Alberta

[zaconb]

Well I managed to make it to Taber and back with a quick stop in Kamloops for Chuckar. Okay where to start, I chose Taber as my home base for this trip after doing extensive research on the site and thought I would be in great position to hunt as far north as Brookes or south to Warner, and if things didn't work out even head for the Montana border. I would never have guessed that the farthest drive for a chance at a limit of pheasants and a limit of Huns everyday would be 20 minutes!! I was extremely fortunate to meet a local Taber resident and member of this board who treated me like a friend immediately. Thanks to Tony my first step into a field in Taber was unbelievable. Tony and I didn't get to meet right away, so by phone on the first evening I had mentioned that I had stopped to take Chas my DD for a quick walk and he pointed 1 cock pheasant and a flock of Huns, Tony's comment was "welcome to Taber". Tony had mentioned he didn't have time to meet right away due to a very busy schedule but he had arranged permission for me to hunt on a friend’s farm that usually held pheasants. He said the farm was 10 minutes from Taber, easy to find and a good place to start. So with instructions on where to park my rig in the farm yard I parked, started to unload gear and noticed the hedgerow I was to start hunting and the field behind it had about 20 chickens running around it. Well isn't my DD going to love them I thought...holy crap those are pheasants! For the next 3 hours we chased pheasants and Huns on this farm and didn't cover a quarter of it, oh did I mention this farm is approximately 15,000 acres!! That’s how the next 7 days played out, with me hitting great numbers of birds on every piece of property. The kicker was that if we didn't limit out every day it was due to my shooting or a comedy of errors. We ran into 6-10 cock pheasants a day and an average of 8 coveys of Huns. Now we did take our share of yearling pheasants but 4 of the pheasants we rooted out of the deep dark abyss of nearby river banks ( thanks to the Public Lands Recreational Access) were old mature wise birds, one being 26+ bars and spurs that had to be 3/4 of an inch and sharp as a needle. So all and all it was a stellar trip and one which I hope can be repeated yearly, I know my family in Calgary are looking forward to it thanks to a couple of trips to Cow Town in which I prepared roasted stuffed pheasant and stir fried Huns!Thanks to the friendly people of Taber and especially Tony, hopefully I can repay his generosity with salmon/steelhead/sturgeon trip next year!
First trip around the farm!

Last walk down by the river!

[Dano]

Ric,
That's an awesome trip! Nice pic with the river in the background.
Post a few more pics if you have any, I haven't ever hunted huns but hear they really bust out of the cover when flushed.
Give me a PM or call for a duck report,
Dan

[1/2 slam]

Wow,

What a fantastic trip. Congratulations. I'll have to look at taking my pointer to Alberta.

[Sasquatch]

Wow, sounds like a great trip!

Just one more place I have to plan on going now.

[HuntNHookSports]

Nice job on the roosters. Lots of people said they didn't do well in AB this year. They figured the wet spring killed off the hatch.

Any goose hunting? The Lethbridge/Taber area has enormous resident honkers.

[zaconb]

Nice job on the roosters. Lots of people said they didn't do well in AB this year. They figured the wet spring killed off the hatch.

Any goose hunting? The Lethbridge/Taber area has enormous resident
honkers.

The pheasants where everywhere, now they were still extremely jumpy and tough to hunt but if you hunted hard and off the beaten path it was great.
As far as waterfowl I had to restrain myself, I was there to hunt upland, but there where times when the horizon was black with birds!

[cohod]

way to go! Great pics! Glad to see you got into some birds!

next year add sharpies for the grand slam.




cohod

[huntwriter]

Great story and pictures. If there is one thing I miss here in British Columbia than it pheasant hunting.