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The Saskatchewan winters have been mild for nearly a decade now, and the white-tailed deer, with great forage and super genetics, have flourished and matured. The older bucks and fawns, usually the most susceptible to winter’s harsh realities, have been thriving. In the years to come, in the properly managed areas, hunters can expect the best seasons ever! Before jumping on a plane destined for this cold province, the whitetail hunter should understand something about Saskatchewan. The whole of the province is not accessible to the American hunter; the farmland is off limits. Is this a drawback? No. I was born and raised in Saskatchewan. I can hunt virtually anywhere in the province, including on my relatives’ farms, but I prefer to hunt the forested regions. Why? The obvious answer is, the hunting is better for big bucks in the forest country! The hunting pressure is virtually non-existent in my 800 square mile exclusive guiding area and with such a huge area in which to live, the whitetail bucks grow to maturity. Most will live and die without ever seeing or smelling a human being! Every time one of my hunters steps into their stand, the odds are better than anywhere else in the world, that they will have a world class whitetail buck walk by! HUNTING METHOD: The hunting method of choice in the forested regions of the province is stand-hunting. Saskatchewan regulations permit baiting, and this has proven to be a very effective way to concentrate the deer. The hunter should expect to sit on stand for hours at a time, all day preferably. Properly equipped, any hunter can do this. We have a few treestands, but mostly our clients hunt from insulated tower blinds or, most likely, from one of our comfortable tent blinds that can be heated if need be. The hunting season normally runs through all of November and into December with one earlier two-week rifle season at the beginning of October. FOR YOUR INFORMATION: Our experienced guides will take you to your stand every morning and pick you up every evening. Every one of our clients has a radio, and your guide will be in contact with you during the day to see if you need help or have killed a buck. Both our tower blinds and tent blinds will keep you out of the wind and comfortable. Some stands are set up farther from the baits, and shots can be long. Most stands are set for shots of 50-200 yards. Our bucks are huge-bodied, upward of 300 pounds, so I suggest rifles of .270 Win. and up. Any of the magnums are excellent choices. Our accommodations are top-notch; warm cabins and lodgings set in the Saskatchewan north. We serve excellent home-cooked meals, the showers are hot, the service always comes with a smile and, given notice, we can usually accommodate special needs diets. FACTS AND STATISTICS: Here is a brief history. Our largest buck to date was an officially scored 204 1/8 buck (B&C score) taken by 78-year-old Erwin Brown (the third-largest buck taken by all the 4,000 non-residents who hunted the province for whitetails that year). One of our clients, Mike Williams, has hunted with us three times and taken two bucks that score more than 190 B&C points. The first—a brute with drop-tines at the end of the main beams—scored 191 B&C points, and the second had three drop-tines and scored 192 7/8 B&C points. Generally, if the weather cooperates, our hunters on average take four bucks scoring over the magic 170 B&C points, but, rest assured, there are much larger bucks than these in my guiding territories! I would prefer that our clients only kill bucks that are mature, which by my definition means bucks that are at least 4 1/2 years old. Bucks in this age class will be heavy-horned and might or might not score well. They might be 4X4’s, 5X5’s or have a rack full of sticker points. They will look great on your wall because they are heavy and massive. On the low end they might score 130, but mostly they’ll score over 140 with the high well over 200 B&C points. That said our clients see many beautiful 5X5 bucks with long tines and thin antlers that are only 3 1/2 years old and that score more than 140 B&C points. These are the bucks we prefer the hunter not kill, they are the monster bucks of the future. These are not what most hunters come all the way up to Canada to kill; they are coming up to have the best chance in the world of killing a heavy-antlered B&C record-book buck! To effect the management strategy whereby the bucks with potential survive, we allow our hunters to kill any buck they want in the first three days of their hunt, but during the last three days of their hunt, they are not allowed to take a buck that does not score more than 140 B&C points unless the buck is a mature 4X4. If they kill a buck in the last four days that does not meet with this criteria, they will have to pay a $1,000 trophy fee. The head guide in camp makes the call on this and his decision is final. Our clients understand this and take great pride in our camp’s management program. It is their management program. They see the benefits over the years, and, though it might hurt to let those young pretty deer walk, ultimately it’s all for the hunter’s benefit. Odds are, over the course of six days, almost every hunter will see a buck in the 130- to 150-plus class. Last fall, one of our most experienced hunters saw 10 different bucks that he felt would score between 140 and 155! Obviously, during the course of the season, some of our hunters will have the chance to kill true world-class monster bucks while others will not. The best defense for a big buck is the hunter who tags up on a smaller buck! If you can hold out and not shoot the smaller bucks, (that's relative, because even our smaller bucks are big) the odds are good that you will have a chance at a better buck. The average number of buck sightings has been around three to seven different bucks per day. Last year, the high was 17 different bucks, sighted in one day. Several of our hunters saw 12 or more bucks on a given day. Of the deer you do see, though, there should be one that you will be proud to bring home. And there is the chance that the one you see is a giant! WHERE AND HOW: I have two distinct areas. One we call the “Northern” area and one we call the “Southern” area. Both are vast areas full of white-tailed deer. My Northern territory encompasses 600 square miles of the very best whitetail habitat in Saskatchewan. It takes several hours to drive from one end of this territory to the other. Better still, this territory is situated close to the huge Prince Albert National Park, in essence, a 1,000-square-mile "no-hunting-allowed" game preserve. Monster bucks that have never seen a human are constantly filtering out of the park into my Northern territory. This Northern guiding area is so vast; we keep our hunters in two centrally located but equally beautiful lodges; one located on the shores of Smoothstone Lake, and the other on the shores of Beaupre Creek. The deer hunting is excellent from either camp. Here is a fact you should know before you book a whitetail hunt in Saskatchewan. The topography is the key to great hunting in Saskatchewan’s northern forests; solid blocks of black spruce and muskeg will not do, and are, for the most part, marginal deer habitat. Deer need pine ridges, valleys, creeks, lakeshores, willow runs and logging cut blocks to survive and thrive. My Northern territory has all of these in abundance. I purchased this block for that reason; it is the best edge habitat I found anywhere in Saskatchewan. My Southern area is situated right on the edge of the Saskatchewan farm country and consists of nearly 200 square miles of perfect “farmland fringe” deer habitat. This territory is located directly on the borderline between where the American hunter can and cannot hunt, and our lodge there, located in the tiny village of Smeaton, is top-class. Giant bucks roam the farm fields by night and then filter back for miles through the forests during the day. South of where you will be hunting, there is only cropland and super forage for the deer. Needless to say, this prime whitetail habitat holds some truly heart-stopping bucks! Clients fly to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the Saturday before their hunt and stay there overnight in a hotel of their choice (we can supply suggestions in this regard). The next morning, Sunday, if they want, they can rent vehicles and drive up to the hunting camp, but mostly the clients are picked up by our guides. The trip is approximately 3 1/2 hours. At the end of the last day of hunting, six days later on the following Saturday, we have dinner and then drive the clients back to Saskatoon where they again stay overnight. Usually they book their flights to fly out on Sunday. If the client cannot make it to Saskatoon for pick up or if the client intends to leave camp early, after he gets his deer, it is best to fly in and rent a car and drive up to camp. We recommend this as it isn’t always possible to hire someone to drive a hunter back to Saskatoon early. Sometimes we can arrange to have a hunter driven back early, but there will be a charge of $150 USD for this service. PASSPORTS WILL BE REQUIRED TO ENTER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, STARTING IN JANUARY EVERYONE entering the United States by sea or air, beginning Jan. 8, 2007, INCLUDING US CITIZENS, will need a passport. All American hunters, planning to hunt in Canada or elsewhere in the future, should apply for a passport right away. The resultant rush for passports will possibly cause delays, so the sooner you apply, the sooner you will get your passport. Please note that as of Jan. 1, 2008, the passport rule will apply at all land border crossings as well. PRICE: Six-day hunt: $4,500 USD plus 6% goods and services tax (GST). Price includes food and guide fees, lodging and all transportation while hunting. Observers are welcome for a fee of $1000 USD. Not included: Approximately $600 USD for license, allocation, tag, non-resident hunter fee, processing fees and other government fees. Tips for guides and camp help are not included and, although it is up to the hunter, the average tip for a guide is 5-10% of the hunt cost. Although we have never exercised it, we reserve to right to add a “fuel surcharge” to cover extreme rises in fuel prices between the time you book and the hunt date. Again, though we have never exercised it, we reserve the right to adjust the price of the hunt should the US dollar drop in value against the Canadian dollar, below the exchange it was when you booked the hunt. The US dollar has dropped nearly 35% in value in the last three years and we have not raised our prices to make up the difference, but we cannot afford to subsidize further drops in the US dollar value. Please note that if you shoot at and wound an animal, efforts will be made to recover the animal, but the hunt is considered to be over. Dates: Hunt changeover days are Sundays. Hunts begin on the first Monday in November and run through the first week in December inclusive (five weeks). Choice of dates in the order of the deposits received. The best way to keep a particular date for future years is to put a deposit down for those future hunts as early as possible. We will not hold dates for anyone, unless he puts a deposit down on that hunt. Deposit: A $2,000 USD deposit is required to hold a date. This deposit is non-refundable unless the hunter can find a replacement. The balance of the hunt price is due 90 days prior to the hunting season. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL JIM BISSENDEN Office: (250) 715 1030 Cell: (250) 701 8748 Email: sales@jimshockey.com