high hope to bag our deers on the first day of hunt.
It was still dark when we parked on the side of a country road. We put on our blaze orange jacket(hunter orange is mandatory in Ontario for all big game hunting...except hunting bear on a tree stand, but you still need to wear orange to get in/out to your stand.) and carried our day-pack(a small back pack with all the neccessaies you neede on the field, since we would be there for at least half day) and walked about half and hour into the field. There was a "L" shaped woodland in the edge of the farmland, and from my buddy's scouting, the deers were travelling alot along side the treeline and fed in the field almost daily. However, and we walked through the bushes, we found that the filed was cut already!!! We checked along side the treeline and still saw fresh tracks left by the deers, whole bunch of them actually! So we decided to hunt there as we were planned.

Day broke, we already set up on the edge of a treeline overlooking miles of open field.

I setup in the middle of the 'L" shaped woodland right on the edge of the treeline. Unlike my Alberta hunt, I setup overlooking the treelines, this time I looked out from the tree line since I was facing a miles of open field and sun  a rising behind me about 10 minutes later, if I set up in the field the deer would have more chance to SEE/WIND me.
Anyway, there was not much to mention since we saw no action this morning, but my buddy did say the activities were more frequent in the afternoon, so packed up before noon and headed back to his home for a rest.

The field in the morning, you can see the crops had been cut and the new crop(winter wheat) still not showing yet.

This afternoon we did a little more scouting before setup, and finally we decided to split so I stay in the treeline and my buddy got into the bushes. Our plan was, with his present in the bushes he might push the deers out of the bushes so I can get them, or on the orther hand, if the deers not coming out to feed on the field, my buddy could get them from with in the bushes.

That was our plan...but it didn't work.    We came home empty handed after sun set.

I only got 2 extra day offs from my work and my wife...so Tuesday morning was my last chance for my 2006 Ontario deer, and we had a new plan. We moved to another farm (corn) which was cut also but we could see corn kernels every where. Again, we got there before dawn, I hidding behind a fence line overlooking a treeline, and my budy got into the bushes and pushing the deers to my side.

Sitting on the field was not comfy as your immaginattion. Sitting on the cold, wet mud surrounded by thorns for hours with limited movements, that's not easy!

So, as my title said, it was an unsuccessful hunt. We saw nothing...exact a bunch of blue jays kept feeding on the field and making LOUD noises all the time! and my first deer hunt on a farmland was a failure but ...hey! It's the nature of hunting!

Finally I said good-bye to my 2006 deer season and started to plan about the coming 2007 season...