Our winter coyote hunters consisted of the father and son team, Bud and Beau Smedely from Ohio, and Remington PR rep. Linda Powell, who brought three outdoor writers, Judd Cooney, Bryce Towsley, Gordy Krahn. Linda's group was doing the first field test for Remington's new .17 Fireball. This new cartridge worked great on these big northern coyotes. All hunters connected on a prime pelted dog. There is no shortage of coyotes to call in this country and even when the wind picked up we were successful using the spot and stalk technique.

On to our spot and stalk spring black bear hunts. Lorne Rees took a nice cinnamon bear on the fifth day of his hunt and then our next hunter Craig Stabler took a black bear on the sixth day of his hunt. Our last two bear hunters were Ioannis Malakassis and Tom Martino who had both hunted with us last spring. Ioannis took his biggest bear to date, a black boar that had a 19 5/16" skull. Tom took a beautiful cinnamon boar on the third day of the hunt.

This year we expanded our archery season and took ten bowhunters. Matt Whitt and Dave Dominick booked our only two elk tags and had a full week of excitement. Matt took his first bull, a nice 5x6. Dave saw many bulls including a 330" bull at eighty yards but never launched an arrow at an elk, however Dave was able to connect on a 160" velvet mule deer. Our remaining eight archery mule deer hunters saw some great bucks and some had multiple shooting opportunties. Everyone except Mike Siegler harvested a buck with their bow. Mike was looking for a big deer and even though we hunted three different bucks that would score over 180" we never got lucky. That's bowhunting! In all we took eight archery mule deer that ranged in score from 130" to over 180" and were one for two on our elk.

After archery season we had a short break and then started our rifle mule deer hunts. It was a nice change for us guides to only have to get our clients within a few hundred yards of our quarry instead of having to sneak within bow range! We had 100% success on our rifle mule deer hunts and again average in the high 160's. Opening morning yielded two 170" deer for Nick Jackson and Terry Donovan. Dean Capuano from Swarovski Optiks brought John Mogel from Christensen Arms and each harvested their buck on film for the Christensen Outdoors TV show.

November rolled around and Dave Heistman on his second mule deer hunt with us took a heavy, dark horned buck that had over 40" in mass measurements. Also on this hunt was John Martin and Todd Lawson, both first time mule deer hunters. John took a neat buck that had a drop tine and Todd took our best buck of the season, a 186" giant.

Next was the Arkansas crew; Richard Grounds, Terry Davis, and Tim Nash. Within three days each had taken a buck, Terry's dark horned buck had great back forks and taped out at 175". The next week was quite busy with hunters Latham Myers, Ted Linde, Terry Nearing and Mark Ferrell. Hunting for both whitetails and mule deer everyone filled their tags by the end of the week, four mule deer and three whitetail.

The final week brought Bob Highfill, Steve Whisler and Rick and Dick Olson along with some very cold temperatures! Bob and Steve took their mule deer on day one and day two. Rick and Dick on their fourth hunt with us, decided to hunt for whitetail this year. Dick got his buck from a ground blind on the third day and Rick had a opportunity at a 160" class buck but was unable to connect.

We are now booking for the 2008 and 2009 season. We still have room for a few coyote hunters from January through March 2008 and many of our 2008 big game hunts are filling up quick. Give us a call for more hunt information including dates and availability, we look forward to talking to you and hopefully have you join us for a hunt.

A special thanks goes out to our clients that hunted with us this season and in years in the past. Guides Kelly Wiebe, Darcy Barrett, Cam Nelson, Kent Robertson, and Bob Earl did an amazing job in the field and sent our clients home with great trophies and memories to last a lifetime.

Download The Full Printable 2007 Hunt Report

Willow Creek Outfitters Call André: 1-403-549-0111 info@willowcreekoutfitters.com

Hunting Videos on YouTube

Like us on Facebook