SILENCE AND PRIVACY… WILL BRING YOU BACK TO SAFARI ANTICOSTI Deer hunting

Anticosti Island’s white-tailed deer hunting is an experience unlike any other hunt found in North America. Where else can you hunt a white-tailed deer in a stress free natural habitat where there are no predators, has not gone fully nocturnal, and sometimes has never even seen a human being? Better yet, you will never bump into a fence or someone else that shouldn’t be there. You might see a hunter and his guide driving between sectors on our private roads. Imagine a private deer hunting nirvana with access to 215 square miles of unique white-tailed deer territory. You will have the opportunity of hunting alone, with no sounds but the wind, water, the birds and maybe the grunt of rutting bucks. This is the charm of the island and why the same hunters are coming back to Safari Anticosti year after year.

October Means tough hunting…

During the month of October, the bucks are more reclusive. They tend to hold in dense thickets with very little daily movement while fattening up prior to the rut. During this period, the hunting can be very tough. For this reason, Safari Anticosti ceases its deer hunting operation for the two first week of October and start over in mid-October. Once November rolls around, the annual rut kicks in and the bucks begin chasing the does. The bucks cover great distances during the day and can be seen just about everywhere. Rattling and calling is a very effective hunting strategy on Anticosti Island. With a very good density of deer per square mile, you can make a lot of blunders and still tag out on 2 deer. You will really learn how to hunt white-tailed deer while refining your tactics.

You will have more close encounters on a single hunting trip to Anticosti Island than most hunters will have in a decade of deer hunting elsewhere.

The shooting

While it is true that there will be opportunities for some long shots along the river banks, across a bog or maybe on the side of a road, the majority of Anticosti deer are taken at less than 200 yards with many shots that are less than 50 yards. The forest can be very dense at times with black spruce stands dominating the tree cover on the island. Blowdowns, resulting from the heavy winds encountered on the island, are everywhere, creating tiny clearings here and there. Rifle calibers such as the 30-06, 308, or 270 are more than adequate. Rifle actions are a question of choice but many hunters on the island prefer the standard bolt action rifle. Repeating rifles such as pumps or semiautomatics have their place on Anticosti Island in the hands of hunters accustomed to shooting at running deer. Of great importance is the choice of your rifle’s optics. The variable scope with a magnification from 2 to 7 power is ideal to handle the varied shooting distances.

A new record book listing

Both Boone and Crockett and Safari Club International record book societies have been lobbied to list Anticosti deer as a distinct sub-species. Recently, Safari Club International agreed to this request and now has a listing for Anticosti white-tailed deer as a distinct sub-species. During the 2008 hunting season, we harvested the new number 1 S.C.I. record book buck which scored 146 5/8.