MIKE'S OUTFITTING
2004 MULE DEER and ANTELOPE HUNT REPORT

The 2004 fall hunting season was another great year for Mike's Outfitting Ltd. The overall mule deer population was good, buck trophy quality was high and we had no really bad weather throughout the whole time. Sixteen bowhunters got first crack at the big bucks from Sept. 8 till Oct. 24, eight of them also hunted antelope, then ten rifle hunters came throughout the exciting mule deer rut in November.

All the bowhunters had multiple shot opportunities and close encounters on big Pope and Young class muleys. The actual kill success was 50%, 8 for 16, which is a bit lower than normal but all the bucks gross scored between 150 and 173. This was a great average buck size but a bit disappointing on the big buck end. Most years we get one or two deer topping 180. We saw several giants like that but just didn't connect on them. One of the unsuccessful hunters missed a big 180 typical at a mere 8 yards! Our kill success is usually around 70% to 85% but this generally includes a few small ones which we didn't have this year. Missed shots and return clients looking for Mr. Big also accounted for the lower success rate.

The biggest archery deer. a 173 inch. heavy 3 by 4 was taken by repeat hunter Robert Haley from Texas. His brother W'es came on the same hunt and took a beautiful 73 score antelope. The next largest buck. a 164. was shot out of ground blind at 22 yards by Charlie Rehor from Massachusetts. Kyle Hamilton also took a nice 160 class buck and a unique looking 70 inch antelope. Third time hunter Dale Houston and his brother in law Jack Matthews drove all the way up from Tennessee and Dale took a multi-tined, 160 score deer on a 10 yard running shot. Chris Stephens came for the first four days of the season and shot an antelope and a beautiful velvet deer scoring 160. D.T. Bosher missed a couple of long shots on antelope but consoled himself by connecting on a 154 inch, 4 by 4 muley. Another repeat hunter Bob Keith and his buddy Mark Raines came on a 2 on 1 guided hunt and both got respectable bucks scoring 160 and 150. Zig Kertenis came on his 12`" hunt with us and we just couldn't connect on a big buck but he says he'll be back. Our bowhunting antelope success rate was pretty low this year, only about 38%. 3 for 8 hunters. A few guys only got to hunt them for one day, it was tough to find good bucks and even tougher to get them to come into a decoy. We had a year with a poor success rate like this several years ago and then it went back up to our usual 70% to 100% so hopefully it will also come back in 2005. Tom Nelson from the T.V. show American Archer also came on a hunt and we got some fantastic footage of some big bucks so look for that to be aired soon on the Outdoor Channel.

On the rifle hunts we had 10 hunters take 9 bucks. The one unsuccessful hunter has been with us twice before and was holding out for a 180 or nothing. He got nothing. The 9 bucks scored 190, 182, 181. 177, 174. 171, and 3 in the 160's. pretty much an average year. The 190 was a heavy, long-tined 184 inch typical with 6 inches of non-typical. It was shot by Camillo Leventini from California on his first hunt with us. He has been hunting mule deer for over 30 years and this was the biggest one he had ever got. Needless to say, Camillo, his son and a friend booked another hunt for next year. We passed up the 182 score buck on the first morning of Davey Crockett's hunt and ending up finding him again on the last day just before he crossed a road which would have put him out of our hunting zone. Thank goodness for luck! The 181 deer was shot by Stephen Laduque from Texas. It was a textbook perfect 180 yard shot on a classic looking deer with matching kicker points that stretched his spread out to 30 inches wide. Manny Sanchez came on the same hunt and estimated he walked over 30 miles in 3 days. He was rewarded with a massive (5 1/2" circumferences), gnarly, old 177 inch buck. Lewis Wilks flew from Colorado and shot his 2°a big buck with us. It was also a heavy, 6 plus year old deer that was 28 inches wide and scored 171. The 4 other nice bucks were shot by Lyle Hach(3"d hunt with us) Lloyd Hach, Bob Tigges and Rob Ruud.

If you want to come on a hunt with Mike's Outfitting Ltd. our 2005 hunts are over half full and several of our 2006 hunts are already taken so you should give me a call right away. A one on one guided archery mule deer hunt is $3800.00 and a rifle hunt is $6000.00. I hope you can make it up here sometime soon.

Mike Ukrainetz