Hello Everyone,

Hope you're all in the midst of a very successful fall.  Due to a lack of salesmanship skills I've found myself with no hunters this week, despite it being one of the best weeks of the whitetail season.  I'd be out there myself right now instead of writing this newsletter but a lot of wind and rain convinced me my time was better spent under a roof for the moment! 

I thought I'd take this opportunity to bring you all up to date with everything here.  As I mentioned in the first newsletter we purchased a new place with a bunkhouse that needed a lot of finishing.  Due to a larger load of forestry work than I'd planned I didn't get it completely finished, but it is completely liveable.  Right now it's got 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a small living area complete with heat, lights, shower, sink, toilet, beds, TV, microwave and insulated and sheet-rocked walls...the basic necessities.  What it doesn't have is mud, tape, texture or paint on the interior walls, interior doors (although I rigged up a temporary solution for the bathroom door), or totally carpeted and vinyled floors.  We've had 2 groups of hunters stay there so far and they both seemed very happy with the set-up.  In late winter or early spring I'll get back to work and hope to have it pretty well finished for the spring bear season. 

Unfortunately no mighty bucks crashed to the ground due to one of our arrows this fall, but we did have some excitement.  I really only had one regular archery hunter and he was looking for a 120+ buck.  He saw bucks that met his criteria each of the first 4 days of his hunt but wasn't able to get a shooting opportunity due to one or the other of the many Murphy's Laws of Bowhunting.  The last 2 nights of his hunt did not give him an opportunity for the buck he was looking for and he had to go home with an unfilled tag.  I allowed one of my guides to hunt from one of my stands one night and he missed what he described as "The biggest buck I've ever seen in my life" twice!  I told him to stick to guiding and let somebody else handle the shooting.  I also did a trade with a local friend and the first night he was in the stand he missed a decent 4x4 twice (sheesh, you can lead a horse to water....).  The next night he made a great shot on a small 3x3 and tagged his first archery deer.  I did some archery hunting myself and passed on a handful of bucks, including a couple in the 120 to 130 range, hoping for a really good one.  I never released an arrow but had a good time.  On one of the more memorable nights I took my sons Jake (8) and Kevin (4) with me.  We had 3 bucks come in through some thick stuff immediately behind us.  Two of the bucks appeared to be in the 140+ class.  They were within 20 yards of the stand for at least 10 minutes before they finally got nervous and left without giving me a shot.  It was one of those situations that demanded absolute silence and stillness.....a near impossible feat for an eight year old and a four year old.  It was exciting though and we'll all remember it for a long time.

I finally got my first moose hunting client this fall and we had a great time and learned a few things.  It's a long season that begins August 30th and goes until November 23rd.  I thought we'd be better off waiting for weather to cool, leaves to drop and rutting to begin but Larry (the moose hunter) felt like he should be there early in the season.  I didn't think it was a real big deal so we compromised by splitting a 10 day hunt into two five-day trips, the first in September, the second in late October.  During the September stint Larry passed on an average bull but we really had a hard time finding many moose.  He was visibly concerned at the apparent lack of moose here.  That all changed when he returned in October.  He ended up shooting a nice 37" bull on the third morning of his hunt (it was the 4th bull we saw that morning).  It's a good average bull for this area but I think we could have done considerably better if we'd skipped September and concentrated our efforts later in the season.  I've seen several more absolute giant bulls this fall.....one of which looked like he must have wandered down from Alaska!  I was looking at him through a spotting scope and he was facing straight away from me.  His antlers were over 3 times wider than his butt!

During the first week of November I had my first group of mule deer hunters in quite awhile.  I scare most mule deer hunters away with my descriptions of physically challenging hunting in difficult terrain, but these Virginia boys said that was just what they were looking for.  Some blizzardy conditions in the high country made the first couple days of hunting unproductive but when the weather improved so did the hunting.  All 4 hunters tagged a buck and a good time was had by all.  Although some bigger bucks were seen, none of them ended up on our meatpole.  That didn't seem to matter to this group, they were just happy to see the beautiful country they saw and shoot their first mule deer bucks.

I had my first 2 rifle whitetail hunters of the year the next week, a father and son from Michigan.  It was pre-rut, full moon, and deer activity was pretty slow.  These guys hung in there though, hunted hard, and were well rewarded.  Steve (the son) shot a very pretty 5x5 one morning and his dad Ed shot a big 4x6 that grosses around 150 that night.  As I mentioned, I don't have any hunters this week and I have only one hunter for next week.  If he or I manage to tip over a big one I'll let you know about it in the next newsletter.

I think that about fills in all the gaps between the last newsletter and now.  I didn't include any photos with this e-mail because I sympathize with those of you that have slow internet connections like myself.  But I have updated the website with photos of all the animals I've mentioned.  If you're interested in booking a hunt, spring bear, archery deer and rifle deer are all still fairly open for 2004.  My Idaho lion hunts are booked for 2004 and mostly booked for 2005 so you'll want to plan ahead if you're interested in that.  Montana lion hunts for December 2004 are still available.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.  And if you'd rather not receive future mailings (probably a couple/year) just let me know and I'll remove you from the list.

Good Hunting,

Clint Gray
Buckshot Outfitting
208-267-3885
www.buckshotoutfitting.com