I just finished my 2010 big game hunts last week. On our elk, antelope, and sheep hunts we were 100% success again this year. Our rifle mule deer success rate was down to 76% (13 out of 17) which is the second lowest success rate we’ve ever had. Everyone had an opportunity to take a deer but some of the hunters passed looking for a bigger buck and two of the four unsuccessful hunters had to leave early. Here are some photos from this year’s hunts.

Kevin Klumper

Kevin Klumper from Washington purchased the Grizzly Island auction Tule elk tag and took this bull in August with us. Kevin shot the bull at 8 yards after I called it in. The bull gross scores 330 and nets 323. Congratulations to Kevin on a great Tule elk.

Walt Palmer

Walt Palmer from Minnesota purchased the Heritage (Governor’s) tag for California bighorn sheep and took this ram in Nevada’s unit 032 on the third day of his hunt. Walt’s ram netted 165 7/8 and should easily be the new Nevada state archery record for California sheep.

Walt Palmer

Walt also purchased the multiple zone elk tag in California and took this Roosevelt elk with a bow in the Northwestern unit a couple days after he took his ram in Nevada. The bull is #8 in the world for SCI archery at 339. This makes 10 out of our last 11 California elk hunters that have taken bulls that will qualify for the Boone and Crockett record book. Walt took a caribou about a month later and became the second archer in the world to take all 29 North American big game animals with a bow that all make the Pope and Young record book; this is one of the hardest things to accomplish in the hunting world. I had the pleasure of guiding Walt on three of these hunts. Congratulations Walt.

Jack Alvernaz from California took this buck on opening day of the unit 141 – 145 early rifle season in Nevada while being guided by Dave Loescher. Jack made a 429 yard shot on the buck. Good shooting Jack.

Jack Alvernaz

Jack Reynolds took this mule deer in Nevada’s unit 171 – 173 early rifle season on the fifth day of his hunt. We were actually going after a bigger deer that was several canyons away, but it being the last day of his hunt Jack decided this one was big enough. Jack shot the deer in his bed at about 125 yards.

Jack Reynolds

Sean Lamb from California took this buck in Nevada on a late rifle hunt in units 071 – 079 while being guided by Dave Loescher; this was not the biggest buck they saw on their hunt. They also saw a couple of pretty big bull elk.

Sean Lamb

Phil Norkey from Michigan took what is, without a doubt in my mind, the best trophy of the year for any of our clients. First of all, Phil was able to draw a desert sheep tag in Nevada which is the toughest tag in North America to draw. Phil took this ram on the third day of his hunt from a distance of 200 yards. The ram gross scored 176 3/8 and netted 175 3/8 easily qualifying for the Boone and Crockett record book. This is a trophy of a hundred lifetimes. Congratulations Phil.

Phil Norkey

Hope you had success in your hunts. Now is the time to start planning for 2011. I’m already taking Nevada mule deer deposits for next year’s nonresident guide draw. Deadline for applying is the end of February.

This is one of the big ones that got away. We were doing a late archery hunt in unit 081 and had a client miss this buck three times. Two days later we went back to try to find his arrows and it turns out his range finder was reading incorrectly. The buck was not nearly as far as he thought and his arrows were going three feet or so over his back. There’s always next year.

The 2010 hunting season is now in full swing. I’ve spent the summer scouting for antelope, deer and sheep in Nevada, as well as for tule elk at Grizzly Island and Roosevelt elk on the north coast of California.

The Grizzly Island elk hunt was 3 weeks ago and it went very well. My client got an elk that will probably be in the top 15 B&C. The elk green scored at 329 gross and 323 net.

I have been in Nevada now for two weeks desert bighorn scouting and guiding for antelope. I just finished up with my two antelope hunters. Because of the wet winter, we didn’t see as many antelope in the alfalfa fields as there is plenty to eat higher up the mountain. Even so, my clients got two nice antelope on one of the best ranches in Nevada.

I am currently scouting for California sheep in Nevada for one of my clients who bought the Heritage Tag (Governor’s Tag) for California sheep this year, so we are looking forward to a great hunt. He is an avid bow hunter and arguably one of the best in the world. He has harvested all of the North American game animals with a bow. Only three of them did not make Pope & Young, so he’s on a quest to hunt those three animals again so that all of the animals make the record book. When he is successful at this, he will be only the second bow hunter to do this.

This client also purchased the Multiple Zone Elk Tag in California this year. As soon as we take a ram in Nevada, we will head up to the north coast and hunt for Roosevelts. We’ve harvested some nice bulls up there the past several years and should have really good hunting.

The 2010 Nevada mule deer season, starting in October, will be very busy. I have 18 Nevada deer hunters this year. I’ve branched out on my Nevada deer hunts and now offer hunts down by Austin. We’ve seen some really nice bucks in that unit (Unit 171-173), but the terrain is rugged and the deer very difficult to get to. You really need to be in great shape to hike up to these animals.

Once deer season is over, I will be scouting for desert sheep down near Las Vegas in Unit 271. My client was lucky enough to not only draw the Nevada desert sheep tag this year, but a Wyoming Rocky Mountain Bighorn tag as well!

Finally, I will be guiding wild Chukar hunts in December and January. I still have room to book hunts, so please contact me if you are interested. My Brittany will be three years old next week, so he is in his prime. He ranges better than any other dog I’ve had. He is currently undergoing additional field training with Joe Gower of Joe Gower Gun Dogs. Joe specializes in Brittanys and in addition to training pointing dogs and competing in field trials, he will also be doing some select breeding as well. If you would like to know more about Joe’s operation, you can check out his website at: www.jggundogs.com.

2010 is shaping up to be a busy fall and winter hunting season. I will keep you posted on how the hunts go and feel free to let me know how your hunting season goes. Happy hunting!

Here is a wrap up of 2009’s hunts.
 
I had seven elk hunters in California (two Tule elk hunts and five Roosevelt elk hunts). We took six Boone and Crockett bulls and everyone was successful.
 
In Nevada I had nine mule deer hunters; seven were successful and everyone had opportunities. The biggest buck we took was a 29 inch 4×4 that was just short of 180 inches taken by Mario Pereira on the first day of his hunt. Here’s a photo of Mario’s buck.

  
My final big game hunt was a desert sheep hunt in Southern Nevada. I had the good fortune of guiding author and outdoor writer J.Y. Jones of Georgia to a ram that was the completion of his second Grand Slam. I know some of you have read his books and several of you have told me that you really enjoyed One Man, One Rifle, One Land which is a book J.Y. wrote about taking all of the North American species and subspecies with one rifle: a .30-06.
 
J.Y. and I hunted in what is according to “The Huntin’ Fool” magazine, the worst unit in Nevada for a non resident to draw. We knew we had our work cut out for us and I scouted for a week before he got there and then we hunted hard for five days before he took the ram in the photo below. J.Y.’s ram is the second biggest ram taken in this unit by 3/4″ since 2000. Congratulations J.Y. on your second Grand Slam and a great ram.

Now is the time to apply for all of the big game hunts in Nevada. Nevada has 6 different big game species you can apply for as a non resident and 7 as a resident. We are having a very bad die off of Rocky Mountain sheep because of pneumonia and as a result there will not be a non resident tag this year. This does not affect the California or Desert sheep. If you buy the license ($142 for a non resident) you can get bonus points for every species you would like to someday hunt. Nevada has very good hunting for everything with their strict management policies. You can either apply for a tag and if you don’t draw you get the point, or you can apply specifically for a point. I am already totally booked up for the early season deer hunts through the non resident guide drawing that took place this week so I will only have late deer hunts listed here. 

  

To apply go to www.huntnevada.com and for those of you that have applied before, you will be in the system and can go ahead and apply. For those of you that have not applied before, if you were born before 1960 you can enter all your personal information into the computer and then apply. If you have not applied before and were born in 1960 or later you will need to have a hunter safety certificate and call 1-800-576-1020. They will walk you through what you need to do to get into the computer so you can apply. 

  

  

Here are my recommendations: 

  

I would apply for Desert sheep in this order: 

  

1. 263 

2. 267 

3. 271 

4. 268 

5. 161 

  

For California sheep: 

  

1. 032 

2. 12 

3. 33 

4. 066-068 

  

For elk: 

  

1. 231 

2. 076 Early 

3. 161-164 

4. 111-115 Early 

5. 076 Late 

  

For antelope: 

  

1. 041, 042 

2. 032, 034, 035 

3. 065, 142, 144 

4. 141, 143, 151-155 

  

For deer: 

  

1. 071 late 

2. 141 late 

3. 065 

4. 161 late 

5. 171 late 

 

Please free contact me with any questions. I can be reached at 530-885-1492 or at caryoutdoors@aol.com. 

 

I just finished my most successful elk season ever in California. I guided 7 hunters on 4 different hunts and all of them took bulls with 6 of them scoring high enough to make the Boone and Crockett record book. Here’s a quick run down of all the hunts. My first hunt was an archery hunt at Grizzly Island and my hunter took a Tule elk bull that is probably going to be the new SCI archery world record for Tule elk and either first or second in Pope and Young. The New York Times did an article on this hunt and you can read it if you go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/sports/13elk.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Jellison&st=cse Here’s a photo of Walt Palmer’s bull:
 
My next hunt was up north on the Del-Norte hunt for Roosevelt elk and I guided 3 of the 6 bull tag holders on that hunt and we took three bulls in three days with two of them making Boone and Crockett. The biggest was a 320 gross and 311 net bull. Here’s a photo of that bull:

After that I had two hunters to guide on the Northwestern hunt for Roosevelt elk. My first hunter took a huge bull on the second morning of his hunt at 10 yards and the second shot was 5 yards. The bull just kept coming. He ended up scoring 348 3/8 gross and 339 net making Boone and Crockett by 50 inches. Truly a bull of a lifetime. My next hunter was an archery hunter and he took a bull on the second morning at 12 yards with one well placed arrow. The bull only went 20 yards. That elk will also qualify for Boone and Crockett. Here’s photos of those two bulls:    

It’s now elk and antelope hunting season. I just got back from Grizzly Island where we took a nice tule bull with a bow. It gross scored 320 and net was 312 5/8. It could come in first with Pope and Young, depending on what it scores after it dries and it will be number one with SCI archery. 

 

I am off scouting for deer and guiding antelope hunters in Nevada. Then it’s back to California to guide 4 elk hunts: 2 Northwestern hunts and the Del Norte hunt for Roosevelt bulls and East Park Reservoir for tule elk. 

 

Hope everyone has a successful hunting season.

If anyone is interested, I just bought two more landowner antelope tags for a ranch in Nevada. This is arguably the best antelope hunting ranch in Nevada with bucks taken every year in the mid 80’s and at least one that I know of was over 90 inches. The season dates are August 22 through September 5 and you can hunt on the ranch and all of the public land in unit 032 as well. This ranch has 4,000 acres of alfalfa and these hunts are always 100% success. You can buy the tag and go on your own for $2800 or I am doing a 3 day fully guided antelope hunt with meals and motels included for $3750.