Suffield Air Base Alberta Elk hunt

AlbertaSheepdog

AlbertaSheepdog

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Hey Alberta hunters!

A friend and I were selected to go for a couple of cow elk down in Suffield WMU 732. Im wondering if anyone else on here has done this hunt yet this year, and if you have then where did drive for access onto the base? Are there any off limits areas? Is it basically just driving around until you see an elk herd? or is the road access minimal, resulting in a good old fashioned foot stalk?

Looking for some help!
 
Can anybody tell me, how do I get entered into a draw hunt??
I've hunted white tail, and really want to try my hand at elk :)
If anybody could point me in ghe right direction, it would be so appreciated
 
silverfoxdj said:
Just curious having visited the base many many years ago is it still active as a base..
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Very much so, the British Army has an agreement to conduct a large amount of their live fire training there. During the summer months B.A.T.U.S. (British Army Training Unit Suffield) is very busy. You can hear the shelling in the city a lot of the times.
 
GIGGIDY said:
Very much so, the British Army has an agreement to conduct a large amount of their live fire training there. During the summer months it is very busy. You can hear the shelling in the city a lot of the times.
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The odd time we feel explosions that rattle the windows in homes up to 60km away. Then they just say it was a fuel truck explosion.
 
GIGGIDY said:
Very much so, the British Army has an agreement to conduct a large amount of their live fire training there. During the summer months B.A.T.U.S. (British Army Training Unit Suffield) is very busy. You can hear the shelling in the city a lot of the times.
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So when do the hunts run in the winter only or is the base segregated
 
You need to ask this question on the Alberta Outdoorsmen forum. ;) Lots of info there from guys who have done it. Not just a show up and do as you please thing.

Grizz
 
silverfoxdj said:
So when do the hunts run in the winter only or is the base segregated
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As already stated the hunts are in the winter months. but there is a significant amount of oil/gas activity on the base as well. during training they have off limits areas that change depending on where they are training. They also have a range control where all travel routes must be approved. There is a very high importance placed on the possibility of coming across un-exploded ordnance or as they call them "blinds". I've never had to go on the base for work but we have an orientation done every year and I am issued an ID and call sign for dealing with range control. I'm not sure how they deal with these issues for the hunts as I've never done it.
 
Not an airbase .....

Over for this year. A lot harvested during first draw. second draw they moved to the off limit area..... they were ghosts ...

Best draw is the first. You are basically truck hunting except in off limit areas.
 
Suffield is not an airbase. As for the hunt, yes there are many closed areas, and that is where the elk go when the hunting pressure gets to be too much for them. Some people that hunted the earlier hunts had very good hunts, but by late November, the elk were spending most of their time off of the base, or in the closed areas.
 
OP here.

So we go to pick up our tags today for the elk hunt, and they won't give them to us. We call fish and wildlife and turns out that their website has a major glitch. Long story short, we were awarded an elk hunt tag on the base for Feb 9-12, even though the season ended Jan 31. So we are not able to hunt. I'm so rattled

There response is basically "well... sorry... that sucks but you are #### out of luck. You never should have had access to that tag as it doesn't exist. Technology, am I right?"

So basically everyone else was right, and I am not going to Suffield this year on an elk hunt.
 
Also there is a discrepancy between what appears on my alberta relm website, and my hunting partners version (he is the one who put in for the draw). My version says that we were awarded the tag for February of 2014.... and it was awarded to us in January of 2015... 11 months after the hunt happened.... and I'm pretty sure there was no elk hunt in Suffield in Feb 2014. Also we didn't enter this draw until 2015 when it first became available to us.

All in all not impressed by the disconnect between alberta relm and fish and wildlife.
 
Your not missing out on much, it's not really a hunt and more of a cull. I've been on that base more times than I can count over the years mostly working and on a couple of the elk culls. It's a gong show to say the least. I herd a rumor that somebody's truck got shot up this year. And also the natives have been showing up very heavy in the last few hunts. It's very frustrating for a guy who has put his time in and waited for a tag for years, and these folks can just show up and go out and shoot whatever they want and as many as they want. I've literally seen trucks pulling trailers loaded with elk.
 
Funny the subsistence "hunters" all shoot several big bulls each.Too bad .............they should have to leave the heads at the gate and take the meat home.There is also a lone survivor[black wolf] the locals didn't get after a covert failed Yellowstone styled planting of a wolf pack by the Ministry.That went over like a pregnant pole vaulter with local ranchers.My son seen the wolf on his elk hunt last Feb........Harold
 
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