Hunt Alberta Whitetail Deer | Whitetail Deer Hunts | Facts for the Hunter

Hunt Alberta Whitetail Deer

Best Kept Hunting Secret

What was once one of North America's best kept hunting secrets a mere twenty years ago is now front-page news. If you want the opportunity to harvest a record-class white-tailed deer, Alberta is, or should be, at the top of the list of desirable destinations. Consider this fact: In the Third Edition of the Boone and Crockett Club's Records of North American Whitetail Deer they list the top ten typical and non-typical deer ever taken. Alberta is home to three of these bucks and this list doesn't include the new Pope & Young world record whitetail (new #2 B&C) harvested in Alberta in 2001 by Wayne Zaft; - no other single state or province on the continent has more deer on the list. Further, the rate at which record-class bucks have been taken in Alberta has never been higher than it's been in the last decade and the prospects for the future are brighter than ever.

Big Whitetails!

Those who really know white-tailed deer hunting will all tell you the same thing. In Alberta, wherever there are whitetails, there are big whitetails. They are, quite simply, so cunning and so elusive that a great many die of natural causes, many seldom if ever having been seen by hunters. And in Alberta the common range of these deer continues to expand as they adapt and move into new, productive habitat created through forestry, agriculture and petroleum development, thus creating more hunting opportunities for trophy deer than ever before. What Alberta doesn't have are the high deer densities common throughout much of the whitetail range in the U.S. That is offset, however, by having one of the highest percentages of trophy-class bucks within the population of any jurisdiction in North America. To survive the Alberta winters, these deer must be big and strong. Spend a week hunting whitetails in Alberta and you might not see the numbers of deer that you would down south, but chances are that you'll see the biggest deer you've ever laid eyes on!

Regions

Whitetails have successfully adapted to a broad range of habitat types in Alberta. In the southern part of the province, prairie deer thrive in river bottoms, slough margins and any other "island" of habitat they can find. The smallest piece of suitable cover can shelter outstanding bucks that have learned the secrets of living in a fragmented landscape. In the central parklands of the province, clumps of aspen forest ranging in size from a few acres to a couple of hundred acres conceal deer who take great advantage of the abundant food resources provided by cereal and hay crops. In southwestern Alberta, more and bigger whitetails are being harvested every year. In 2001, the largest archery whitetail taken on an outfitted hunt came from this area. Further north, and in the western foothills, the boreal forest transition zone offers deer the safety of spruce/aspen forests dissected by numerous cut blocks, roads, cut lines and the more extreme vestiges of agricultural production. Trophy whitetails are found regularly in all of these habitat types.

Whitetail Deer Hunting in Alberta

There's a recent story about an outfitter and his client walking along the edge of an alfalfa field in Alberta, searching for signs of deer activity. The client suddenly pointed down and said in a surprised manner, "Look, there's a track." The outfitter looked down to where he was pointing, and then glanced strangely at the client before responding, "Those are just human footprints." "Yeah, I know," replied the hunter, "But they're the first tracks of another hunter I've seen in the four days I've been here!" That's Alberta whitetail hunting for you. Big country. And, more importantly, very big deer.