2005 Hunts: Smoky River Outfitting Alberta Canada Big Game Hunting Outfitters and Guides

Spring Bear Hunt

This was our 2nd year bear hunting in our new area. Everything went very well this season the weather cooperated and so did the bears. We had 18 hunters everyone got 1 bear and half of the guys got their 2nd bear. We had wolves missed on 3 occasions, a few close calls. The bears ranged from 200lbs to 500lbs. The average being 350lbs. We built some bridges into new country. The oilfield roads also continued another 5kms further into unhunted area. We were shown a 10 yr. oilfield plan. The roads will continue deeper into bush. Things look very good for next year. We then had the summer off to prepare for our fall hunts in the Grande Prairie area.

Mule Deer

My season started with a successful Caribou hunt in the North West Territories. I then came home to begin our archery Mule deer hunts. Our 1st 2 hunters had an incredible hunt with many shot opportunities. 1 buck was killed, 1 wounded 1 of the bucks that was missed at 30 yards would have scored in the 190 range. The 2nd week of hunters shot 3 bucks out of 4 guys as well as 2 bears and a buffalo. We had a lot of fun with the guys and are looking forward to some of them returning next year.

Elk Hunt

We had a few days before rifle elk started, during this time Günter and I were able to call in our 1st bull elk kills with a bow.
Rifle elk hunts started off slow in general with the bulls not calling a lot. We managed to kill 2 bulls but had a 320 inch shot out from underneath us. We had 2 hunters miss bulls and heard lots of Bull Moose calling. All in all tough hunting but a great group of guys that could see from all the sign they were in good country. The hunting gods just weren't with us that week.

In between elk and moose Gunther and I were able to harvest a 182 and a 185 mule deer, we cheated and used a gun.

Moose Hunt

Moose hunts started off with a bang. We had 13 hunters total shoot 13 bulls. We got into some older bulls at trophy camp with a 53 inch, 48, 47, 45 inch. Moose populations have never been so high.

Whitetail Hunt

Our archery whitetail hunts were almost a success with both hunters having shot opportunities on 140 to 165 class bucks.

Rifle whitetail hunts were good considering the record warm temperatures. Skip from Louisiana shot a personal best with a 173 dark antlered bush buck. Mike Mehren who has hunted with me many times came up to break his jinx of not killing anything except coyotes and ravens. He managed to shoot a beautiful buck that we did not recover. We almost broke the jinx but not yet.

On the last day of November I shot a 162 B&C buck at 12 noon by rattling him out of a bedding area.
Somewhere in between everything we managed to film 4 shows with Rich & Sandy Mellon for their show Outdoor Quest on the men's channel.

Great ending to a fun season!!!

Smoky River Outfitting
Box 521
DeBolt, Alberta TOH 1BO
Phone: (780) 957-3100 Fax: (780) 957-3185
Email: greg@smokyriveroutfitting.com

2005 Hunting Summary Smoky River Outfitting - Alberta Canada Big Game Hunting Outfitters & Guides

2005 Hunting Summary
Smoky River Outfitting - Alberta Canada Big Game Hunting Outfitters & Guides