2017 started off the way 2016 did, awesome!! All of our turkey hunters filled their tags until we got to the last group. Then we got a blizzard and they were stuck in the lodge for 4 days watching the snow pile up. We got between 2 and 3 feet, and 50 MPH winds. So, I had them all come back for the last weekend to see if they could do any good. Luckily the snow melted quite a bit and they were able to get around some. They ended up filling at least one of their tags each with long beards.

 

     Bear season was next! We were getting a ton of pictures on our trail cameras of some really big bears, so we knew we would fill out right away. We forgot to figure in that the bears could read the big game brochure and knew when season started. We hunted 3 days before anyone found a bear to shoot at. But the next couple days were very productive. We ended up harvesting 3 out of 4 bears, both of our lady hunters filled their tags with great bears and one of our gentlemen hunters filled his with a beautiful cinnamon bear.

 

     Next was our archery elk and deer hunt. The hunts started off tough but got better as the rut kicked in. All of our early season hunters had an opportunity to fill their elk licenses and one of them had the chance to fill his deer license. All either passed or missed bulls. Our late archery hunters had more success, they all filled their licenses. Overall, the archery hunts were tough but successful and we were able to put some great bulls on the ground.

 

     October 1 starts our rifle elk hunts as always. We thought the tough hunting was behind us, but it really never got any better. We were however, able to take a giant bull the first morning and a few after that but I’ve never seen elk hunting this tough in all my 32 years of guiding. Hunters and guides alike hunted extremely hard with little success, but that’s hunting. We had a late October elk hunter who took a big 5X5 on the second morning with an unbelievable 674 yard shot. All in all, we were able to manage well over 300 with our bulls again this year. That’s certainly not what we hoped for, but it’s still a great average. On the bright side, look at all the big bulls we saved for 2018’s hunters.

 

     Our deer hunts were a different story, almost all our hunters harvested, and they were all great bucks. We averaged over 170” again this year on our two early season hunts. Our hunters were super happy and ready to come back.

 

     We started our Oklahoma hunts with an early season repeat hunter who harvested a giant 180 class buck the 1st hour of the hunt. Then the second week of November we had the Eicheler’s doing two TV Shows, Easton Bowhunting and The Outfitters by Ford. Michelle Eicheler did the Easton show and harvested a buck of a lifetime at eight yards with her bow. It was her largest deer to date. I rough scored it at 163”. Fred Eicheler did the Outfitter’s show and saw plenty of good bucks, made a tremendous show, and harvested a “Fred buck”.  His motto is “shooting tomorrows trophies today”. After the archery hunt, we had a group of 5 rifle hunters in camp and all took home great bucks, the biggest was a 170 class buck and a couple 160’s.

 

     We packed up camp the day before Thanksgiving and headed back to NM for the late season deer hunt, which started the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We had two hunters and both scored on 170+ bucks. One had a nice cheater coming off his beam. And both were filled out and headed home by the middle of the 3rd day.

If you haven’t booked your spot already you need to do it soon to get the best dates. We start going to the outdoor shows in January, so give us a call.

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