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Meet my grandfather, Frank Mitchell. He was born in the Ozarks in the years prior to WWI. He suffered from dyslexia which no-one had ever heard of, and by the 4th grade his formal education was over. His parents couldn't understand his learning disabilities in school but decided it's best he stay home and work the family farm and lumber mill and help put his eleven brothers and sisters thru school.Fast forward to WWII, Grandpa Frank is driving truck delivering goods for the war effort. His wife had been diagnosed with tuberculosis years earlier and is in a Little Rock Sanatorium. He's raising two daughters on his own. When the war concludes, he takes his daughters out of school, drives them to visit their mother in the hospital. The hospital staff allows my grandmother out onto the grounds for a brief walk with her family but grandpa had other plans. He picks his wife up and with kids in tow dashes to their car. They drive away leaving AR in the rearview mirror and don't stop until they arrive in the Valley of the Sun He buys a lot west of Phoenix along the Salt River, builds a home out of river rock his kids carry from the banks. Soon his best Friend from AR joins him and buys a lot nextdoor, builds his home. Grandpa is offered a trucking route in west AZ, Parker, Quartzite and soon the family is living in the gold rich hills of Polomas. Yuma County, AZ. The home he buys there was built in the 1860s by Mexican placer miners and is on over a hundred patented mining acres. No indoor plumbing, no electricity, no neighbors, but not lacking in gold. Over the next several decades, Grandpa drives truck and has his children and grandchildren working his enterprises. They raised mules for prospecting trips. Goats were raised for meat and milk...the sheep, well they didn't work out, too many lion. Oh and gold was extracted from the placer deposits. A lot of gold. Doctors from the Valley had formed a mining Corporation and leased a milling site from Frank. They had a 60' trommel built and delivered to the mill site. But after just a year the docs were realizing how much work and money was involved and they abandoned the wash plant. Now grandpa had a free trommel. Grandpa didn't trust banks, not after living thru the Great Depression. The gold was beginning to accumulate. He put it in mason jars and coffee cans and got creative hiding it. Then came his divorce. His wife could no longer take their pioneering minimalist life style. She made it known she was moving to Phoenix to live with my aunt. She wanted half of the marriages wealth too. But she'd have to find it first. Fueled by equal parts greed, paranoia, anger and occasionally mezcal, Frank went on a gold caching binge. There was no way Frank was going to roll over for his ex bride and her subhuman rat like lawyers, NO! He hid his wealth, his retirement his love. He hid gold so well that in his later life and declining health, when he thought it was all clear. When he thought it was time to buy things for his ex-wife out of guilt and love, he would spend countless days searching for where he had hid much of it. Remember the home he built along the Salt River in Tolleson? It had been sold off decades earlier but his best friend of over a half century, still lived in the home he built next door to Frank. Frank was in his 70s, his health rapidly declining from exposure to the sun, tequila and the 4 pack a day cigarette habit. He wanted to drive home one last time to AR. Ever present beside him in the old datsun pickup truck was a leather briefcase with a dozen. Mason jars full of gold. He knew carrying gold was a risky venture. And the question of how much gold to take to AR weighed on his mind. On his way east, heading out on on I-10 he stopped at his buddies home. His friends wife wasn't fond of Frank. A plan to cache some gold at his buddies house was carried out that night after the friends wife went to bed. A couple jars of gold were hid and Frank had no doubt he could trust his buddy. Frank drove on to AR a couple jars lighter of gold but felt reassured caching gold was a smooth move, like having insurance. Frank's health was bad. Family in AR convinced him to see a doctor. After an exam and xrays, The news was grim, lung cancer. In the days ahead a lung was removed the other left in diminished capacity.. It would be almost a year before Frank would feel strong enough to drive home to Arizona and tie up the loose ends of his excessive life. But before leaving AR he received word from my aunts, his long time companion and confidant in Tolleson was dead, killed suddenly in a traffic accident. This left him with quite the cunundrum. How to recover the jars of gold from the home of his late friend? One aunt tells me Frank's friends wife was bitter, even jealous of the two men's friendship. She was outwardly hostile towards Frank like a simmering pot ready to boil over. Frank stayed clear of her and never recovered the gold hidden below the homes wooden living room floor board. My other aunt is much younger and has a slightly different recollection of where the gold was hidden. She says Frank confided to her it was buried in the homes side yard close to a stand of oleanders that separated that home from where Frank and my aunt had lived next door. She went on to tell me the home had a concrete floor, the gold is in the yard. How much gold in a Mason jar? I wish I knew first hand. EX. A quart jar holds 2 lbs of water. Gold weighs 19.3 times the weight of H2O, at $1,700 dollars a troy ounce...31 grams, you do the math. But it wasn't the only time Grandpa lost gold.Grandpa's headstone The mining operation wasn't a small one. Over the years, hills were literally flattened by him recovering gold.

We spent opening weekend in and out of toms. My daughter should have been done at 6am Friday morning, but her dad, a supposed turkey hunting veteran, made a rookie (ie, excited dad) mistake. My son was determined to stay the course and today, April 22, 2020, is a day of days. A day I'll long not forget. Jacob decided he wanted another chance at a turkey, so we took off last night packing light for the one night and morning we had available this week. I'm swamped at work, and he's now teaching Taekwondo classes to other kids his age and younger (I love that he's a black belt now). We were in our sleeping bags early and up at 4am this morning. It was cold, but we got dressed, ate breakfast, and made a plan. As we hiked up Plan A canyon, a bird gobbled over in Plan B canyon. We took off cross country, cutting distance and relocating the bird. That bird turned into what we thought were 3, maybe 4 birds up in front of us. A lone gobbler fired off up above them, followed by a gobble down to our left. Good odds, right? I let them know we were there, and simulated two different hens flying down off roost. That's a new tactic for me, but one I'll definitely be incorporating more. One more gobble and the woods went dead quiet. We were about to move somewhere else, so we stood up. I gave one call before we walked out to get the decoys, just to see what would happen. The whole flock gobbled at once 50 yards away. We had to scramble to sit back down! The woods got eerily quiet again, and I was figuring they busted us sitting down. "I can see them!", Jacob whispered. Lessons were learned (Friday morning), so I sat back, patiently waiting for the birds to come in directly in front of us. They didn't come directly in front of us, but in from my hard right. I saw two or three sets of legs and then, 10 or 12 total jakes came strutting in and they lit up when they saw the decoys. I was nervous waiting for one to separate away from the group for Jacob. "Shoot when you've got one separated." I purred one more time, heard the shot, and saw the gobbler on the ground! It was 5: 58am. Jacob had his first turkey on the ground. It was a 12-lb jake with a 4-inch beard, and very worn spurs. The coolest part: I used the slate call he built himself last year to call those birds in! "Dad, can you use my homemade call? It would be so cool for you to call in my bird with a call I made myself!" Tell me with a straight face how you say no to that! We are extremely blessed. 16 years ago right now, my head was spinning after losing my dad on April 10, 2004, while waiting for my daughter to be born (April 25, 2004). Neither of my kids knew their grandpa and he loved turkey hunting and fishing. A good friend up here has become a grandpa-figure to both my kids and he took us to this spot this weekend. He stopped by the house today to see the bird and hear the whole story after we told part of the story via text. Rubberband Man came on SXM as we got to town. Yes, we rolled down the windows, talked about "Stripes", and cranked it! He's addicted to turkey hunting and I'm an extremely proud dad! I wish these pics would post normal! GRRR!

Nothing new to report from San Carlos. Access is currently closed to ALL until May 1st 6am. Weekly meetings with decision makers will likely determine if any closures are lifted, extended, etc but that's yet to be decided for beyond the current one. The Tribe has been mostly following along with what the State is doing so you could potentially anticipate based on that. DAN

Ruger No 1 270 traded

My son's first turkey hunt was amazing. We have both been counting down the days for opening day to come and finally it got here and had to get a late start due to work. We got up to our area by 3 p.m. and was tagged out by 3:45, this tom came in talking, but spotted us and my son had to make a quick shot at 67 yards and he dropped in him in his tracks. We couldn't believe it, we got to the tom with big smiles, laughs and even some tears, what more could I have asked for! Memories in the outdoors that will live with us forever. We can't wait for next year to come around.

Directly across the street from the refuse station by Eagar.

Part of the reason costs could be so high in owning a trailer or boat is that nobody does their own maintenance. Some don’t take good care of their stuff either. I’ve had a few things go wrong over the years but I get some tools and a meter out and figure it out. Some are easy and some require YouTube!😂. Always check tire pressure and park on boards will go along ways in saving your tires. If it’s sitting for too long then roll it a little or jack it up and rotate the tires a little. Just my 2 cents.

When my son and I went to TX last October for his birthday to meet up with a local guide to hunt hogs that is what he provided. The triggers were great and with a Pulsar NV optic on it recoil was minimal and we had zero malfunctions.

To get out of quarantine? 😝

What’s “face book”? http://www.azcrappie.com/forum/index.php?action=forum

Man she’s on a lucky streak...that’s awesome!

Getting back to the OP, the worst of the "effects" is yet to come. In way too many states, this is no longer America. I'm (almost) speechless.

Guess who is hunting Aoudad in January? <-----------THIS GUY! Evidently my buddy's daughter draws EVERYTHING she puts in for so we put it to the test and added her to our app this year. Yup. That girl is MAGIC!

Some amazing things have happened under power lines ! Jed and Blake both have had good luck next to power lines !

There’s a lot of studies coming out from around the world that this ‘pandemic’ is already much, much more wide spread than what the government’s are reporting, and while highly contagious, the death rates are a small fraction of what they thought. you can count on our government and media to over hype the danger and keep the hysteria rolling as long as they can. They’re like a guy that’s always bs’ing people and has too much pride to admit he’s full of crap so he keeps going and going with the lie, trying to save face, even though he’s already busted and the truth is coming out. Think about it, media agencies have been losing ratings for a decade or more, but now everybody’s tuned in 24/7, even though we all know they’re full of crap. Any politician that comes out now and says, “yeah.... we got this one all wrong and over reacted. Sorry about your job/small business!” Is certainly not getting re-elected. In economics class they called it the law of rational self interest: people take care of their own needs first. The media wants the money to keep rolling in and the incompetent politicians want to keep their cushy positions of power. shapiro cited a study out of one of the hardest hit areas of Germany that showed around 15% of the people had already had the crap and had antibodies from it. That made the death rate in the region less than 1/10th of what had been claimed. It will vary by region but we’ll see the same over here. There’s another study he cited that showed a region in California was already 5% infected and another study indicating that this virus has been in Cali since as early as mid December, which is what I’d been saying all along. With an average of 14k people per day flying from mainland China to the US, this thing had to be here within a couple weeks, not months. ive never trusted the gov or the media. I certainly don’t trust them to be honest or forth coming now. This is going to go down in history as one of the biggest screw ups every, and now everyone is trying to cook the books to make it seem like they did the right thing or at least they can dodge the blame.

I sit in a blind and had great success- well sort of. Hit a very nice buck lost it- after 3 rattlesnakes crawling on my hands and knees tracking I said pulled the plug. I have also spot and stalked plenty - thing about blinds you have to be committed to a long day - understand how the deer come in, ensure you don't walk through their bedding areas and disrupt their patterns.

Of ex or guns.😉

Max got his Javelina and I couldn’t resist putting together a little something to show case his skull! We got to watch him and his dad through binoculars as he pulled the trigger with his pants down because he was in the middle of #2 when his dad told him get over here fast!!! 😂

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS TAXPAYER FUNDED Sometime this year, we taxpayers will likely receive another economic stimulus. It is indeed a very exciting program, and I'll explain it by using a Q&A format: Q: What is an Economic Stimulus? A: It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers. Q: Where will the government get this money? A: From taxpayers. Q: Is the government simply giving me back my own money, then? A: No, only a smidgen of it. Q: What is the purpose of this payment? A: The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high definition television set, a new iPad, or a new SUV, thus stimulating the economy. Q: Isn't that stimulating the economy of China? A: Shut up. Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U. S. Economy with your stimulus check. Use it wisely: * If you spend the stimulus money at Walmart , the money will go to China or Sri Lanka. * if you spend it on gasoline, the money will go to the Arabs. * if you purchase a computer, it goes to India, Taiwan, or China. * if you purchase fruits and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. * if you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea. * if you purchase useless stuff, it goes to Taiwan. * if you pay your credit card off or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore. Instead, keep the money in America by: (1) Spending it at a yard sale, or (2) Going to a ballgame, or (3) Spending it on prostitutes, or (4) Beer, Jack Daniels, or (5) Tattoos (These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.) CONCLUSION: Go to a ballgame with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale, and drink beer all day.

Looking for some good results too - kinda hard being out of state but I know I'll be hunting turkey in NM this weekend. Maybe deer in the fall if luck prevails.

Not really what you're looking for, but I "found" a Rosy-faced Lovebird munching seeds out of my bird feeder this morning! I didn't even know we had those suckers here in AZ. Working from home has started to turn me into a hack-birder.

My wife and kids have been at Roosevelt for a few days now. 2 days on the water. The crappie they are catching are 2+ pounders. Couple smaller ones here and there. Total of 12 for two mornings worth

Loved getting that pic last weekend as much as I loved sending you mine this morning. Congrats, fellas!