2009 California Elk Hunts

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: 

Elk and Antelope Hunting Season

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.

Antelope Landowner Tags Available

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.

You can call me at 530 885-1492 if you are interested or send me an e-mail.

American River Shad and Stripers

I hope everyone is doing well and weathering the poor economy. I've been on the American River the last two days shad and striper fishing and here's a quick run down of how it went.

Wednesday I met a buddy of mine and we got on the water about 11 am and only fished for about 3 hours (not exactly prime time but it was all the time we had). We spent more time fishing for stripers than shad and caught one and lost another. We stopped and fished for shad in two spots for a total of one hour and landed 10 which is pretty good for the middle of the day. For those of you that have not shad fished before, they are about 2 - 5 pounds and put up a great fight on light tackle spinning gear or fly rods.
Yesterday, I had two clients and one had never fly fished before so we split our time between stripers and shad. We used conventional gear with plugs for the stripers and landed two and lost two and saw quite a few more including one that I would guess to be about 20 - 25 pounds.
We landed about 10 or 12 shad and lost at least that many more on flies and conventional gear both. The shad were not biting as well as the day before but we saw hundreds of them. They are pretty thick in there right now. The stripers are just starting and should get better between now and the end of August.
I am running a special until the end of June for half day shad and striper trips on the American River. My normal rate is $325 for four hours of fishing and the special price is $300 and I'm doing five hours instead of four. This includes drinks and all your gear but no lunch. We can fly fish or use conventional gear on these trips. I'm also running a full day special (8 hours with lunch) good on the American or the Yuba and is good until the end of August. If you book two trips at my normal price of $425, you get $75 off your second trip.

2009 Nevada Deer Draw Time

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's that time once again to apply for the nonresident guide draw for mule deer tags in Nevada. For those of you that aren't familiar with the guide draw, it offers you about four times better odds of drawing a tag than the regular draw depending on what units you apply for. I usually average about 60% draw odds in this drawing.

Last year we had 100% success again for all of our guided Nevada mule deer hunts. The biggest buck we took was a 31 inch 4x4 with eye guards taken by Mike Barkdoll (see picture under deer hunting in our photo gallery) and we saw a bigger buck on that hunt but weren't able to find him again.

On my website you'll see that I have raised my prices to $3950 for a one on one hunt and $3450 for a two on one hunt but I am offering last year's prices ($3250 for two on one and $3750 for one on one) to everyone that gets their deposit in before January 31, 2009.

I am taking deposits now and the people who get their deposits in first get their choice of dates over the ones that get them in later. I am getting a $1500 deposit and if you don't draw a tag, I will refund your deposit.

I will have a booth at the ISE show in Sacramento again this year (booth # 1202) come by and say hi if you get a chance.