2023 Whitetail Season Summary
Greg Lavoie, Owner, Chaparral Hunting Adventures…
Our 2023 whitetail fall season, of course, starts at the end of October, it was our fifth season owning Chaparral and it was, I think it was a success, for the simple fact is, we’re running a management program and my goal is to be a place where people can come and have the opportunity at hunting a true Saskatchewan Giant. In 2023 we didn’t kill a lot of deer but we killed quality deer. So our Management program is definitely working. You know I’m really excited and looking forward to 2024 and 2025 and and so on, because it’s going to get better and better every year.
What tells me our Management program is working, number one having the right people, clients, friends people that keep on coming back in place. Killing bigger deer, our average score is going up. In 2019 our average score was was 138. Our average score last year was 153. I want that score to be in the in the 160s. So just the numbers, the numbers show that it’s working. You know Mother Nature obviously, everyone knows knows it’s no secret, Mother Nature has a play in that but she give us a, she dealt us a good hand last last winter so that’s going to really help us.
Trail cameras is a big part of our of our game. You know, some days, I wonder if trail cameras should be outlawed but it’s definitely part of the game. We have trail cameras on every single bait site plus we have some trail cameras on scrape lines, stuff like that. You know we’re we’re watching those cameras all the time. You know the one thing about trail cameras is they just give us a snapshot of what’s in that little pocket. I always tell guys you know of course it’s a great tool it tells us what we’re seeing there but it doesn’t tell us everything. We always get those surprise deer. Twice it’s happened to us we harvest deer that we never seen on camera. One of them was 174, beautiful deer, so cameras is a great tool, we for sure use them but it’s it doesn’t tell you everything.
So what we do, to decide who goes, for Bear and Deer, for who goes to which stand, you know we of course we’re using a trail cameras, our intel, my myself and my guides we’re checking cameras all the time so we know which which bait sites we’re going to hunt. For example if we’re hunting deer, we got eight guys in camp, we got eight stands picked for that first day. We take those eight stands, they’re all named, throw them in a hat. We draw cards, whatever we decide that day, it’s youngest / oldest picks the cards and so high card picks out of the hat first and it’s luck of the draw where you go. I mean of course we pick the the best bait sites that we have at that particular time so they’re all good spots. But there’s no favoritism. If it’s your first year here or if it’s your 10th year here you get a fair shot, you get a fair shot at every stand, so I believe that’s a huge huge point in what we do because everybody’s here for the same reason.
I’m going to say in oh it would have been 2022 I believe, one of my clients was sitting on a bait. It was cold, it was cold enough, and he was hunting a big deer that had just shown up and he, it was I think about 4:00 in the day, I think it was day four of a, no day five of a six- day hunt. He texts me I think I got him. Perfect I’m not far away so I started heading towards him and he was in a ground blind at this particular spot. I drive into the ground blind and he’s like, he’s just at the bait, he’s at the bait! I’m like, you missed him? Yeah yeah I missed him. Okay, so I said, well I’ll head out of here. I’ll leave and hopefully he’ll come back. Okay, so the deer had come in once, missed it. Deer come in again and I bumped it out. So I leave and I was gone maybe 10 minutes. I got another text, I got him this time! So anyway that I think was, you know, I mean it was it was a true Saskatchewan Giant. This guy had hunted Saskatchewan, I think it was his 12th year, but adrenaline you know and excitement got him. He was lucky enough to hold that together and lucky enough for that deer to come back and he ended up getting him.
The 2024 season I think, and predict, that it’s probably going to be Chaparrals’s best season. The reason I say that is, you know, season six of of the management program. Mother Nature dealt us a good hand finally after four or five bad Winters you know not bad winters but bad enough for for the deer, I mean, you know they survived it but when they come out of it in lower shape or lower weight, takes them longer to recover. Long story short 2024 I think is going to be a breakout year. We’ll start running trail cameras usually in mid September we start putting them out. Reason we do that a little bit later in the year is we put them out earlier and you really don’t see a lot until the deer start to move around a little bit, when the food starts to get a little scarce.
We actually have our return base for clients is is is actually pretty good. It’s getting better. I guess as far as bear hunting goes and deer hunting we have, oh I’m going to say probably 40% of our guys do both. They’ll come with us in the spring and they’ll come back in the fall again. We have more return base clients on the whitetail side. I think maybe there’s more more crazy whitetail, passionate whitetail hunters out in the world than than there are black bear hunters.
Steve Bartlett, Whitetail and Fishing Guide with Chaparral Hunting Adventures…
We had a good year. I mean we had warm weather which kind of affected a bit but we still shot some really nice bucks and lots we’ve seen lots of deer and I think it’s only going to get better this year I think we’re in for a good year this year just because of the winter we had last year.
Well they go the extra mile there they’re always willing to get out, bait more, check more, check cameras. We’re willing to go that extra mile to to make sure that their customers are successful.
He’s comfortable because everybody that shows up here, if they’ve missed something, they haven’t brought something, we find it for them. If they’re, they want to change a stand site, Greg will, he’ll talk them into maybe stay in one more night, and definitely move them but they know, down the road, I think they’re very confident in the people that are running the operation, that’s Greg and Shelly and all the guides, the cook, that they want success.
First time hunter, they’re little bit green, and I mean they want to be successful like everybody else but they’re a little bit green and I mean you got to guide them a little bit more. Coach them a bit, you know, stay quiet, hang tough, you know it’ll happen, you got lots of time, don’t worry about getting in a big rush. Patience again is a big thing.
It’s not an extra, but the food is phenomenal. The equipment that he uses is top notch. We don’t have breakdowns and if we do we get them fixed but it’s very seldom. Tree stands are like, there’s there’s a lot of people comment on the tree stands, how comfortable they are. You got people coming back four, five, six years in a row, sometimes twice a year, bear hunting and deer hunting, so that pretty much tells you there’s there’s a good thing going on here. So that change room is huge and the gear, you don’t have all that gear going back and forth, them guys really appreciate that change room, that’s a big thing. They comment about that lots. Skinnin Shack, like that’s a big place to be when somebody shoots a big buck that skinnin shack, everybody’s right around there, it’s just like a campfire sometimes.
They’re seasoned hunters but they don’t see the size of deer that we have, body-wise, rack-wise. They’re astonished by the number of deer they see. It’s the wilderness that we got. It’s the wilderness is like, you hear a lot of comments from guys, that you know we’re lucky to have what we got, We’ve got some pretty vast land and you know, I was talking to a guy today, and he said, I see 40 to 50 hunters a day when I’m hunting in Michigan. Like there’s that many people in such a small area, right. The vastness of what we have is huge for them guys too. You know, like I say there’s so many people that return all the time you get to be more of a friend. You see it like today, Mike you know, he says, you come here as strangers and you leave with friends, more friends, right. So it’s a big deal. It’s kind of a family thing after you’re done almost. They get together and it’s a good bunch of guys.