Great report Gerald, and glad that you had the opportunity to hunt here. I know the valley well, been on the end of that hill on the far side of the river in the first valley pic.I love this place, it's been my stomping ground for many years. A magical place of Dino bones, buffalo skulls, petrified forests and some huge Mulies. The elk get pretty big too. Expect the Archery season to go on draw here very soon. Build up your priority points.
Some of those caves become hidey holes for the nocturnal bucks. I know of a couple holes that often have a buck bedded in them throughout the day. Smart deer.
I've seen some of those big petrified trees sticking out of the valley walls, some of them tens of feet long. Awsome!
Just so I don't mislead anyone. The elk and the petrified tree were from my Montana elk hunt not my Alberta hunt. I posted those two pics in response to FishingforSanity's questions about any upcoming videos.
Thanks for the comments guys.
Walking buffalo- Can I apply for points even if I can't hunt with a Hunter Host for two more years? We saw some pretty nice bulls. We ran into one elk hunter who was after the biggest bull @340-350. We pointed him toward the direction where we saw the whole herd heading to bed but evidently he didn't connect because we saw the bull again the next day.
Yes, you can apply to build up priority points. NR Aliens (yup, we consider Americans to be Aliens. ) must apply with a resident on a 1:1 ratio. You can apply with the 999 draw code to earn a point without drawing. It takes a P4 (5 years of applying) to draw a rifle tag in that zone, and if the Archery Draw changes predicted come into play you will need those points to hunt the archery season.
The info on our draw system and hunting regs can be found at these links.
The deer are making a comeback here after several years of high tag numbers and then the winterkill in 2010 and 2011. The hunting here was much better this year than in the last 10 years.