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I like this pic of him on the 4 wheeler, it looks cool.

This year I drew a 7w Late bull tag for the second year in a row. Last year was my first ever bull hunt, and I was able to shoot a nice little 5x5 opening morning. Fast forward to this year's hunt. I went out scouting the weekend prior to the hunt with a buddy who had the late archery tag and was needing help as he was hunting solo. It was the last few days of his hunt and he'd been on several bulls during the week but just couldn't make it happen. I agreed to go out with him as I needed to get in some time locating bulls for my hunt. We went to a spot that I've hunted cows for the last 5 years and always been successful, and I usually see some smaller bulls in that area this time of year as well. As soon as it started getting light I had several small bulls in my new Swaros. (Just upgraded this year, will never go back what game changers!) They were grouped up with about 15 cows but he now had a spotter so he started in on his stalk. He had about 1500 yards to close to I proceeded to continue glassing some closer ridges and that's when I located 4 shooter bulls for my hunt. I didn't mention them to my buddy at first, as I was walking him in via texting. He was able to finally close the distance to about 50 yards when the two young bulls just decided to up and leave with good pace (not spooked). He was then gridlocked with the large group of cows and the stalk just didn't end up working out. I continued to watch the larger bulls on the closer ridge and they fed until dang near 10am before bedding. My buddy got back up to me and seemed a little defeated. Part of me didn't want to mention the big bulls I had located just 500 yards away from us in fears of them getting blown out by another unsuccessful stalk and me never seeing them again for my hunt the following week. Long story short I did the right thing and let him know about the other bulls I had found, and I was able to walk him into 38 yards before the bulls caught his wind and bolted off to the west. Well, there goes my hunt! My buddy was super grateful and excited about the opportunity to get in that close with such awesome creatures so it was worth it. Fast forward to my hunt. I went out the evening before opener to glass the same area. Never turned up my bulls but did locate a nice one up high on a mountain top about 1.5 miles away. High winds were expected the next day so I figured he'd drop down into the bowl on the south side and hangout there for the night. Went in opening morning and after hiking about 5 miles finally caught a small glimpse of the two bulls from the night before up on a ridge moving through the pines at 295 yards. Was never able to get a shot off and they disappeared into the abyss. The morning of day 2 I went out with my brother in law and decided to go back to where I had found bulls the week before. Right at first light I picked up the same 4 bulls we had bumped out a week prior, feeding down low in the cedars about 1200 yards out. 25 mph winds had them feeding for a short period before getting into the real thick stuff and losing sight of them. I didn't want to get down in there with them that morning with the winds being unpredictable in fear of blowing them out again. This would be the last time I'd see a shootable bull for 2.5 days. And after the weekend ended, I would be hunting elk solo for my first time ever. Monday I was by myself, and bumped out some cows and few spikes hiking into my spot. At this point, the mental games had begun to set it. It was 18 degrees with 30mph winds and only the mule deer and cow elk were up and moving. I glassed all day and never saw another bull. Tuesday morning rolls around and I didn't want to even get out of bed. I had already hiked nearly 45 miles in 5 days, and just felt defeated but something got me out of bed and back out to the same spot I'd been seeing elk consistently. I hiked up to the glassing point very carefully this time, and set up my tripod. As soon as glassing light was available to utilize, I found a lone cow wondering the flats. A quick pan up and down the cut she was feeding in revealed another shiny golden butt facing away feeding in a small old burn area. I patiently waited for this elk to lift its head and to my surprise I could see antlers! A quick scan with my rangefinder revealed a 980 yard shot. Not something I'm comfortable taking without a spotter or in high winds. I pulled up my maps to look for another high point I could get to and there was a another ridge just to my south that may or may not give me a better vantage point. I dropped my pack, and went in light with just my rifle, tripod and binos and hurried down the ridge I was on and over to the next one. I ended up coming to the edge of a rock bluff with a large dead pine tree laying perfectly across the top. I quickly pulled out my binos and scanned quickly to find the bull had actually fed even closer to where I had hiked over too. The rangefinder indicated a 459 yard shot and I quickly got my turrets adjusted and used the dead log as a rest in a seared position. The wind was in my face and sun at my back, so the bull had no idea I was there. I had buck fever like no other plus just having hiked 1/3 mile quickly I was shaking like a leaf on a tree. I called my nerves and waited for the bull to turn broadside and when he did I let one rip. I heard the thump and knew I had hit him, the bull did a 180 and ran about 60 yards before stopping again and giving me another broadside shot at 448 yards. Whack! I watched him take the bullet and the shock of it echo through his large body, but he didn't move and continued to stand there staring back at me. I loaded another round and sent one more down range. Another hit, this time a fatal one. I watched him hunch up his back and take several steps down into a ravine before going out of sight. I took a minute to process everything before calling my wife to let her know i shot one. I decided to give him a little time so I hiked back up to the ridge I glassed him from to retrieve my pack. I marked his last known location to the best of my knowledge and after about 30 minutes decided to creep my way over. The ground was still frozen solid so there were no fresh tracks. I also couldn't find any blood anywhere and I began to doubt myself. I began just making circles larger and larger until I caught a wiff of him. I followed that scent right down to his body where he laid down in a juniper thicket not 15 yards from where my last shot had been taken. I called my brother in law up from Prescott to get help for the pack out and he was on his way in no time. By the time I was able to get my DIY photos and get him caped and quartered my brother in law showed up to help me get him out. After about 2 hours, we finally were able to get him back to the truck and off to the processor and taxidermist. What an awesome and rewarding hunt, just when I felt like throwing in the towel things worked out in my favor and one of the bulls made the mistake i needed so badly. Thankful to our lord and savior for this beautiful harvest that will feed my family for the year to come.

***SOLD*** I just harvested an awesome desert bighorn in the Cabeza Prieta. I'm doing a euro mount so I have the full sheep cape for sale. 10yr old ram, 15.25" bases. Let me know if interested, I am pricing this to sell quickly.

Get him a red plaid flannel shirt and jeans like the old timers

Had a very quick thanksgiving with my Wife and her family and slunk out of there after finishing my plate and made it down to camp Thursday afternoon with an hour or so to go look around and make a game plan for the morning. Picked a spot I had seen deer in the past at while glassing for pigs and opening morning came with us spotting a few does in this area and no bucks. Decided to go check some different spots that afternoon and found a great looking spot and glassed up a little spike right off the bat inside of my comfort zone for shooting. Decided to let him in hopes that something else would appear. No luck glassed till it was dark with only a few more doe sightings and took headed back to camp for the night. Next morning headed into the same spot I was at the night before where we found the little spike and we were seeing deer everywhere. Must have seen at least 30 different deer. Once the sun finally rose high enough to expose the hill I was concentrating on deer were coming out of the wood works. I finally spotted a decent 2x2 with Eye guards and decided if he stuck around I would try to make a play on him. He went over the hill out of my sight for at least 15 minutes and just as I was loosing hope he came back over the saddle and I spotted him again. Now I was confident he was going to stick around so I made a plan to get closer and moved in. He was about 800 yards from where I was glassing and 500 yards is about the range I felt I needed to get to. Without many options I figured the nob below me would get me close to that range. Made it down the hill to the best spot I could find and found the buck up on the hill and ranged him at 515. Got my gun set up for me to shoot in a prone position but had to crawl out in front of where I was going to shoot from to bend over all of the tall grass over so I could see. The grass is crazy out there this year, great to see. First shot, right over his back, second shot went right under him, he had enough and trotted to the right a little bit. Found him again and the third shot was true and he dropped.

Really? I didn't see another hunter the entire week I was out there. I did see some birders and bikers but 0 hunters. I scored on day 6, check it out.

I saw a post made on HuntAz’s Instagram page. I am not trying to steal anyone’s thunder and I apologize if the hunter did not want any publicity but I think this is just bad butt that he shot this in a super tough unit and did not allow his disabilities prevent him from getting it done. Congratulations to him.

I haven’t shared a story in a while, been trying to find the time to write this one up and finally taking the time today. I didn’t draw a tag this year but my 2 youngest boys did. My 16 year old, Rusten found a spot he wanted to hunt and made a couple trips in there and scouted it pretty well. He found where we could get water and got a good lay of the the land but never found any big bucks. The first few days of the hunt we decided to go to an area we were already familiar with. After a pretty brutal hike we set up a quick camp and started glassing. We quickly found a cool 2x3 buck bedded at 600 yards but while we were trying to decide if one of the boys wanted to shoot him, he got up and disappeared into the brush. By then it was mid-day so we decided to drop into the canyon and filter some water to get us through the next couple days. After filling up we made our way back to our glassing point. At around 2pm, Rusten glassed up two bucks bedded at 800 yards. We took a good look at them and thought the bigger one might be close to 100”. My 14 year old Camm, decided he wanted to shoot the bigger of the two bucks so we made a plan. Rusten stayed on the hill while Camm and I moved closer. While we were getting into position the bucks got up and started feeding. We got to 415 yards and found a big boulder to get into a semi-prone position. He was able to make a great shot and put down his 3rd coues deer and his biggest buck yet at around 97”. By the time we got him broke down and back to camp it was 830 and we were pretty exhausted. We got Camm’s meat cooled off and hanging in the shade and we were back at it the next morning looking for a buck for Rusten. He had his sights set pretty high on an only shooting a big buck. He has been lucky enough to kill two bucks around the 100” mark already. One of them was on the same hill that camm just killed his buck on so we were hopeful of finding another good buck. Unfortunately, the next 2 days the wind picked up big time and we only turned up some small bucks and a bear. We decided to pack Camm’s deer out and move camp to the area Rusten scouted After a few hours at home we were back at it the next morning in a new area with high hopes Monday we found around 10 bucks, nothing big, but that evening we saw a couple that were too far out that looked promising. Tuesday morning we glassed close to camp at first light but by mid-day we were over were we saw the bucks the previous evening. We were on top of a the biggest hill in the area looking down into some shaded cuts. At around 2pm, I found a buck up feeding about 600 yards below us. As I was trying to point him out to the boys, he disappeared behind some trees. We were waiting for him to come out and another buck appears that was noticeably bigger. I wasn’t sure how big but I could see he had long beams and decent point length. Rusten decided pretty quickly he wanted to shoot him. Normally, I would help my boys find a place to shoot from and get the rifle set up for them but this time I just told Rusten to make it happen. We weren’t able to get any closer because of a big bluff below us so I gave him the dope for 613 yards and he knocked him down. I was pretty surprised when I walked up to him to see that he was a better buck than I thought. This is Rusten’s 5th coues deer and also his best at close 106” We were beyond blessed on this hunt. My boys impress me so much with their willingness to put in the hard work chasing these deer in the backcountry. We had a lot of laughs especially trying to stuff the 3 of us into a 2 man backpacking tent. Good memories for sure.

I got my first couse deer out of skeleton canyon last week. I backpacked in for three days from geronimo trail. Hike 25 plus miles and found a nice buck to pack 5 miles out.

@bonecollector

Thanks fellers. It was a heck of a hunt and I'm dang lucky to have been able to pull it off. It wouldn't have been possible to do without so many great people helping me.

Day 5. Haven’t seen one elk- 7 deer, 22 turkeys and a javelina we named “Chad”. Always fun to hunt 7E though. Except the wind.

Very nice looking bucks. A proud dad moment for sure! Great job dad raising them outdoors.

Great job boys!

Good work guys, Congrats, ...

My dad is a hunter safety instructor in California and he tells me it's hard to get new instructors .Most are retired gentlemen and do it for the enjoyment of teaching the next generation. When they do finally stop teaching it's almost impossible to replace them.I was asked many years ago if I was interested in teaching or helping out here in Arizona and had to pass as I don't have enough time to dedicate .Please remember most are volunteering there time and most will make room for the younger kids .

SOLD

We are in the process of designing some for elk now

I hope they cut it down more next year 👍

This is a great thing for residents in my opinion.

Can’t believe no one recommended Eegee’s…. kids love that place. course so do some of us adults. last time at pinnacle peak I was uderwelmed steak was too well done sent it back and came a little better but still. the train was not running and all the shops were closed. maybe it was the day of week and time? dont know. I like El Corral way better

Reid park zoo,.pinnacle peak for steak and a train ride. Make him wear a tie.

There’s a old saying when it comes to coues deer hunting….”some time you have to see every doe in the unit first “

As a guide you’re responsible for your hunter

Hunting guide in trouble and this is a hunting site. Completely relevant. what’s irrelevant is azbig10 postings in every thread