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Super Proud dad here! Hunted down south day after Thanksgiving. Suppose to meet up with other hunters but went to the wrong pin. It was sketchy with the trailer and didn't want to back out in the dark. So we went solo and took off with the Ranger. Found some good hills and started glassing. A few moments later a solo hunter drove by on his Ranger. We glassed for 30 min and moved to the next vantage point. Minutes later I ran into that other hunter on the Ranger. I haven't been to this part of the unit and he told me it doesn't go any farther. I said is it ok we glass over here. I don't have a tag and its just my 10 year old son who has it and will shoot the first thing with horns. He said yeah I love helping out young hunters. We started talking a bit and getting to know each other. Then my son said 10 feet away on the binos " I see some deer". He glassed up 300 yards away and the other hunter Mark said those are bucks. We were about to hike to them for a shooting position and Mark said they moved east. He has been hunting this spot of his for years. He said follow me I know where they are going. We played cat and mouse with these deer all morning. He then glassed up a nice little 60" buck and we watched him for a bit. 600 yards out my son cant shoot that. Soon we lost that buck and then relocated the bucks my son found earlier. Same thing cat and mouse and then finally he bedded down behind cat claws. We moved north and south trying to get a good shooting spot. Found a 400 yard shot open vitals but we looking into the sun so the glare on the scope and the deer on the north slope in the shade he disappear in the scope. The binos we can see him though. So the shot was blind. I told him Mark since its so windy around 15 mph wind i bet he will let us walk up close. We got up to 250 yards and couldn't get any closer. My son stayed on the gun like below for about an hour. The deer got up and he had it in sights and bumped his gun. I got up to help him and he relocated it. I was next to him when he shot and Mark yelled out right over his back. The buck went behind bushes again back and fourth. A couple times I had to get up and relocate it for my son. I tell you this was hard with a 10 year old. After another hour of this he stepped out and I told my son you need to shoot him now or he will move again. Right through the neck into the vitals since he was quarter facing down hill. He dropped like a sack of potato's. Mark and I were shouting, hoot and howling. My son turned and said did I get him? I said yeah that's why we are screaming with joy lol!!! I have yet sat on my gun that long for a shot and he didn't complain once!! So proud of him. So thankful for the other hunter who wanted to see him get one. True sportsmen right there. I got his info and Im planning on sending him a 100 gift card to Texas Road House for thanks. I don't think Ive could of made it happen on that buck with out his help and locating and relocating the deer. He texted me today he glassed up a 110 and trying to find him again. Best of luck Mark! Thank you.

Day 3 Update: Still no bull down. But we are trying!! The morning was a little bit more active than yesterday. About an hour after sunup, my buddy spotted two bulls at the very top of a ridge. In hindsight we should have watched them a while longer since he was the only one who saw them but I knew we would only have a limited window to get a shot off if they ended up feeding down. So we hoofed it about 3/4 of a mile to the one spot that had a decent view of the ridge but we couldn’t turn up the pair. It’s possible they never came down off the ridge, but we’ll never know. About 15 minutes after getting over to that ridge, my father in law who was set up on another ridge said a bull was feeding down into the canyon and we should have a view of him from our original spot once he came off the ridge. So we hurry back to that spot and wait. And wait some more. In 2 hours he never showed up. He probably ended up bedding in this really thick patch in a cut just off the ridge, but there was no way for us to really get a view into there so we decided to call it. After having a difficult go in this part of the unit, we decided to really switch things up for the afternoon/evening. We drove an hour north to the pines and found a good area to hike in to. We found 3 piles of bull sign from today but didn’t bump anything during our hike through the woods. As we were about 1/4 mile from the truck, in the last 15 minutes of light, my buddy spotted a group of elk about 100 yards from us running through the trees. My wife hurried up but they were moving so fast she barely even got a chance to see them. Her and my buddy went up ahead of us trying to see if they slowed down or stopped and unfortunately they didn’t spot them again. My buddy said there was at least a raghorn but again, no good opportunity to make anything happen. Been hard hunting the last 3 days, but we got 2 left to go and we’ll do what we can to get it done! Thanks again for the support and following!

I joined the GSSF for 35.00 to take a Glock Armour class. With that membership I received a card for a 1 Glock at cost, took the card to Glockmeister and got a Gen 5 23 for 461.00 out the door. The gun has to be ordered through their distributor and it has to be in stock.

Day 2 Update: The morning was slow, probably one of the slowest mornings of hunting I’ve had in a while. Not only did we not see any elk, we didn’t hear any shots (we heard about 6 different groups of shots yesterday morning). My wife spotted a deer for a brief moment on the opposite ridge,, my father in law bumped a couple mulies while hiking through an area further into the canyon, and my buddy spotted a deer for a quick second right as we were about to pack up from our morning spot. Definitely a slow morning. I wish I could report the afternoon was different, but it was more of the same. We spent a few hours glassing a big ridge line but we weren’t able to turn any up. We also didn’t hear any shots either. We decided to move to an area about 5 miles to the north where it’s a bit higher in elevation just to see if we could get anything going for the evening. We did about a 1.5mile loop and don’t see anything but as we are about 20 feet from the truck, I see my wife crouching down and my brother and friend are waving at me to get up there. I couldn’t see them but there was a small herd of elk right on the other side of the forest road. Unfortunately, we kind of spooked them because we didn’t know there would be any right next to our truck. Lesson learned. I get up to my wife and she told me that she’s pretty sure there were some bulls in the group. So we slowly make our way back into the area we last saw them go. After following their tracks about a quarter of a mile, smelling them, and just looking ahead we finally decide maybe it just wasn’t worth blundering through the woods. We decided to loop back to the truck thinking with any luck maybe the group will double back and we’d get a chance to see them again. Right as we’re about to get back to the road, I spot them about 100 yards ahead walking quickly. This time I’m getting a real good look at them through the pines and tell my wife to get set up! I got the video camera zoomed in and I see cow, cow, cow, cow, cow. I’m thinking “where are the bulls??”. Finally, I see the first spike followed by several more cows. I start hoping that maybe there are some bigger bulls bringing up the rear. I check on my wife and she wasn’t able to find a good rest to get set up for a shot. I tell her not to worry cause all I’m seeing are cows and small spikes. Unfortunately, the rest of the group was more of the same—3 spikes and maybe 20 cows. No tag filled. We still have 4 days of hunting left so we are hoping tomorrow we get into more elk like we did this evening. Almost 20 miles hiked so far and we are starting to feel it but the thought of a filled tag keeps us going! Thanks for all the well wishes and following along!

Are you hunting unit 10 or something?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you were all able to enjoy a nice day giving thanks with family and friends. As has become tradition for the past few years, I’ve posted a “semi live” thread for anyone who is interested in following our hunts. I know when I’m not out hunting, I enjoy hearing about how you all are out doing on your hunts. I was lucky to be drawn for two late bulls hunts in 2019 and 2020 and then an October whitetail hunt in 2021. Well this year, the one to finally get drawn was my wife! I was super excited when she finally drew, and she’s been getting more and more excited over the past few months. We’ve scouted our unit several times since July, and we have a good idea of the canyons and areas we want to be hunting in. Last weekend during our final scouting trip, we found a decent bachelor group with at least one shooter. Hopefully we can turn up those same bulls tomorrow morning. While I’m not sure anyone likes getting up before 4am, I know I’ll be looking forward to it as I hope my wife is able to fill her first ever tag!! If we can’t find that group of bulls tomorrow morning, that’s ok. We have 5 1/2 days to get it done, and lots of family and friends to share the experience with. I’ll post an update at least once per day (maybe twice) depending on service. Thanks for following along!

Springfield xd9 mod 2 holster tasco 4-12 located in el mirage john 623-523-1925

Like new. Only used a few times for load development while waiting for a backordered replacement bayo for my V3 (don't loan your stuff to someone who does not know how to use it properly:) They're going for $180 everywhere I looked. Will sell for $140. I'm in Dewey for ftf or I'll cover shipping within AZ if payment is made through venmo.

Must not be wanting to see it.

So after chasing mule deer in Dec/Jan archery my wife decided she wanted to try her luck on a desert mule deer during the general hunt. We’ve chased these deer only during archery and had decided to keep tabs through the years. We finally felt we had a solid plan so off we went. We got to her u it the afternoon before and set up camp then went out to glass. On our way to our glassing spot we came across a groups of 4 bucks hanging out in the area we were goi g to focus on. We got up early Opening morning and my wife and son got ready and headed to the area we had chosen to be at sunrise. I went to the glassing spot. At about 0611 I glasses up a group of 5 bucks, one of which was a definite shooter. Once they had formulated and approach everything just worked out perfect. I was bummed I couldn’t be with her when she shot but having just had hernia surgery a week earlier I was relegated to glass duty. 312 yard offhand shot with her 300WSM and the rest is history. Super proud of her!

To me, that’s an absolute monster. Shoulder mount?

Thanks for the updates. Stay positive and most importantly "have fun"!!!

I use Complete Marine in Tempe. Yamaha certified. Not the cheapest, but when I run28 miles off shore in Mexico, I don’t want to worry.

My two boys and my niece drew 20C youth tags this year and we knew it was going to be a challenge as it is a unit that we have never hunted. We did multiple scouting trips and were only finding does, fawns and a handful of spikes or small two points. As the hunt started we settled on an area that seemed to have a high deer density and just kept pounding away looking for some bucks. The second morning of the hunt we found ourselves glassing some country we had not worked over yet. Right away, I glassed up a bigger 2 point and a smaller one. My older boy told his brother to take the shot on the bigger buck. One shot at 543 yards and the buck was down. We had to reposition as the smaller buck had moved around a small rise in the ridge and joined some does. We got my niece to 282 yards and she hammered the buck. My brother was able to carry the smaller buck over so that we could get pictures all together. We headed home to get some work done and regroup. We got back out into the unit on Thursday night in hopes of my son filling his tag. We made a plan to look over some new country but were met with the same old story: does and fawns. We found a nasty 4x4 road that got us back into some great looking country and the best part is there were not any other fresh tire tracks on the road. It appeared that we would be alone back there. We made the slow crawl in the side by side early Saturday morning. We glassed and glassed and glassed some more. The country was beautiful, the weather was beautiful and we were seeing... you guessed it! Does and fawns. About 8:30 am, my dad made a move about a 1/4 mile away to get a look at some other country that we could not see from our vantage point. Within a few minutes he glassed up a mature buck. He let us know and we joined him. We made a quick plan and made a move on the buck to get closer. As we were trying to get into a position that we could see the buck as well as get into a stable shooting position, the buck bedded. We found a spot we could shoot from and started to relocate the buck. After some communication with my dad we found him in his bed at 520 yards. The first shot was a little high over his back which caused the buck to stand and move about 20 yards to the left. When he stopped, the second shot rang true. Heart shot, and he piled up. We made our way to the buck and were pleasantly surprised. My son was super excited and it was great to see all of the hard work pay off.