November 2007 Newsletter

Greetings to all!
We hope you all have had a good Thanksgiving holiday and enjoying the start to another winter season. Not much longer and Christmas will come and be gone.

Not much to report to all our customers here at L & M this time of year.

For those who have booked a trip or considering to book a trip for 2008, there may be a couple of changes to the tax rates. The government has mentioned the GST rate will be lowered and as the season comes closer we will keep you informed if this is set in stone for sure. Before we send out all new revised confirmation statements to everyone, we want to wait later in the spring before sending them out just in case they change their minds again. So hopefully if the rate is lowered, we will send a new statement out to show the reduced rates to everyone when we send out your flight time letters. We will keep you posted. The other change we are considering, which will be welcomed, is we are considering/planning on upgrading Fishtrap lake cabin. Depending on the spring (weather/ice out/etc), we will try to get some work done before the fishing season starts. If the ice does not allow to do so, we will be remodeling during the summer months.

As most of you know who come fishing with us at L & M, we love to do some hunting during the fall season. Most of you ask how we do. In short, we did well again this fall. In long terms, this is a summary of our trips. This process all starts in the winter/spring season before the hunting, putting in applications to various states to see if we are able to draw certain tags. Some tags are easy to draw and others are tough, with the odds. So, we never know what hunts we will be going on until the draws are out by each state. We like to put into the draws and see what we are able to draw and go out and give our effort to a good hunt by “DIY” (do it yourself hunting). We enjoy the DIY hunting for a few reasons. Hunting at the pace and style we desire and for its costs involved, we can budget in much more hunting rather than hiring a guided outfitter for just 1 or 2 hunts a year.

Early Oct.,
We started out our hunting season in southern Wyoming. Larry and Shane pitched a tent on a small ridge in an area they have hunted a few times before. Weather was warm, very windy, with lots of mud due to thunder storms moving through the area. The game plan was to hunt deer in the morning and evenings and hunt antelope during the middle of the day. Day one, we only saw one deer with lots of antelope in the distance. Day 2, saw two nice four-point deer right a way in the morning, due to the muddy conditions was able to track the deer in the mud for four hours before catching up to where they had bedded for the day. Larry shot the first deer that came out running from his bed, while Shane shot the 2nd deer that came out behind the 1st deer. Day 3, found them looking for antelope out in the flat areas of the country. Where did the antelope go from the 1st day?? No where to be found. End of the first day Shane shot his antelope not too far from where the deer where shot. The 4th day in the morning, Larry found a nice antelope close by to end the hunt.

Early/Mid Oct.
Antelope opener in Montana near our home there. Opening day was a drizzly overcast day. Larry and Shane went hunting with the neighbor who works on a ranch near the house. Tough morning, only one antelope seen, but it only takes the right one. Shane was able to fill his antelope tag. After getting the antelope back to the truck, the neighbor found some of the ranchers cattle had got out of the pasture fence where they were suppose to be so he felt he should go fix fence. They pointed Larry and Shane in the right direction to where antelope normally hang out. They found a group of three bucks, two large bucks and one smaller buck. After a quick blown stalk, one of the bigger antelope buggered off and the other two worked into another valley. They then revised another stalk and was able to take one of the bigger antelope seen earlier that evening.

Mid/late Oct.
Larry drew a good tag in Nevada, so Shane just went along just to be there and tag along. We have a friend who lives in Reno and loves to hunt, so he helped out by scouting and hunting with us. Ken is a great guy and always a joy to be around. Larry had high hopes for this hunt to harvest a monster mule deer as this area he drew. This is where Ken has seen and killed some big bucks in in the past. When they arrived, Ken said this will be a tough hunt. During his scouting trips, he could hardly find any deer as the area changed from the past due to a drought this summer. The day they arrived, had enough daylight to climb a ridge and glass into the high ridges of the mountain. Saw three bucks, but never made a move on them as they where just “average” bucks. Long story short, never saw another buck till the last day. Lots of hard walking and glassing distant drainages with binoculars and spotters. Found lots of does, but no bucks. Last day of the hunt, they decided to try a new area in the lower country right by our camp site, over looking some overgrown high thick sage/sand draws. That morning was a chance that Larry was looking for. Not the shot he was hoping for. Kicked up a huge buck out of the head high sage that he shot at the running buck and made a hit. He even heard that “smack” of the bullet. Went to find the deer. All he found was some blood and meat in the sage. Shane was sitting about 1/2 mile up the area to overlook another area. Fate would have it, that buck ran within 100 yards of him and stopped. No tag. No gun. The buck ran over a ridge, to never be seen again as the blood trail didn’t last very long and hard to track the buck in the soft sand. It was one of those 30 inch deer, if it wasn’t 30 inches they said it was the next thing to it. If you hunt long enough, things like this are bound to happen. Just as in fishing, the big one gets away sometimes. That night they hunted in an area close by to where that buck might have gone into. Larry saw a smaller deer running at about 250 yards out so shot the deer on the last day. Wasn’t the big one, but Ken knew a guy who wanted the meat so took the deer.

End of Oct/Early Nov.
Larry and Shane went to SW Montana to hunt elk, using the services of an outfitter to get them into elk country. They pack them into the back country, four hours going by horseback to a drop camp and come back on a scheduled day to pick them back up. Weather was warmer than normal, but still had snow and as the week went on, the snow melted little by little off the south slopes. The cooler north slopes held the snow and turned into a hard crunchy snow, which made walking up on elk tough as elk usually bed on the north slopes. Switched to another way of hunting, using optics more, climb higher for the morning and evening hunts and try to intercept by glassing the elk coming to and from bedding areas to where they feed. Saw many elk each day. On the 2nd day, Larry caught a group of elk moving in the morning to where they bedded, and was able to find a nice bull. The rest of the hunt was spent looking for another bull for Shane, but couldn’t get into shooting position on a good bull. Many times we would get into range of elk, but couldn’t locate any legal bulls. Not a big worry, as Shane had drawn a special area in Montana, so they would hunt another unit if needed.

Early Nov.
Shane drew the Montana Breaks area in Montana for his elk permit. He and Larry rolled into the area just before dark to pitch the tent during a small snow storm and gear up for the next morning. Larry drew the same permit the year before, so they had hunted this area before and had an idea of where to start. The next morning, found them on a vantage point glassing over lots of area. Saw 1/2 dozen of elk with one big bull, about 5 miles away. Couldn’t be better. They watched them work up an open slope to bed. Perfect, but later found out after starting the stalk, they found that the Missouri river ran in between them and the elk, which made them off limits, due to they were in another hunting district. No elk were seen rest of the day. The next day, they decided to hunt a long ridge, overlooking 2 different drainages. Found another group of elk late morning bedded on a small wooded, burnt ridge with a bull about 1000 yards away. Figured out game of attack and proceeded the stalk. Ran into many obstacles to make the stalk take a long time. The ridge they were hunting was very steep and in order to stay out of sight, they had to use a certain drainage into the country the elk where located. Four and one half hours later, they climbed through a tunnel, scaled a small cliff, belly crawled over a grass bottom into shooting angle of the bull at 250 yards. New problem, only spot to shoot from had timber in front of the bull, with only a small lane to make the shot on the bedded bull. Wait until the bull gets up to feed or take the narrow shot. Shane was thinking, no way to climb out of this area in the dark considering the terrain if they waited for the bull to get up to eat. So he took the chance and connected on the bull. The work began. They worked on the elk and using the frame packs while hunting. We loaded up the frame packs with meat and headed out. Had to make another trip for one more load the next day to get the whole bull out.

Mid Nov.
Off to South Dakota. Another area where Shane and Larry has hunted for close to 10 years now. They hunt the same ranch every year. Arrived late the first day, so we just went out to glass to see what kind of deer activity was on the ranch. Saw right a way some nice bucks running around as the rut was going pretty strong. Saw one buck just off the property by a few hundred yards, which was a shooter so we just waited until the next morning. The next morning brought instant action from the vantage point. Found some deer with a good buck in a grass flat a mile from them and knowing the ranch and how the deer travel. We went around the area to get ahead of the deer using the wind in there favor. Shane made a nice shot on the buck. The rest of the day was spent walking draws and coulee’s looking for Larry’s deer. Never found another good buck. Back to glassing the next morning from their vantage point. Larry spotted a good buck a few miles away. Just that must be done, worked into the area and found the buck running with some does and made a nice running shot on the buck as they were leaving the area.

End of November.
Larry and Shane and Mary were looking to do some deer hunting around the house here in Montana. Larry and Shane made it there priority to get Mary the first chance at getting a shot at a good buck. Last year Mary shot her first deer in many years(which was a nice one) the first day of hunting. The 2007 year would be a little more work. Lots of hours of glassing and miles of walking and hard work was in store for her this year. Only found 1 good buck in days of hunting and a blown stalk was the only chance for lots of miles covered. On about day 5, found all of us working an area where we had seen a nice buck early in the morning to no avail. Working back to the truck on the last high ridge before heading back to the truck, located 2 bucks fighting over a single doe about 700 yards away. After seeing the bucks where both “shooters”, we all dove off the ridge to close the distance on the bucks where last seen in this wooded area. Coming onto the saddle, we wanted to get to as it was a good place close by the area to relocate the bucks if possible. Shane found a single deer walk into a draw to disappear while one of the bucks was seen shortly after working the side hill across from us through the timber. So we got Mary set up to shoot off our packs, while the buck worked through the trees. A single shot from her 243 dropped the buck at 240 yards. Larry and Shane still had tags to fill. Another week was taken before they were able to find more bucks that were shooters. They had to pull stakes on the ranch they were hunting as they walked in many days and could not find another shooter. So they went to another rancher and got permission on a different ranch to hunt. While driving to that ranch they saw a big buck pushing does on another piece of property which was not able to hunt, but close to a section of state land which was open to hunting. So they proceeded to the other ranch, obtained permission to hunt with only 2 hours left to hunt. We worked into a certain area about a mile and climbed to a high point to see what kind of deer where on the ranch. Just before dark, Larry found a four-point buck in the distance coming out of the timber. With only a short time before dark, we worked straight on the deer as the wind was good. We had cover to make a quick stalk. Shane was able to take the buck right at dark. The very next morning they figured they would go back to check on the other buck they saw the day before on near this state section of land. Fate would have it, this larger buck they saw the day before was still on the property they couldn’t hunt but elected to see if they buck would work onto this other piece of property where they could hunt. While waiting, they saw the deer cross over onto the permitted property. So off they went, using a shallow ridge line and made a stalk to be able to get this deer. He was a dandy 4x4.

Travis was unable to make any hunts with us this year as he could only allow to put in certain draws as he has time conflicts with his work. With the draws he put in for, he was unable to draw out. Hopefully he is able to draw next year as he has a couple of bonus points for next years draws. However, he did go to North Dakota to do some pheasant hunting with some friends and did very well. He made up for not doing much hunting by going to the Mississippi river a lot of weekends to do fishing. Most days on the river, he catches lots of fish and enjoys being on the water. Lucas, too, was unable to make it out west this season as he’s doing very well with his own hunts in Ontario. When we are out west hunting, he is outfitting hunters for deer there. This year overall, he had a great hunting season. Some big bucks where taken. If any of you are interested in a Canadian Whitetail hunt, with a chance at a big white tail coming from the north country, get in touch with Lucas, 807-482-1388 or email at Ladams@jam21.net
http://www.gatewaynorthoutfitters.net/
He also had a good fall bear hunt as his hunters did well once again this fall. If any of you are interested in a bear hunt, contact Lucas.

Cory also did some hunting this fall with his family before he started a winter job this year, doing some construction. He went out West in October with his dad, uncles, and brother on an antelope hunt. They all did very well, all getting 2 antelope each with some nice bucks. Cory tried out his new rifle (257 Weatherby) and was impressed with the results. He plans on doing some bow and muzzleloader hunting during the late seasons yet this year on his weekends for whitetails. I don’t have all the details of the hunts he’s went on, but I’m sure he can fill you in when you see him next time.

All in all, 2007 year was a great year and soon again the process will start all over again by contacting all the states. Filling out the applications via paper or online the next few months and waiting for the results. Till next month, we hope all of you are enjoying the start of the winter and you will be looking forward to your spring.
We will be in touch again soon with our Christmas greetings to each of you and an update on the upcoming season for L&M. If you have any comments or are waiting to book your 2008 trip, get in touch with us at Lja@nwonet.net or phone us at 888-867-3335. Keep checking out the website for updates.

L & M Fly-Ins
www.LMflyin.com

We will be in touch and we hope to hear from you soon.