Thread: Hi from Alberta, Canada

Originally Posted by Inder

Welcome to the forum CanuckHunterAB,

Have an aunt and her family in Calgary, she is been pestering me to visit her, maybe one of these days. It certainly is beautiful country up there. Please tell us more about your tags system and hunting on crown land for an outsider.

-Inder

It would be well worth the visit for you, and shoot me a message if you ever do plan on coming this way. Always happy to show people around some of the hidden gems around here!

As far as tags and crown land go here, its pretty dismal for a non-resident. All big game requires a tag on crown land, much of which is over the counter......the only exceptions to that for big game are Black Bears and Cougar on private land, on private land those animals can be shot without without a tag, bag limit or season, but do require a tag for crown land hunting. The issue for non-residents is that all big game hunting by a non resident requires either a guide (which is very expensive in AB) or a hunter host who is a resident. Those are the only ways for a non-resident to hunt big game. As a resident, you can hunter host a non-resident Canadian from another province yearly, or a non-resident "alien" every 3 years. Waterfowl hunting is a different story, non-resident aliens can come hunt waterfowl basically anywhere, as it is federally regulated. Alberta is not friendly to non-resident opportunities for big game though. I have hosted a couple guys from the US, one from Australia and one from Poland over the years. Its easy to get the hunter host license, its just something that can only be done every 3 years.

I will say though that if you find a resident host, the opportunities are pretty darn good. Most guys who've been around here for a while, and especially those of us that grew up on farms, have access to ALOT of private land in addition to the hundreds of thousands of square km of crown. In the right areas, you could hunt rifle bull elk, rifle whitetail, rifle black bear, archery moose and archery mule deer concurrently....along with bonus wolves/coyotes. The area I grew up in and still have land at, by Peace River, there is great hunting for all the above within an hour radius. The only bugger is non-resident aliens cant hunt sheep....we can hunt trophy bighorn on over the counter tags. Its a great place to live for hunting, tough place to visit without a connection to host or fairly deep pockets depending on what type of tags you have in your bag lol.

Hope that helps!