# O' Canada



## hockey (Nov 7, 2007)

Made the trek north last week for a comination bear / wolf hunt in Canada. We left SLC airport 6am saturday morning with a 3 hour layover in Minneapolis there we met 10-12 pther bear hunters heading north, 2 of which were with Excaliber crossbows and they were filming a show, before boarding the plane we watched the baggage people literally throw all the gun and bow cases into the plane. The Excaliber guys filmed it and said they were going to add it to their show. Made it to Edmonton around 3pm and went to car rental, got our minivan and headed out on our 600 mile drive to LaCrete Alberta. What a drive!! Don't think I will be making it again soon. Around 2am we arrived in LaCrete to what we would call home for the next 8 days
[attachment=2:2jlpe1jb]cabin.JPG[/attachment:2jlpe1jb]
LaCrete is a Mennonite Community, they were a very interesting group of people, very conservative but very hard working and nice. We ate all our meals family style in 3 different homes, english the 2nd language up there, the primary is german (who would of thunk that?) Sunday was spent sleeping in, 20+ hours of travel will wear on old guy out. Sighting in guns, miracle the bow was still sighted in but the 300 was not even on paper from 50 yards. Had to drive to High Level to get licenses since there is no stores open in LaCrete on sunday. While driving around we were able to spot bear, moose, deer, elk, coyote and even a lynx
Monday after breakfast and "supper" we loaded up the 4 wheelers and headed out to our stands. Oats mixed with used cooking oil was put out as well as a frozen beaver hacked into pieces. Beavers up there are like jackrabbits down here, at least when we had rabbits








Got settled into stand around 4pm, shooting hours that far north go until 11:10pm
I swore I was not going to take a bear 1st night of a 7 day hunt but at 7:30 I saw a beast of bear stand up on his hind legs about 80yds out and watched him as he slowly made his way to the bait, took him 45 minutes to come in but once he came in I realized he was not a bear I should pass up. i had both my 300 mag and bow in stand but didn't feel comfortable trying to fit an arrow thru some branches so up came the 300. 1 shot from 35 yards and my almost "book" bear was runnin off with a bullet thru both lungs, he made it about 75 yards before pileing up with a crash and moan, gave him 30 minutes and I climbed down and went to check him out. Had 3 other bears visit me while waiting to get picked up








No light left for pics so we snapped a couple and waited til the next day to get some good ones. Made it back to cabin at 2am to a home cooked meal.
















He squared 7'3" and confirmed weight of 376lbs, green scored skull at 19 3/4
Tuesday afternoon was spent skinning and pics, lots of locals heard about the huge bear we had shot so I got to know plenty of new townsfolk that day, made the day go by very fast waiting for evening.
Alberta is a 2 bear area so I still had 1 bear and 1 wolf tag that everybody told me I would never fill.
Tuesday night was dead calm and I was on a stand they called the dunes and Shane was in Hadies. Around 8pm a couple small bears had come and gone and I noticed movement off to my left, "a freaking wolf" caught glimpses of him twice then a good sized bear came into stand, no way I was going to shoot my 2nd bear on day 2 especially when a wolf was out there. 45 minutes later with my gun still up and face mask on I see the wolf coming back thru the tree, he disappeared again but let out a couple howls from approx 100yds away, 15 minutes later he appeared behind the bait but I could only see hind leg and nose. Held the crosshairs on the nose and waited for him to take 2 more steps, he finally did and I had a clear shot at should, he crumpled at the shot and I coould finally breath at what seemed like hours of not breathing, I think I supermanned out of the stand to check him out. Man did he stink!!!!








That same night Shane shot a blonde bear that is very rare for this area, not a big one but a rare trophy up there








What a night, again we got back to cabin at 2am to warm dinner and bed. Wednesday brought more townsfolk out to see wolf and blonde
Wednesday night found us in stands named Teds and Toms. I decided I would only have my bow in stand, 3 bears came in but none worthing of tagging out. Shane had a eventful evening with a mother bear and poodle sized cubs at his stand all night
Thursday I went back to the dunes and Shane went back to Hades. I decided if that 6'er came in I would shoot it. About 9pm he was the 4th bear to come in so after watching him for 30 minutes I put an arrow into his boiler room from 22 yards, he went less than 10 yards








Went to pick up Shane later that night and he had shot his 2nd color phase bear of the trip, this one a chocolate








Friday was spent kinda helping skin both bears and deciding what we were going to do friday night, we decided to do a little Pike fishing on the Peace River, caught a few little ones but the 11pm sunset was to good not to get picture of
[attachment=1:2jlpe1jb]sunset.JPG[/attachment:2jlpe1jb]
Friday night was the 1st night we got to bed before 3am to we took advantage of the extra sleep cause saturday was the dreaded drive back to Edmonton, the ferry over the Peace River broke up the drive a little
[attachment=0:2jlpe1jb]ferry.JPG[/attachment:2jlpe1jb]
It was a great trip, took a few days to recover, but can't wait to do it again!


----------



## wapiti67 (Oct 2, 2007)

What a GREAT hunt...memories for sure!!


----------



## freedomcell (Nov 8, 2010)

What an epic trip! Great photos, thanks for sharing.


----------



## TEX-O-BOB (Sep 12, 2007)

My neck is sore...

Nice pics. I think... :mrgreen:


----------



## kailey29us (May 26, 2011)

Great story thanks for posting it. I hope my day in Canada is sooner rather than later.


----------



## svmoose (Feb 28, 2008)

Great trip! That's awesome that you were able to fill all of your tags.


----------



## Lannolin (Jun 5, 2012)

Congrats! Awesome story for sure. Makes me jealous!


----------



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

TEX-O-BOB said:


> My neck is sore...
> 
> Nice pics. I think... :mrgreen:


Hockey, I took the liberty to rotate the pics.

Great story and photos and congrats on the bears and wolf.

I moved this post from Big Game to Other Animals where it is a better fit.


----------



## elk22hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

Way cool successful trip! Nice job!!!


----------



## TEX-O-BOB (Sep 12, 2007)

> I moved this post from Big Game to Other Animals where it is a better fit.


...and nobody would see it. :?


----------



## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

Holy cow! What an amazing trip! Thank you so much for taking the time to write up the story and share the photos. I really enjoyed that.


----------



## ram2h2o (Sep 11, 2007)

Awesome trip! Thanks for sharing with us. Have made a few Goose hunts up in Alberta and they were great. Hunted on a Hutterite community. They are very nice people.


----------

