E-bikes offer a silent and speedy way to access remote hunting areas. Are they right for you?

With all the hype around electric vehicles, or EVs, these days, e-bikes have captured the attention of many outdoor enthusiasts. Along with their promise of a quiet, durable and easy ride, e-bikes are also fast and powerful enough to haul heavy loads, opening up a whole new world of hunting opportunities. Three years ago, my wife, Heather, and I picked up a pair Canadian-made Vamoose e-bikes. We’d heard stories of hunters using them to access remote spots quickly and quietly, so we decided it was time to try them ourselves.

During our first season, from the earliest warm-weather September hunts through to frigid November days on the deer stand, these silent marvels were a total game changer. While there are some limitations with a battery-powered bike, we found the hunting benefits to be far greater. If you’re thinking about getting an e-bike, here are the main factors you should consider.

HUNTING ADVANTAGES

Since getting our bikes three years ago, Heather and I have used them in our home province of Alberta to hunt moose along aspen ridges, antelope in the grasslands and mule deer in the badlands. As hunters, one of our goals is to get into our spots as quickly and quietly as possible, without alerting the animals. I can’t think of a more efficient way to do that than with e-bikes (also see “E-bike restrictions”).

Each morning during our moose hunt when it was 45 minutes before legal light, we’d unload our bikes from the truck, press the handlebar power button to illuminate the tiny LCD screen, and head off into the darkness. With a gentle twist of the throttle, we’d roll away with barely more than a low-pitch hum, swiftly and quietly riding into our hunting area. A lot of moose habitat is boggy, but the area we hunt has a mix of bogs, hills and aspen ridges, with a long cutline on high ground leading deep into prime habitat. Covering that distance usually took a half-hour of hiking; with our e-bikes, it took less than five minutes.

E-bikes are fast and powerful enough to haul heavy loads, opening up many new hunting opportunities

If you’ve hunted antelope in the prairie grasslands, you know it’s all about glassing long distances, playing the wind and using the topography to plan your approach. Go on foot, and you can kill hours covering kilometres of grassland and coulees trying to get close to game. Not so with e-bikes. I can’t tell you how many times we spotted a buck working does several kilometres away, only to unload our bikes and quietly speed across the vast landscape to reach them. The performance of these bikes really is amazing, especially during that kind of early-season, warm-weather hunt.

As for our November mule deer hunt in the badlands, we worked the bikes hard, running over countless cacti, pounding through major holes and hitting rocks. They also passed the ultimate test, navigating over hills and through coulees in five inches of snow, then hauling out a bike trailer loaded with a 200-pound deer.

Considering all the possibilities, it’s hard to deny the value of an e-bike. I know a growing number of hunters who already use them year round for a variety of outdoor activities. I also know several anglers who are planning to use e-bikes to access tough-to-reach water. For hunting alone, the applications are seemingly endless, from checking trail cameras and bear bait sites to spot-and-stalk hunting and even late-spring shed hunting.