Whitetail Report 2009

Well, 2009 certainly proved to be an interesting year, we had experienced severe drought for much of the summer and some of our food plots did poorly while others did OK with getting small but timely rains.Some of my regular guides had total crop failure, and what ground they did have remaining, they had to pasture their cows on. These guides had to opt out of guiding as their ground was not holding whitetails. Once again, we were able to adjust and re-adjust and have ample good ground to guide on. That is the up-side of lots of private ground to hunt, and guides owning the land they guide on. We always have the ability to change up our plans and find a way to produce enough deer for everyone to have a good chance at a Trophy Buck.

The end of Oct. and the first couple of days of November saw a severe snow storm descend upon us, and while I am usually happy to see snow in Nov., I had my trepidations about this early snow. And as it turned out, this early snow was to have severe consequences for us as deer hunters. Within a very short-time, the weather warmed and thawed out the snow just enough to leave us with about an inch of heavy crust. Talk about noisy. I swear the deer could hear us leaving the Lodge in the mornings!

This condition persisted well into November, and it probably cost us more than a couple of good bucks. So hard to sneak in and set-up when the deer can hear you coming a mile away. The warm weather stuck with us for the best part of November and gave us less than optimal hunting conditions. In spite of this, we still had a pretty good year. We harvested a solid 185 deer taken by Jeff Hartzler up at Ty’s place on Jeff’s first hour of his hunt. Amazingly, this was the second huge buck that Jeff had seen that morning, the other one being just a tad out of range. Talk about a good day for Jeff, a heck of a nice guy and a long time Wolf Creek client.

Our next big buck was taken by Rick Houghton of Utah. He took a 178 deer with guide Clem Girard. This was a sweet set-up as the buck was spotted by one of our scouts. Brent Reil, crossing into Clem’s back forty. Brent called up Clem, Clem picked up Rick and moved Rick into position, knowing where that buck was headed by Brent’s description of direction, and all Rick had to do was make a good shot at about 300 yards. Good guiding, good shooting and a dead buck that is a great Trophy. Way to shoot Rick! This shows you what having a skilled guide who knows his territory inside and out can do for the success of a hunt.Clem heard the description of the buck, what direction he was headed and Clem knew exactly where to take Rick. In fact, Clem has many, many Trail Cam pics of this buck taken over a couple of years, right in that vicinity. Clem knew right where that buck was heading. Great guiding Clem, you are the best!

I took one bow hunter this year, Mr. Brett Brimhall of Arizona. Brett saw many good bucks and on the third day took a very typical buck scoring 158. Brett also passed on a heavier older buck that had very good mass, but it was only a five by four, so Brett opted out for the more typical buck he harvested. Brett is an excellent bow hunter and a fine sportsman. Congratulations on your first whitetail, Brett.

Over all we took 23 hunters over the month and we harvested 20 deer; we had 2 wounded and one big buck missed. Not bad numbers considering the adversely warm weather and crunchy snow we had to work with. Also, nearly every hunter had opportunity at deer over 150 B&C to look at and pass on. Once again, not too bad for the conditions at hand.

We ran our trail cams once again this year and saw many, many good mature bucks on the cams. There was a lot of nocturnal activity due to the warm weather, but the cams are invaluable to see what bucks are available and what areas they are using. Several of our bucks this year were recorded on the cams, and many, many more were seen by the hunters. The cams are an invaluable part of what we do, it is hard to imagine hunting without them. Next year we plan on placing out even more cams and relying on them even more for stand selection. They sure help keep a guy enthused when you have photographic images of big bucks using the area you are hunting.

I was pleased with the 09 season results in spite of the warm weather we fought all season, but I am really enthused about the 2010 season coming up next November. We saw so many good bucks coming up through the ranks and saw the evidence of good genetics in so many young deer. There is a big crop of 140-150 deer that will be graduating next year into 160-170 deer and even better. The deer came out of the rut in fine shape, there is little snow cover right now and reasonably moderate temperatures, so there will be little winter mortality to worry about. Next season promises to be a banner year. I hope you can come and hunt with us and see what you can bring home for a Trophy Whitetail Deer.

Good Hunting to All.
Bob Irvine