Foraging is a perfect excuse to get out into the woodlands early to gather a few treats for the table while doing some preseason scouting for hunting. If you know where the food lots are for your chosen quarry, you’ll know the most prospective hunting grounds. I can vouch for this, as I’ve had many successful hunts in the woods where I’ve foraged for wild fruits, berries, nuts, and other edible greenery over the years. Here’s some of what’s out there.
Bunchberries
I love snacking on bunchberries (or pigeon berries) which are a favoured food of grouse, wild turkeys, and even hares. I have also witnessed deer and bear snacking on them. So, when I come across a forest floor carpeted in bunchberries, I know I’m in an ideal place to spot game.
Blueberries & Saskatoons
Bears love berries and bear scat loaded with berry seeds is proof there’s a population of well-fed bears nearby. Bears will spend hours grazing in the bogs on low- bush blueberries, leaves, and all. When it comes to saskatoons, bilberries, and other fruits that grow on higher brushes, a crafty old bruin will use their weight to straddle the branches to bring them down.
Dandelions
One of the first plants to pop up in the spring, dandelions are also sought by black bears looking to clean out their sluggish systems after a long stint in the den. If you want to set your sights on a spring bear, head to sunny, grassy hillsides, greening meadows, and pasturelands where you’re bound to spot them grazing.
Pin cherries & chokecherries
Whitetails eat fruit as well as the leaves from pin cherry saplings, but it’s hefty bears that tackle sturdier, mature trees. Often climbing up and weighing down the limbs to the point of breaking. So, if you’re hoping to bag an early season black bear, head to the wild cherry orchards (or old grown-in fruit farm). Pin cherry trees grow amongst mixed hardwoods and fleshy chokecherries (which bears can’t get enough of) prefer damp, low-lying ground. Wild cherries are delicious for eating out of hand and make a fine jelly that complements upland birds.
Stinging nettles
Stinging nettles grow in marshy areas, moist woodlands, and along rivers and streams, rising around the same time as dandelions. Nettles make a delicious potherb. Even though gloves are needed when gathering them to protect your hands from the sting. It doesn’t seem to bother bears. I have witnessed many bruins greedily feasting in the rising nettle patches. Nettles continue to rise into fall and bears don’t seem to wander too far from patches.
Highbush cranberries
Nothing quenches thirst like a handful of juicy wild cranberries. Highbush cranberry shrubs grow on lower-laying grounds, in bogs and damp areas. The berries make a tart jelly that pairs perfectly with upland birds. Even though whitetails and bears browse on cranberries, it’s members of the grouse family who rely upon cranberries as survival food.
Nuts: Hazelnuts, beechnuts, and acorns
The biggest buck Dad and I ever harvested was stalked in a criss-cross of runways that weaved through a stand of beech in Muskoka. That fall, rummaging through the fallen leaves gathering beechnuts, we noticed lots of droppings and tracks. That beechnut-fattened deer was the best tasting venison we ever had.
Bears are also crazy about nuts, especially hazelnuts, as the shorter bushes are within easy reach. Wild turkeys are also nut gobblers and I’ve flushed many grouse out from under hazelnut bushes that grow among mixed hardwoods and around the sunny edges of open forests and meadowlands.
Juniper berries
Junipers have a three-year fruiting cycle. Every third year the berries ripen and turn blue and when they do, grouse, rabbits, turkeys, squirrels and even deer will stop to nibble the pungent berries which many chefs find are the perfect spice for enhancing the flavour of venison dishes. Pick the berries when they’re blue and dry, and store them in a spice jar. Juniper shrubs thrive in dry, open woodlands, on sandy and rocky grounds, and along the edges of evergreen forests.
Rose hips
Fleshy, nourishing rose hips ripen in mid-summer and cling to bare branches all winter, making them popular with foragers as well as bountiful wildlife fodder. They’re a number one survival food because of their availability. The hips can be brewed into a healthful tea rich in vitamin C, boiled into a nutritious syrup, or made into tangy sauces that complement game, especially upland birds. I have shot many grouse with their berry bags bursting with hips and since the late harvest fruits have an apple-like taste and aroma, they are a magnet for deer. When crushed, they can be used for masking scent. If you’re setting up an autumn tree-stand for bears, placing it near a patch of rose hips increases your chances of success. Wild roses grow in thickets, along rims of pastures and meadowlands, and hedging open forests.
Originally published in the June 2022 issue of Ontario OUT of DOORS
