Howdy and Happy New Year! 

I figure I'm a little overdue on an update so here goes:

The moose hunts went very well with both of our hunters taking nice mature bulls after looking over quite a few others.  One of them took a nice 44" bull on the first day and then stuck around and took a nice chocolate bear too.  It'll be time to apply for moose tags again in just a few months so if you're interested let me know.

The deer season was brutally slow.  Little or no snow and a gigantic bright moon with clear skies during the peak of the rut combined to make the whitetail hunting extremely frustrating.  There were clearly a lot of extremely nice bucks out there but they were spread out and very nocturnal.  If there's a silver lining to this year's miserable season it's that most of the mature bucks survived it and will be around next year.  We had some excellent hunters in camp this year and over half of them have rebooked for next year despite the lack of deer cooperation this year.  I appreciate their positive attitudes and faith and look forward to seeing them well rewarded with massive bucks next November!

We had our first elk hunter in December.  He came for the late archery season and Dan guided him while I was guiding lion hunters.  He saw a big group of elk early in his hunt and also had a close encounter with a nice 5x5 bull but unfortunately went home empty-handed.  There is a late archery whitetail season that runs concurrently with the elk season and he nearly connected with a very nice whitetail buck as well.  What's archery hunting without a lot of close call stories!  That December archery season for either deer or elk is really a prime opportunity that I haven't done much with in the past.  I'm normally busy guiding lion hunters then but since Dan started doing an excellent job of guiding deer, elk and bear hunters for me the last couple years I would encourage you to strongly consider a hunt at that time.  By then the deer are usually pushed out of the high country, concentrated fairly well, and they've let their guard down and seem less wary.  We saw a lot of extremely nice bucks during this season.

It also seems like we're seeing more and better mule deer bucks every year.  In the past I've not been very encouraging to those of you who have expressed interest in mule deer but I'm changing my tune a little now.  It would still be a physically demanding hunt and you still wouldn't see lots of deer, but if you are in good physical condition I think you'd have a reasonable chance of tagging a good buck.

I'm about halfway through the lion season now and so far it couldn't have gone better.  We had a group of 3 hunters (father and 2 sons) in December and all 3 took nice lions.  I've had one more hunter since then and he also took a darn big tom.  I have 3 more lion hunters still coming this winter. 

I'm hoping to get a few elk hunters booked for the coming fall.  Dan and I have some good spots scouted out and we're looking forward to putting hunters on some bulls.  If you're feeling lucky give us a try and we'll do our best to put a bull in your sites.

Otherwise all's well here.  Cherry and the kids are doing great.  The kids are feeling pretty sorry for themselves because they had to start back to school yesterday but Cherry doesn't seem too sad about it!  Jake got his first buck this year as well as filling an extra doe tag. 

Today I got the website updated with pictures from the moose, deer and lion hunts just mentioned.  The new pictures are all on page 14 of the photo gallery. 

Hope you're all having a great winter and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

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