Don't worry about HBC right now. Enjoy your hunt. It is called hunting for a reason. Good luck
Don't worry about HBC right now. Enjoy your hunt. It is called hunting for a reason. Good luck
Haha yep but you have to do something at night when you’re solo.
2 hunting days left. The north side of the hill wasn’t as accessible as the maps might lead you to believe. The rough road in and out wasn’t any better than I remember it. I hit both sides, lots of hiking, looking and calling but no sign and I thought I might have heard a bugle but it was so quiet i wasn’t sure. It could have been the wind, a bird or a whistling booger.
There’s a cut block about 1.5 K from where I’m camped that looks like it might be a travel route. I’m going to hike in before daylight tomorrow and hope something is moving. I’m running out of options and I keep thinking about the huge bear I saw a few days ago but I don’t think my kids are old enough to want to attempt putting myself in bow range of a bear that big on purpose hahaha.
2 days is lots of time, I hope you connect. I'm headed to the east Kootenays on Thursday for rifle opener, I've been following your thread hoping to see a photo of a big bull down.
Good luck!
Is Justin Competent, or just incompetent?
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m not picky though, a spike will do… I forgot to mention in my last post, I managed to snap my homemade stabilizer off on the atv ride up. Nothing a little electrical tape couldn’t fix but after the ride back down it’s a little floppy. Oh well I hear that a stab with 10 degrees down is better anyways.
Well I didn’t get it done this archery season. I got into bow range with a young WT buck but too many branches were in the way to want to take a shot. He started to walk off so I looped around with the wind in my favour and couldn’t quite get close enough. If it was rifle season it was an easy kill so at least I know I’m getting better at this.
I didn’t see a single elk and only found a small amount of sign. I did see a cow moose on Friday morning though so that was cool. Now to start planning for October and the week and a half I have off to hunt then. Probably going to head to reg 8 where it’s any white tail and 6 point elk is still open so if you have a honey hole lol…
i did have an interesting experience one day though. I’d found another spot to head into that looked promising. There used to be a bridge over a creek but it had been removed last October. You could still cross the creek easily on foot since the water levels were so low. Just after I crossed the creek my gut told me to grab the shotgun strapped to my pack. I stopped and threw it over my shoulder on a single point sling. I took a few more steps and could not shake a bad gut feeling so I turned around and never hiked in. I’ve spent a lot of time alone in the woods and sure there have been a few times I had a bad feeling about things but this time it was different. I’ve never been so sure to turn around like that. I wonder what was out there.
Last edited by KBC; 09-12-2021 at 11:26 AM.
Another observation I had was I wonder if there’s a correlation between the size and number of grouse vs big game. 3 years ago there was sign for elk, deer, bears and wolf but hardly any grouse. Last year a little less sign in the same area and this year hardly any sign but lots of big healthy grouse. Maybe I’m making an obvious point but it sure looks like the less predators there are, the more grouse there are. I guess that also means there’s a lot less big game in the area since there’s no predators there hunting them as well.
I know it's tough for guys to share. But if, people had their location on their profile it does help to put a few things for a response into context. Also, again, big risk, but if guys shared the region geographic area of the province, SE, NW, etc it would make responding to questions more accurate.
I think I mentioned earlier I was close to Salmo. I was also closer to Nelson for part of it as well but the locals probably hate me because I'm from the Fraser Valley
Next year I will find a new spot to go.
Sorry. I didn't mean anything toward you with my comment. It was more of a general comment. If I missed your initial post regarding location my apologies. I guess I quickly look where a person is from in their profile and assess whether I can provide value. I dont know hunting across the province, but I do know hunting in some areas. Haha
No offence taken at all, no worries.