Here is the story.
I'm a deer outfitter in central Alberta who went threw a couple huge changes in my personal life one of the changes involved buying some land and building a new home witch also doubles as my lodge in November. The land I bought,I bought so my clients could have a opportunity to harvest true world class deer. In the last year we ( the pretty lady beside me) have done hours of work making this property attractive to all wildlife.
Fast forward May 19,2014
With the prolonged spring and the wet conditions Alberta was facing, work for us was slow so we have been spending most of our time at the house finishing the basement and enjoying our investment. This would be the first year in 8 years I never got a chance to get out and bait my bear baits. Just to much on the go and the previous year my son and nephew both shot really great bears. With them having shot bears in the past they understood how much I had on my plate and reluctantly agreed to take the year off.
May 19th was Victoria Day up here in Canada the dreaded may long weekend. With the amount of traffic on the roads and all the other aspects that comes with the first long weekend of summer we decided to stay home and do some work. After supper we settled down to watch the hockey game. When all of a sudden our dog started to bark witch is really rare for him to bark unless company has arrived. We have deer,moose and waterfowl in our yard daily and he just like us just let's them travel threw without disturbing them. The barking then turned into a very freighted bark. This is when I knew I better get up to see what was going on. As soon as my eyes caught a glimps of this bruin I knew a creature of that size was not welcome to be in my daughters favorite frog hunting spot just 20 meters from our front door. I ran and got my rifle a 257 weatherby and gave him one. The big bugger was breaking trees as he ran away so I knew that he had been hit,how good I wasn't sure so we gave him a good hour to expire. With light fading fast we got on his trail and followed it for 50 meters or so. The thing that worried me the most was no blood but you could see from his tracks and the trees he was breaking the direction he was heading. At this point we decided to back off and continue the search in the morning. That morning we walked 30 more yards down the game trail and there he was. When I first seen him I knew that this was a bear of a life time. The second thing that went threw my mind was how are we going to load this beast. We tried for about a hour then decided more help was needed off to the neighbours we went. The neighbour and his family come over and we tried to roll the bear in a tub trailer to no avail. We then decided a tractor was the best solution. As I reflect back I understand how truly blessed I was to get a chance to harvest this majestic animal with no prior knowledge of his existence. I am a firm believer in the old saying"I would rather be lucky than good",and that was all this hunt was was luck but I will take hunts like this everyday.
Note: My bear was aged at 14 years old. If a bear can get this old and survive this long I'm excited to see some of the trophy deer my back yard will bring my old friends and the new ones I meet each year that travel north to Have a chance at a fair chase trophy of a lifetime.
Kevin Loades, Locknload outfitting Alberta
