Whitetail 2010 Hunting Report

Wow. What a year 2010 turned out to be! All over the western provinces stories and pictures of tremendous whitetail bucks have surfaced, a testament to just how great the whitetail hunting is here in Western Canada. And in particular, Alberta seemed to extra blessed, so many great bucks taken in the fabled fringe areas where the farmland meets the big bush of the boreal forests. These are the best Whitetail Trophy producing areas and this is exactly where I have my Lac La Biche White-tail Deer Camp situated.

Here at Wolf-Creek we also shared in this exceptional harvest and we had a very good year with many good bucks taken and a great success rate of 85%. November started off very warm and dry, no snow to be seen. In fact this warmer weather persisted till mid-month when we finally got a few inches of tracking snow. Even then we didn't get any serious cold weather until late in the month when we got 3-4 days of -15F. Otherwise it was pretty warm conditions through-out the month.

Our first hunter was Mr. Pat Early who favours the first week of November with good reason. We have a lot of good bucks scouted and patterned, and with lots of trail cam evidence to back up our sightings, well, we usually do pretty good for Mr. Early in this pre-rut week and this year was no exception. The first night of the hunt Pat harvested a really interesting deer with a trailing G-2 with a small drop-tine coming off of it. There was many good bucks using that back hayfield of mine and Pat picked out a dandy. Good shooting Pat and congratulations!

The second week of the season saw our usual contingent of hunters and the action was good. Many deer were spotted, some hunters having seen 100 deer in a day and the hunters from our new property at Wandering River reported seeing an astounding 50 bucks in one day!! Pretty darn amazing I'd say! We went 100% this week with an average score in the high 150's. We had a few first time clients who were extremely pleased with the amount of deer we see daily, and they took very nice bucks early in the week.

A great buck was taken by long-time client Gordon Birgbauer with guide Clem Girard. Gordon once again made a tremendous shot and took a 178 deer that Clem has been tracking on Trail Cam for two years now. It was an outstanding guiding job by Master Guide Clem. Thank-you for the extra effort too Clem, it is appreciated.

Third week also saw a lot of great rut activity, the weather cooled down,(c-c-c-c-old!),  so we got out the stand heaters and went about hunting deer. Snow was falling and this allowed us to fine tune where the deer were traveling as the the tracks can tell a story daily. Consequently we had a great week of hunting, a lot of mature deer were seen and some pretty good bucks were turned down.

James Masten killed a wonderful old swamp monster with me on his first day of hunting, it was crossing my hayfield at 4 in the afternoon. Some masterful shooting and James collected a heavy-horned 178 to go with his collection of whitetail trophies back in Houston. Richard Houghton out of Utah was also a big winner this week, taking a massive 7x7 short-tined, wide as in 25 1/4" inside spread wide. 28 inches outside!! What a great buck and it couldn't have gone to a nicer guy. Good hunting Rick, you deserve it. Jim Hutcheson of Waco took a very nice high scoring 4x4 with a great frame and wide rack. Also a great guy, it is always a pleasure to see good hunters and good people take exceptional trophies.

The last week of the season saw a warming trend in the weather and the rut became more unsettled. Greg Tanner is an unusually persistent and dedicated whitetail hunter and had the good luck of two bucks jumping the fence and feed out to his stand just before the end of legal time. There was four bucks together, one extremely good deer, two spikes and a real solid 158 deer. In the confusion of four bucks in close proximity together and the rapidly fading light, Greg pulled the trigger with two minutes left and unfortunately took the 158 buck, the biggest one walked away. And that is the highs and lows of hunting, expect the unexpected. Sportsman that he is, Greg, tagged his buck, made the most of his trophy and vowed to get'em next time. These things can happen and Greg took it like a champ. Thanks for the great attitude in the face of disappointment Greg, you are a winner.

Mark Mills is a long time client (over 20 years), and was hunting Africa in October. Mark had the extreme misfortune of being bitten on the foot by a Mozambique Spitting Cobra and consequently suffered a serious if not gruesome wound on his foot. Bandaged up and hobbling, Mark still hit the stands everyday and on the sixth day he was rewarded with a 173 " buck with an 8" drop-tine. It is true the tough get going with the going gets tough. A real accomplishment Mark and a true testament to your hunting spirit.

I think it was a very successful season by anybody's standards, and the hunters must think so too as I have many clients booking to repeat for next year. I wonder if it is the guide service we provide, the Lodge, the cooking, or the many great bucks we are seeing on our trail cams? Speaking of which, we are so far experiencing a mild winter and the forecast is for more of the same.

I am now winter feeding a lot of deer and we are still running trail cams out there. We should have a lot of winter carry over into next year and I am betting on seeing a 15-20% increase in rack size on these bucks we have been watching. Next year will be a winner and we will be front and center once November rolls around  again. If you have the desire to hunt big Trophy Whitetail's in Northern Alberta, please send me an e-mail and we can see about getting you booked into a prime rut hunt.

Well, in conclusion, thanks to all of our clients for their marksmanship and hunting dedication in the stands, and a special thank-you to our Guides Clem, Darren, Ron, Ty, Andre, and Barry for all of your efforts and skill in making this a great season. And a special thank-you to our cook Gloria Berg for keeping the Lodge well run and well fed. You are the best. Thank-you.

Best Regards and Good Hunting,

Bob Irvine