Weather or Not - Alberta
Gary's first bear.
Drying out by the wood burner..
Jason, Gary and Heather
Hunter: Gary Smoot
Cameraman: Freddy Lagos
This spring Freddy and I were scheduled to head up to Alberta to hunt with Northern Adventure Hunts with Heather Chaney. This is my third time going bear hunting, the first two times were in Ontario and Quebec, and both of those times, I was snake bit with weather problems which resulted in little bear activity. So as we prepared for the trip, you could understand my reserve when I checked the weather and it was calling for SNOW and in the low teens at night.
Sunday we flew out of Chicago landing in Edmonton. As we landed, the pilot announced, “Sunny, clear skies with an approx temp of 64 degrees.” Freddy and I looked at each other a little confused and both said, “That’s not what it said when we checked the weather online.” Off the plane, through customs, and onto baggage and rental car, then we were headed north for another six hours. The farther we went the more the temps dropped, and when we finally met up with Heather and Jason, the temps had dropped 30-some degrees and when we arrived at camp there was 2 inches of snow on the ground. We started up the wood burning stove, settled in to our wall tent and dreamed of what the next several days would bring us.
The Stealthcam had told the story of a good bear hitting the “End Bait”, so the first afternoon that’s where we decided to start our hunt. Freddy and I had only been in the stand for an hour before we heard a boar breaking trees off to our right. A half hour later he emerged from the woods behind the bait. He was a nice bear but smaller than the bear we had pics of, so we decided to wait.
Our new friend came in and out of the woods most of the afternoon. He even came over to check us out, getting directly under my tree and then pouncing on it with his front legs trying to scare us further up the tree. After getting bored with us he headed back to get some more to eat. He enjoyed himself right up until about nine o’clock when he heard a noise, snapped his head up, looked off to our right, turned tail, and ran. I whispered to Freddy, “Something bigger is coming!”
We waited and watched as we heard trees being snapped off to our right. After about a half hour, here he came! He made his way down to the bait not seeming too happy that most of it was gone. I was trying to size him up, he looked like a good bear but then he disappeared back into the woods where the other bear had been taking scraps. A couple minutes later he was back out. Instead of going back to the bait, he circled the area and came in right beneath our stand, sat down, and looked up at us. You could tell he was definitely bigger than the other bear that had been in, especially as he decided to join us! Up the tree he came, his head was just over our platform, a mere 2-3 feet from Freddy and I! He looked us over and headed back down the tree, paused and then headed back into the woods. Freddy looked at me and stammered, “I got a pretty good look at him, he’s definitely a shooter.”
After ten minutes of waiting and wondering if he would return, we heard him snapping trees as he came back in. We double checked to make sure it was the bigger of the two bears and then waited for a shot opportunity. Finally he turned to give me a 22-yard quartering away shot and my Hoyt sent my Spitfire right through him! He bolted down passed the stand and piled up 60 yards from the shot and I had my very first black bear!
We had a great time the rest of the week as you’ll see in a few more stories over the next weeks. I would like to thank Heather and Jason for all the hard work that they put in for us while we were there and to Ralph & Vicki for another great opportunity. The cold weather didn’t help us but they still did a great job of getting us on bears! Northern Adventure Hunts is a great place to go and I hope I get an opportunity to go back. If you get a chance check them out at www.northernalbertahunts.com