Category: Hunting

We spent two days chasing deer in the Southern part of Alberta. Stalks were made, stalks were blown, mistakes were made, and hunters got busted; arrows were flung despite all of that. It was a great time, with lots learned. With a bit more time in that country I feel confident one of the opportunities would have led to a deer on the ground.

Ten Lessons Learned (mostly rookie mistakes)

1. We need to learn a whole new level of patience; glass, spot, identify, assess the situation, and learn to turn down those iffy opportunities that most likely will just eat up a lot of time and blow the deer into the next county.
2. When half the deer you see in a morning are either chasing coyotes or are being chased by coyotes, there are too many coyotes.
3. When you spook an animal during a stalk, it will go exactly towards the deer you were after and make it run away. We found that elk are especially adept at this. The best performance we watched was by one bull elk, who cleared out a entire bowl (that held approximately 25 deer).
4. Ignore the wind at your own peril; yes, deer will smell you if the wind is at your back; they may not run immediately, but they will depart long before you get within longbow range.
5. When you think you are off the skyline, drop down another 100 feet if you can, and you might still be back-lit when looked at from the bottom.
6. When you are sitting in the middle of a light-straw-coloured grassy slope, you will stick out like an ugly wart on a pretty girl’s face; find a rock, shrub, high weeds, anything to break your outline; camo doesn’t help.
7. We make too much noise when walking, or deer hear too well.
8. Kyle needs to stop wearing his rain pants when it is not raining (swish-swish-swish-swish)
9. We have proven that we can get into the red zone, despite our efforts to alert deer to our presence.
10. A 15-yard shot is not a gimme.

Brief photo essay

Too hot and too smokey, but opening day is opening day is opening day.

The 35-minute hike to “my spot” took an hour and I was still sweat-soaked and overheated as I settled onto my three-legged stool behind a rickety screen of freshly cut spruce boughs. The wind direction made my not-much-more sturdy blind out of dried-out willow branches across the meadow unsuitable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a while something started making a lot of noise in the bush in front of me, rustling leaves and breaking the odd stick. This went on for a while, and I was getting very curious, when a young black bear stepped out, and ambled over just about to where my other stand location was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was contemplating my course of action, a bull elk pitched a few short chirps, unlike anything I had heard before. I was unsure if I wanted to call back, with a cow call maybe, as last time we tried this, we ended up with a black bear in our lap, and I’d rather have the bear amble by unsuspecting of my presence.

I let out a few cow calls just the same. Sometimes I think one thing, but do the other.

A few minutes later, as I was keeping an eye on the bear, something moved in my peripheral vision. Here came this cougar, walking past my stand at maybe 25 yards! Whether he came because of the noise the bear was making, because of my cow calls, or both, I don’t know, but here I was with two predators right in front of me, and a bull elk somewhere off to my left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was too intrigued about what showdown might be about the happen to be thinking about hunting so I switched on the video and recorded the following footage:

Bear – Cougar Encounter

As Donnie Vincent said: “To experience fantastic things, we need to put ourselves in fantastic places”. Sometimes all it takes is a little stroll right off the highway, and a bit of luck, for fantastic things to happen regardless of location.

Get out there!

FD