Hunt Prices

Prices are listed below in U.S. funds for 2008 and do NOT include 2.5% GST.

* Mixed bag hunts are for any 2 of Moose, Caribou, or Goat.
  If a 3rd animal is shot, there is an additional trophy fee of $4,000

** Grizzly Bear the trophy fee on all hunts is $6,500

Wolf - No charge, but if you shoot and miss, you owe our beer fund $100

Prices are listed below in U.S. funds for 2009 and do NOT include 2.5% GST.

* Mixed bag hunts are for any 2 of Moose, Caribou, or Goat.
  If a 3rd animal is shot, there is an additional trophy fee of $4,000

** Grizzly Bear the trophy fee on all hunts is $6,500

Wolf - No charge, but if you shoot and miss, you owe our beer fund $100

ALL INCLUSIVE PRICING
If you want to leave all the details of your hunt to us, we have an all inclusive package on each of the hunts listed above. As well as the services in our usual pricing the all inclusive has in addition:

• Economy air fare from the nearest major airport to your home to Dease Lake and return.
• Overnight hotel accommodations in Smithers .
• Round trip charter floatplane flight from Dease Lake to Turnagain Lake and return.
• Your hunting licences.
• Crating and shipping of your trophies to Blaine , Washington .
• Cancellation insurance for your trip
• Gratuities for Guides and Wranglers

 If you are flying:

Northern Thunderbird Air's flights from Smithers to Dease Lake operate Monday, Wednesday and Friday using a Beechcraft 1900 torboprop. Since 2002 they have not missed a flight during the hunting season and have almost always been on time. When you step into the small Dease Lake terminal a BCS representative will be there, often your outfitter.

If you are driving:

The Cassiar highway, #37, is one of the most scenic drives anywhere in the world. From Smithers, the driving time is about 7 hours but the highway is being improved all the time and there are construction delays on occasion. It's probably a good idea to fill up at the Kitwanga junction where 37 leaves Highway 16. Bell Irving Two, (Bell 2) the second crossing of the Bell Irving River has a great coffee shop, reasonably priced fuel and is about halfway to Dease Lake. Tatogga Lake is another good spot to stop for fuel and coffee. When you arrive in Dease Lake there is an obvious intersection with main street, Boulder Avenue , where there is a large Super Valu grocery store and service station. Turn left here and go to where the street ends. Turn left again and make your way to the airport

In either event: We will meet you at the Dease Lake airport. Due to weather and other factors such as delays on earlier flights this is a fluid schedule. That's what you get with floatplanes! Your hard gun cases can be left here, either in the office, our horse trailer or your vehicle. The flight into Turnagain Lake takes about 25 minutes and you'll see some of the moose and caribou country of the western part of our area on the way in.

On arrival at Turnagain Lake the crew will be there waiting so once the plane is tied up just hop off the plane and clear the dock so we can get a quick turnaround. The coffee will be on, some lunch ready and we'll show you to your cabins. You'll have time to look around and get settled in, then we'll head down to the rifle range to check your rifles. We have a very good range set up at 100 yards. A reminder here that your rifle should be sighted in for 200 yards, our average shot but know where it hits at 300 yards, just in case.

We'll get licences and final payments straightened out and there may even be some time for a bit of fishing before supper. We will also give you a canvas bedroll and a duffel bag to pack everything in. And a forewarning here; our guides are brutal in getting your gear as light as they can so they can take more of their own stuff. If you showed up in your boots and underwear with just a rifle and a toothbrush, they'd probably ask you to cut the ends off your bootlaces! If you lay your sleeping bag out flat inside the bedroll, then lay your extra clothes on top and roll this up tightly; it makes a nice top pack for the packhorse. The duffel bag can hold your extra pair of boots and the like and will probably be placed in a packbox.

We usually have supper around 7:30.After supper we'll give you a safety talk, an idea of the hunt plan and guide/hunter match ups. Sack time is your choice, most of the crew usually heads there around 10 as the next morning will be busy and early for them, more relaxed for you.

Our horses range freely most of the time but the day you are flying in we round them up and keep them in a fenced area near camp so they are ready to go on the first morning of your hunt. The guides and wranglers will breakfast about 6 and then start packing. Hunters will eat a bit later, take their nicely tied bedrolls up to the tack shed and then have saddles, scabbards and stirrup lengths set for the ride to the hunting area. All of this takes time but we generally are on the trail by 10. The trail ride varies depending on what you are hunting. Our farthest sheep camp is a 2-day ride; our closest moose camp is about a 3-hour ride. It is difficult to get much hunting in when you are travelling with a big string of horses but we have on occasion taken a nice trophy on the trail and we're always looking.

When we arrive at our hunting spot we quickly put up the wall tents and stoves as well as try to organize the camp a bit. Often the wrangler and one of the guides will stay and do this while the other guide takes the 2 hunters out for an evening hunt and some scouting.

On a normal hunting day the wrangler is up early and brings in the horses we'll need for the day. The guides usually split the duties of one making breakfast and the other the lunches. You can tell when things go right as you'll be riding out of camp around 7:30 – 8:00. You'll know they didn't go right if there's a pm after those numbers instead of an am. We have a lot of good horse feed in our area and we supplement with oats, especially in September and October. Our horses are turned loose at night with hobbles and bells and for the most part we know where they'll be. On occasion though, they'll have a mind to do something different, maybe because the mosquitoes are bad or maybe because a grizzly wanders by or maybe just because they're horses and they do what they want and it will cause a late start. It's not common, only happened to me once in 2003 and not at all in 2004 but it can happen.

When sheep or goat hunting, horses generally get you to timberline and are tied there for the day but they sure are a welcome sight at the end of the day when they save you an hour or more walking back to camp. There's a lot of hiking involved in our sheep hunt, generally you might ride 3 hours and climb for 7-8. Goat hunting doesn't usually involve quite so much hiking and we often don't start climbing until the goats are spotted. Not so with sheep. They are as well camouflaged as any North American animal and tend to find the high, lonesome places so you will have to search hard for them. Which means not only lots of hiking but long hours of glassing as well.

The moose and caribou hunts involve a lot more riding and less walking. The routine is usually to try to get to a good vantage point and do lots of glassing. When the moose are rutting a good call will often get them coming to you and the excitement really starts then. Our moose country is quite open in places and you can usually position yourself to take advantage of the moose's movement but they often find a way to surprise you and you need to pay special attention to the wind.

On any species you are hunting, once the shootin', hand shakin' and picture makin' is done the work starts for your guide. We will cape your sheep, goat life size if you like and the same goes for grizzly. We'll shoulder cape your moose or caribou but if you want a life size of one of them you better have warned us in advance. In which case we'll have probably sent you to our competitors! By law we must take all the edible portions (except on grizzly) and that is quite a backpack load for a guide with a sheep or a goat. It's a heck of a load for a packhorse with caribou and it will take 2 horses to carry a boned out moose with cape and antlers.

The day after an animal is shot will usually be spent in handling it, especially in the case of antlered game. We salt the capes in camp and bag and hang the meat to be packed back to Turnagain Lake .

Very often, on our sheep hunts especially but also occasionally on other game we will spike out away from the base camp we've set up. If we can go by horseback we can take a pretty comfortable camp but if we backpack we go light and basic. We normally plan to be gone a couple of nights and if we have no luck we'll come back to base camp, re-supply and try another spot. Even if we're only spiking out 2-3 hours from base camp that saves you 4-6 hours of travelling and gives more hunting time

Hunt Prices

Prices are listed below in U.S. funds for 2008 and do NOT include 6% GST.

* Mixed bag hunts are for any 2 of Moose, Caribou, or Goat.
If a 3rd animal is shot, there is an additional trophy fee of $4,000

** Grizzly Bear the trophy fee on all hunts is $6,500

Wolf - No charge, but if you shoot and miss, you owe our beer fund $100

ALL INCLUSIVE PRICING
If you want to leave all the details of your hunt to us, we have an all inclusive package on each of the hunts listed above. As well as the services in our usual pricing the all inclusive has in addition:

• Economy air fare from the nearest major airport to your home to Dease Lake and return.
• Overnight hotel accommodations in Smithers .
• Round trip charter floatplane flight from Dease Lake to Turnagain Lake and return.
• Your hunting licences.
• Crating and shipping of your trophies to Blaine , Washington .
• Cancellation insurance for your trip
• Gratuities for Guides and Wranglers