Alberta Elk Hunt - Full Recap

[StevieSacs]

I apologize in advance for this long winded story / write up, but I felt I needed to get a lot of it out on paper as the emotion is still fresh and my adrenaline may still be pumping. I’m recounting most of this on the plane as I head back from Canada.

 

I just spent the last 8.5 days in Alberta hunting elk with G2G outfitters and it was truly one of the best hunting experiences of my life. I came across this hunt super last minute after I had to cancel a West Texas Aoudad hunt due to some sketchy logistical nonsense with the outfitter. I’ll do my best to give a breakdown below.

 

I’m relatively new to western hunting. I’m from NY and have spent the last 10 years hunting whitetails , turkey and grouse. I’ve been on 3 previous Elk hunts over the last 7 years, 2 (archery ) resulting in cow elk being taken on the last day and the third (rifle) was just a string of bad luck that resulted in going home empty handed. I was told about this hunt through social media and my good friend Sparky with M2d camo vouched for Jeff Coyle and his new operation.

 

I was picked up at Edmonton Airport by an affiliate / friend of the outfitter who happened to be hunting as well. Guy, was a great dude and we hit it off in our 3 hour ride up to the Indian reservation. the land that we were hunting was public land (Crown land) that we had permission to access through this reservation. This severely limited the amount of other hunters in the area, as not that many people get permission from the nation to access.

 

When I met the owner of the Outfitter Jeff, his first words were “ The adventure starts now”. …Music to my ears. We had a 76 Km ATV ride to camp (half of it in the dark) which certainly set the tone for the trip. Between getting pelted in the face with mud and bugs, We got to see some absolutely gorgeous country and chat about what to expect for the next 7 days of hunting.

 

The first thing I noted. This terrain and landscape was THICK. I was having a hard time understanding how we were going to be hunting elk in an area looked similar to the Catskills. The grass was about 5-6’ tall in certain areas and the visibility through the trees was about 50 yards max. I knew that my Binoculars were going to be sitting at the bottom of my bag the entire trip.

 

After about 2 1/2 hours or so, We got to camp and Jeff showed me around to my tent and introduced me to the other hunters. In camp, we had Dana White and his wife Darcy from Fatal Impact on the sportsman Channel , along with 2 other hunters who shot bulls that morning and were waiting to leave the next day. Jeff, the owner of GTG outfitters, also happened to have a TV show on the Sportsman’s Channel called Descendants of the North. (I dont have this so I really had no idea who anyone was). After some BSing by the fire, I got my sleeping bag out and hit the sack In one of the tents.

 

I was going to be hunting a different zone / unit than the rest of the guys, but from what I heard the week before was complete Mayhem. 4 out of the 5 hunters shot bulls.. and the 5th guy was in pretty poor shape and psychically limited to what he could do. Because we were in a different unit, the first morning we had a bit of a quad ride to my zone. John, who was going to be my guide for this unit, was helping get two bulls out that were shot the previous day, so I was paired up with another guide to bring me to a few areas that he had previously scouted for us. I couldn’t believe how thick this area was. We found some old tracks, some dried up rut pits and Called all morning, but didn’t hear anything. The routine was that we would hunt from sun up until about noon, go back to camp for some breakfast / lunch and then head back out again for the afternoon. Our ride back to camp was pretty long, so we decided we would chat with Jeff and John and see if we should set up a spike camp to make travel a bit easier. That evening we hunted around a few natural mineral licks, but didn’t see much going on.

 

The next day I was finally introduced to John, the head guide / partner for the outfitter and the man who spent his entire life hunting these woods. John was a Native from the reservation who was part of the Creed nation, a medicine man and serious a trapper. I was about to spend 6 days in the bush with him and I was just as excited to learn as I was about the actual hunt.

 

We spent the morning calling and working cut lines (these are clearings made by loggers who access deeper parts of the forest) looking for fresh elk sign. The elk use these path ways, as it’s easier and faster than busting through insanely thick brush, so it’s a good place to check for fresh track / sign. He would methodically check natural mineral licks for active tracks, then based on their direction started to pick apart the cut lines to see where they were bedding. After a quiet morning, he made the call to move camp to a much closer area. To save on time on breaking down large tents, John contacted a buddy who owned a trappers cabin near the area he wanted to hunt. We received permission to use it and one back at camp, packed enough food and gear for 4 days and head back out after lunch. I hadnt showered in about 2 days, So while we were heading to the cabin, we stopped at a River on the way and I decided to jump in to clean off. While at the River, John called me over and showed me a rock that he found in the riverbed that had tons of fossilized sea shells and small organisms in it. Super cool. The rock had a big fissure through it, so I broke it in half and packed one half in my bag. We continued our 30km trip to the cabin and arrived around 3pm. The cabin consisted of 2 windows, a front door, a plywood floor, plywood bunk and a cast iron stove. It was exactly what I wanted and perfect for the type of hunt I was looking for.. it was ROUGH.

 

That afternoon we set up over a mineral lick and called to see if we could locate any elk. After about an hour, we heard some branches breaking and saw a large cow moose make her away to the lick. She came in down wind and made our scent immediately. Instead of running off, she started grunting and slowly walking around the lick looking for us. Peculiar behavior which made me a bit uneasy at first. She got to about 20 yards from me as I was set up under a spruce tree hidden pretty well. She started grunting in my direction trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, john had enough and stood up and raised his arms over his head and she quickly scurried off. All was quiet after that and we decided to head in.

 

That morning john said he wanted to get up early and really get into the bush. We worked a ridge that he suspected the elk were bedding near and found an area that had a ton of herd activity. Rubs everywhere, tracks and some really fresh sign. We hunted until about 12:30 but didn’t hear anything. He checked back with the main camp and they were having a similar issue. The elk were really quiet and weren’t responding or bugling at all. This was a complete opposite of how things were just a few days earlier. A bit difficult to locate Elk off tracks alone, so this made hunting challenging, But John was determined and was certain that we were on their heels. That afternoon we crossed a large beaver damn that had flooded and area and started to hunt an area that was pretty difficult to access by foot. After about a 40 minute walk , It started pouring on us. We decided it was best to hunker down for an hour and try to dry off so that we didn’t freeze in the 20kt winds. So we lit a fire near a spruce tree and took some of our outer layers off to dry off. We chatted for about an hour, warmed up and let our gear dry out. He told me about himself and how he became such an efficient tracker / hunter and all of the trapping he’s done. The more I learned about him the more I learned that he was a complete predator. He spent a year in the bush with his mentor when he was 10 years old and learned how to survive in this pretty unforgiving environment. We spoke about Grizzly bears, Mountain lions and Trapping wolves. I found out that Fish and Game would often rely on him to trap dangerous game that was getting too comfortable hanging around the local school or other popular areas. He told me the dozen stories about Grizzly encounters (Some pretty gruesome) and being stalked by a mountain lion while elk hunting one fall day.

 

For the next few days it was the same story. We would track and hunt all day, it was dead silent and we would follow fresh sign and keep narrowing in on them.

 

I almost forgot how slow the elk hunting was because I so fascinated with all of this hunting knowledge. I wouldn’t stop asking a million questions and kept apologizing if I was being annoying. He loved to share all of this knowledge and so I assumed he loved how serious some white boy from NY was taking this.

 

On the 6th day John got a text from a friend of his. They owned a large field with crops told him that the elk had been coming into the field at last light and absolutely ravaging her agriculture each night. He turned to me and said “Steve, we’re going to get on the elk, but I’m not gonna lie, its been hard hunting. I just got a call from a friend , telling me where some elk are. We can make the long trek to this ladie’s Field … or… we can go to a ridge that I haven’t scouted in years… and get lost in the woods and try to find them there.” The answer was easy…. “ Let’s get lost, brother”. John nodded his head in approval and lead the way.

 

We head out to this new area and after about 40 mins of traveling, came to this really thick cut line. Almost immediately we found heavy trails and fresh droppings. We also found 2 fresh Rut pits and a string of trees that were recently torn up. John perked up immediately. “Oh man, we found them “. Not a moment later we heard a bugle in the distance. It was the first bugle I heard in 6 days. The wind was blowing a solid 18kts and was gusting to 25kts (It had been windy all week ). The wind was swirling around and was absolutely terrible. We both agreed it would be best to wait until morning and get in here with a good wind, so we backed out and got ready for the morning hunt.

 

When we got back to camp, we lit a fire, made a cup of coffee / dinner and came up with a game plan. Before I left on this trip, I found out that John was going to be my guide and wanted to bring him something from the states. There is a retired navy seal who makes really high end Knives called Half Faced Blades. He happens to be of Native American descent, so I figured this would be a really cool gift. I bought one of these for John to show my appreciation for squeezing me in on a last minute hunt. (As I mentioned earlier, I only booked this hunt a week and a half before I came) I was going to give it to him on the last day, but decided it was an appropriate time to give it to him. He was floored. At first he wouldn’t accept it, saying that if he took it without giving me a gift in exchange.. that it would break our friendship. I told him that I’d hold onto it until the last day, but that I’d hide it in his bag if he didn’t accept it. He agreed to that and we went into the cabin and passed out early.

 

The 7th day was the coldest day of the season so far. It was about 33 degrees by the time we got up, so I made a really big fire and got some water boiling for our coffee. We both suited up and sat down to discuss our plan. Before we left, john walked off and got down to he knees and started to say a prayer to himself. I didn’t want to bother him, so I started packing the quad and let him take whatever time he needed. After he wrapped up, We head back to the spot from the night before and left the quad about 1/4 mile from our earlier entry point. We slowly walked in and as light started to creep up, he stopped and started looking at their tracks. “They are here, There is fresh poo in our boot tracks from last night walking back to the quad… This is good”. He started moving with a purpose… We hiked up through some incredibly thick bush where and he started to call. Almost immediately he heard a large branch break in the distance. He turned to me without saying a word and gave me a look like “It’s about to go down”. Understanding the situation, I went to chamber a round to get ready and… the gun jams. I try to work the bolt a little bit and it just wont lock in and close. I took the round out and tried another.. same thing. At this point.. all hell is breaking loose and whatever is coming towards us.. is coming quickly. We can see the branches moving about 60 yards away and they are heading towards us. I’m struggling with the bolt again and he asks to see the gun. I hand it over.. he takes the round out.. opens the bolt… wipes off the bolt and then tries again.. not going in… at this point he just throws the bolt closed as hard as he can and it finally locks in. He hands it back to me and the moment I lift my head up, i just see antlers….The elk is looking straight at me about 20 yards away through some seriously thick brush. I raised the gun up slowly and lined the site up with his face and lowered it about 18” where I assumed the base of his neck is. At this distance.. all I could see is brush and antlers. I’m using a 300 win mag, so as long as I hit him in the base of the neck, he’s going down. I remember being told that a frontal would be a good shot at close distance, since they usually come running to calls and will present that shot to you. I was waiting to see if he would give me a clear shot of his body when I saw him starting to turn his head like he was about to turn around and bolt the other direction. I rushed it and pulled the trigger and he just disappears. I can’t believe this just happened. John says “ I think you missed…. He was standing broadside.” Missed!! At 20 yards.. i almost threw up. I thought he was standing directly in front of me and when I lowered the scope, I shot under his chin. I couldn’t believe it. I honestly started believing I had an elk curse on me. 4 different elk trips.. thousands of miles traveled… and I just blew the first shot opportunity on a 20 yard MISS. The gun worked perfectly every single time I put one in the chamber all week and the minute an elk comes in.. the gun jambs and completely rattles me. I dont think I can even describe the disappointment.

 

We sat there for about 20 mins trying to comprehend what just happened and John looked over at me and was extremely positive and said “ we’re in their bedroom, were about to get one right now, keep your head up and lets go”. I nodded at him and told him to lead the way. We checked the area for any blood just in case I hit something, but it was obvious that it was a clean miss. We pushed forward about 150 yards to a large meadow where we found about 20 cow beds. John had been cow calling the whole time and pats me on the shoulder.. “ I just saw an elk.. I couldn’t tell what it was, but its up ahead. Let’s try and call them in”. We sat down in one of the cow beds and he started calling. It was hard to get excited, I was just so upset and had the worst adrenaline dump of my life, but he pat me on the back and said “ its about to go down brother… get your head in the game”. Not 20 seconds goes by and I lift my head up and see the bull I had just shot at.. standing perfectly broadside at about 75 yards away.

 

Holy shit.. he’s back.. I raised my gun.. stood up… got him in my sights.. took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. I saw him haunch over and run straight ahead into the bush and we can hear / see trees breaking and what sounded like a huge crash. “ did I get him!?” John started cow calling immediately. “ DID I GET HIM”. I was now shaking with adrenaline.

 

“ Dude, you smoked him. he’s dead my man.. i hear him thrashing around”

 

I couldn’t believe it. What the hell just happened.

 

John explained that there must have been a cow in heat in the area and the bull was trying to push his cows out and dint want to leave any behind. He heard John cow calling and came back to check and that’s when we ran into him. I was still in disbelief that I missed the first shot and so now I was convinced that I missed the second. 75 yards standing, freehand was longer than any freehand shot I’d ever taken. (Not something I practiced at the range very often, but something I will now!). John said we needed to give him about an hour or so to make sure. This was the longest hour of my life. I sat there in disbelief , playing every single bad scenario in my head trying to convince myself I missed a second time. Maybe I hit him far back or in no mans land. Maybe I missed and the sound of the shot scared him and that’s why he jumped. I was so doubtful and playing every scenario possible through my head.. all while John was laying down with his hat over his face sleeping like a baby. Finally .. after about an hour and a half.. he got up and said “let’s go get your elk”

 

We walked about 75 yards and started looking for blood. Nothing. We looked for about 10/15 mins and couldn’t find any blood. My heart was starting to sink into my stomach when John started walking further away from where we thought it shot him. It went from 75 yards to 100 yards and then to 120 yards when finally he calls out.. “DUDE… We got blood. “ I swear I have never been so happy to hear that in my life. After the first drop of blood, we had really good trail that we followed about 70 yards until I see him. He was bedding down under a spruce tree, still alive.. and clearly suffering. I chambered a round.. and put one right behind his shoulder. He got up.. ran another 25 yards and toppled over. We walked over to him and can clearly see him taking his last breaths. John let out an Indian war cry and upon first sight of this awesome animal, my eyes welled up with water and i Just started to cry. I dont know what came over me. I’ve never had that happen before in my life. I dont know if it was the Adrenaline roller coaster that just took over my emotions or the fact that I had been hunting one of these things for 7 years and traveled thousands of miles and finally closed this chapter.. whatever it was, it was one of the most special moments ive ever had in the woods. I walked over and put my hands on him. The tears were still coming. John pat me on the back and said “ It’s ok brother, I’ll give you a few moments. I’m going to get some service and let the boys know you just got it done”. I spent the next 10 mins just gazing in awe at the size of this thing and then when John came back.. took pictures for about 40 mins before starting a tremendous amount of work.

 

After we skinned him out and gut him. John took the heart out and cut off a small piece of it. He left it in a tree and said another small prayer. He also left the elk some tobacco as an offering.

 

We went back to the cabin to drop off our gear and grab some game bags / tools to break him down. John called Jeff and told him we may need a hand getting him out to the cut line so it could make our lives a bit easier. During the phone call, you could see John’s face go from relieved to a bit concerned.

 

The main camp was where all of our equipment and personal food items were and then there was a Meat camp about 200 yards away where Dana (The other hunter) had hung his elk from a few days earlier. It just so happened that while we were hunting that morning a Grizzly bear made his way into the meat camp, tore all of the bags down out of the trees and proceeded to bury it all.. including the head / antlers. Dana had went to check on his meat that morning and found all of the meat in a big pile of dirt. He grabbed the antlers.. assessed the rest of the meat which he noted was now spoiled with Bear feces and urine/ dirt and came back to camp to tell the rest of the crew. John knew that we couldn’t bring my elk up there, so we had to get some of the local guys to help and bring my elk to one of their houses to protect it from getting ravaged by a grizzly.

 

Fast forward a few hours. Most of the guys came to help me back out the elk. We got it on a ATV trailer back towards the reservation and decided it was best if we head up to base camp and start packing up.

 

We made our way to camp and as we were pulling in.. John noted some very large grizzly tracks heading right towards our camp.. about 100 yards away on the logging road in a pattern that made him believe the bear was pacing back and forth. We pulled into camp and started to break some of the tents down. Every so often, you’d hear a low hum / growl. John would walk out towards the logging road with a can of bear spray on his hip and start the ATV and start honking the horn repeatedly. this happened well into the night. I grabbed one of the tenderloins from my elk started prepping dinner with Jeff. Elk Tenerdoin Medallions, sautéed onions and roasted potatoes. It was an absolute feast. Jeff poured me a large bourbon and said it was about time a had a celebratory drink with him. We ate around the fire and recounted the story of my elk to the boys. I took down another bourbon and head to bed knowing that there was a rather large grizzly around that was circling our camp just out of sight.. that we could hear hum at us every so often and that was well aware we took back an elk head from his cache that he clearly thought was still his.

 

After pretty restless night. We spent the next few hours packing up camp and having to turn the quad on and honking the horn, as the Grizzly sounded increasingly more agitated. I asked John when he thought the bear was coming a bit too close to comfort. He mentioned that when it started chattering its teeth at us, it was time to leave right then and there. It was a younger bear, which is why it was sticking around and not moving on and that it really didn’t want to get into it with us, but that it was getting increasingly agitated and its patience was wearing thing. Agitated grizzly bears is kind of where I draw the line, so I was relieved when the ATV / trailers came back and we loaded everything in for the final haul.

 

Before we left camp.. John came up to me and said that he had gained respect for me as a hunter. I stayed extremely positive throughout the entire week, even though hunting was terribly slow. I asked questions and took the time to listen and pick up on what he was teaching me and most importantly that when he offered me an easier hunt, I refused and preferred to put in the work, and it all paid off. He said that he had prayed to his ancestors the previous morning, asking them to help guide us to a successful hunt. And that the piece of the hear that we left in the tree was an offering for them, so they could find its body. He also said that an Indian name had come to him for me. He said my name was “Running Coyote”. I was extremely taken back and extremely honored. He patted me on the back and said that he would love to guide me for my first Moose hunt and that I was always welcome to come and hunt with him again. It was such a compliment and honor, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even ask him what It meant, I just said thank you so much. Gave the dude a big hug and said our goodbyes.

 

The next few hours we head back to the reservation, got our gear and trucks, rented a bed and breakfast and got everything organized for our trip back to Edmonton early that next day. During dinner that evening, I mentioned to Jeff that John gave me an Indian name and his responded was “ That’s really special man. I’ve known him for years and I don’t know anyone that has gotten an Indian name from him. You should be honored”.

 

I spent almost the entire flight back to NY recounting each day’s activities and all of the knowledge that I picked up from my time in the bush. The hours of trapping knowledge that he shared with me. Tracking animals and the reasoning behind certain movement and overall bush craft about preserving meat, smoking storing meat for the winter..ect. This trip was an incredibly difficult elk hunt, but it was also just an amazing learning experience where I met some incredible people and had a once in a lifetime adventure.

 

 

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[StevieSacs]

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[airedale]

Great story Stevie, I felt like I was there, again congratulations.

Al