Leaderboard

Hey guys, got this guy last Sunday on day 10 of a tough hunt. The rut was sporadic at best with some days having almost no bugles during daylight hours. I've been getting caught up at work so haven't done a full write-up, this guy came in screaming with about 10 cows at 7:15 am when it had been quiet all morning. I had to wait at full draw for what seemed like ever for his cows to clear out from between us, but managed to make a heart shot. He only went about 30-40 yards before tipping over. I'm super exited. He's my biggest bull to date, and broke my drought. It's been a few years since I've put anything bigger than an turkey or javi on the ground.

I was truly blessed again this year being able to take this buck. I had actually passed this buck up 2 years ago waiting for something bigger ( still kicking myself). He is actually not much bigger than 2 years ago, but did add a small point off his G2. I sat in my stand for 35 hours before this guy made his appearance. That is the only good thing that will come out of the trail cam ban... not knowing what's coming in, I wasn't waiting for a "bigger buck".

Got drawn for the 1st general WT hunt in 33, had two locations I was tossing back and forth that hold deer. Well I went to the Redington location and it paid off. Started glassing at 0600 and by 7:15 had 3 bucks at 792 yds. Closed the distance to 438 yds and tag filled. Kind of sad that it’s over so quickly, but looking forward to WGP’s chorizo and snack sticks!!!!

This year continues to be one for the books. My 12 year old son Max drew a muzzleloader bull tag in a unit many consider to be sub par for elk. I have assisted on 3 archery bull kills in the unit, so I knew that although trophy elk were tough to find they were there. The opener found us calling our way into a major dark timber bedding area that I had seen multiple large bulls on previous hunts. It was dead quiet. No bugles and after one calling sequence a satellite 5 point came sneaking in but never game Max an ethical shot. Yesterday, day 2, I decided to slip in to the edge of the bedding just after first light and wait. No bugles at all, so I decided to do a few soft cow calls. Less than a minute later this giant snuck in silent 52 yards below us and Max made a perfect shot. We had no idea how truly magnificent he was until we walked up on him 30 minutes later. Bull is an 8 by 7 with a 14” flyer point. Didn’t get to fully score him but a few quick measurements indicate 370-380”. 42” inside spread and total width with flyer 58”. Best hunting day of my life and one I will never forget!

Here is the Coues deer I was able take with my statewide tag with the help of Kory and Bobby of A3 . There knowledge of the area and with the deer was truly amazing. Once we found this deer they spent hours breaking it down. It was decided that we would try and harvest this deer. We had to relocate to find him again and after 8 hours of waiting he finally reappeared just before dark . Now he was with another buck of similar size but was a typical 3x3 with amazing eye guards. To be able to have two 130 inch bucks standing next to each other I thought I was seeing things. Now I had to make a decision it was an easy one for me. I like em trashy . After we ranged him at 600 yards I let my Axis works 280 AI do the rest. It was now almost dark Kory and I hiked down to the deer When I put eyes on him I was speechless it was bigger than we had thought . I told Kory I was going to do a life size mount so he was very careful field dressing the deer. He then proceeded to load the deer into his pack whole it’s a pack that he has designed and just now starting to sale it was his smaller one about 3200 CI it was amazing all of the room it had not to mention it’s the best built pack I have ever seen I am getting one. His company name is Desert Mountain Outdoors Well after many miles of packing we got back to camp about midnight what an epic day. Still in shock of being able to take a deer like this thanks to A3 and there amazing guides Kory and Bobby.

I’ve spent a lot of time and money the last 5-10 years hoping to kill a big coues deer with my bow.. with the camera ban it seemed like it definitely wasn’t going to happen. The heat wave the last week I figured sitting water would pay off so I spent 5 days on tank with the most sign in the area hoping it would pay off and it did. This buck came in completely silent and by himself at 38 yards. He started broadside when I shot and nearly turned 90 degrees by the time the arrow reached him but it went in at a good angle and caught his vitals and ended in his spine. I knew he was big but couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how heavy he was..

Well, not much of a story on this buck. Didn’t have time to scout much this year and didn’t really see anything when i did. My brother took a friend on the youth hunt a couple weeks ago and kicked this buck up in one of our old honeyholes. Went in this morning and killed him at first light then spent the next several hours packing him out. Lots of mass, blades and stickers on this one. He was an old dude

Got my first mule deer and i couldnt be happier. Hunted this guy for days never seeing him and yesterday morning he decided to show up. We weren't sure if it was him or not so i gave chase. Once i was able to get a good look at him i texted my buddy that i was going for it. Chasing muleys for the first time was pretty fun but man finding a mature buck can sure be a challenge!

Holy cow was this an adventure!!!!!!! First, I started off by spending $2300.00 on a sheep tag. Then I didn't know if my wife had the tag or if it was mine. Luck ended up in my favor and I got a rebate for the additional money spent on the tag. In all I made 5 scouting trips and one trip down for the hunt. As it turned out I had 14 days of scouting (buddies had probably more days than me towards scouting). After scouting ended, we had only seen sheep 1 out of the last 8 days of scouting. I can't begin to tell you how difficult it is to sit there and glass for days on end and not see sheep. We had a 3 day and then a 4 day stretch with seeing no wildlife. We didn't even see a deer, rabbit, nothing. As opening morning rolled around the feeling in camp was different than any other hunt I have been on. Normally everyone is super excited and ready to go but everyone knew this could be day 5 with seeing no sheep. We also knew this would likely be a hunt that lasted more than 10 days to get the job done. Either way we knew that heading out before first light would need to happen. We developed a plan and sent everyone to their spots to find the elusive ram. After a solid hour of glassing, I decided to grab some grub out of my daily bag of food. That went so well that I decided that grabbing something else would be even better......little did I know that would be the last food I had before dinner. I kept on glassing and finally found a few white butts moving in the distance. I told my buddy to get eyes on them and then grabbed my BTX's after he obtained them in his glass. He started off by saying he could see 3 sheep and one was a ram. Then he said that there were 4 sheep and all of them were rams. Then his voice changed a bit and he said that one of the rams was really, really good. Once I got my glass on the rams I could see one that was well above average. We were sitting about 2.5 miles from the sheep. We knew he was big enough to look at but we really couldn't judge him from that far away. Luckily, we didn't have heat waves yet so we could tell that I needed to go in for a closer look. I grabbed my pack, glass and rifle and off I went. My buddy was going to stay and keep an eye on the rams. My other buddies were off in the general direction of the rams so hopefully we could all meet up if this came together. After a 2 mile walk (seemed like the longest walk of my life) I would see the rams up the mountain and decided to take a look at the bigger ram with my spotter. He was with 3 other rams. One of the rams was probably in the 150 class and he just looked tiny compared to this guy. I was fairly confident that this was going to be my ram. He had great mass all the way through. He looked like he was turning up at the tips and seemed to have good length. I'm far from a sheep expert but he looked good to me. Well after looking at this ram at 1000 yards I decided to make my approach. Off I went through a wash moving slowly (mostly because it was hot and I was tired) and gaining ground on the rams. They were starting to look like they were going to bed. I continued my stalk. The rams decided to bed down in a spot where I could take a shot if I could get into position. After a good chunk of time, I finally got as close as I could to the group of rams. The bigger ram was at 462 yards and bedded down in a position where I couldn't have a good shot at him. I knew that I would have to wait until he stood up before I could shoot. I'm not a very patient guy so this was going to be a challenge. I found a good resting spot and laid my rifle down on my pack. At the time I could see the ram in my scope but I couldn't see his body. It was now right at noon and the sun was just beating down on me. This was not typical hunting weather in my book. After about half an hour two of the smaller rams got up. Now I'm on high alert because I'm sure the bigger ram is going to get up any second. At many points I was shaking like crazy.....not because of nerves but I was just tired of laying behind my gun waiting for my ram to stand up. Every so often I would put my head down and get off the gun just so I could take a few breaths and relax. Then all of a sudden I look through the scope and the bigger ram stood up. two seconds later there was a light click and then a big boom. Big ram down!!!!!!!! I was super excited but knew the work was just to begin. My buddies joined me for a photo session and then we did a life size cape job on my ram. After breaking the ram down into pieces, we went down the mountain and made the journey back to the glassing spot which was 2.5 miles away. Luckily, we barely made it back before dark. I was plenty thirsty. It was 6pm and I was looking forward to getting some water in me and hopefully a good meal. A few guys were heading to camp to help for the second day but their help would be needed to pack up camp. We might have celebrated a bit and had ribeye's for dinner. Life was good. I was spent. The reward was worth the effort and I feel very fortunate for all the help I received from many people. Many of the people I only talked to on the phone and have never met in person. I even had one buddy Greg that went down twice on his own to scout and found multiple good rams. It's hard to believe so many people were rooting for me to find a big ram.......but that is sheep hunting.

After 2 years of preparation everything came together to harvest the ram of a lifetime in Alaska an 11 year old monarch! Hardest hunt I have ever done both physically and mentally. My pack was 60 lbs for the first 6 days sleeping bivvy style wherever we ended up each night. Out of 9 days it rained, sleeted, or snowed 6 of them. Ram down morning of day 7 and my pack went to 100+ pounds hiking 27 hours over 3 days to get out of the mountains. Truly an incredible adventure!

I had some good luck on the early archery tag. Killed this bull opening morning at around 11am. He was the main bull we heard bugling and that turned out to be his downfall. My cousin - who also had a tag - was able to get a good chunk of time off work so he was out scouting 4 days before the hunt started. He saw this bull every single day prior to the hunt. I made it up late Wednesday and scouted with him on Thursday... and again, saw this bull and his cows in the morning and in the evening. Bugling as well. We saw another 10 bulls or so in this same drainage so we figured we'd start there opening day and give them heck. We hiked into the area in the morning and we were able to chase some bugles, but they weren't as vocal as they had been the couple of days prior. We ran into a good group of elk, but they spooked and we thought we might have boogered everything up too bad for the afternoon. My dad and uncle were on a ridge glassing above us and could hear elk below them bugling every so often - even after the bigger group spooked. For some reason - even though we were pretty close - we couldn't hear the bugles. The ridge we needed to climb was pretty steep and thick with overgrowth so I wasn't thrilled about the hike to get up it, but we sucked it up and made the short, but steep, hike. We finally got up to the same elevation as the elk and spotted them about 250 yards away. I saw a group of cows and had a feeling we were on the same bull we had seen all week prior. Sure enough it was him. We watched from a distance as he ran off a couple of raghorns that were nearby. He was one of the few bulls that seemed to be ready to rut. We continued working in closer, but didn't feel like we would have the shooting lanes available if we kept stalking straight at them. We were in some thick cover. At this point, the elk had been milling around in the same small area for more than an hour. We backed out and looped around to get on top of them. For the most part, the wind cooperated. It started to swirl a bit as we got close to the elk. They were in a thick stand of aspens and the cows knew something was up. They weren't quite sure where we were though, because the vegetation was so thick. They first trotted one way and then back another way. We could see them in the aspens less than 20 yards from us. The bull let's out a bugle to corral his cows and get everyone going the same direction. At that point my cousin gave a quick cow call and the elk stopped. I side stepped to an opening to my left and could see the cows going one by one up a trail into a small shooting window. Naturally, the bull was last. My cousin ranged the cows at 65 yards and I drew back. Right when the bull stepped out and showed his vitals, I shoot. Downhill, quartering away. I hit the spine and into his cavity. He was paralyzed. I quickly moved in closer and finished him off from 20 yards. (I would love to say that my first and only shot was the arrow shown in the picture - I'll be honest with you guys, but probably not my drinking buddies ) Needless to say, I am thrilled with this bull. Good mass, lots of character. It's also pretty cool that we were able to watch him for a few days in a row and put a plan together that got it done. This early archery elk stuff is awesome. Can't wait to do it again...... in twelve years.

So the past year has been a real roller coaster. Last year my daughter was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and it has been super tough on my daughter and family in general. We struck out on all youth tags, but picked up a 3rd choice general hunt coues tag. I wasn't sure my daughter was ready or could handle the challenge. Long story short, I'd like to thank Kev for his help. He found this buck for us opening morning, in a location my daughter would be capable to make a decent shot, and we were able to make it happen. Seeing my daughter being herself again made this one of the most memorable hunts I'll have.

We had alot of fun while chasing the September Bugles. It was tough for finding big bulls this year however, with the drought during horn growth season. We passed on many herd bulls trying to find something better. We shot the biggest bull we saw, a bull I saw while scouting, minus one tine, on the 4th day of hunting, which happens to be our shared birthday! Getting in position and the final sequence and realization of the accomplishment will be quite the memory for the rest of our lives. My wife and daughter are better shots than myself and most men for some reason. Maybe because they care just a little bit less and that allows them to focus on the task better?

Have 3 tags for my kids. 2 in 5bsouth 1 in 6a. Bugles have shut off by 7am in both units. All the big herd bulls we are seeing have 20 to 40 cows with them. We got lucky with one small 6x6 so far that split from the herd bull and his cows and called him into 46yds and he made his arrow count on his 1st archery bull. Bull went 15yds and was down. 2 more tags to fill. Hopefully its kicks in a litter better. Good luck everyone

More pics to come.

This is my Son, Aaron Altaha Jr., 11 years old, this past weekend was the last weekend of his rifle hunt for deer and he tagged out his 1st deer the day before the last day on 10/30/21. And he was blessed to harvest a Awesome 7x8 Coues buck from the San Carlos Apache Reservation in AZ.

It's a story hard to write but my son killed his first bull after a whirlwind 6 days. He was very limited on time and it got the best of him but we had a great time and lots of memories made. Bull he passed after a tough day the day before. Bull that came in after he didn't have enough patience. This is the bull we were hunting but he had already shot another bull 5 minutes before. Having little experience and no time for a hunt really hurt him but in the end his goal was accomplished. He killed a bull, and we got to spend some good days hunting.

Like others it started in July w a 2100 $ hit and goof up from AZGFD, but I got the refund later. Who cares I was going sheep hunting. Scouting started right away and I spent over 30 days scouting in the summer heat and leading up to the hunt. Several target rams we’re seen but as sheep hunting goes they move off in September making it hard to relocate them. Opening day came quick and I spent 8 hard grinding days trying to locate target rams with my close friends. Day 8 we spotted a group of 7 rams and this old desert warrior was a new ram I have not seen before. We’re did he come from ? A quick stalk and some videoing is the rams before the shot my lifetime tag was filled. This ram will probably be the biggest taken in that unit. Rough score 179.5 net 177.5. On cloud 9. I can’t thank my buddies enough for grinding it out with me.

I didn't really want to start my own thread but I haven't seen a meat pole thread all week to add to. I did want to thank the forum for all the help and advice, though. Being from CO originally I had a lot to learn about AZ elk when I moved in 2015. I drew my first AZ elk tag in 2017, a late rifle tag, and it's what pushed me to join the forum (thanks for the recommendation @cpugsie). I didn't fill that tag in 2017 and had to face the fact that I had a lot left to figure out about these elk. Drew the same tag this year, learned from my mistakes, and got it done on a bull I was very happy with. Thanks for all the lessons, guys!

My little brother (zackcarp) and his wife found this buck. Unfortunately opening day we got the news that our dad had passed away so we left thinking we were done. Fortunately i was able to return with some friends a couple days later and make it happen. I know that I had my dads help getting it done. This buck will be known as my Dads buck from here on. I got my passion for hunting from my dad and am doing my best to pass it on to my daughters.

Had a chance to catch up to this tall goat. 16 6/8ths

This is my son-in-law and long time family friend. This kid has been chasing deer with a bow since 15 and finally connected today 10 long years later. Just 200 yds out of camp as he took off with lunch packed at first light. Lol

Wow! God is great! I am still in shock! I found this buck 4 days ago. The very brief encounter sparked my interest and I could not get him out of my head. I knew he was a good one and continued to look for him for next 4 days. Finally, I found him again, put a stalk on him, and got very luck considering the country was so thick. He was actually with 2 other bucks. I almost shot the wrong buck because the other one was a 105ish! I thought it was him at first. Don’t get me wrong, I would have been tickled with the 105, but then he stepped out from an oak and I realized I was on the wrong buck. It all happened so fast. I set my sight to 65 yards and made a great shot and he expired within 100 yards. I still can’t believe buckfever didn’t bite me, but I was very calm until I walked up on him! I didn’t realize how big he really was. He ended going 121 gross and 117 net.

Well both of my kids harvested their first elk last week. We were in screaming elk everyday. My daughter shot her elk opening day and my son on the forth day. Want to give some thanks to a family member and a good buddy for directing me to a few spots. Sorry for the sideways pic.

Tessa had a tag for the Navajo reservation we had gone up on January 2nd to hunt it was brutally cold single digit temps and we did not know it but we both were in the early stages of covid. The first day found us looking at roughly 40-50 different bulls. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction for us to do much without spooking all the elk. The second morning we found a herd of bulls with several of them looking to be 390 plus. We had a target bull that was some where in the 380 range we probably could of had a good chance of killing him but elected to go after the bigger bulls. Well as luck or bad luck would have it this herd crossed into the park once in here you can not hunt them and amazingly they seem to know it. We waited all day for them to come back out but they did not. With us both feeling sick we decided to return home. On the reservation you have to have a guide the guide we was using had another hunter coming in anyway . We returned for the following Thursday morning things had changed dramatically, we saw about 10 bulls in the same areas we had seen as many as 50. After finding this bull about two miles away up a canyon with 3 other bulls . We put a plan together after a 1.5 hour hike we were in position for Tessa to be able to harvest this elk. He was just shy of 360 his teeth were wore down to the gums he had to be very old doubtful he would survive another winter. I do not know how many more hunts i have with her because she has a boy friend now i will cherish them all. She has an oryx hunt on the White Sands Missile Range next month. I hope she gets one i here the meat is excellent.