Koury Guide Service

Yesterday morning I took a trip to put up some cameras on my licks to see if we have any giant deer coming in again this year before the archery hunt starts. On the way there I had to glass a couple spots real quick, the second spot I glassed was golden. These bucks were in the thick oaks eating away. The one buck will be real cool if he grows a couple more years, he has long eye guards and a kicker on both sides. Enjoy!! If you know any one with a 3A-3C archery deer tag have them call me and I will make them a good deal since I have had some cancellation's. Enjoy! View the full article

Check out this bull we hunted with a muzzle loader but could never seem to get close enough for the shot with the primitive weapon. It was like this bull had nine lives. This video is from one morning when we had the opportunity to watch this bull for a while in low light. Sorry for the poor quality but the light was not there to get better footage. View the full article

You are correct. I forgot they changed the dates a couple years back.

That's good to hear. My guides had better be respectful all the time. I don't worry though I have some top notch guides that do a great job. If you see a yellow Chevy avalanche stop by and say hi.

Any word? Have they killed? Today is the last day for last years tag..

Thats awesome Vowell. Its always good when you can poke a little fun at people with out anyone taking it wrong. Good luck on the hunt.. TJ the deer in 3A-3C have really taken off after the fire in 2003. After it burnt there is way more buck brush type stuff for the deer to eat that is helping with the horn growth. I dont know all the technical lingo but to answer your question is has got way better after the fire. Dont let my pictures fool people there is not big deer behind every tree like some people try to say. The two deer my kids killed last year on the Junior hunt were over 45 miles apart. It takes alot of time behind a pair of glass and alot of patience since the new oaks are very thick in the burn area. Also the reservation burnt also and that never hurts having that right next door.

I found him only days before we killed him. We were hunting a very nice looking 365 class 6x6 when we ran into that bull. He is a 3c bull that must move to 4b to rut. After we killed him another guide on the mountain sent me a pic he had on his trail camera when the bull was in velvet, his camera was in 3c and about 15-20 miles straight line from where we killed him. I dont have the pic on this computer or I would post it. I think it is on my koury guide service face book page though.

Putting out trail cameras on the water in this unit sounds like a great idea. That is until you get to the unit and find out really how remote it is. I rode a horse as close as possible and then walked to many of the drinkers and that still took alot of time. One drinker we checked during the hunt had water but not one sheep track sine the last rain (approx 1.5 months) that was December though. Trying to put them out now would almost kill you, I dont think you could carry enough water with you. It is a great idea in some of the units where you can drive close but 46B I dont know if it is a good idea. Lets face it once you take it in and almost kill your self it is useless untill you go back in a pick it up, and if it rained since then they might of moved already. Get behind some big glass and cover more area with your eyes, it sure is easier on your body. Here are a couple more red horned rams to look at from your unit. You have to see this sign also, it is classic but very true. Here is how we hunted the unit. It takes alot of work dealing with horses but sure does save the legs and alows you to penetrate the unit better. Here is one of the drinkers that I think is about 7.5 miles one way from the nearest road. This drinker still had a camera on it that had been there for months. I almost picked it up for the guy but then did not want to mess anything up so we left it. It had his name and tag # on the camera. It did him no good though since he had not checked it in months and the hunt was in full swing.

You can bet I will be there. The only question is who will be behind the trigger looking at the huge bucks I found in there scope?

I have held out long enough. Here is the video of this awesome hunt. http://kouryguideser...1.blogspot.com/ Click the link to watch this hunt unfold!!

I have held out on this video for almost a year now and finally decided to put it out there for all to enjoy. This was the 3A-3C junior deer hunt last year. You have seen the the pictures of this awesome deer and now here is the video of the hunt. Enjoy!! View the full article

No the second bull is 3c. The 7 th bull is from 4b and scored 398. TJ it is not a competition, I have about 15-20 chances a year to kill big elk. So you could say that I was cheating compared to the guy that gets to hunt a good unit with a good tag every 5-15 years.. good luck to all again this year. Horn growth is looking better than I thought it would..

Here are some to get your blood pumping. All of these elk were harvested with us in the past couple years. Good Luck!!

Congrats on the tag. I guided that hunt last year and killed a book ram. Game and Fish had him at 165 6/8 and official B&C was 168 1/8. Here is a picture of that ram.

Prepare to meet the Mule Deer buck we named Lucky! We found this buck in mid August and watched him through the archery hunt and into the elk seasons. We were very happy to see that not one archery hunter when we were present atleast ever saw or hunted this awesome deer. We had a young girl hunter that was a perfect fit for this mule deer. We just needed for him to stick around until the junior hunt opened so we could introduce the two. After guiding elk hunter in the same unit for 21 days straight we could not waite to get back out there and look for Lucky. Two days before the hunt we located him again and he was still in full velvet. Then he was gone again. Opening morning at daylight had him laying at 385 yards from us with no velvet left and not a care in the world. While waiting for the buck to stand up for over 30 minutes as the sun started to light him up. We glassed down the ridge and saw some other hunters walking the in the direction of the buck and glassing back onto the ridge we were on. The decision was made to shoot the buck laying down before the other hunters spooked him. He was only laying about 30 yards from thick cover that if he made it into we would not be able to see him again. The rest of the story is why we named him "Lucky". Here is another buck I named "Lucky 2". I watched this buck all the way through the over the counter archery hunt last year because my two kids had the Junior hunt. Then about a week before the Junior hunt he was like a ghost and fanished. Maybe this year! View the full article

For some reason this did not transfer over from my blog. Click on view the full article. There is video of her hunt and the shot. The pictures that are there if you click on them are the buck named "LUCKY 2".

No offence taken. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I spend alot of time in the unit and like any other unit there is some that are going to poach, but I do not feel it is bad at all.

3A-3C was becoming very good before they went to the over the counter archery tags. Now with the limited tags I feel that it will start to gain back the age class needed to produce more 180+ bucks. This past year we killed some awesome deer in this unit even with all the over the counter tags for archery. It is going to get good.. Here are some of the bucks we killed in 3A-3C just last year on the Junior and General hunt. Enjoy!! Here are a couple from the prior year! And now some of the buck that are still alive. I have hours of video of great bucks in velvet and hard horned in this unit over the past couple years. If you know some one that draws a 3A-3C tags (once the results are posted someday) have them call me. We are guiding the archery, general, and junior hunt this year. I feel we will kill bigger bucks this year with the limited amount of tags. Good luck to all in the draw!!

After Skyler had killed such a great bear my oldest son Steffen look at me and said "I see how this is going to go, "Skyler kills a big bear and now there are hunters here and I'm just getting the left overs". He was correct in that statement he was going to get the left overs since there were going to be numerous hunters in camp for the next little while, but I informed him that there were plenty of big bears and when they were done we would start hunting again. After we had killed with numerous hunters it was Steffen's turn again. At this time it was just us and another client. There were 6 baits going at the time and since the other hunter was a paying client they would sit there bait of choice and we would take what was left. Did we ever run into a streak of bad luck, we would look at the cards from the trail camera and pick a bait that looked pretty active and then we would head in that direction to sit all night and see maybe a little bear or two and many nights nothing at all. It was that time of year when the big boars are searching for the hot sow, so you never knew what might walk in or not. Killing a good bear would of been pretty easy but killing a giant was testing our patience. We would sit one bait and the next day when the bait were re-baited and the cards were checked it would show we should of been at a different bait. There was one bear in general we were trying to kill and we thought we finally had him figured out. The last time he hit the bait was just after dark so we were hoping that the cards showed us he was still there and that he had got just a little earlier so he would be there in the daylight. Here is a pic of him. Can you say giant!! Well as our luck would have it he was gone again. This is common for this bear we would show up on two different bait approx 5 miles apart and then he would be gone for a couple days. So yes he is still alive and will only be bigger next year for a lucky client. Our luck finally changed when one of the huge bears we had had on camera showed back up again. Coming to the end of the hunt and with no more clients to go we moved an extra bait barrel to this site to hopefully keep him there until we could get a chance to harvest him if he ever hit in the daylight hours. After sitting the two man stand with three people of course, because Skyler was not missing out on big brothers kill if we could make it happen, good thing he is skinny. Two nights of nothing was starting to take affect on Steffen and he was getting a little down. That night when we got to the truck he looked at me and said "there is nothing we can do, we cant walk father, glass more, we are at the mercy of the bear. I don't like this, I like being able to control the situation not them". I could not not agree more. So we decided to take a couple days off and let as much pressure as possible off the bait in hopes this big bear would make that one mistake we needed. So we baited it real heavy that night so no one would have to come back for at least one day to re-bait. The next couple days were real nice we actually got to eat a real dinner and got in a round of golf with the whole family. Then it finally all came together. After re-baiting real early one morning and looking at the cards we possibly had the break we needed. The giant black bear had hit the bait numerous times and every time he was with a brown sow. All we could hope for was he would stay long enough for us to get that one opportunity we needed and the sow would pull him to the bait in the daylight hours.Here is one of the pictures that got the excitement level back to 1000% That afternoon the decision was made to go with the ground blind and the sent sticks and the awesome Ozonics. This would be something new at this bait since every hunter prior had sat in the stand. We were trying everything to get that one chance on this huge bear. After sitting for over two hours and not seeing a bear it was like our luck had not changed. All night we kept saying please show us the brown sow, show us the brown sow. We knew if she would come in it would force him to follow since they were always together the last couple days. Then it finally happened with only minutes of light left she finally appeared about 45 yards from the bait and made her way in. Loosing light fast we were all staring in the direction she came from in hopes of big black. He finally appeared and almost ran into the bait chasing her off and growling. There was our chance and Steffen made it count. He never moved and just fell at the barrel. You would of though we just won the Super Bowl with all the excitement in that blind. I looked at Steffen and said "left overs are not bad are they". If you have an interest in hunting these awesome animals shoot me an email -kouryguideservice@gmail.com and I can get you hooked up with the right guy and maybe it will be you in the picture next year with a bear of this quality. View the full article

Sorry its been so long since my last post, hunting and helping on over 25 days of spring bear hunts on the reservation along with a full work schedule left no time for anything else. A good friend of mine has his guide license on the White Mountain Apache Reservation for Bear and Mountain lion and both my kids had tags to try and harvest a couple big old bruins. On the reservation they are aloud to bait unlike state land. With numerous baits and numerous trail cameras it is sometimes over whelming on what bait to sit for the night. When the season first started the bears were staying close to the same baits but as the season went on the big boars were roaming looking for females in heat, so when this started it really added to the guess work of where that huge boar might show up. My youngest son was first after winning the coin toss, this did not set well with big brother but it worked out better since big brother was still finishing up high school baseball and Jr. High track was already over. Both kids were set on killing these big bears with there bow and arrows. We picked a bait that had some good bears hitting in the daylight hours and then every now and then a huge bear would show, and then he would be gone again for a couple days. We sat this bait in a ground blind so we could get close enough to shoot a bow when the time finally came. We sat for a couple days before one of the other hunters passed on bear that would make Skyler very happy especially for his first bear and with a bow made it even better. So the next night we switched baits and what a mistake that was. The bear they had passed did not come in that night, on the way back out we checked the trail camera of the bait we had been sitting and the bear we were after had walked in at 7:11 pm. It makes you want to cry when this happens but that is life and you move on. After this happened we decided that we would sit this bait no matter how long it took to get a chance at this big cinnamon bear. After doing everything in our powers to increase the chances of this bear showing up in the daylight hours (buying sent sticks, and Ozonics to kill all sent, along with lots of honey on the barrel everyday) it finally happened. With two bears on the bait at 25 yards in front of us the big cinnamon finally appeared on the top of the hill and started his way to the bait. After chasing off both the other bears he looked as if he was finally ready to come to the bait. Skyler was ready with bow in hand for an opportunity at this awesome looking bear. After looking like he was going to the bait the bear turned and started to walk away. A quick decision had to be made, either wait and hope the bear would come back for that perfect bow shot or trade over to the gun we had brought just in case. Skyler look right at me and said" GIVE ME THE GUN HE'S NOT WALKING AWAY". So we quickly changed weapons and he made a great shot on the bear as he walked away up the hill. Here are a couple other pics of Skyler's bear from the trail camera before we were fortunate enough to kill this awesome animal. View the full article

Here is a bear we were lucky enough to get one chance at once he brought his sow back after a 10 day absence. Click the blog link below to see more pics and hear the whole story of this giant Bear!

Here is the bear my youngest son killed in May of this year. Both my boys had tags on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. It is very fun hunting these big bears and passing on numerous smaller bears. Here are a couple trail cam pics of the bear also. Here is a pic from the video the night we kill him. Click the blog link below to see more pics and get the whole story.

Here is the Turkey Skyler killed on the last morning the juniors could hunt before the two week break. Be sure to click on my blog link below and watch the video of his hunt it is pretty funny. Click the link to see more pictures and see the video of this hunt!

On the last morning the juniors could hunt before having to take a two week break Skyler connected. We have had lots of close encounters but just bad luck has kept him from killing prior to this morning hunt. We found this bird in the roost and made a quick circle to get into place for the fly down. He held for quite a while and finally decided to come take a look, that was his fatal mistake. Be sure to check out the video below it is pretty funny. In two weeks we will be back at it, but in the mean time a little fishing and some archery bear hunts. View the full article