Any hunter who fancies himself a deer hunting enthusiast has dreamed of hunting
huge northern whitetails
!
When the day comes that you want to make that dream a reality, there are going to be 4 keys that make a successful trip:
1. Obviously you have to be where the big deer are. A lot of outfitters will tell you that they have trophy whitetails, but in reality they haven’t seen a 150 inch deer in a long time. You need someone who’s honest and has a sizable tract of private land with a suitable combination of farm and marginal ground to provide enough cover to harbor large bucks.
2. And this might be the most challenging. You’ll have to be mentally and logistically prepared to spend long hours on the stand in extremely cold temperatures to bag the buck of a lifetime . For many this will be a once in a lifetime trip and you don’t want to waste your time sitting in the cabin. Spare no expense on high performance cold weather gear and just sit in that stand as long as it takes for that monster Alberta whitetail to come by.
3. You have to be a proficient marksman at long range. True, the specimen you’re after might come into view at 70 yards and in that case you have a chip shot on your wall hanger, but more often than not, in the farm land and river bottom terrain, your opportunity is going to come as old moss back is trailing a doe at 200, 300 or even 400 yards! It’s up to you to make that shot count if you want to go home with that bruiser northern buck.
4. Judging northern whitetails is different than down here in the states. I’d say on the average that whitetails in Alberta are half again as large as the average deer in the lower 48. This can make field judging tricky. What appears to be a 130 inch set of antlers on an average sized buck can be in reality a 160 inch set on a 250 pound hog! If you pass him up you might go home empty handed and have missed out on a tremendous opportunity!
Anyway, there are other facets to bagging a monster northern whitetail, but in my opinion these are the most important. I hope they help and I’ll see you in the whitetail woods!
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