Moose 2010Hello, Tomorrow is the beginning of the application period for an Idaho moose tag. You have until April 30th to complete the application. Fish and Game made some big changes to the moose seasons again last year which makes it tougher to predict what drawing odds will be for any given season/tag. The majority of the tags are in a long season from 9/15-12/1, with additional tags in an early season (10/1-10/14) and a late season (11/1-11/14). My outfitting territory includes parts of Units 1-1, 1-2, 1-4 and 2. I would avoid the Unit 2 hunt simply because the hunting and odds of drawing a tag are better in the other areas. All 3 areas in Unit 1 are excellent moose areas. We live in Area 1-2 and 1-4 begins just 100 yards from here so they are the simplest to hunt logistically. They give the most tags for 1-1 and it's only about a 45 minute drive. If I were applying for a tag myself I would be equally happy with a tag in any of these areas. Trying to come up with a strategy for which hunt to apply for is tricky. Drawing odds will be lowest for the long season because most local hunters will apply for that. So you may want to avoid that unless you need all that flexibility on when you come. The early hunt can be tough if the weather is warm and all the leaves are still on the brush. The moose would be rutting at that time which would help but we generally see more moose when we hunt later in the season. The October hunt may be a good choice for archery though. The short, late hunt is probably what I'd suggest. I think it's the best time of the season to hunt and hopefully drawing odds won't be too bad. I hesitate to give too specific a recommendation as I don't want everyone I talk to to apply for the same hunt and hurt each other's odds. The table below shows the hunts available on my outfitting territory for antlered bulls and what the odds were for each hunt last year. There were some extremely good odds! That may change this year when other applicants see how good the odds were on some of the hunts and apply for them. I'd say just look it over and pick whatever looks good to you.
If you want to apply for a cow tag your choices are much simpler: Area 1-1, hunt #3104 would be by far my first choice. Area 2, hunt #3105 would be my second choice. As far as the mechanics of applying for a tag go, you must first purchase an Idaho hunting license and then you can apply for the tag. The following link will take you to a page with the application worksheet as well as links to purchase the hunting license: http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/apps/ch/apply.cfm The application deadline is April 30th. Results of the draw will be out by at least June 10th, and usually it's considerably earlier than that. In addition to the regular drawings Idaho has two drawings per year for superhunts. They have individual drawings for deer, elk, moose and pronghorn, as well as a superhunt combo which has tags for all 4. The superhunt tag is good for any open hunt in Idaho. Odds are not great in this drawing but almost every year I guide a moose hunter that has drawn one so there's definitely hope. It's a raffle-type drawing and a person can purchase as many chances as they want with the first ticket costing $6 and every additional ticket costing $4 for the single species tags. It is not necessary to purchase an Idaho hunting license to enter the superhunt drawing. Tickets must be received by 5/31 for the first drawing and 8/10 for the second drawing. The second drawing comes so late in the year that there are usually quite a few less tickets in the hat. For more information, or to get the ticket order form you can go here: http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/hunt/superhunt/
Let me know if you have any questions and Good Luck!
Clint Gray |
Newsletter 28 2-8-2010Howdy Again! There are 8 days left in the lion and bobcat season and I'm still hoping to get the kids out cat hunting for a couple days but I think the 2009-10 cat guiding season is over for me. In 30 years of chasing hounds that were chasing cats, this season consistently had the worst conditions I've ever seen. While other parts of the country have been getting hammered, it seems that it forgot to be winter here which made every hunt a struggle. Lots of bare ground, rain, and when it wasn't raining, where you could still find snow it was often frozen up so solid that a cat wouldn't make a track all combined to make very challenging conditions for the dogs and I. On the plus side there seemed to be quite a few lions out there this winter...the trick was getting them caught. I took a total of 7 lion hunters this winter and we killed 5 lions. Four of the lions were good toms and one was an adult female. One of the successful lion hunters also took a bobcat. The two guys that did not get lions at least had some excitement. We did tree a small lion for one of them which he chose not to take (understandably). We spent most of the other guy's hunt trying to catch up with a big tom whose tracks we were finding pretty consistently but that we just couldn't seem to catch in the rainy conditions. I also had a bobcat hunter that we managed to catch a nice male for. In a normal year I would be a little disappointed going 5 for 7 on lions but given the conditions this year it could easily have been worse. The lion hunts for next year are going quickly, I expect to be fully booked within the next month or so. Next up is spring bear. It's shaping up to be a very early spring but it is northern Idaho so I wouldn't place my bet yet. I still have several openings available for the first 2 weeks of May. The lack of winter that caused me so many lion hunting headaches this year was good news for the deer. Normally at this time of year they're compressed into the low elevations which increases predation, stress, and disease and decreases the availability of food, but this year they are spread all over the place enjoying the good life. We should have another good deer season this fall and I do still have quite a few openings there. The moose tag application is coming up and I'll be sending out my annual email to those of you that have expressed interest regarding that. If you would like to receive that and have not yet asked me to be on that list please let me know and I'll get you added. I just got the website updated with pictures from the 2009-10 cat season. There are pictures of all of the cats we took this winter on the first page of the Mountain Lion/Bobcat photo gallery. I hope you're all having a great winter thumping coyotes, hunting sheds, pulling fish through the ice or just chasin' mama around the house and trying to stay warm! Thanks for reading and if you ever have any questions just let me know. Clint Gray Newsletter 27 12-4-2009Howdy, Well, we've gutted our last deer for the fall so I figured it was time for an update. Overall we had a good year in terms of success although hunter numbers were definitely down due to the economy. I started the season with 2 mule deer hunters. We saw good numbers of deer each day but the big ones proved elusive and we finished with just one small buck. A couple of my guides, Dan and Brad, had better luck with the mulies and each tagged good representative bucks for the area. I included pictures of them with their bucks in the deer portion of the photo gallery. Next up was an archery moose hunt. That ended well with a good representative bull on the 4th morning. Not the biggest bull in the woods at 34" wide but still a good archery trophy. I've added pictures of that bull as well as pictures of another bull I called in this fall while elk hunting in the moose section of the photo gallery. Thanksgiving week was our traditional whitetail week with 4 hunters. The week started off slow but things heated up beginning Thanksgiving morning. We took a nice 130 class 4x5 that morning. Unfortunately, one of the hunters came down with the flu and wasn't able to finish his hunt but the two remaining hunters both shot bucks on Friday. The first was a really old buck that was clearly on the downhill slide. He had great mass and brow tines but then seemed to run out of steam and grew short points. He was a 4x4 and grossed about 120. The second buck shot on Friday was a really good looking 5x5 that grossed 146. Jake, my oldest son, got into the action on Friday as well by taking a nice 4x5. I took a day off and then managed to shoot a buck myself after sitting for only about an hour. He would have been a good mid-140s buck also but apparently something bigger in the area put the boots to him and broke off most of 4 out of 11 points. There are pictures of all of these whitetails in the deer photo gallery of the website. While dropping a couple heads off at my taxidermist I got to see two local bucks he just took in, one grossing in the 170s and the other in the 190s. Incredible bucks with amazing mass and it was a good reminder that you never know what these thick north Idaho woods are hiding. I'm gearing up for lion season now which opens 12/14. The dogs are chomping at the bit. I was fortunate to be able to sell all of my lion hunts this year. I still have lots of room for spring bear hunters in May as well as for next fall's deer season. I've added pictures from this fall to the moose and deer sections of the photo gallery. All of the new pictures are at the top of the first pages. I hope you all had some memorable hunts this fall and I wish you all a Merry Christmas! Newsletter 26 10-12-2009Howdy, I figured it was about time for a quick update on Buckshot Outfitting. I believe the last newsletter was sent just before spring bear season so I'll start there. My bear hunter numbers were down considerably due to the economy so I had only 4 bear hunters this spring. Of the 4 hunters, 2 of them killed bears, although 3 additional bears were missed. It was a late spring and a lot of my usual bear haunts were still covered in snow in early May which slowed the hunting but overall it was a good season with an average of over 1 bear seen per day. With one day left in the season after the final hunters left my son Jake was able to get his first bear as well. In other news, I recently completed a renovation of the Buckshot Outfitting website. In terms of content, not much has changed. We just tried to give it a bit of a facelift and (hopefully!?) improved the format. If you haven't seen it already you can check it out at www.buckshotoutfitting.com My old original website still exists on the angelfire hosted site so if you have that old site bookmarked you'll want to change that to the new site as I won't be doing any updates there. I'm still tweaking the new site a bit but it's essentially done. If you have any comments after looking it over I'd be glad to hear them. Deer and elk season opened here on Saturday although I have no clients scheduled to arrive until the second week of November. Licenses and tags are still available if you'd be interested in a last minute hunt. I don't have any whitetail hunters scheduled for the prime week of 11/14-11/21 and it seems a shame to give those big rutting whitetail bucks that week off! We're already seeing some very cold weather, snow in the high country, with more snow forecast which is good news for the elk, mule deer and whitetail hunting. The cat hunts are almost all booked. I could take 1 or 2 more hunters sometime during the first 2 weeks of February. The spring bear hunts are wide open for anyone interested in that. I think that about does it. Thanks for reading and if you have any questions just let me know. Clint Gray Buckshot Outfitting 208-267-3885 Newsletter 25 4-30-2009Hello, This is going to be a short one. I mainly wanted to let you know that Idaho Fish and Game got a fee increase through the legislature and I just found out that it will be going into effect at 12:01 AM on May 1st (tomorrow). I know it's not much notice but I just found out myself so if you have any Idaho tags or licenses to buy for 2009 I'd get on the website or phone and get them purchased pronto. Beginning tomorrow all the licenses and tags will be 10-15% higher than they are right now. The economy has continued to slow my bookings down considerably. I could still take a couple bear hunters this May and there is plenty of room in the fall deer hunts. The lion hunts are nearly booked for next winter though. We've changed our internet service provider so this e-mail address will be going away soon. My new address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , please make the change. Have a great spring! Clint Gray |