Henry Rifle Forums

We just got home from a two week bird hunting trip to the eastern side of British Columbia, and the Southwestern part of Alberta. Just over 2,500 miles of driving, tons of miles of hiking/walking and some great memories made on the journey. I chatted with Ranch Roper a bit on where to go in his ‘hood, and he gave me a couple of ideas on areas to explore.

I took the basic info and did some searching to find places to hunt. Alberta uses the majority of its public land for grazing, and you need to get permission to hunt from the lease holder. They cannot “deny” access unless a couple of specific conditions are in play, but as I found out, they can deny access by never returning your call to discuss access. There is a process to have the non returned call situation mediated by a govt official, but unless the lease holder is sitting on the be-all end-all hunting spot, I doubt anyone bothers with this process.

The outcome of this is, all the planning in the world doesn’t matter if nobody grants you access. So, we wasted a ton of money on hunting licenses and species permits all for a single bird found at the top of a mountain in an area overrun with knuckleheads on ATVs. That $120 Ruffed Grouse was pretty tasty though!

We also visited a park in the northern reaches of the Missouri Breaks area (Milk River Badlands is the start of the area that becomes the Missouri Breaks, and is just a few miles north of the Montana border). There are some petroglyphs in this park but the landscape is fantastic and the weather was amazing for late Sept. RR warned me about snow being a possibility (which I was aware of), but we had high 70s and tons of sun.

We also went back to my turkey hunting spot in the Kootenay area of BC (it’s right on the border just north of where John Davies and Hatchdog live). There is such a huge variety of game there. We met up with one of my neighbors who is travelling out into the prairies for a pheasant hunt in mid October. He has a GWP and Pudel Pointer, so we added those to my older Weimaraner and had a great few days hunting. I made my career best wing shot on a Ruffed Grouse. A very long shot on a bird winging it full speed away from the dogs, and I thought I missed as it did a massive spiralling glide around the meadow only to fly in to some low brush. We went in to try and flush it again, but my buddies dog came out of the brush and handed me the dead bird! My friend says he will have to back up my bragging on that shot for at least a year.

After my friend left, the wife and I hunted both our Weimaraners together (it was our anniversary). Our new dog is only 5 months old, but wow, can she hunt already! We took it easy on her as she is still growing, but there was still some tough terrain. Very “Scottish” conditions up one gully. We got a couple more birds and had an amazing dinner of hot Italian sausage, with grouse pan fried in the sausage fat, asparagus also friend in the drippings and roasted yams. An awesome day indeed.

The young dog did her first “retrieve” to, but it was more like a victory lap!

She also was very keen on flushing turkeys! Turkeys were not open for a couple more days though, so we left them unharmed.

Thank you for the beautiful photographs and the great description of your hunts. I have enjoyed hunting ruffed grouse and got my first one this year, on the properties my step son and I each own.
Your pan of sausage and grouse looks delicious. It's great that you could celebrate your anniversary with your wife hunting with her. Congrats on a dog that shows a lot of early potential as well.
That is a sad state of affairs with the lease holders not responding, thus denying permission, but I'm sure that happens a lot. I'll bet they would have been quick to respond if you had gone to their tracts anyways.
Great report and thank you for sharing it with us.

Awesome post with all the pics and the story. Thank-you so much for sharing.

Thanks for taking us on your trip. Beautiful country indeed! Thanks.

daytime dave wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:06 pm

That is a sad state of affairs with the lease holders not responding, thus denying permission, but I'm sure that happens a lot. I'll bet they would have been quick to respond if you had gone to their tracts anyways.

Right?! You know they would have been on it right away if we had just shown up, but alas that is not legal.

Thank you for the kind words Dave,NCG and Tom. We had another trip to Montana, Colorado and Wyoming planned, but like so many trips this past year and a half, we had to change at the last minute. It was a great trip either way, and we saw a ton of wildlife and new places. Red foxes, antelope, lots of deer, wolf, bear tracks (both grizzly and black) and some new to me species of trout were all spotted. If the rest of my season is even close to as much fun, it will be an epic year!

Nice photos and and story. Thanks for taking us along. If you get to Colorado be sure to give a shout my way.

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:51 pm

If you get to Colorado be sure to give a shout my way.

We usually stay to the western side of the state, but one of my buds is a well known hunting guide based out of Windsor, and I do plan to hook up with him for an Antelope hunt at some point in the future. If I end up that close I definitely will get in touch. Colorado is a great place to call home!

What an incredible picture story you presented.

First I throughly enjoyed the pics of the rolling hills and the beautiful fall colors. Then you surpassed that with the incredible rock outcroppings and monoliths, thought I was in southern Utah and Arizona. Almost surreal. Finally the shots of the mountains and the working dogs completed the journey.

Thanks for taking the time to share the pics.

Thanks HD. The pic of the 2 wire hairs and my Weim is taken just east of Northport on the Pend Orielle River. The top of the hills in the background is the border along Colville National Forest, so very close to you.

Excellent review of your vacation. Thanks for all the great pictures and narrative.

Looks like you had a good trip. Too bad about the land access but some do that for good reason. Lots of jerks out there.

RanchRoper wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:20 pm

Looks like you had a good trip. Too bad about the land access but some do that for good reason. Lots of jerks out there.

We had a fantastic trip. Thanks for your help with the planning. I’m not surprised that I didn’t get call backs. The 604 area code probably had the, thinking “screw you BC boy!” . We ended up going North up the 22 from Lundbreck and then west to stay a couple of nights at Dutch Creek. Way too many people “random camping” out there though. You could not run dogs at all, or ever comfortably shoot in a huge area due to the campers. The actual campsat Dutch Creek was completely empty though.

What is the closest town to you RR? I saw a few properties that looked like yours from what I remember of your photos of your barn etc. Not that I’m stalking you, just curious. I would have to guess Pincher Cr was close to you?

We are in the MD of Pincher Creek. I have gathered and moved cattle at Dutch Creek lots over the years.

Great details and pics. Thanks for posting.
Jake

RanchRoper wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 03, 2021 2:06 pm

We are in the MD of Pincher Creek. I have gathered and moved cattle at Dutch Creek lots over the years.

It’s a nice area. I stopped in at the Harvest coffee shop on main a couple of times. They are very friendly folks in there. My wife had never been to Waterton, so we spent a night there. It was as windy as I remembered! There were a lot of cattle around in the Dutch Cr area, and a few of your fellow cowboys arrived and set up camp nearer the fire base. I’m assuming they were starting to bring them down to pasture for the winter.

Yes October is when the cattle come out of the Livingstone Gap, which takes in Dutch Creek and a bunch of others. Rugged country, tough on horses. Snow coming next week as usual when it's roundup time.

Thank you RT's. Really enjoyed the post! I can only imagine that kind of adventure. Appreciate you sharing!