AZ ELK 2008: ELK HUNTING VIDEO/DVD
January 5, 2009
Glenn Heard and Travis McClendon
Glenn Heard finally drew his coveted early muzzle load elk tag in Arizona.
Glenn booked his hunt through Mick Chappell, who contacted me ( Travis McClendon) with hopes that I could guide Glenn in Eastern Arizona. I haven’t guided much in this part of the state but I quickly said yes when I found out it was an early muzzle load hunt. After checking on some tips from a friend of mine, who had an archery tag just days before this in the same unit, I met with Glenn at the hotel and soon. Early the next morning we found ourselves in the middle of bugling bulls and we were able to get very close to 9 different bulls but none that would crack the 350+ mark. That evening we returned to the same area in hopes of finding one to harvest. Before we even stopped the truck, we were in elk and spotted a big 6×6. Glen said “I’ll shoot that one right now!”. We followed close behind for about a mile but the bull never gave us a shot. With his 20 plus cows always in the way, I didn’t think it was going to happen. Right before dark, I cow called and stopped him broadside in an opening 170 yards away. Glenn with a solid rest on a pine tree pulled the trigger. The primer fired and a second later the powder lit. Kudos to Glenn for making a great shot, the bull stumbled 10 yards and fell to the ground. We scored the bull right at 365″ making this a very fast but Awesome hunt.
ARCHERY ELK 2OO8: ELK HUNTING VIDEO/DVD
January 1, 2009
Danny Pareja and Levi McClendon
Danny Pareja and Levi McClendon have been waiting ten years for an Arizona Archery Elk Tag. 2008 turned out to be the lucky year. The spring was wet and the horn growth looked like it would be good, they both hoped for a strong rut. They wanted to be calling bulls in September. They hunted hard for seven days and passed some small bulls but were unable to get on the big bulls they were looking for. The afternoon of the eighth day, the wind was howling and this makes for difficult calling conditions. Then they heard and located a deep sounding bugle. Luck was with them, the whole herd was moving right at them. As the herd moved quickly by them, they saw only glimpses of a bull with no shot opportunities. Levi finally spotted the bull moving away and behind a cedar, he whispered to Danny that he was a shooter. The bull was blocked by the tree but as he moved, Levi called and the bull turned broadside. Danny had a difficult sixty yard shot opportunity through a small opening . He made a great shot on the bull and they filmed the whole scene. The bull is a whopper. Congratulations to Danny Pareja….. great first bull. Levi never saw a bull he wanted and he went home with out a bull, he is going to have to wait awhile for another one of those lucky permits.
Rifle Elk
December 20, 2008
John McClendon, Randy Cramer and Randy Bryant hunted on the early rifle Bull hunt in October. Randy Cramer is a family friend of John’s, when Randy asked John to guide him on his rifle elk hunt in Arizona, John was excited and humbled. Randy is a very good hunter and he also knows this hunt area like the back of his hand. John also felt a lot of pressure personally because Randy is a close friend and also a family member. John really didn’t think he could be much help to him other than he was going to be scouting and hunting in the hunt area for a couple months before Randy’s hunt. John and good friend Randy Bryant had been hired to guide the Arizona State Governor’s tag holder and that would give them a lot of time to be in this area as they searched for a new World Record P&Y bull. They never found a bull that they thought would beat the current P&Y World Record but they did find this big 8X8. He had double fifth points on both sides but had broken the one fifth on the left side, he also had broken a little off his second point, they thought he had lost about 20 inches but still scored an amazing 433 inches SCI. Congrats to Randy Cramer and his awesome bull of a lifetime. Randy made it all happen with one shot and it is on film. The bull is a monster 8×8 scoring 
433 points SCI. This hunt will be on our 2009 Awesome Bulls DVD.
Archery Elk 2008
December 19, 2008
Mike Whelan, Travis Whelan and Brad Parker hunting from one elk camp. We were calling a bull early on opening morning and when he came in, Brad took his first shot at a bull elk. The shot looked good and we had it on film. The bull was a 6×6 and it seemed that opening morning couldn’t have started better for Brad. It took us all day to recover his bull. We should have known we had been snake bite, it would be 14 days before we would shoot at another bull. For a year in which we saw an enormous amount of good bulls, we had a fairly tough hunt. I was able to take and film a nice 6×6 on a trick tank the evening before the last day of the hunt. We called and followed bulls almost every morning but rarely were we able to get them to where we had a good shot opportunity, and it seemed when we did get them close, we couldn’t film them. Travis filmed and passed a number of nice bulls and went home empty. He even passed a pretty nice bull the last night of the hunt. 08 had turned out to be a tough hunt for him. These hunts will be in our 2009 elk DVD.
Bear Hunt - Alaska Coastal Bears
July 24, 2008
by Mike Whelan.
I had a great six day black bear hunt with Dave Benitz. Dave runs Stikine Guide Service out of Petersburg, Alaska. We hunted off of his boat the Sandpiper, moving and staying in small bays and inlets along the islands and mainland with in thirty or forty miles of Petersburg. The Sandpiper was our home base and from it, we would use a sixteen foot skiff to motor along the shores and glass for bears feeding. I had at least one archery stalk a day and sometimes more than one on good boars. To me this was great archery hunting, good stalking and big bear. Dave is a great person to be with and a very good guide, plus his cooking is pretty darn good. We saw 50 to 60 black bear in six days, Dave said that is probably low for his hunts and, naturally, he sees all the bear first. Don’t try to spot bears before him, it just doesn’t work, his son Deven and I spent our days discussing cameras, sea otters, humpbacks and halibut. I shot a good boar, had a great time and couldn’t recommend his hunts any higher than just flat excellent.
Archery Elk DVD - Hunting Project
July 24, 2008
Northstar has a year into this elk hunting DVD project and we already have some great elk footage. Todd Ostrum’s bull elk is a giant, filmed in Arizona in 2007. Todd and Travis McClendon put in a lot of time filming and hunting this bull elk last year. Travis will be in Arizona this year looking for another giant bull elk on his own tag. As a group we have some great elk tags this year, we intend to film these hunts and with some luck, we will have good hunts and finish this bow hunting only DVD for release in the spring of 2009.
