| Jackson Hole Outfitters, Maury Jones Box 117 Grover, Wyoming
83122 (307)-886-3356
August 2000 Newsletter
PRE-SEASON SCOUTING
August 9, 2000. The second day of the first serious scouting trip of
the new season. Three of us; the experienced buck hunter out to see some
bucks, the new guide learning the territory, and the still-addicted-even-after-all-these-years
deer huntin' guide (yours truly). The morning sun was almost two hours
old when we carefully peaked over another ridge to glass yet another timberline
basin. We had already seen almost 20 bucks that morning, including a nice
28 incher and a really high 25 incher. Other lesser bucks sporting 18-24
inch spreads were interesting to look at, but not what we would consider
a shootable buck. As we crawled over the edge to peer further below into
the upper reaches of the basin, I immediately saw a buck with my naked
eye. A quick look through my binoculars confirmed my first impression;
a heavy, blocky body with a matching heavy boxy rack. I quickly whispered
to my companions the buck's whereabouts and started digging in my pack
for my Bausch and Lomb spotting scope. While setting it up I was
enjoying the oohs and aahs and other appreciative comments coming from
my companions. Spotting scope in place, I was ready to get down to the
serious business of analyzing a true monarch of the mountains.
The boxy rack was a classic: 30+ inch spread,
main beams going straight out from the skull and then turning at right
angles upward giving it that "boxy" look, rather average brow tines of
two inches, good deep forks in the bifurcated antlers (that means branching
twice, for those of you in Rio Linda), medium heavy mass, and long tines.
The front tines curled around and gave good length to the main beams. This
buck had no weak features to his antlers. He was perfectly typical in every
way. I estimated he would score over 195 net B&C. We watched him for
more than an hour as he slowly fed. We went further down the ridge, trying
to get as close as possible for a better look. The original range of 450
yards was reduced to 338 yards at our closest point, as determined by my
brand new laser Bushnell 800 compact rangefinder. I've also got the original
400 and 800 models, but this new compact is really sweet, small enough
to fit in a matchbox (not really, I just threw that in to see if you were
paying attention; it measures 2" by 4' by 4'). Anyway, we walked off and
left the buck hunting a bedding spot. We came back several hours later
and there was no sign of the buck, of course. His bed was somewhere in
that scattered timber, no doubt watching us from a safe perch and figuring
out how to elude us come hunting season. I was going to sneak up on him
and spray-paint my name on his side, but figured that would be less than
sporting to have a blaze-orange JONESY written on the side of a trophy
buck that I was pointing out to one of my hunters. "Just put your cross-hairs
in the middle of the O and squeeze the trigger."
The previous day we had taken a very long ride up to the top of one
of the high peaks and had seen a nice 5X5 (four plus a brow tine--we count
all points on each side just as all the scoring systems do) on top of a
ridge near the top of the tallest peak around. This buck apparently didn't
know it was dangerous around those cliffs because he nonchalantly meandered
his way down an honest-to-goodness cliff of more than 200 yards. If I hadn't
seen it I wouldn't have believed a deer could get up or down that cliff,
much less do it for a morning stroll. He had no idea we were anywhere around,
so he was not pressured at all, just taking the shortest way to another
succulent bite of browse.
We watched him until he went out of sight and then we made our way
down to a small lake where we had spotted a nice 4 point bull elk. It was
bedded near the lake. We rode up to within 15 yards of him before he suddenly
jumped up and headed out in a hurry, limping all the way. He had evidently
injured his left front leg somehow, perhaps in the rocky cliffs. Sometimes
deer and elk are victims of the rocky rough country they live in. We once
killed a buck that had suffered a broken toe in the past as one of his
cloven hoofs stuck out at a right angle. His track was an L shape. It was
on his right rear foot and his left antler was deformed. I've seen that
personally several times, where a foot or leg is injured and the animal
grows a deformed antler on the opposite side. I don't know what the one
has to do with the other, but that's the way it is.
This past Monday and Tuesday I went on an overnight trip. Monday evening
we only saw 2 bedded bucks in 4 hours of hard glassing in spite of all
the deer tracks around. Then Tuesday morning we saw about 15 bucks, including
two really nice 28 inchers. One may go 29 or 30 depending on the ear spread.
I've measured ears tip-to-tip of from 23 inches to 26 1/2 inches. So if
he had 26 inch ears then he was a 30 inch buck. Nice rack, not as good
as the whooper we saw last week. (A Whooper is one that makes you whoop
when you down him, as opposed to a mere whopper.)
OUTFITTERS LOSE LAWSUIT Yes, sad but true, those were the headlines
of the Casper Star-Tribune. Our bid in court to get some permits for outfitters
was set back for a while until the appeal can be heard. Our attorney, John
Jackson, expected at the start of the suit to lose in Cheyenne District
Court because the judge lives there and would have severe pressure put
on him by locals, but right after the hearing on April 16, 1999 where the
Judge said "I'11 issue my ruling in a week or two", John felt that we had
won. His reasons were that the Judge gave the G&F and the Wildlife
Federation (our opponents) much more time in court than he gave us and
the Judge asked them some very hard questions that they had a difficult
time answering. The appeal will cost us another $30,000 and will take several
months to be heard. John Jackson feels we have a good chance on appeal
to get the permits we must have in order to have stability in our industry.
If any of you guys out there have a severe gripe with the Wyoming drawing
system, and I know many do, you may want to put your money where your gripe
is and donate to our cause to be heard in court. To make donations more
'justifiable', we have a raffle for a rifle. The rifle on the raffle is
a Marlin Model 1895 G 45/70 Govt. (if you don't want that, we can substitute
for $485 worth of rifle you want). Raffle tickets are $10 ea, 5 for $40,
10 for $80. Please make your checks out to WYOGA (Wyoming Outfitters and
Guides Association) and send them to me. I'll forward them on to our office
in Cody, or you can send them directly to WYOGA, PO Box 2284, Cody, Wy
82414
JACKSON HOLE OUTFITTERS ASSOCIATION TRIES 'RISKY SCHEME' On May 8 I
made the mistake of driving the 70 miles to Jackson for our bi-monthly
Outfitters meeting. I've seldom missed a meeting, even though it is 70
miles from my home, mostly in winter on snow-packed roads. This time I
maybe should have stayed home as they elected me President. Before you
start offering your 'congratulations', realize that it is just a big job,
taking lots of time, and at additional expense and inconvenience. As I
recall, the way the election went was "you take it, no, you do it". Finally
they said, well, if Jonesy is so foolish as to come this far to these meetings,
let's nominate him and while the others are laughing we will take a quick
vote and railroad it through. Seriously, 1 appreciate the opportunity to
serve and hope I can do justice to the office. Our former President, Gene
Linn, served for 3 years and claimed that if he was re-elected one more
time the Association would have to pay for an apartment for him because
his wife would move him out. I tried to claim the same thing, but I'm smaller
than most of them so I was threatened, shouted down, handed the gavel and
the briefcase full of stuff, and told to get to work. You may get a report
on the Association from time to time.
G&F COMMISSION MEETING I attended the G&F Commission
meeting in Rock Springs in July. I petitioned them, again, for preference
points on deer and elk. The guy who runs the computer gave several reasons
why they can't do preference points on deer elk and antelope as they do
for sheep, moose, and goats. The main reasons are logistics. They have
so many applicants that it will be very difficult to administer. Of course
I argued that it could be done but they really don't want to.
The Commission Meeting was the big lion-season-setting meeting of the
year where they vote to approve (or dis-approve) the lion management proposals
of the biologists. The Lion-Lovers were out in force, with more that 20
of them there. They had the usual gobbledy-gook of malarky about 'lions
being a natural part of nature's balance so we shouldn't hunt them' and
'the G&F doesn't know exactly how many lions we have so they shouldn't
hunt them', etc. Reality is that we have too many lions and need to reduce
the population and the proposed G&F quotas won't even keep up with
the increase. Our local Game Warden said that he knew of 5 females with
cubs that wintered in Star Valley. He also summed up our slow deer recovery
in one word; "lions". As Association President I got up and read a resolution
passed by our Board of Directors supporting the G&F in their lion management.
Outfitter Paul Gilroy displayed a map with the National Parks (off limits
to lion hunting), the Wilderness Areas (basically un-huntable for lions),
and the remaining huntable lion terrain (just a small fraction of the whole
area). Then he put his fist over a very small portion of the map and said,
"Right there is where 7 of the 9 lions in the Jackson area quota were killed.
Based on that we probably have many more lions than the habitat can handle."
LION HUNT AVAILABLE With our increased quota on lions I am guiding
lion hunters again. I quit for a few years because the quota of 3 lions
was so low that the season could close before a hunter could get here.
The last lion hunter I guided killed a big tom that won the Outfitters
Award as the biggest one killed in the state that year, scoring 14 and
14/16, just shy of B&C book. That was the third kill and filled our
quota, closing our season, and made me nervous about booking other lion
hunters. With a quota of 20 I'm ready to take you lion hunting again. I
charge $2,500 for a lion hunt, plus $300 if you kill. We drive the road
with dogs in the truck and when we cut a lion track in the fresh snow we
put the dogs on it and follow behind. Incidentally, those of you getting
this newsletter who are coming hunting in Wyoming this year, consider getting
a lion tag so that if you get the opportunity you can nail one. A non-res
lion tag is $250. Nice bonus for a deer or elk hunt to take a lion home.
I mentioned in my December Newsletter about finding a lion-killed big buck
last fall. We need to thin out those deer-killers.
FIRE! On our scouting trip Monday Aug 14, I stayed overnight
at the top of one of the mountains and was witness to 4 forest fires. The
biggest one was just ten miles away, up over the ridge behind my camp.
We had a bird's eye view from the top. The weather was really hot and dry
and a stiff wind was blowing. We watched that fire spread from 600 acres
to 3000 acres that day. That night after dark I hiked over to the ridge
to watch the fire. It was really spectacular; huge flames leaping several
hundred feet into the air, smoke lit up by the flames, the huge thunderhead
over the top of it as the rising heat created its own weather system, and
the full moon rising just to the south of it. I sat there for a long time
in the dark, just contemplating and enjoying the scenery and the wonders
of nature. I anticipate some great hunting in that fire area in a few years,
as some of my best hunting at present is in old burns.
TO MY BROTHERS, WITH WHOM I GOT POKED! I started out as a child,
having only an older sister and I liked it that way because when I would
tell lies about being hungry or wet, they would all pamper me. Then my
parents, succumbing to primal urges, had 3 additional offspring who were,
alas, of the same gender as myself, Greet, Doug, and Ron. If that wasn't
bad enough they then adopted another son, Mark. I no longer got all the
attention. Oh, they tried to temper their plot against me by throwing in
one female child of their own make, Ellen (whom my brothers and I corrupted
into a tomboy), and adopted another cute little girl of Native American
ancestry of Navajo descent, Virginia. (hey, I'm also native American, just
not as many generations back!) Anyway, as I was stuck with 4 brothers I
decided to make the best of it and teach them to hunt, as my Uncle Neil
taught me. We started with BB guns, terrorizing all the lizards and sparrows
and doves in our southern Arizona locale. We finally graduated to single
shot 22s and a 12 gauge single-shot shotgun that kicked like a mule (the
reason my right shoulder sticks out my back and my right eyebrow perches
above my nose). At age 16 we got a '57 Volkswagen, "Schultz", our huntin'
rig. We took that "German Jeep" into places that made people in fancy 4X4
rigs stop and stare. We'd ask them, politely, to get out of the way so
we could continue up the mountain. They took it in good form, standing
with mouths agape as we clattered past. On one most memorable trip, we
had a blowout, bought a used $5 tire, then went off on all the bad side
roads we could find. In the excitement of seeing a jackrabbit, somehow
the 12 gauge discharged, blowing a good-sized hole in the bottom of "Shultz".
Mere details. Later we had another flat, changed it, then continued hunting.
Who needs a spare, anyway. After negotiating a tight turn in the junipers
at my normal rate of speed, often described as 'breakneck' by old fuddy-duddys,
we heard a loud hissing and Schultz started limping. Greer got out, looked
at the stick poking through the tire and exclaimed "We got poked!!!" Drove
20 miles on a flat to the nearest service station. Didn't see a thing on
the hunt, so ever since then when we have a memorable but totally unsuccessful
hunt, we say, "We got poked! !"
Take care, Jonesy
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