JonMBailey

For years I always thought it simply meant "hunting on private land with a paid guide" or as part of some package deal (the professional guide guts, skins and quarters the deer and throws in a few extra perks as part of the flat fee) and perhaps I was using "canned" out of context here at this site.

Some time ago, I met a wilderness hunter from Idaho who regularly went after elk, but only cows for better meat quality. I told him about the time I went deer hunting on the Hayfork, CA ranch of a man who guided me in Trinity County, California. This ranch was near Weaverville. I got a 95-pound yearling buck on his spread, not even a trophy black-tail. My guide said I would have to pay additional fee of $750 for a "trophy" buck: at least a 3 x 3. Black tail are smaller cousins of mulies. The man from Idaho said I must have been on a "canned" hunt. He thought my rancher guide had that deer hidden and penned up somewhere and the deer was released by one of his hands as my guide was leading me up the hilly trail in his woods. I don't know if my deer was presented to me that way at all. My guide did want me to hurry and take this little buck so I would not supposedly lose any opportunities to go home with two coolers full of venison altogether. He pressured me to take the first buck I saw in his woods in the morning in October of '96. So, I took him in the prone position and there was a blood following ordeal that lasted about 25 minutes after the shot rang out until the dead buck was found in a small depression about a half mile away. The guide did not have his dog and was considering driving back to pick up his hound in his older Dodge 4x4 but we found the buck eventually sans pooch.

This guided ranch hunt of mine was a walking hunt: not a dog drive or stand hunt.


So, after that, I always thought of deer hunting as either "canned" or "wilderness" hunting.