2008 Hunting Report
Mountain Lion 2008-2009
Click here to view all 2008-2009 Mountain Lion Success photos
This year was tough for everyone. NO snow and drought conditions made it a very slow year. Hopefully this fall will see better conditions.
Mountain Lion Season has started. So far it has been a tough year with little to no snow and temperatures in January hitting 70 degrees during the day. Our own Fred was able to harvest a lion on the little snow that we had. We are waiting for a good snow to call in some clients.
Archery Deer
Click here to view all 2008 Deer Success Photos
Archery Deer has started off great with Dwight Schuh Editor of Bowhunter Magazine, shooting a nice 8 pt whitetail for Bowhunter Magazine TV. This hunt will be featured on the Outdoor Channel. Our own Fred Eichler harvested a mule deer his first morning hunt and wife Michele harvested a whitetail a few days later. Client Bryce from TX harvested his first Mule deer with his recurve bow. Bryce had lots of opportunities on some Trophy bucks and saw lots of deer during his 4 days of hunting. Bob Fromme from Performance Archery in California, took a beautiful Mule Deer buck from the ground for Stealth Cam Adventures, look for this hunt also to air on Easton Bowhunting this Winter. Our hunters saw lots of trophy bucks over 165"during this December hunt, but just couldn't take advantage of the opportunities they presented. The week before Christmas guide Luke shot a nice Mule Deer buck with his bow.
Rifle Deer
Click here to view all 2008 Deer Success Photos
So far Rifle deer is going great. 3 out of 4 clients harvested deer with 1 buck going 28 inches wide and the other 27 inches wide. We also had two missed shots at a monster 30 inch buck that we hope to find again. Also, our 13 year old son Jeb, shot his first mule deer buck.
Rifle Elk
Click here to view all 2008 Elk Success Photos
Cow Elk
Cow Elk season went real well with Rich from California harvesting his first elk ever. Our other 3 hunters saw lots of elk but did not have any shot opportunities. Fred and his good friend Blye both harvested nice cows the last week of the season.
Rifle Bull Elk
1st Season went great, although historically we have run 100% on this hunt, this year 6 out of 9 hunters killed bulls and 1 bull was missed and one 5 x 5 passed up. Some great bulls were taken. All our hunters saw bulls, we just weren't able to close the gap for 3 of the hunters.
2nd Season: Out of 9 elk hunters so far 8 have harvested bulls and we had 1 big bull missed twice and 2 other clients missed shots at different bulls. Our last hunter Frank from Texas shot a awesome 340" bull on the second day of his hunt. With all our hunters done, our oldest son Jeb guided by Luke harvested a beautiful 6 x 6 bull on our ranch the last Friday of second season.
3rd Season: This week we have 11 hunters in. With unseasonably warm weather and temperatures averaging 75 degrees during the day so far we have harvested 4 bulls, had one 5 x 5 passed up. We still have 2 days to go and are hoping for some more success.
4th Season: We had one rifle elk hunter 4th season. Tom from Florida shot a bull on the 3rd day of his hunt with guide Lee.
Rifle Antelope
Click here to view All Antelope Success photos
Rifle Antelope as usual was 100%. We had three hunters in and all three took nice bucks on the first day of their hunt.
Bear
Click here to view Bear Success Photos
Our first two bear hunters both had opportunities on beautiful Chocolate bears and one did harvest a beautiful bear on the 3rd day of his hunt with his rifle. Our bowhunter passed up two smaller bears and grazed a big bear that got away.
Michele Eichler sat on a waterhole and harvested her first Colorado Black Bear.
Our final archery bear hunter Scott from Colorado, harvested a great Pope and Young chocolate bear. Bob Holder of the Division of Wildlife aged the bear between 15 and 17 years old. Really a great trophy
Archery Elk
Click here to view 2008 Elk Success Photos
1st week We have 4 Elk hunters in and all have seen elk and 13 different bear have been spotted at waterholes at close range. So far 1 hunter has had elk within range (under 30 yards) with no shot presenting itself. There are lots of elk and the bulls are even starting to bugle early. First week ended with no elk down, but tons of close calls. Two of the four actually drew on elk but did not get the shot. All saw multiple bulls and over 100 elk and tons of bears.
2nd week, Again with 4 hunters in, we had tons of ridiculously close calls, but again the elk managed to slip away without a scratch. All hunters saw bulls and numerous elk and had a great hunt getting into elk almost everyday. Our 1 non-guided hunter passed one cow broadside at 15 yards and saw multiple bulls as well.
3rd week, we have 3 elk hunters in and so far we have had three missed shot and lots and lots of close calls and 1 bull harvested Over a hundred elk and multiple bulls have been seen. They have been into elk everyday with lots of close opportunities.
4th week we have 3 guided elk hunters in and all three have had multiple shot opportunities and one missed shot. We also had 4 non-guided hunters and 1 had a close shot opportunity within 30 yards, but got caught drawing and one shot a beautiful 300 class bull.
Archery Antelope
Click here to view All Antelope Success photos
1st week we got hit with rain everyday and tornado warnings. Our clients only spent half the hunt in blinds and that was spent dodging rainstorms. Out of 6 Guided clients only 2 got long shots that didn't connect on spot and stalk and out of 4 non-guided 1 killed a buck on a spot and stalk hunt. All in all a very rough week.
2nd week has been slamming!! It heated up and the rain stopped. We had 100% opportunity on nice bucks and out of 7 hunters, we had 6 Pope and Young bucks killed in just 3 days and the last client had an opportunity at a nice buck inside 25 yards but shot low and missed. A complete turn around from the rain soaked 1st week. Weather made all the difference.
3rd Week. Out of 7 guided clients, 3 shot beautiful Pope and Young Bucks and 3 other clients had shots from 15-30 yards at book bucks but missed. One client saw lots of bucks but did not get a shot opportunity. We are still seeing lots of great bucks and so far the weather is holding.
4th Week. This week we have 5 hunters in. Rain and wind have been a problem but 3 hunters had shots at Pope and Young bucks but failed to harvest.
5th Week. We have no clients in this week, however, Our 13 year old son harvested his first antelope with his bow and to top it off Grandma Musacchia got her first animal ever with her bow, a beautiful Pope and Young Buck. Even Dad Fred got in on the action and decoyed in a P & Y buck and mom Michele shot her P & Y buck on her first day of hunting.
6th Week. A great ending week, our two non-guided hunters both shot beautiful bucks and our Guided hunter shot a great buck on the last day of his hunt. With two of our groups getting hammered with rain, all in all this was a great Antelope year for Fulldraw with 16 Antelope bucks shot and 14 of them making Pope and Young!
Click here to view 2008 Turkey Success Photos
Colorado Turkey-2008
So far Colorado Turkey season has been awesome. We are 100% on birds taken with a total of 16 birds harvested so far.
Nebraska Turkey-2008
Nebraska Turkey season was by far one of the best ever. We had a total of 15 hunters and 22 birds harvested.
Mt Lion 2007-2008
Click here to view 2007-2008 Mtn Lion Success Photo
So far this year we have had some great conditions . So far we have had 4 hunters and 3 of them harvested nice lions with their bows. Our first hunter only hunted 2 days and we did not cut a track in those 2 days however he will be returning in January to continue his hunt. On average in good conditions we usually cut a track every 3rd day.
The Lion season is coming to a close and conditions never got better. We ended with 3 cats taken only 1 hunter did not harvest a cat.