Live Hunts - Alberta Mule Deer Archery Hunt - October 16

Live Hunts - Alberta Mule Deer Archery Hunt - October 16 - Day 1

Monday - October 16 - Day 1
Alberta Mule Deer Archery Hunt

Welcome, everyone, to our 5th live hunt of 2000.

I'm hunting with Primitive Outfitting, owner Jeff Lander, in Alberta, Canada for mule deer. We're hunting about 100 miles north of Medicine Hat, and are just a few miles from the Saskatchewan border. Last week all of Jeff's mule deer hunters had shot opportunities but none of them managed to bring home a buck. There are lots of mule deer here, and some really great bucks.

This country is extremely barren and open. Sage, cactus, alfalfa, and breaks here and there. Hunting will mainly be done by ground blinds/ambush, and possibly sitting water holes. We may also float the river nearby and spot and stalk bucks seen from the river.

The two photos below were taken by Jeff last week in our hunting area.

Monday A.M.
This morning I sat in a rock ground blind in a draw off the rim of an alfalfa field that is several hundred acres in size. It is the only alfalfa for several miles around, and the deer come from a series of draws on one side of the field in the evening, then head back into the draws in the morning. The idea was to catch the deer coming off in the morning heading back into the draws. The only difficulty is that there are several very large draws and the deer use all of them at random, so it's kind of a hit or miss thing. With still about 20 minutes till shooting light, I saw a group of 5 does a few hundred yards to my left, at the head of the draw. I thought they might come by, but they never showed, so they must have crossed the draw and gone behind me. About a half hour after that I saw a group of about 25 mulies, including about 6 bucks. One of the bucks was a definite shooter - probably 170+. This I could see with my binos even though they were probably 800 or more yards away. They decided to head off the field in a different direction. Over the next couple of hours, I saw about 10 more deer, all does and fawns. This evening I'm going to hunt actually in the alfalfa field, inside an irrigation pivot that has a little bit of natural cover. Jeff this morning saw a group of about 50 mulies in the alfalfa right around the pivot, and he himself killed a real unique buck there about a week ago with his longbow.

note the extremely heavy trails coming off the top

Monday P.M. Hunt
I got to my spot in the alfalfa at about 4:00 p.m., got set-up and was feeling pretty good about the set-up. There was more cover around the pivot than you could see from a ways off. Several previous evenings last week the deer were out in the alfalfa by 5 in the evening, but not this evening. That was probably because this morning there were several local hunters who spooked the deer off the alfalfa pretty bad, and they came back this evening. I saw the first deer at about 6:15 p.m., close to a mile away, headed towards the field. They turned out to be a group of 6 does and fawns, and one young 4x4 buck. They fed for a long time about 150 yards from me. Right before dark I saw a group of 8 in the distance, but couldn't tell what they were. Jeff Lander went several miles away and scouted the draws they were coming up to the alfalfa from, and saw about 50 mulies, including a couple of real bomber bucks. We're going to try that area in the morning.

We also saw several groups of antelope today, including a group of 6 bucks, with a few nice ones. Unfortunately they were too far away for a good picture. Check back tomorrow!

one group of antelope we saw this afternoon.

my makeshift blind in the irrigation pivot.

A view of the alfalfa field from inside the pivot

Go to Day 2

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

This site is designed by Hunting Information Systems for use with Netscape or Internet Explorer

Click here for technical help or to send us feedback.