Bowhunting the Experienced

Lessons from Alberta’s Edmonton Bow Zone
Peterson’s Bowhunting – 2017
written by Jim Hole

It was another day of guiding during mid-November in Edmonton’s Bow Zone. The weather was cold and crisp, bowhunters were placed in their tree stands and the air was filled with anticipation of what might follow.

As the rest of my clients enjoyed the afternoon hunt, I sat with Idaho’s Mike Larson at the kitchen table back at camp. Mike was no longer hunting, as he had finally accomplished what took him years to do in “the zone” and taken a fine, mature whitetail that morning.

Mike’s journey had been unique. He had learned the basics of bowhunting in our camp some 20 years prior and had gone on to successfully hunt various mature animals in many places. His skill set was fine, but Alberta’s mature and seasoned whitetail bucks had still evaded him, at least until this day. We reflected on one of his previous hunts with us years back, where he had whitetail bucks in bow range on 11 or 12 of his sits. Something just always seemed to be missing; we just couldn’t quite put our finger on exactly what it was…