Hunting and Fishing News Blog Articles

Generally speaking, Idaho makes very few changes during the biennial season/regulation period. However, there are a few exceptions to this and for 2018 we are seeing a couple changes that are bigger than “usual” and we want to make note of it now before applications are due.

The headliner for now is the change up of the unit 46 California Bighorn sheep hunt. There has been disease found in the area and the sheep populations and herd health are a concern. Thus, IDFG has closed hunt 7007 and essentially condensed the two sub-season hunts into one longer hunt and cut the tag allotment from a total of 5 down to 3. This hunt choice has been a difficult but solid producer over the years and offers a unique hunt choice in the Bruneau-Jarbidge Wilderness area. Details of the disease are currently unknown to us, but this is often bad news for the herd over the long run as wild sheep tend to be quite sensitive to sickness. Keep an eye on the IDFG website for updates. Hopefully, a lightened fall harvest and some innovative biologists can turn this around quickly. What does this mean for you? This hunt was already difficult with low harvest odds. With the cloud of disease looming, this hunt choice is a tough one to consider. Then again, applicant pressure will likely shift and for a hardcore hunter, odds could be better than ever. You will have to weigh the odds yourself as point creep and sheep hunting are converging into a tough outlook throughout the West. Spending points conservatively is often the safest.

A last-minute front runner showed up and that was the biologist recommended unit closure for Rocky Mountain goat hunt 6005 which takes place in unit 10-3. We rank this hunt as a solid green chip opportunity and this news is a crusher for goat hunters. Excellent billy harvest, great trophy potential for Idaho and due to not being able to find the goats IDFG has decided to cut the quota and close this hunt for 2018! Not the news we want to hear, for more reasons than one. I sure hope we can get another survey in there and find them. Long story short, none of us want to burn a bunch of points on a hunt and not harvest because the animals up and moved out. Or go out and harvest the last of a herd’s population. Scratch this hunt off your list and study up! We lost a good hunt opportunity here.

Next up are unit 10A deer tags; hunters have reported fewer mature bucks in this region and have urged IDFG to reduce the pressure and harvest. The current solution for 2018 is to prohibit the use of a 2nd deer tag for harvest in Unit 10A. Secondly, they reduced the season length by 11 days. Thus the 2018 season ends November 20th instead of Dec 1st. The combination of these two measures should lighten the harvest and give these deer a chance to gain some momentum. The takeaway here; kudos to the sportsmen that brought up these concerns and IDFG for listening. If 10A is on your list, I wouldn’t shy from it, the percentage of 5-point buck harvest is still at objective and the hunt dates still provide a solid rut hunting opportunity. But then again, maybe giving these deer a short break isn’t a bad option either!

Use the code  shootwithswagger at checkout for a discont!

Eastmans’ staffer Scott Reekers shares his experience hunting elk with Swagger all-terrain bipod system equipped Savage Model 111 rifle chambered in .300 Win Mag. Shooting his rifle from the  prone position, the stability and flexibility of this bipod system allowed him to harvest a mature bull elk deep in the Wyoming backcountry. Using a bipod  can give you the extra edge to thread the needle and harvest a quality trophy. Press play to watch this tip using the original Swagger Bipod and see you at the range or in the field!

Use the code  shootwithswagger at checkout for a discont!

In the last 18 months at least four western state game & fish licensing or park systems have apparently been hacked, along with Kentucky and another state the hacker claimed but didn’t identify. No evidence has surfaced of personal information taken or tags illicitly obtained. So, no worries, right? How secure are you that your identity and years of saved points are safe?

If you live in Idaho, Oregon or Washington, you’ll remember the September 2016 hacking of their systems. A hacker going by “Mr. High” posted that he had gained access to personal information in five Game and Fish sites or their licensing vendor, which in ID, OR and WA was Active Network.

Idaho and Washington suspended all license sales while they investigated, and Oregon suspended online sales. It turned out that the weakness only allowed access to information for those who had first started applying before 2006 or 2007. Active Network offered free identity repair services and according to the Idaho Statesman, claimed that it had patched the weakness “within 15 hours” and hired a “top-tier cybersecurity firm to conduct a review.”

That hack was disclosed by the hacker. But, what has been undisclosed or undiscovered? After all, there were 100,000 incidents hacks in 2015.
What if some tags are not going to the fortunate but to the nefarious? Would someone pay a full-time basement-dweller to hack their way to a bighorn sheep license without the auction price tag or many years of waiting?

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The Four-Year Area Plan Outline

With a little research and a plan, the smart hunter can hunt elk every fall regardless of whether or not they are a resident of one of the western states. The key to this is to create a plan. Such a plan revolves around three types of areas; primary areas, secondary areas and dream areas.

Primary Areas

The first thing we want to accomplish is fulfilling the need to hunt elk every year. This is where I cover all my bases and build a contingency plan, or “ringer.” Since I am a resident of Wyoming that allows me to buy an over-the-counter general elk license and hunt elk every year in my native home state. If you do not have this option however, don’t panic. You will need to pick a few states that have a decent opportunity for a trophy bull on public land with reasonable draw odds.

Accomplished mule deer hunter, Eastmans’ member, and Eastmans’ Elevated guest Ryan Lampers’ hammers a trophy buck in the backcountry in  some of  Idaho’s finest grey ghost country. Lampers is in for a surprise when the buck runs right toward him after absorbing a round from his 300 Win Mag! Read the entire story of Lampers’ heart-pounding hunt in the February/March issue of Eastmans’ Hunting Journal.

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The post The Mule Deer Issue: Ryan Lampers’ Buck appeared first on Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals.

Travel halfway around the world to hunt for a “gold-medal double” on giant Marco Polo rams with Guy Eastman in Tajikistan. Eastman and family friend, Bryan Martin hunt a giant world record class Marco Polo ram near the border of Afghanistan. To harvest a giant marco polo ram in Asia, hunters must overcome extreme altitudes, barren terrain, and must match wits with one of the most elusive and cunning big game animals on the planet. Hunting for giant Pamir rams is not for the faint of heart, and to hunt them on foot in a spike camp at 16,500 feet during November is more than most hunters can muster. Watch to see how these two mountain hunters challenge themselves in one of the toughest climates on earth to try and bring home one of the largest and most coveted big game prizes in all of the world. This Marco Polo sheep hunt is a dream three generations in the making for the Eastman family. Nearly 60 years in the making, Beyond the Grid TV heads to the nearly uninhabitable Pamir mountains of Tajikistan in this episode.

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The post Beyond The Grid: Giant Marco Polo Rams appeared first on Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals.

Bowhunt elk in the heart of grizzly bear country in this episode of Beyond the Grid TV by Eastmans’. Bowhunter Dan Pickar travels deep into the wilderness of Wyoming to chase bull elk in early September. Hunting in grizzly bear habitat has Pickar taking extra precautions. Learn tips and tricks for staying safe and successfully hunting elk in grizzly bear habitat.

Special Thanks:
U.S. Forest Service Shoshone National Forest
Wyoming Game and Fish Department

The post Beyond The Grid: Wyoming Wilderness Elk Hunt appeared first on Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals.

Two of the biggest names in western hunting have joined forces to bring you, the hunter, another high tech arrow for your quiver. Eastmans’ and onX Hunt have put their heads together to add the Eastmans’ Members Research Section (MRS) information as a layer for your onX 4.0 app.

The MRS will help you figure out where and how to apply for your tag. With over 2,000 hours of research by our staff annually, it will give you the leg up on the research you need to come out West and put the trophy of a lifetime on the ground. The MRS covers all 11 western states for deer, elk, antelope, sheep, moose and goat.

What this does is condense the MRS information into a digital platform that is right in the palm of your hand every time you pick up your phone or other mobile device. This makes finding draw odds or uncovering the best units in a given state all that much easier. It also adds a research and scouting tool to the already stellar onX Hunt platform.

For example, say you’re hunting mule deer in a general unit in Wyoming and stumble across an elk honey hole. You know this is where you need to be with an elk tag in your pocket. Until now you had to wait until you had access to the print version of Eastmans’ MRS to find out how long it would take you to draw a tag for your new hotspot. Now you can pin the exact location you’ve discovered and then turn on the Eastmans’ MRS layer to see soon you can hunt this spot for elk.

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.” John Wooden

In the spirit of “doing” we sometimes run before we walk and therefore stumble and fall. Just recently we discovered an error in our attempt to bring you the most up to date application information for Arizona Elk and Antelope.

In EBJ 105 we reported that the online application deadline for Arizona Elk and Antelope is February 14th, 2018. This is incorrect information, the correct deadline for online Arizona Elk and Antelope is 11:59 PM Tuesday, February 13th, 2018. You still have time to get your Elk and Antelope applications in for the 2018 Arizona draw.

Again, we apologize for our mistake and any headaches this may have caused. Thank you for your understanding and best of luck in the draws.  

The post Arizona MRS Correction appeared first on Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals.

MYSTERY RANCH is proud to announce that their Metcalf pack now comes in the Subalpine pattern from Gore! To make this announcement even better MYSTERY RANCH wanted to make sure we let all of you know that they now have a harness designed specifically with the ladies in mind, designed to fit a woman’s body perfectly. Sign up your friends, family and everyone in between as this pack is #builtforthemission!

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The post MYSTERY RANCH Metcalf in Subalpine Giveaway! appeared first on Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals.

There are several important changes in the Colorado application process in 2018 that need your attention before you apply for 2018 licenses.

The CPW has gone to a single, integrated purchasing system. Hunters that were in the previous system must now look up their previous account and set up their profile in the new system. It is not automatically moved over and depends on you doing it yourself.

Every hunter, including youth, other members of families and members of hunting groups will need to have their own CPW account and each person must enter their own unique email, no exceptions. Your email becomes your account login along with a password you create.

All limited license applications are now paperless, including the trophy species that up until last year, could only be sent in by paper. You must apply at cpw.state.co.us

Good news – hunters for any species will not have to pay for the license(s) when they apply but they must still put in their payment information so that the card can be charged when they are successful in getting drawn.

Every hunter is looking for the secret sauce that allows someone to draw as many tags as possible on a regular basis. The problem with secret sauces is that they usually don’t actually exist. Grill masters recipes vary slightly but the winners in pit challenges are the cooks who can appeal to the widest number of contest judges. Regardless of this simple fact the secrets are chased and held tighter to the chest every year looking for an edge over the competition.

Byron Oldham allegedly found a secret sauce to acquiring tags across the West for himself and possibly others. Based on charges filed in Wyoming his recipe for success involved hacking the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s third party application system. He used a script that allowed him to apply for two moose tags in 2016 when only one application per person is allowed.

Upon further investigation by officials in Wyoming there was even more tampering with the system involving 99 sheep applications in one minute. The result of this investigation could lead to three years of jail time.

In our hunting world the perceived secret sauce is figuring out how to draw as many hard to draw tags as possible. The reality is that there isn’t a secret sauce for tag applications and good old fashioned application strategy and point building is the only guarantee.  The question that still needs to be answered is how many states has he been able to apply some sort of script to and acquire hard to draw tags? Did his tag application service do this for others? If someone used the Pointhunter app was their personal data compromised in some way?

All of the “secret sauce” recipes will be laid out for the public to see soon enough.

Every now and then a new cartridge comes along that turns my head and gets me itching to shoot it. There is no secret, I’ve never been a .243 Winchester fan, always preferring the much hotter 6mm Remington. However, with the virtual obsolescence of the 6mm Remmington in both firearms and factory ammo I was stoked to try the new 6mm Creedmoor with its Hornady Precision Hunter loads. Falling neatly between the above mentioned rounds in performance and ballistics put this new chambering on deck for both my Wyoming pronghorn and whitetail hunts.

But first, a bit of range time… I was not disappointed and found the 6 Creed to be equally effective at both short and long distances. In fact, fun is the exact word that comes to mind and I burned up the better part of a case of Hornady Precision Hunter just smacking steel with it. Extremely mild mannered yet carrying enough oomph out to around 500 yards to get the job done on medium game such as pronghorns. I was growing very impatient waiting for my chance to litmus test this new cartridge in the field.

Long story short, the 6mm Creedmoor and I were able to collect two wonderful animals; my best pronghorn to date and a great 5×5 whitetail. Coupled with the 103 grain ELD-X in Hornady’s Precision Hunter the middle six emphatically let the air out of both animals. Because of the light recoil of the round I was able to watch both bullet impacts through the scope and can say that each displayed the impressive energy transfer I expected.

The pronghorn was hit slightly quartering away at a hair over 200 yards and the bullet entered mid-chest angling into the muscles forward of the off shoulder where it came to rest having imparted all of its 1651 ft. lbs of KE into the buck. He snow plowed forward on his nose for about twenty yards and toppled over, stone dead.

The elk herd in Wyoming has fared very well these past few years. The 2016 surveys have put most of the elk herds in the limited quota areas in the state well above objective levels with drastically rising bull to cow ratios, all good news for hunters. With the heavy snows of last year and a wet summer the feed on the winter range should be in top shape right now. So far, a mild winter has put our elk in even better condition for this coming fall.

Dave and I have built some fairly extensive mathematical modeling that will actually rate an area with a numeric rating from zero to one hundred based on the area’s merits from a trophy hunting perspective. Criteria and variables such as public land percentage, access, terrain, trophy quality, favorable season dates, hunting pressure and opportunity, to list just a few, are all considered. The trophy and population trend for the state is also factored in then the result is normalized to compare to other states such as Arizona, Nevada and Montana. I used this modeling equation along with some good old-fashioned intuition from living here for the better part of my 46 years to build this year’s top five area list for Wyoming elk.

This type of information for every elk area in the entire state and West can be found in the MRS section in the back of each issue of Eastmans’ Hunting and Bowhunting Journals. To get you started here are few of the better elk areas in Wyoming.

          TOTAL SCORE: 90.5/100

After a nearly a decade long hiatus Wyoming is finally back on track with seasonal gray wolf hunting kicking off in 2017. After not hunting wolves for so long in the Cowboy State we have a massive overabundance of them roaming the hills and valleys, which is the reason so many of the wolf quotas were filled so quickly this past hunting season. The 2017 wolf season inside the “trophy” zone opened on October 1st statewide. As a result of so many wolves more than half of the area quotas did not even last through the month of October. Of the twelve open wolf areas six of them filled their quotas with only twenty-five days or less of hunting.

I personally had a wolf tag in hunt Area-4 (Meeteetse Area) where the season failed to remain open for even four full days. You are welcome Wyoming Game and Fish for the $20 donation, every little bit helps I guess. I think it fair to say that if a quota is filled in less than four days, we simply have too many wolves. Hunt Area-11 (South Wind Rivers) was even shorter, where four wolves were killed on a three-wolf quota on the first and only day of the season! Newsflash- I think we need higher quotas. And I’m not the only person who thinks this, the Game and Fish as quoted in a local newspaper article, “there’s still a surplus of wolves, well beyond the minimum of 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs that the state has agreed to.”

As of the end of December the only three wolf seasons still open were Areas 6, 7 and 8 in and around the Jackson Hole valley where the wolves are very difficult to kill mostly due to the tough hunting conditions, remote access and low hunting pressure in the area.

There is some very interesting statistical data nested inside this report as well. More evidence that predator population control and management often boils down to simple math and economics, contrary to popular belief and basic uneducated logic on the subject. The fact remains, wolves, grizzly bears and mountain lions will die, we just seem to be fighting over who is going to do the killing and how we are going to pay for it. A simple case in point, in California where cougar hunting has been outlawed for decades, the state of California is now killing more mountain lions than they ever did during an open cougar season so many years ago. And instead of generating revenue from cougar hunting licenses, tags and permits, California is now paying millions of dollars for state sponsored under the radar, politically correct predator control efforts-a financial swing of literally millions of dollars, and not to the favor of the taxpayers or sportsmen of California. When it comes to wolves, Wyoming is not much different.

Here are some stats to back that statement up. In 2016 Wyoming did not have a wolf hunting season but 113 wolves were still removed from the state, killed by wildlife officials through damage control efforts. This cost the state no less than hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not one single wolf tag was sold in Wyoming in 2016, leaving the sportsmen of the state of Wyoming to pick up the tab for the location and removal of the 113 problem wolves.

Wyoming is producing its fair share of political waves in the big game hunting world. Wyomings outfitter’s are lobbying to have more tags allocated to non-resident hunts for elk as a result of the population growth seen in recent years.

Every few years the equation for coming up with how many non-residents receive Wyoming elk tags is evaluated. The evaluation is on the docket for 2018 and many outfitters believe the quota should be raised which in turn would provide them with a potentially better stream of income. This would especially be true for the sought after Wilderness area tags where a non-resident must hunt with a resident or with a guide.

Residents will argue that if an increase in tags is merited that they should go to residents first and not see a net percentage increase to hunters from out of state. Comparatively, Wyoming gives more tags to non-residents than most other states already.

This becomes even more controversial in light of the increase in non-resident license fees and preference points that is being instituted this coming year. With all of the discussion about non-resident tags, 2018 is shaping up to be one that big game hunters with plans to hunt in Wyoming should watch closely.

What do you think? Should the formula change in favor of growing the non-resident tag allotment?

It is still unpopular to scout a mature mule deer in a unit you don’t have a tag for and then sell those coordinates to someone who has the tag. Last year this concept was made known to the hunting world on a mule deer hunting focused forum. It didn’t take long for detractors to show up, in a big way!

A bill in the Wyoming House has now been proposed that would make this activity illegal in the Cowboy State. The loophole is that licensed outfitters can still send coordinates to their guides and essentially, their clients.

This bill has also made it illegal to send pictures that identify locations of big game or trophy animals for money. The Wyoming Legislature is closing as many potential loopholes as possible for the rules to be bent on this law.

Personally, I believe these types of bills are going to become necessary as technology improves and the desire to add a little extra income from hobbies grows. Not crossing ethical lines as we move forward is going to be a constant talking point, which really isn’t anything new. However, as technology accelerates so will our conversations about ethics.

Which also begs the question, how long has this been going on under the radar? Did going public with this business venture simply expose something that has been going on for a while? My gut says yes, which means that the dude who may have never killed a mule deer suddenly stumbling on a 220” buck might not have been a coincidence.

We all have it. That one rifle that we can’t help but reach for inside the gun safe, the one we consider our most reliable. The one that because of our prejudice towards its accuracy and knock down power has a higher kill count than all the others. Here are a few of the rifles that are our “go to” options.

The .270 Winchester Short Mag has become my go to rifle in recent years. I have fallen for the .270 WSM simply due to solid performance. Everything I’ve shot with this rifle has met an emphatic end, including two bucket list sheep this year. I have used Hornady factory loads and handloads for this rifle, both of which have proven to be effective. There are very few animals that I would hesitate to use this rifle on, especially when paired with a heavy for caliber bullet. – Guy Eastman

The .300 Win. Mag is my favorite all around caliber and I am betting many of you have the same feelings. For big tough animals like elk or moose use a 180-220 grain bullet and the knockdown power is more than enough. If I am shooting antelope I will find a load that has a lighter bullet with faster muzzle velocity. Do I have other calibers in my gun safe? Sure, but if I was forced to pick only one this would be my go to! -Ike Eastman

Factor in bullet sizes ranging from 125 – 220 grains in factory loaded ammunition readily available in any store, small enough to shoot coyotes, big enough to harvest moose, proven field reliability since 1906, and a nickname of “Old Meat in the Pot” and you will know why I LOVE the trusty old .30-06! The one rifle that does it all. Considering I shoot all of my animals from 450 yards and under, it’s all I need and want in a rifle. – Brandon Mason

We’ve all heard the expression “don’t miss the forest for the trees”. We are all guilty of missing the big picture at times, as this old saying implies.

Recently, the Congressionally designated Wilderness Act proved once again that people often “miss the forest for the trees” when it comes to the intent of the Act rather than the letter of the Act.

The Wilderness Act, signed into law in 1964, created the National Wilderness Preservation System and recognized wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” The Act further defined wilderness as “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions….” You can read the language in the Act here.

On December 6, 2017, abc News reported that a judge ordered almost two years of data collected from radio-collared elk and wolves in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho be destroyed because the animals were collared in the Wilderness with help from a helicopter. An environmental group called Western Watersheds Project, Friends of the Clearwater and Wilderness Watch enlisted Tim Preso, an attorney for Earthjustice, to handle the case. Gee…do you think there is an axe to grind in that camp?!

The data obtained from two years of collection was intended to be used for better elk/wolf management on the landscape. But now your and my hard-earned tax dollars and license fee dollars are being used once again to pay for nonsense in the court system related to wildlife management.