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Calvin Buckler of Boneyard TV  He knows how to hunt B&C Canadian Whitetails

Welcome to another edition of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and we’re going to head north of the border. And we’re going to head up and chat with a gentleman’s name of Calvin Buckler. Yup, that’s for sure. And Calvin is one heck of an interesting guy. We’ve been spending a couple of minutes on the warm-up. And he is the co host and producer of the Boneyard TV. And like everybody in Canada, he knows where the big bucks are and he won’t tell me either. So maybe we can draw some good secrets out of Calvin while he’s on the show. So Calvin, welcome to the show. Calvin Buckler of Boneyard TV – He knows how to hunt B&C Canadian Whitetails

Calvin: Hello. Thanks for having me.

BTW….Hey, if you like what we’re throwing at you in this podcast, make sure you visit our Facebook page for more of this awesome stuff. We post some cool links to free things on there all the time, and Jay Scott sometimes posts some things that…well you’ve just got to see them for yourself. We’re on Facebook at Whitetail Rendezvous, so check it out.”

Bruce: You’re welcome. You were telling me in the warm-up that you’re from about 100 miles or an hour west of Edmonton. Is that pretty much where you’re at?

Calvin: That’s correct, yeah.

Bruce: And what kind of country is that? Is that hill, brush? Or is that agriculture, river bottom? Help me understand the type of terrain you’re hunting in.

Calvin: As you come out of the city, it’s pretty much flat land. There are some hills and stuff like that, but we are…like from my house, I’m probably three hours from the foothills of the mountains like Jasper National Park with the Rocky Mountains. I’m about 10 miles from a river, so the terrain changes but it’s fairly flat. It’s boreal forest, so there’s a mixed forest of spruce and pine and poplars. And the whitetails really like the poplars when you get further up north toward Swan Hills.

Bruce: For anybody that hasn’t hunted north of the border, tell us what they should really expect if they’re hunting, I’m going to say, early season, mid-season, or during a rut. Those three seasons, what should a person expect to encounter weather-wise and deer behavior-wise?

Calvin: Well, I found early…like ours, my season starts September 1st. And if you can get them in that first week, if you can pattern them, you got a chance. As soon as they seem to lose their velvet, it’s super tough. There’s more bush around that. Once you get towards Red Deer, that’s the middle of the province. Then there’s less trees, the terrain changes, and it’s big open fields. But the deer usually aren’t as big once you get further south. There are some big bucks down there. But [inaudible 00:02:29] that you’re hunting, there’s some big chunks of bush mile by mile, and you’re sitting on the edge of that or trying to get into there and hunt them. And it can be really difficult with a bow. Whereas once you get into November where the rifle season usually starts in my zone, because there’s a bunch of different zones, then you have a better chance with a rifle because you don’t have to be so close, obviously, right? So you hunt the food sources. That’s what I do.

Bruce: Now, what are your peak rut times?

Calvin: Usually it starts around November 7th and goes until the 15th or the 20th. So my brother and I got one on the last day. That was, oh, I don’t know. It was a big one. It was a good one, grossed 184, just a beautiful old buck. And it was the last day. He was coming across the field at last light with his head down, and he was looking for a hot doe or on a hot doe. But usually that’s 7th until the 15th is when they’re really moving. You can have a good chance of seeing a big buck that usually you’d never see.

Bruce: Well, thanks for that background. So everybody that lives in what I say the lower 48…we’re in the US. We got 37 or so states that…we have good hunt-able populations of whitetail. A lot of guys that I talk to, they want to get up north. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to bring somebody in like yourself, Calvin, and talk about whitetails in the north.

But let’s talk right now. Let’s talk about one thing you’re really passionate about is through filming, you’re sharing the adventure and trying to put the people right in the blind or the trail or standing on a [inaudible 00:04:24] or glassing out of your truck or a hillside. Let’s talk about that right now. Let’s talk about Boneyard TV, how it started, why it started, and what your goal is in transferring information to your audience.

Calvin: Yeah. It started out a bit in spite because I had a…a Canadian show asked me to use one of my songs on my solo album. I had two albums with a metal band when I was a young lad. And then I did a solo album and it didn’t work out. A buddy asked us to film for them. We bought a camera. I filmed 160-inch 4-point whitetail. It was a giant. At 20 yards, he couldn’t get a shot. And he looked at it and said he didn’t care. And I was blown away. Jason and I were just like…we thought we had video gold. And then we just thought, “Well, let’s start our own.”

This is our fourth season. It kind of progressed into we’re trying to teach people to get out of the truck and into the field. Because that’s what gives hunters a bad name around here is these guys driving around,

This is our fourth season. It kind of progressed into we’re trying to teach people to get out of the truck and into the field. Because that’s what gives hunters a bad name around here is these guys driving around, pounding them out the window. And they just don’t care where they shoot them, right? They just will shoot wherever they figure. And it’s weird how a grown man that’s usually sensible, if they see big antler, they just lose all common sense and they will shoot.

Bruce: Now, what is your DNR or your field…whoever’s in charge of your critters up there, the crown, what is their take on this “tradition” of hunting thousands of acres out of the pickup truck?

Calvin: Well, they don’t mind. It’s just part of it. You get up north towards Swan Hills. It’s huge chunks of bush, and it’s just leaf roads, like oilfield roads. And it’s legal to shoot off them and all that. But it’s the guys that are shooting stupidly…there’s a house there or whatever, around these farmers, that they really frown on. What I think is the worst thing is when you’re shooting out the window, guys think they missed. I found so many dead deer. You see the birds. You walk in. There’s a nice buck and somebody will probably…either they drove away because they were scared they were going to get caught or they thought they missed. Because there’s not one drop of blood, but that don’t mean nothing. Lots of times you hit them when they’re laying there dead.

Because everybody thinks it’s just so easy to kill a big one and it’s not.

With the show, we’re trying to promote to get out of the truck and into the field and experience nature, not just kill a big one. Because everybody thinks it’s just so easy to kill a big one and it’s not.

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