Hunting in Rosseau area (ON)?

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j2k

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Hi Guys,

I've got two questions - one hunting and another fishing related:

I'm considering a small property in the Rosseau area - that's more or less between Parry Sound and Huntsville.

I know that there is plenty of crown land out there, and I've come across deer, moose and bear tracks on my previous hikes. I imagine that big game is readily available as long as one can get a tag.

What I'm wondering about, being a novice at hunting, is availability of smaller game. I'm looking at a lot with fairly dense mixed forest, mainly young trees, with a few mature ones, with a few rocky patches. For now I'm mainly interested in wild turkey and small game - grouse/rabbit - could anyone frequenting the area chip in whether these are available at all? Any general tips for the area would be also great.


The fishing question is quick - is there anything worth catching in beaver ponds (relatively large one with plenty of open water - enough to put a canoe on it)?

Thanks!
 
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I drive between Parry Sound and Huntsville via the Aspidin road often enough but don't live around there. I would imagine you would have a good population of grouse and rabbit to be had in the right places. Wild turkey are around but I'm not sure the densities are all that great. I've been seeing more of them in recent years, so I'm sure it will only get better. As for the beaver pond - not likely to hold any of the main target species (bass, walleye etc) if it's not part of a waterway but you never know. Pretty part of the province though for sure,
 
We purchased property and built a hunt camp south of Sprucedale in the mid 90's. Although there is crown land in the Rosseau area there is also a lot of private land. In the Rosseau area I would bet there is away more private than crown. And you will be in the very trendy "Rosseau" area which is polluted with rich city folk the vast majority of which are not hunter friendly. You best make sure that piece of property your thinking of purchasing is a large enough acreage to do all your hunting on.

As for small game, turkey will be scarce, never seen or heard of one on our 800 acres anyways, partridge, ducks and rabbits are present but there is not an abundance of them except for the ducks. Bear, deer and moose are common. As for beaver ponds, great for canoeing and seeing odd beaver, but very poor fishing.The best advice I can offer is if you want the property for mainly hunting and for weekend getaways to target shoot and basically do your own thing, then buy the biggest piece of acreage you can possible afford. And if your heart is not set on Rosseau then look at other areas that are not as trendy and land will be a bit cheaper. For example look in the Sprucedale area, the west side of Axe Lake in the Bear Lake areas.

In the 20 yrs. since we purchased our properties, in general the area is getting much busier, property is way more expensive, more city folk are buying up property building weekend retreats. There are many established hunt camps in the area which have traditional territories on crown and private property. Many local hunt gangs have lease agreements with land owners. Be sure of this "fact"... unless you have your own acreage to hunt on you will run into other hunters and territorial disputes on crown land. Every year for the three weeks of the moose and deer seasons we had trespassing issues with other hunters coming onto our camps land. This is primarily due to the crown land being full of hunters and them spilling over on private land because they don't realize what's crown and private. City folk who have just finished shopping at Pro Bass armed with a Ontario road map and grandiose ideas of heading into the wild uncharted territories of Parry Sound, Muskoka, Huntsville, etc. The reality is these areas contain more private than crown land are very busy. I will close by saying this, I got tired of the BS of owning hunt camp acreage in the area and living in the area in general. I sold my hunt camp share to my partner also sold out my other interests and retired in NW Ontario.
 
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The Rosseau area doesn’t have much crown land and as mrgoat said it’s a trendy area for Toronto cottagers. The General Store in town stopped processing deer years ago from complaints from said city folk. The Liquor Store has the town big buck plaque in it still and it’s updated yearly. Aspidin Road has a lot of small game but very little crown land. When big game seasons are on the little crown land there will hold more people than game.
We have a cottage in the Rosseau area but hunt off the 124. The 124 area is now as mrgoat describes the Rosseau area, busy with trespassers. If you’re buying a big enough property to hunt on and can handle people trespassing go for it. People trespassing are not just hunters, you will get all kinds from snowmobilers, ATVs, Hikers, and the list goes on. The further north you go the less people and the cheaper the land.
As for beaver ponds, generally there not much in the way of good fishing in them.
Where is the property you are looking at?
 
Small game is cyclical. On a small lot you will quickly find out what you have and once its gone, it will be sometime before it will be back. Dont expect to go out and harvest a bunch of small game one weekend and do the same the next weekend.

My family owns 500 acres not far from there (also in the Sprucedale area, as noted above) and thats a smaller chunk of land then it sounds. I can quickly traverse it. Unless I was bow hunting deer on a well worn deer trail I would not consider anything under 50 acres, preferably 100, to be of much use for serious hunting.

Crown in this area is usually well hunted. I live in Muskoka. Im well aware of what its like.

As for fishing, well no one can really answer that for you. It might have some bass or panfish in it. It might have a variety of minnows. It might have a whole lot nothing. What I would consider it for is ducks in the fall. Build a good blind and have at it. On the other hand there are a couple world class fisheries in the area. If you have a boat they are publicly accessible.
 
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Thanks a lot for the advice! Definitely a whole bunch of things I didn't even think about. I'm definitely going to expand the area I was looking at more to the north.

The primary function for the property is family oriented recreation. Hunting is something that I'm trying to quietly squeeze in :)

What it means thou is that the lot would be relatively small and that's why I was thinking about the crown land (there is a large area located about 10km north of Rosseau and west of Orrville).

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The thing with irregular pieces of Crown is that it can be difficult to determine what is indeed Crown and what is private. There arent signs in the bush declaring "THIS IS CROWN LAND". In the vast majority of cases there is nothing at all differentiating between the two. Just trees and rocks.
 
I'm just south of 141 on the highway 11 side..

Turkey: been seeing more and more each year.. during the deer season I'll see a flock of 12-14 that comes through to get the corn from the deer feeders.. more in the last 2-3 years.. not enough that I'd go up for turkey season though..

Rabbits: cyclical.. getting better over the last 2-3 years.. hadn't seen one in about 4 years, but this year I've seen 2 around

Grouse: good this year.. (and last year).. we got 5 of them in the fall during the hunt..

Moose: we have a single male that's been around for the past 6 years, and is still here.. he's the only one in the area so no one seem to hunt moose in our general area.. I found one of his sheds last spring.. nice Bull..

Deer: Always good.. more and more each year.. we get our tags filled (4-5) in the first 2-3 days each year.. not many with huge racks that are seen (but nice large scrapes..)
 
That looks like a good size of crown land until deer season. I have found in the area you won’t see a soul until big game season with a rifle starts. The woods are very quiet during small game season and you will think you found some good areas, again until big game season starts. Sometimes if you zoom in you can see the land leases so you can tell where the hunt camps are. Also remember hundreds (if not thousands) of people every year take the hunters education course and look for somewhere to go. This area isn’t too far from the GTA where most of them are.
If you can get 50 plus acres (more the better) in the area and post it well you can have a nice little hunting area to yourself. Add a couple of food plots and salt licks to attract some game and you’re good to go for deer and bear. Then use the crown land areas for small game for reasons blasted_saber gave. There are some good places for sale around 100 acres in the area that abut crown land if you look on MLS. I don’t know your budget but in that area it seems to be around a $1000 an acre. That’s with no cabin, road, hydro, etc.
 
On the Crown Land Atlas , you can now use a pin function, zoom in on each corner of the area and it will tag the GPS locations. Print it and take it with you then use the coordinates and your GPS to plot the crown land. Did that on the area on my road, I now have all the coordinates for the crown and private property in my area.
 
Too many yuppy likes in that area that being said as long as you know what you are hunting on and have the right or permission without disturbing long long standing hunting camp areas have at it. Hunted up there for a few years of deer at a land leased camp and proved to be a great area to hunt including grouse and rabbit. Just a heads to any in behind rosseau look out for the crazy bixxh on crawford street off aspdin road with the animal sanctuary, likes to hold onto deer hounds when she gets the chance and pretend like nothing has happened, mega anti.
 
hammering hank, I am familiar with the "crazy bixxh" in question as she showed up several years back at my former camp trying to release some racoons she had acquired. She is piece of work to say the least. There are also two wing nut anti's women that work for the MNR you should be aware of, one works out of the Parry Sound office the other the Gravenhurst/ Bracebridge office, these two are even scarier than the first as they have some limited authority and influence back at the MNR.

Op I hope your paying attention to all this as your getting some sound advice here, whether or not you pay it any heed is up to you of course.
 
Just my 2 cents worth... I have 800 acres just outside of Orrville and it is defiantly worth having! Hunting is ok for deer, moose and small game (grouse, rabbit). But using the land year round is really where the enjoyment comes from! I use my land to get away from everyday life... no cell phones!!! I just love getting away and being in nature! This year I began building my deluxe deer blind.... lol... it looks like a small log cabin (5x8), keeps the wind and snow off me! Not that I will hunt that spot all the time... just nice to know that there is a dry spot when it is poor weather.
 
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