Hunting Babine Lake/Williston Res. by boat

[emerson]

I'm thinking about next year. Maybe try for some LEH draws. Has anyone hunted either of these by boat? How successful was your hunt? Anything that you wish you had known beforehand? Thanks.

[kyleklassen]

yes/very/no. all your questions answered....k.k....

[Bradana]

We hunted Williston this year for the first time. We were on the Peace Reach. It's beautiful and there's plenty of game (although we only took one deer and we were there for Elk). We did see elk, deer, and moose on the trip through, just nothing legal.

A surprise to us was the steepness of the banks in many areas. It's not that you can't get up on the banks, but it is darn steep in a lot of places and probably 20 - 30 feet of scramble. It's also not like you can just beach the boat when you see a spot up the banks either. Depending on the res level your boat can get sideways into the waves and beat against the bank. I've got a river boat and it doesn't matter if you're thinking you would just beach it - too steep for that.

We were there for 5 days and I've got to say on at least three of them we had to hunt from camp. We knew to expect wind, but man-o-man. I heard it was bad all the way from Terrace to PG so you probably remember the week (right before Thanksgiving). Anyway - there were times we were out on the water that we shouldn't have been and I mean that. Like most dum-arses I've been out plenty in "iffy" stuff off of Kitimat and Rupert - this was as bad or worse than a 50 know inflow inthe Douglas.

When we went we had dreams of trolling the shelf for lunkers and glassing the hills.:) We did none of that, but did walk some awesome ridges and stalk some nice (however not-legal) animals.

Definately worth a trip for every hunter who's interested in hitting the holy trifecta of a moose, elk, deer in a single hunt.

[Machinist]

I have hunted the north east side of babine a few times we launched at the hatchery , if you give it a try make sure you have a good seaworthy boat that lake is susceptible to sudden wind changes and it gets really wicked ,a lot of the shore in a lot of locations is very cliffy and you cannot land a boat if you get caught in bad weather , we took refuge on the island at the east end one time when the wind came up , moose numbers are quite good at the north east side and there are a lot of logging roads to use if you can get a quad in your boat and use it there, there is a barge that runs logging trucks back and forth I have heard they won't take hunters across??
Hope this helps

[Kalum]

if it's moose you'e after then Babine's you're best bet. As Bradana and Machinist said though both lakes get some screaming winds which crank the waves up in a hurry. If you do the Babine take some quads and ferry them across to the other side to hunt the logging roads.
luck

[BCrams]

I've put in enough hours over Williston Lake with the helicopter to know that lake isn't one to be on when the winds whip up....its a scary lake. Sounds like Bradana summed it up really well regarding the water. I personally know guys who have sunk and damaged boats and lost gear trying to tackle that lake.

There's simply few to no landing spots for a boat if you need to get off the lake.

[David Heitsman]

I have put a boat in at Topley or Granisle a few years ago and went across
the Babine looking for moose. This would have been late 90's. We hunted some islands and went in on lots of beaches on the shore.

Plenty of moose sign but didn't connect. The area we were in was pretty flat and you can get disoriented easily trying to get around the swampy areas. Take a compass reading or carry a GPS for sure when you leave your boat for sure.