Someone who’s leading a lifestyle many would think is long gone: in this part of “A Conversation with an Outfitter” series we’re talking with Jake Driedger, owner of Solotrapper Wilderness Adventures. Jake runs traplines in Alberta, and, as an outfitter, gives you a chance to experience Canadian wilderness.

Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where do you operate, and what animals do you mostly guide for?

My name is Jake Driedger, a.k.a. Solotrapper, I was born and raised in Northern Alberta, and was a trapper and hunter from my earliest memories. My specialty is wolves. I conduct most of my guiding activities on registered traplines, and my stands and blinds are usually so positioned, that the hunter can see wolverine traps and lynx sets. Hunters very much enjoy seeing me harvest wolverine, lynx, pine marten and fisher in their presence.

Do you have a nickname, and if yes, how did you get it?

Jackson was one that stuck. Someone saw me enjoying the song “Billie Jean”, who doesn’t like the song Billie Jean right? Hahaha, which is a great song by the way, and I’ve been known as Jackson ever since. Not everyone knows it though.

Can you share the story of how your hunting career began, starting from your early experiences growing up to taking your first hunting client?

I was fascinated by the predators and furbearers of North America from childhood. I started trapping weasel, squirrel, beaver, pine marten and coyote before I was a teenager. With that came duck, goose and grouse hunting followed by deer and moose hunting before I reached the age of 16. Growing up in Northern Alberta afforded me all of the aforementioned opportunities essentially in my backyard. 

My guiding career started when a friend of mine, Pat Garrett, asked if I wanted to be a moose guide for him one year. There was a downturn in the economy at the time and so it fit really well for me at the time. And seeing how I was harvesting wolves every winter as a registered trapper, Pat pushed me to sell wolf hunting experiences. I landed my first wolf hunting client at the 2017/ 2018 Dallas Safari Club Convention. From there I’ve grown to selling trapline adventures, selling moose and bear hunts with leased tags as well as wolf hunts.

What were the highs and lows of your hunting and outfitter’s career?

Anyone that spends all their time outdoors chasing wildlife experiences lows regularly. But it’s like pro athletes say, “100% percent of the pucks you don’t shoot and the balls you don’t throw won’t score”. This is specifically why when I set traps and snares for wolves in particular, it compliments hunting wolves very well. In that, traps and snares do not discriminate where time is concerned. They wait patiently to perform their duty upon the wolves return, no matter how long it takes. Although this becomes a hunter specific topic, I generally do not set traps and snares for wolves until after the season’s last hunt.

Holding my .243 and having it misfire on the biggest whitetail I’ve ever laid eyes on wasn’t fun. Neither was the time when I caught three wolves on two different occasions at a trapping bait, only to see the alpha male wolf tracks getting in and out of the location without getting caught. Etc., etc., etc. 

As for the outfitter side, the Covid fiasco was brutal. I also had a nasty trapline partnership dispute, that cost me nerves to fix, and if I wouldn’t have paid thousands to get a good lawyer, I would have had my trapline taken from me. Highs for me are always when my repeat client list grows.

If your child comes to you and says “Dad, I want to be an outfitter, like you” – what would you tell him or her? 

They go with me hunting, trapping, and fishing every chance they get. Always welcome. Always encouraged. I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth in that my kids are interested in what I do. Very proud that I now see my two oldest boys go out hunting on their own.

Who are your clients? How do they choose to hunt in your particular area for that particular animal(s)?

I have clients from all over the world – not only Canada and the U.S., but also from Ukraine, Belarus, China, Iceland, and more. It’s really beneficial to have my own YouTube channel. Once the client opens up to conversation and they see where I am and what they will be surrounded with, they come. There’s nothing like being at a wolf bait at the base of a mountain, and watching Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep from your blind.

Have you ever had a hunt go hilariously wrong?

Went on two different hunts with my buddy Pat Garrett, we had the pleasure of hunting two species of rabbit not found in central Alberta. The Arctic hare in Cambridge Bay Nunavut and the Sonoran jack rabbit in Sonora Mexico. Both with .22 long rifle and .22 magnum. Open sight, archaic old guns barely held together with metal wire, screws, nails and plumbing straps and with sights all but destroyed supplied for us, by the outfitter, for small game hunting. Crouching from snow drift to snow drift and from one cactus past tumble weeds to another, joking around about how we were each guiding the other… Those were the most humorous experiences I’ve had for sure. And I managed to capture a bunch of each of those hunts on video!

For any of you who know my good buddy Pat Garrett who has an infectious, comedic personality, you can imagine how many shots we missed, sighting through tears of laughter, until we finally landed our trophy rabbits and hares. Hahaha. I’ve got more Pat Garrett stories, but I’ll leave them for another day.

 Have you ever had any funny mishaps or gear failures while hunting? 

Funny? Ok, maybe now this can sound funny, I suppose. As Solotrapper, I spend a lot of time being just that, a solo trapper, alone in the wilderness. When machines break down or become immobile, you exercise ingenuity quickly. And sometimes you walk. It’s the opposite of fun as you walk, for miles, out to where you can get the part you need and then back again. Then you arrive back to fix your machine and it’s as easy as changing a fuse…  In that case, I was forced into one day of unplanned hiking, which turned out to be something that I could have fixed and got going without the walk, oops…

 What are some of the things that many of your clients don’t know, but you wish they knew? 

I send them the gear list and rifle calibers, and tell them to bring what they are comfortable with. Some come really overpacked, same as I used to do in the past. But then, the one hunter gave my son, his guide, a set of $2,000.00 binoculars. Lol, I will haul anyone around with whatever gear they bring if that’s how generous they want to be in the end!

 Is there a hunting story that just won’t let you go? 

Hunting a wolf at my trapper’s cabin with my wife and kids present. The wolves killed an elk calf at the end of August, and I didn’t have a high powered rifle with me. Duh. So I took my Benelli shotgun with 3’ mag 000 buckshot and followed the wolf I saw into the timber. It had rained all night, and I was able to move with real stealth, as the ground and undergrowth was not crunchy at all. I walked up the ridge a hundred yards behind the cabin, did a 400-yard loop following two ridges, and then the wolf and I saw each other at  exactly the same time. I don’t imagine too many hunters take pictures of a wolf you kill 75 yards from your cabin, with your family in the picture. 

Another one is, I had never hunted black bears before I went on a polar bear hunt. In 2006 the company I was working for, took the owner and me on an all expense paid polar bear hunt. That was quite a story, to me anyway.

What other tips, perhaps something that’s obvious but nobody ever mentions, can you give to people who are considering a hunt in your area of expertise?

I would say talk to a bunch of different hunters who have dozens of years experience in the big game hunting realm to understand what it is you are getting into. As I strive to help my clients understand what experience they will be getting when coming out with Solotrapper Wilderness Adventures, the goal is always to have the client and outfitter eagerly anticipating the hunt date, having the fullest experience while present and always having satisfaction looking back and seeing the photos and the trophy you go home with.

Next in “A Conversation with an Outfitter” series:

“When Someone’s Dream Comes True, It’s One of the Most Rewarding Things”: A Conversation with an Outfitter

 An outfitter is sometimes defined as a person who makes your dream come true. But what exactly comes into it? Today we’re talking with Raymond Majerus, a Guide-Outfitter and owner of Wolverine Range Outfitters, British Columbia, Canada, who knows a bit more than most people about making dreams come true.  CONTINUE READING