Elk hunting in the Bob Creek wilderness

[damn_missed_again]

Okay experienced people... I am planning a three day backpack trip with my 26 yr old nephew and 15 yr old son in the Bob Creek wilderness on Aug 31-sept 3rd this year. The plan is to walk in on the 31st and set up camp to be ready to hunt with the bows on the 1st. I was just looking for some insight from people more familiar with the area. What are our best access sites? The south by the oldman or the east by the Waldron ranch? What are elk numbers like in there? Are there certain areas (the north and the west) that hold more elk. What is hunting pressure like at that time of the year? What advice would you offer for something like this? My nephew has already started the scouting and I'll be joining him a couple times this summer. I'm open to pm's as well if you have any "non public info you want to share"!! lol. TIA guys!

[BuckCuller]

Good luck.
Let us know what you find.

[ABBowman]

my advice would be to get out there scouting, check harvest reports and aerial survey reports for the area you want to hunt & check out elk101.com take the elk hunting university course don't forget to take notes

[Prairiewolf]

308 is a great area to hunt elk. It is primarily crown land, but the mixture of a few grazing leases and reasonable restrictions on OHV use reduces hunting pressure relative to say, 402 next door.

I'd suggest starting your hunt at the south end staging area. You'll have to get access via the GL contact though, because the south end has GL's all along the boundary. You can walk in from the north of the WMU, but its far more pressured due to access off of 532 highway and proximity to the city. I've never accessed via Waldron, sounds like alot of people do but again that requires contacting the ranch and it always looks busy.

The south end is far more open and rolling. Depending on what you see for scouting you can spot and stalk from high points, then use the topography to close distances to get close for a bow.

Good luck, sounds like a great time with family.

[LKILR]

Last year those days were 30 Celsius. If you knock one down in them conditions you better have a real good plan on how deal with 400 lbs of meat. Lots of elk in 308.

[MyAlberta]

Hunted south end a few years back. Only saw mules and bear. Couple locals said don’t waste your time south, get up into the bush. But what do they know?

[ak-71]

2 years ago saw elk many times there (south side), but nothing legal with general license. Or close enough to id as legal.
Good luck.

[Boundless_84]

I've hunted there the last 2-3 years for elk and whiteteail. Lots of elk to be seen, but have yet to come across anything legal. If you're looking for antlerless elk success rates should be good. But all of the antlered elk I've seen were spike bulls or the occasional 2 point bull. Nothing legal. I hiked in from the south parking lot. I've seen elk close to the truck and farther in, and everything in between. Also a lot of hunters come general season. But still I have seen a lot of wildlife even with the increase in hunting pressure.

I did see someone packing out a nice 5x5 elk on horseback from further up north, but that's a long walk just to get to that area where I saw them. I don't know how much further in they were hunting from where I saw them. IMO you'd want to have at least a week if you're going to hike a camp in that far. Very beautiful area, though, so even though I've never packed any animals out of there I still love hunting that terrain!

[ram crazy]

Originally Posted by LKILR

Last year those days were 30 Celsius. If you knock one down in them conditions you better have a real good plan on how deal with 400 lbs of meat. Lots of elk in 308.

What’s a little wasted meat. It would reduce spoilt meat if one was allowed to retrieve their game with OHV, but there are those that are against OHV’s.

[rem338win]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

What’s a little wasted meat. It would reduce spoilt meat if one was allowed to retrieve their game with OHV, but there are those that are against OHV’s.

There are. For certain areas and that's one of them. Keep the OHVs out thank you. It's nice to enjoy being out and not hearing an engine.

You can also choose to hunt responsibly and not down an animal you can't get out and retain the meat.

[roper1]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

What’s a little wasted meat. It would reduce spoilt meat if one was allowed to retrieve their game with OHV, but there are those that are against OHV’s.

Pack horse, shank's mare, game cart, all viable options.

[roughneckin]

Originally Posted by rem338win

There are. For certain areas and that's one of them. Keep the OHVs out thank you. It's nice to enjoy being out and not hearing an engine.

You can also choose to hunt responsibly and not down an animal you can't get out and retain the meat.

X2. Love this area. Nice and quiet with just horses and backpacks. Not all areas need to have full access as some would hope.

[LKILR]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

What’s a little wasted meat. It would reduce spoilt meat if one was allowed to retrieve their game with OHV, but there are those that are against OHV’s.

You should lay off the bottle prior to posting useless information. Bobs creek has a designated trail system for ohvs. I’m not against it. I’m all for designated trails for ohvs if the operators actually keep to the trails.

[ram crazy]

Originally Posted by LKILR

Bobs creek has a designated trail system for ohvs. I’m not against it. I’m all for designated trails for ohvs if the operators actually keep to the trails.

There is a designated trail system in the Castle area, but there are those that want it all closed to OHV's. World is full of hypocrites. To those that say don't kill something if you can't get it out without spoilage, now if you did this you may as well not go out too far from the truck to hunt. Therefore you have all this vast land in the forestry that is useless to hunt.

[Boundless_84]

Guys lets keep the postings on topic. OP asked about elk hunting in Bob Creek Wildland, not pros/cons/****ing contest about OHV use

[West O'5]

Originally Posted by LKILR

You should lay off the bottle prior to posting useless information. Bobs creek has a designated trail system for ohvs. I’m not against it. I’m all for designated trails for ohvs if the operators actually keep to the trails.

sorry but no,Bob Creek was closed to all OHVs/snowmobile traffic by the greentard NDP a Cpl years ago.
very disappointing,I had only started hunting in Bob creek the year before,bought a quad prior to next season(2016?) and had planned to do a week long wall tent hunt deep into the area,only to learn upon arriving for a pre-season scout that it was closed to all OHVs by Shannon Phillips with a big notice posted at the staging area some nonsense about "protecting vulnerable cutthroat habitat".
What a pile of bS....the ONLY flowing water ive seen in BCWA is a trickle that could barely support a school of tadpoles let alone trout, which is frozen rock stiff anyhow in November.ABSOLUTELY ZERO reason for the entire area to be closed to sleds or quads in the frozen months!!
I'm too old and too out of shape to be packing camping gear miles in and packing elk for miles out.....just ANOTHER fine example of your NDP govt at work taking away recreational opportunities from hardworking taxpayers under the guise of their BS greentard agenda.


FWIW....yes,theres pretty good numbers of elk(and deer n moose for that matter) in the BCW but Im not about to give myself a heart attack packing out even a whitetail,let alone elk from X miles in there.I can only hope that the next AB govt in 2019 has the common sense to undo all or most of the damage these tards have done and allow responsible use of the land and resources once again.

[CF8889]

Bob Creek most definitely holds cutthroats. I have plenty of photos of the little guys.

Can you post a link to the OHV ban? I was there last september and there appeared to be a new bridge built. I was also there during this spring bear season and the OHV tracks were pretty fresh. You sure it wasn't just temporary ban?

[CF8889]

2017 Map shows OHV trails in use

https://www.albertaparks.ca/parks/south/bob-creek-wpp/

[CF8889]

Side note: we've packed out a bull elk from there on foot with no meat spoilage in September. Tough hunt, but a great one.

[Pasc43]

Watch out for the Black Creek HR portion, no camping or fires. Likely to find more elk later in the season when they migrate over from 402.

[Boundless_84]

Originally Posted by CF8889

Bob Creek most definitely holds cutthroats. I have plenty of photos of the little guys.

Can you post a link to the OHV ban? I was there last september and there appeared to be a new bridge built. I was also there during this spring bear season and the OHV tracks were pretty fresh. You sure it wasn't just temporary ban?

It is closed to OHVs. Any tracks you see are likely from the rancher using the lease. I had a talk with him one day a couple years back while he was out checking his cattle. He still has permission for OHV use, so I'd guess the tracks are from him - although who knows for sure.

[CF8889]

Can you post a link? All I can find online is designated trails and when they are allowed (may 1rst-december 20th I beleive)

[CF8889]

Trails: The main access for the designated OHV trails*is*Bob Creek Staging Area. The secondary access is at*Camp Creek Access Point. *Trails in the south/Camp Creek section are open for recreational OHV use.* (See*map*for access locations and trails.) Alberta Environment & Parks trail crews will be working in spring/summer 2017 on trail rehabilitation in this area.Please note that all trails north and west of trail marker 7 are closed to recreational OHV use (map). This closure is in place to protect federally designated critical habitat for Westslope Cutthroat Trout.**


So some trails have been closed. But some are still open?

[artie]

http://aep.alberta.ca/recreation-pub...May14-2018.pdf

If you check out this new map from May 14, 2018 there is no quadding in the Bob Creek Provincial Park

[LKILR]

Originally Posted by artie

http://aep.alberta.ca/recreation-pub...May14-2018.pdf

If you check out this new map from May 14, 2018 there is no quadding in the Bob Creek Provincial Park

Your looking at the map for Livingstone FLUZ. Bobs creek is it’s own park with its own map. You can for sure100% still use the designated trail system on the Bobs Creek wildland park map. Only a few trails were shut down But not all of them.

[LKILR]

[QUOTE=West O'5;3806536]sorry but no,Bob Creek was closed to all OHVs/snowmobile traffic by the greentard NDP a Cpl years ago.
very disappointing,I had only started hunting in Bob creek the year before,bought a quad prior to next season(2016?) and had planned to do a week long wall tent hunt deep into the area,only to learn upon arriving for a pre-season scout that it was closed to all OHVs by Shannon Phillips with a big notice posted at the staging area some nonsense about "protecting vulnerable cutthroat habitat".
What a pile of bS....the ONLY flowing water ive seen in BCWA is a trickle that could barely support a school of tadpoles let alone trout, which is frozen rock stiff anyhow in November.ABSOLUTELY ZERO reason for the entire area to be closed to sleds or quads in the frozen months!!
I'm too old and too out of shape to be packing camping gear miles in and packing elk for miles out.....just ANOTHER fine example of your NDP govt at work taking away recreational opportunities from hardworking taxpayers under the guise of their BS greentard agenda.


FWIW....yes,theres pretty good numbers of elk(and deer n moose for that matter) in the BCW but Im not about to give myself a heart attack packing out even a whitetail,let alone elk from X miles in there.I can only hope that the next AB govt in 2019 has the common sense to undo all or most of the damage these tards have done and allow responsible use of the land and resources once again.[/QUOTE. Wow. Your post is full of miss leading information. Lots of trout in the area year round. The creek does not freeze up solid. The trail system is active from May till winter. Blame to government for your ignorance as well.

[LKILR]

[QUOTE=LKILR;3806836]

Originally Posted by West O'5

sorry but no,Bob Creek was closed to all OHVs/snowmobile traffic by the greentard NDP a Cpl years ago.
very disappointing,I had only started hunting in Bob creek the year before,bought a quad prior to next season(2016?) and had planned to do a week long wall tent hunt deep into the area,only to learn upon arriving for a pre-season scout that it was closed to all OHVs by Shannon Phillips with a big notice posted at the staging area some nonsense about "protecting vulnerable cutthroat habitat".
What a pile of bS....the ONLY flowing water ive seen in BCWA is a trickle that could barely support a school of tadpoles let alone trout, which is frozen rock stiff anyhow in November.ABSOLUTELY ZERO reason for the entire area to be closed to sleds or quads in the frozen months!!
I'm too old and too out of shape to be packing camping gear miles in and packing elk for miles out.....just ANOTHER fine example of your NDP govt at work taking away recreational opportunities from hardworking taxpayers under the guise of their BS greentard agenda.


FWIW....yes,theres pretty good numbers of elk(and deer n moose for that matter) in the BCW but Im not about to give myself a heart attack packing out even a whitetail,let alone elk from X miles in there.I can only hope that the next AB govt in 2019 has the common sense to undo all or most of the damage these tards have done and allow responsible use of the land and resources once again.[/QUOTE.



Wow. Your post is full of miss leading information. Lots of trout in the area year round. The creek does not freeze up solid. The trail system is active from May till winter. Blame to government for your ignorance as well.

. The reason there are no motorized vehicle allowed in winter months is because The area is a wintering Range for many animals that don’t need extra pressure during that time of year.

[J.B.]

Pretty sure the OHV trails were open when i hiked in this spring...but I don't ride so didn't pay much attention...

[artie]

The new Livingston Public Land Use Zone Map and the new Porcupine Hills Public Land Use Zone do say they are for Summer Motorized 2018 effective from My 31 to November 30, 2018 I had thought it was just for the summer but no. I guess someone will have to get official clarification of what map to use. The quad squad site said they were told the maps are a work in progress and will change as more information is added to them. That remains to be seen.

[muirsy]

I was hiking in Bob Creek a few weeks ago. The map in the south staging area is new and says OHV's are permitted on some trails but not all. I'm sure it's floating around somewhere online. IMO it's a nice compromise. Happy it's not open fully to OHV's just because right next door in Dutch Creek is a sh#t show most of the time come fall. Much quieter in Bob Creek because of that with limited access.