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Jackson
Hole Outfitters
Maury Jones, Box 117,
Grover, Wy 83122 (307)886-3356
Spring 1998 Newsletter
Sadaam Hussein, beware!
Another newsletter from Jonesy is hot off the press. A few years ago the
State Department contacted me and asked me if they could use my newsletter
for a "Top Secret" operation. It was in the middle of Operation Desert
Watch, so, being a patriotic sort, I let them use it, free gratis. (that
means I didn't charge them for it, for those in Rio Linda) They printed
millions of copies and dropped them on the Iraqi troop positions. When
Desert Watch turned into Desert Storm the Iraqi troops surrendered in droves
with little resistance, old crumpled copies of my newsletter clutched in
their demoralized fists. Sadaam subsequently filed a protest with the UN,
claiming that the distribution of that newsletter violated the provision
in the Geneva Convention prohibiting "Psychological Warfare". Once again
the State Department has contacted me, which, to astute political observers
is a precursor to war. If they could just get an original copy into the
hands of Sadaam himself it might eliminate him, as it tends to drive the
sane insane, the insane over the edge, and makes hopelessly addicted hunters
do irrational things like get up at 3:30 in the morning, rain pouring down
the back of our necks, ride out on a horse in the sasquatch-infested darkness,
freeze our buns off all day, and then call it fun. Talk about the worst
kind of insanity! Your only hope is to throw this newsletter in the round
file immediately, although if you do so it is programmed to explode, thus
taking out the northwest corner of your bathroom including the paper holder
and towel rack, and possibly doing irreparable harm to exposed portions
of your anatomy. It is perhaps best that you dispose of this properly by
calling the EPA, OSHA, FBI, CIA, and all others whose job it is to keep
Amerika safe from wackos of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy who might pollute
our minds and resources with eeevil and devious hunting newsletters which
are replete with guns, blood, gore, and suggestive stories. You remember
my last newsletter wherein I helped a sweet young thing overcome her new
husband's bad case of trophy buck fever by getting her to don a black filmy
negligee, which cured his buck fever but may have given him some other
kind of fever? Well, Kenneth Starr is now investigating the discovery of
a copy of that newsletter in the trash of the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky's
fingerprints on it.
First Newsletter?
In addition to my regular newsletter recipients, I am sending this to many
of you who applied for Wyoming elk licenses. If you would like to be on
my permanent newsletter mailing list, please send me your name, address,
and email.
Elk Hunts Available
At the time of this writing
I have about four spots available for rifle elk in my Wyoming camp, five
spots available for archery elk, and I also have some Idaho elk hunts available
with guaranteed licenses, including a pack-in tent camp, a fly-in lodge,
and a drive-to lodge. In Idaho and other states permits are set aside for
the outfitters, but in Wyoming we are still in the dark ages. Wyoming is
a great place to hunt, but it is a random chance at getting a permit. I
urge you to write to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, 5400 Bishop
Blvd., Cheyenne, Wy 82006 and ask them to initiate the preference point
system for elk and deer. This would almost insure you to be able to hunt
at least every other year, or every third year in some of the tough areas.
That is better than the situation that now exists where one of my hunters
has drawn every single time for 11 years and others have gone five or six
years without drawing.
40 Inch Buck!
I was in a local hardware
store yesterday and saw a packet of photos on the counter belonging to
one of the employees, a friend of mine. It had some incredible photos of
a 40+ inch buck in velvet. I found that the pictures were taken in August
of '96 about 10 miles south of my hunting area. The guy who took the pictures
(not my buddy) and another guy hunted the buck for nine days and a party
of six other hunters who had scouted him huntet for 15 days. Only one of
them got a glimpse of him during the season. No one has seen the buck since,
not even on the winter range, so that is why he was willing to tell me
where the photos were taken. On one of the enlarged photos the buck measures
2 inches between the ears and outside spread of the rack is 3 7/8 inches,
almost twice as wide. I have measured deer we have killed ear-tip to ear-tip
of 22 to 26 1/2 inches. If you take the smaller measurement (unlikely in
a buck like this), that rack is at least 41 inches wide. If you take the
larger measurement he is pushing 50 inches. Best guess is he will go about
45 inches wide, and that is on his mainframe. He has some cheater points
but they don't stick out the side, they go up. I am looking at a photo
on my wall right now (I made color copies), got a ruler, and a broadside
measurement shows him from butt to front of shoulder as 1 3/4 inches. The
width of his rack is 1 7/16. Figure it out. The point is, my area has the
genetics, escape cover, and minerals to grow bucks of this caliber. Every
year we see several thirty inch plus bucks, some of which are real whoppers.
You might as well hunt where you have a chance of killing one of these.
How About Elk?
Often I have guys ask
me if we hunt elk, since I talk about deer so much. You bet! We have some
great elk hunting. Our elk herd is twice as large as they would like, according
to our biologist. We also kill a number of good six and seven point bulls,
although, like everywhere else, spikes and raghorns outnumber the big boys.
Hunter success in my camp is consistently above 50% kill, and about 90%
kill chance. I just talk more about the deer because our deer are record
book class and there is no trophy harder to come by than a truly great
muley. The elk are good and we get some big heads, some in the 330 B&C
class - we have taken a couple of them near 350 - but most of the six-pointers
score about 300. Good trophy bulls, but not record book.
Methods to Score on the
Big Ones:
All hunting methods work
at times, if you will work them properly. We were riding along one day
on horses and suddenly came on a small herd of elk. The hunter, Butch Franklin,
bailed off to show me and his wife, Becky, what a great hunter he was,
and promptly slipped in the snow, sliding under the horse. The horse, my
old buddy, Dollar, decided not to panic or step on him, chalking it off
as just another crazy hunter doing wierd things. I quickly got off my horse,
grabbed his gun, handed it to him, he rose to his knees and shot the big
heavy-horned six point bull. Another time we tied the horses, sneaked (snuck?)
into some timber, glassing each potential bedding spot. I finally spotted
an elk through a small opening in the timber, across the canyon. We found
a spot to shoot from and John Scott killed the six point bull. Another
time John Scott and I were on a stand, a huge six point bull came out of
the timber below us and John nailed him. He scored 349. A couple of years
ago Guide Aaron Johnson made a drive for three Minnesota hunters, pushed
out some elk, and Gary Krueth and Carl Hanson killed the six pointer. On
another occasion we heard a bull bugle in the bottom of a canyon, we went
down, found him, and Jed Francis killed a huge 7 point bull. We were sitting
on a ridge glassing one day, when we spotted elk a mile away. We went down,
found a bull in his bed, and Jack Miller made a good shot on him. I go
briefly through these examples to show that all methods of hunting work,
depending on the situation. I could also give examples of doing exactly
the same things in exactly the same areas, without ever seeing an elk.
My point is that when a hunter comes hunting with me we commonly use all
methods during a hunt, sometimes in the same day. I seldom get discouraged
when having a hard time finding the critters, as I know they are there
somewhere and it is just a matter of time until we bump into them. Even
in hot and dry weather with a full moon the animals are still there. You
just have to work a little harder at it. The only time I get somewhat discouraged
is when it is continually raining. I've seldom had luck in the rain, as
it is hard to glass, trails are slick, and the beasties tend to lie up
under the trees instead of wandering around. We hunt in the rain, but odds
are less.
Coyotes eat deer?
I just picked up my free
copy of Wyoming Wildlife News, and lo and behold, the Game Dept is trying
to get people to kill more coyotes! I quote; "Do coyotes eat many deer
and antelope? Absolutely. Does predation have a significant impact on deer
and antelope numbers? It certainly can." Then they go on to acknowledge
that controlling coyotes without poison and without trapping is very difficult.
We have been on their case for a long time about predators being a major
factor in game populations. They ask hunters to dedicate one week a year
to hunting predators, especially coyotes. I heard of one area, I think
in South Dakota, where they live-trapped 10 coyotes in a large area, tagged
an ear with numbers 1-10, then drew numbers out of a hat and assigned values
to the numbers, $1,000, $500, $100. If you killed a tagged coyote you brought
it in and claimed the bounty/reward. In a short time, two months I think,
they killed over a thousand coyotes. Sounds like a good thing to try, but
I suppose the coyote-cuddlers would object vociferously (that means loudly,
with great gusto, for those of you in Rio Linda).
Tried, but No Luck
Right after saying that
about coyotes I decided I needed to go kill one, to be obedient to the
G&F directive, so I called my two sons in law and we went out for an
afternoon coyote calling. Had a good time, but couldn't get a coyote to
come in. We'll try again Saturday.
Wealthy Retirement, Hunt
all the Time.
I have a couple of clients
who have retired early and hunt three months a year. I think that is the
ultimate goal of most of us fanatical hunters. The only way you can hunt
that much is to be an outfitter or be rich (the two are mutually exclusive).
I have recently joined an investment group getting Bank Guaranteed safety
of principal while earning truly exceptional returns. In the past these
contracts have only been available in multiples of millions, but this group,
by pooling their money, is able to take advantage of this lucrative Bank
Guaranteed Investment Program. This is for your information only and is
not a solicitation or offer of any kind. If you want more info let me know.
Game and Fish Dept Does
it Again!
I know I just finished
praising them for finally acknowledging that predators are a major factor
in deer recovery, but I just heard that the proposed deer season will be
Sept 15-30. That will only give us 16 days of deer hunting. We need at
least 17 days to allow three five-day deer hunts with a changeover day
between. They did that to us last year, too, and when I complained they
said that they would be more willing to work with us outfitters if we didn't
get on their case all the time. They admitted that one extra day will only
kill a very few bucks, having no impact on herd recovery, but they still
declined to give us an extra day. They also refused to limit resident hunters
at all. Their only management tools that they feel they can use is to shorten
seasons and limit non-residents. It is really hard, actually it is impossible,
for me to keep my mouth shut when they continually say things that seem
ludicrous. For instance: In Wyoming Wildlife News our head biologist has
a large article denying (still!) that their doe killing had anything to
do with the decline of the deer herds. He blames it on drouth, poor habitat,
and the "bad" winter of '92-'93. He said, "I'm not convinced anyone on
the planet has ever truly controlled a game population... We have probably
skimmed animals off of some game populations that were very large, but..."
Here are the figures; you judge for yourself. In 1981-88 (which included
the truly bad winterkill of '84) we killed 4,500 does (550 per year) under
normal regulations. 1988 was great hunting. From 1989-92, under their deer
reduction program, hunters killed over 19,000 does (an average of 4,500
per year). 1993 had terrible hunting. So why haven't they recovered, as
they did following the 1984 winter kill? I'm sure drouth has something
to do with it, and habitat does, too, but frankly I think the herd just
got knocked down so low that between predators, road kill, disease, and
winter mortality they are having a hard time recovering. On the bright
side, even though numbers are down antler size is as big as we have ever
seen, perhaps because fewer deer gives the remaining ones more nutrition.
Are you non-residents aware that a Wyoming resident can buy a deer tag
and hunt any general area in the state? I urge you to write and ask the
G&F Commission to adopt a resident Regional license just as non-residents
have to get a regional license. This, in itself, would limit hunter numbers
as residents wouldn't be able to jump around the state to the "hot spots".
When I run for Commissioner next time, I'd like your support. Someone has
to keep an eye on those guys!! Well, keep your trigger finger out of badger
holes, your feet out of bear traps, your shootin' eye in the shade, and
your reputation away from scandals with beautiful interns. Until next time.
Jonesy
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