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audsley

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About audsley

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  • Birthday 07/27/1949

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    TUCSON
  • Interests
    Coues and other big game, fishing

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  1. audsley

    Black River Small Mouth

    Slow down a bit. In normal times the Black River is running too high and fast to be fishable until late April or May. Your lures/flies won't stay down and it's a little fast for feeding. There's a website that proviides stream flows. Right now it's showing a very low flow rate of 25.4 cfs at the pump station, but I suspect that rate will pick up when snow melt starts pouring in. Someone in the north country might have a better feel for current conditions, but here's the site. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/current/?type=flow I always went in the summer. Never heard of anyone fishing in the winter but won't say it can't be done. Summer thunderstorms will turn the water too muddy to fish by late June or July, but it clears again about October. Expect to see bears and protect your food. You might have good luck with Senkos or crawdad imitation lures. Note that the Point of Pines/pump station area is only reachable from the San Carlos side. You need their permit which used to be $20 per day and probably still is.
  2. audsley

    Fishing Forums

    Forums in general have faded in popularity. Azfly&Tie is another that isn't what it used to be. This forum is doing better than most. In fact, it's become my primary source for fishing news. There's a lot I'd like to know about the state's fisheries and how they're managed, but AGFD gives fishing low priority.
  3. audsley

    Hunters locked out of Buehman Canyon Unit 33

    Piety Hill - i used to go in that way, but Buehman Canyon is several miles long, and the road past Piety Hill doesn't get you very far in. You'll need to start walking when you hit the bottom of the canyon downstream from where most hunters go. It isn't a practical alternative. I see no connection between the number of tags G&F allocates to 33 and a private landowner closing off the road. This particular landowner has a history of locking hunters out of state and federals over in Unit 32. As for other alternatives, I suppose you could also hike 7 or 8 miles down from San Pedro Vista. I know guys who have done it. But that's not a very practical alternative either. Access by the old road already afforded opportunity for very challenging backpack hunts in various directions. Now those opportunities are gone at least for now.
  4. Deer hunters with Unit 33 tags should know that the gate to Buehman Canyon has been locked at the Redington Road and will remain so until someone does something about it. This is the main access to a major canyon and surrounding drainages and has always been used by a substantial number of Unit 33 tagholders. . If you hunt anywhere in 33, this could impact you even if you don't hunt that specific area. The many who normally hunt there will now need to go somewhere else in 33. This road has historically conveyed sportsmen through 10 miles of prime mule and Coues deer country terminating at the Brush Corrals on Coronado National Forest Rd. 4407. From there you could hike toward Evans Mountain or up Buehman, Burro and Diablo canyons. Some Coues hunters preferred to stop outside the forest boundary and hunt the mesquite/palo verde country. The road was closed by a private landowner who recently acquired two pieces of private property. We don't need to hunt their private property. What we need is access to state trust and federal lands we're being locked out of. One parcel is along the road, where the gate has been installed. The other parcel is crossed along the edge by a short stretch of the road. These small private parcels are tying up thousands of acres of public land. Presently there is no access for Pima County, the state, Game & Fish, the forest service or the public. A county official told me Pima County, which paid $1.55 million for conservation property they need to monitor, will try to negotiate with the landowners for administrative access, but not necessarily public access. The state land department and forest service need to monitor grazing leases on the state and federal land, and the feds need access to fight forest fires. I'm afraid the land agencies will just take care of themselves getting keys from the landowners. The rest of us will be left out unless somebody does something about it. Anyone interest in getting involved in this fight should PM me and we can exchange contact information.
  5. audsley

    Sonoran Antelope Question

    Heat hit the most important point. Highway 2 has been a game-changer since the 1980s and carries a lot of traffic nowadays. Historically it was an unpaved road with cars going much slower than today. Now that highway is an important truck route. Combine that with the fact that pronghorn get very little real protection or tangible support down there and crossing the border just isn't good for them anymore. It wish it wasn't that way, but that's how the biologists tell us it is.
  6. audsley

    Tell me about this gun

    I became a 6.5x55 enthusiast 20-25 years ago and still own three from that era. My attraction stemmed from the relatively light recoil that makes it ideal for wives and boys in their early teens. It packs a lot more punch than a .243 but, at comparable velocities, has only about 5% more recoil than the 6.5 Creedemore that's been all the rage in recent years. Your barrel looks a little short. The 6.5x55 favors slow-burning powders and does better with longer barrels. The 96s were made with a 2-inch step-down near the muzzle based on a short-lived theory that it would dampen vibration. I sporterized one with a surplus Mauser Obendorf barrel I bought for $20 in the mid-90s. It came 23 inches long, but I had the stepped-down end cut off leaving 21 inches and re-crowned it. I cold-blued it, put in a Timney trigger, oil-finished and glass-bedded a Harry Lawson thumbhole stock and mounted a 3x9 Bushnell 3000 Elite scope. After all that, it shot 1 1/4 inch groups on a good day. It kept up that level of accuracy out to 200 yards, but the groups spread quite a bit at 300. It seems to de-stabilize as it slows down. I've wondered if the shortened barrel could be part of the problem. I suggest keeping velocities around 2400-2500 for 140-grain bullets. The Swedish steel was excellent for its time, but you'll want to be careful about receiver setback. Have the headspace checked. As for the longer throat, I've read that the Scandanavians don't bother trying to load close to the lands. Unless the rifle shows signs of being a real tack-driver (unlikely), I wouldn't bother either. Cock-on-closing never bothered me. If your initial range trial is encouraging, there's plenty of stuff out there on the internet about the 6.5x55.
  7. audsley

    RAA 2.0 Recreational Access Map

    Got my call back from the IT branch chief. The people were very helpful, but as a product review I'll have to say RAA 2.0 is one star out of five in its present stage of development. The map isn't populated with locked and unlocked gates unless you do it yourself. The vision for the RAA map is a pretty good one, but I feel it was marketed to the public before it was ready.
  8. Has anyone successfully used the $25 premium feature yet? I bought it two weeks ago for my upcoming hunt in SE Az where access is spotty. The premium version is supposed to show locked and unlocked gates along with some other things. There are no clear directions for using it. After calling G&F in Phoenix, I learned that it has to be accessed through my portal. But the lady helping me couldn't pull up the premium features either, so she handed me off to an IT guy who it turns out has only been working there three weeks and has never used it himself. He transferred me to a game branch manager with an answering machine. I'm waiting for his call back now. Since I have no idea when I'll get a call back, I thought I'd ask if anyone here can tell me how to use this thing. I'd like to plan a scouting trip for tomorrow morning.
  9. audsley

    Sea of Cortez 8/18

    Whaaaat? I thought you'd forsaken Lobos for Cabo. And those are some really nice groupers. Sweaty time to be in Lobos, so you earned those fish. Whose boat did you fish out of, if you don't mind me asking?
  10. It's a classic Western movie out of the 1930s and 40s. Slick operators attempt a land grab. When the people stand up to them and say no, they send their lawyers to get the court on their side. If Finchem would just grow that mustache a little longer, he could start twirling it for effect.
  11. I watched the video over the weekend. The Republicans disgraced themselves with factual errors, half-truths, mangled logic and opinions presented as facts They insisted that sportsmen opposed to their bill simply don't understand it. But in trying to explain it, they've now provided video documentation that they don't know much about public lands, hunting, public access or anything else relevant to this subject. None of the legislators arguing in favor of HB2210 showed enough aptitude or foundational knowledge to be messing with a subject this big and important. If incompetence isn't damning enough, they also revealed their extraordinary dishonesty. They insisted that they have no intention of selling off BLM or national forest lands, and they'd like to put that rumor to rest. But several GOP legislators, past and present, have told me in person that they do in fact intend to sell off some of it, and they've gone into detail as to why. In recent years some have been quoted in news accounts proudly announcing their plan to turn public lands into taxable private land. That was before they gradually came to understand that the public doesn't want it sold off. Now they're saying it isn't, and never was, their intention to sell any of our public lands in the first place. They will always remain public lands, they said. Yeah, right. They also denied planning to put the lands in a trust similar to our present state land trust, which would place legal restrictions on access and use that we don't now have with federally managed lands. This contradicts what they were promising our state school superintendent and the public a year ago when state control of public lands was suddenly going to fund our schools in grand fashion. Rep. Travis Grantham, who claims a family connection to ranching and, therefore, special knowledge in these matters, asked what I thought was a really strange question. He mentioned the "checkerboard" issue and asked prime bill sponsor Mark Finchem whether transferring federal lands to the state could help alleviate this problem. Since checkerboarding involves only state and private lands, it's hard to see how a transferring federal lands that aren't part of the checkerboard would have any relevance. Rep. Finchem said yes, it very well might, but didn't offer any explanation as to how. I believe he was as stumped as I was. I could go on and on picking apart more of the nonsense that was spoken last Thursday, but anyone strongly interested can look at it here. There were some pretty good comments from the five or six citizens who spoke against it. I especially appreciated a Mr. Weed (or something like that) who supplied something that's been missing from other commenters. He let them know this is a cold, dead hands issue. And for some of us, it is. http://azleg.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=20197&meta_id=492462
  12. audsley

    Crappie

    Minnows are best where you're allowed to use them. They aren't allowed at Patagonia Lake. Not sure of any other places where they might not be allowed.. Otherwise, Stanley's suggestion is a good one. Also Kaelin jigs in either John Deere green and chartreuse. And let us know where they're biting.
  13. audsley

    Sonora Fishing 12-10

    You don't have to be all that deep to catch fish that size. Here's a gulf grouper I caught in maybe 70-80 feet of water. A clam diver who was with us said he's seen as many as 10 that size on the same reef all at once. These yellowtails were about the same depth. This leopard grouper was in no more than 30 feet of water. All that said, it's true that there are more 100-120 pounders out deeper especially around underwater caves. But you can do pretty darned good within a couple of miles of shore. That video points out some of what's wrong in the Sea of Cortez. Long liners and net fishermen are taking tons of fish every day and earning poverty-level incomes. Consider how much they could earn guiding sport fishermen to catches like that. And then there's the hospitality business that goes with it. Cleaning and packing your fish, serving you grilled seafood on the beach and providing pangas, motors and whatever fishing equipment you didn't bring can be an experience sport fishermen would love and the locals would find much more profitable. Maybe they would even develop a conservation ethic, similar to what we have in the US, where limits are agreed upon and enforced by the local fishing/guiding industry. Under present conditions, it's every man for himself and the fish stock, although still adequate, is declining.
  14. audsley

    Sonora Fishing 12-10

    OK, while I was typing I wasn't seeing Heat's post. Looks like he's already discovered Tom Albers and that Tom has bumped up his rate a little.
  15. audsley

    Sonora Fishing 12-10

    I'm aware of one hotel that's operating, but I wouldn't choose to stay there. I suppose you could "post up" in a dirt lot like Trophy Hunter did, but I'd want to know who owned the lot and maybe talk to them first. Would hate to have to move camp in the middle of the night. There's another building that was going to provide lodging for the Sinaloan pangueras who came seasonally to Lobos, but plans changed after most of the Sinaloans stopped coming. Before that, the Sinaloans were ruining the place as they had no adequate housing or toilet facilities. The beach was their toilet and the tide was their sewer system. They were getting on nerves in Lobos and in Desemboque too until the local strongman up there finally had enough of them and had some locals pour gasoline on a couple of their boats and set them on fire. The Sinaloans got the message and haven't been coming for a couple of years. Fishing got a little better, and the beach got a little cleaner. At any rate, the second "hotel" had been intended to accommodate the now-departed Sinaloans. I heard there were plans to turn the building into an ice house, but I never saw much progress. I haven't been there in a while so don't know what's happened lately. There are indeed two stores, and one of them serves lunch. Last time I was there the lady in the back cooked me up some shrimp with garlic and butter with a side of rice, and it was outstanding, not to mention cheap. The menu is pretty limited, but I'll go there again next time I'm down. You can camp on the beach just north of town. There are some palapas there. I never see anyone camping there, although I know people who have. It's a public beach and gets daytime visitors, people driving over from Caborca I believe, so I'd be a little nervous about going out in a boat for several hours with valuables left at camp. I only know of a couple of houses to rent, but I hear that's going to improve soon. On the other hand, you hear a lot of things are going to happen soon in Mexico, and then they don't. If you have an RV you aren't afraid of getting stuck, that will work too, but there's no RV park. If a more high-end trip is to your liking, you can arrange a guided trip with Tom Albers. Google "fishing Puerto Lobos" and you should find his web site. He'll take you down from Phoenix on a Thursday morning, fish Thursday afternoon to Sunday weather permitting and bring you back on Monday. You stay in his house and he feeds you the whole time. Last I knew he charged $450 per person for the whole trip. You can put together a group, or he will. You can also rent a nice beach home in Santo Tomas and drive 40 minutes to Lobos each morning. Not much to do in Santo Tomas, but it beats driving down from Rocky Point. There are also a couple of Americans who guide out of Santo Tomas. Final tip: the locals in Lobos advise us to stay out of Desemboque. There is other economic activity in the area that doesn't involve ocean products, and most of the pistoleros are holed up in Desemboque.
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