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Got lucky and killed a good buck in NM this year with the drought. Was a very physical hunt and it was a true cat and mouse game with an old solo living stinky old troll buck. Very difficult country but was rewarded.

Good grief… let the man rest in peace. Next it will be a UFO actually took him out. Our current news scene is so keyed into titillation and sensationalism that I’m about done with it, including FOX and Newsmax. What seems to be newsworthy is gossip and fearmongering. as the old TV show line went.. just the facts, mam.

Gotta ask..."no trades", next sentence..."interested in trading for RMR"? Also, why are you offering it for so cheap?

Will we ever really know (or care) who shot JFK? Listen. I live in my sheltered little world. Never heard of Kirk before his death. I tend to not give AF about politics or anything else I won't commit 100% involvement in. Never understood sitting on the sidelines or hiding indoors from contrails or conspiracy theories about Clinton body counts. But it all is, to a point fodder for entertainment when I'm at Hooters waiting for the next cold beer.

You have a great family, priceless, and not for sale!

Selling chapstick used but in good shape little melted make offer no low ball offers I know what’s it worth.. it does have a hunting story, slips my mind what happened though?

Anybody interested in some chia pet's, or blue blockers or some clappers?

Saw more coues deer today. In 24a then I've even seen in 1 day in my life time. At least 40 plus does and 9 bucks . I giant one with 4 does. Then a spike and a nice size forky. Then two small 3 points. And a smaller 3 point with two dang nice 4x4 and those two were fight and chasing each other . No does where with or near them. They fought pretty hard for about 10 minutes. Then went up over a ridge. Also saw about 30 coatimundai. And my nephew stuck one at 47 yards. Pretty dang good shoot for a 12 year old. I didn't have a camera today with me. Going to take one tomorrow and Saturday. Taking my 6.5 creadmore tomorrow. NO MORE CROSSBOW. I bought this yesterday.

My 16 year old Zane drew a sheep tag this year. it was nowhere on our radar but the hunting gods smiled and the $300 charge was a sight to behold. Tag 1! i immediately reached out to my hunting buddy @buglethemin who had the same tag a few years ago and happens to be a sheep guide with Arizona Desert outfitters, which made the situation a whole lot more doable. On a side note If anyone needs help on a sheep hunt, they are a top notch outfit. We Scouting started in July, and we located some good looking target rams. One of the problems when a 16 year old draws a sheep tag is school. When the hunt finally rolled around, he missed a Friday and a Monday, and we hunted four hard days. But there were final projects, finals, etc. We located a couple possible shooters but not anything that was an immediate go in the first couple days. When we came back the next weekend, we found all the sheep had moved and that many days away between hunts was going to be a problem. We were not able to find the previous rams. After a couple more 12-15 mile days, we were still looking for that mature shooter ram. The late rains and green up and changing weather had them doing strange things. Zane finished finals and we headed back out on Friday the 19th. At this point, he had been in school or hunting sheep for 19 days straight. We had split up to cover different areas.That afternoon, @buglethemin called and said he found a mature ram in a bowl they were glassing. We hurried over (hurry means mile or two hike then 30+ minute drive then more hiking) but got to the other side of the bowl before sunset. The ram and 3 smaller rams came over the top to our side. It was too late to make a play, but we bedded the ram and had a plan for the morning. The next day, we were there before sun up and immediately located the rams. The shooter ram and a smaller ram then immediately went back over into the bowl. We hiked a three mile loop around and picked them back up. We were looking into the sun and the rams never stopped moving, and no shot presented. The rams eventually fed onto the bench on top of the range and moved west where we lost site of them. We climbed the mountain , and started working the edges looking for them. By early afternoon, we had one cut left to cover. About that time, another buddy called and said he had found them in that cut. We worked our way to about 300 yards from the edge they were over. The wind was in our face, and the plan was to wait for them to feed up and cross over and present a shot. It was a great plan, until the wind shifted, blowing directly at them. They spooked down the cliff face. We hurried to the edge, and hurriedly got a range and the rifle set up. The first shot was a miss low, and they ran another hundred yards up the opposing mountain face, bearing the top before they stopped broadside. We got a new range, and Zane sent it. The sheep ran a bit, wobbled, then was down. After 8 hard days of hunting, he had his sheep. Old ram with a ton of character, and a scarred up old nose. Game and fish aged at 9 laying down the 10 ring. i cannot thank the sheep hunting collective of friends and family that showed up to help enough. It was a grind of a hunt but ann amazing one.

You really gotta get something more substantial to protect that scope bro.

Saw 2 coues bucks harassing the ladies today. Nothing too crazy but enough to get the blood pumping. This was the first time seeing coues bucks with does. 2024 deer hunts_1.mp4

I was able to get out a few weeks ago and check out a new area I’ve had my eyes on. I almost never find sheds, so this was a nice treat. I glassed up this shed at 700 yards away first thing in the morning. I noted the spot and continued to glass as I didn’t want to waste the prime glassing hours. Late morning I went over and picked up the shed, and just on the other side of the bushes was the match. Big or small, finding sheds always gets me excited, especially if I can find the match. Sorry for the sideways pics. I’d fix it if I knew how 🤦🏼‍♂️

If you're lucky enough to draw a tag, just enjoy your ramburgers.

So after a month between when we found the bull and when I went back in and got a look . He had been cleaned up by the scavengers . Not much left of him at all . I did recover the head and give it my best at a euro . I do think it came out good but it's definitely not something I would do again. It's a chore and it's better for me to just pay to have it done . What do you think?

The hunt was an amazing adventure. I left home late Friday/early Saturday (midnight-ish) and headed up, stopping in flagstaff and fredonia for fuel along the way. I reached my camp spot 9 1/2 hours later and heard my passenger rear tire leaking after unhooking the trailer. After plugging the tire and airing it back up, I started unloading and setting up. Around 3 pm I jumped into the SxS and set out to check some of the spots I had scouted. I found lots of fresh sign in most of the same areas as before. Once it got dark I broke out the spot light and drove every road and two track I came across until around midnight, then headed back to camp to sleep. I would then wake up around 4-5 am and head out spot lighting until the sun came up and I could see. Usually I planned it so I could be stopped at a place I could glass for a couple of hours until mid morning. Then I would head back to camp and sleep until 2-3 pm and repeat. I did this until Wednesday afternoon when I needed to drive into St. George to pick up my cousin from the airport and resupply. We spot lighted that evening and into the early morning of Thursday before heading to camp for some much needed rest. Around noon we checked a couple of areas we had chosen as opening day spots and decided on which was best. We glassed until dark then headed back to camp to organize our gear, have a quick dinner and then go to sleep. We woke up early to ensure we were first to our spot and waited for a few hours until grey light before slowly walking in, glassing along the way. We unfortunately bumped the deer and broken heartedly watch them head to their bedding area which seemed like a position we couldn’t access them or have a chance at them in. Nor did we want to push them out of their core area. There were lots of vehicles that seemed to want to be in this spot so we didn’t want to leave and give it up. We waited, glassed and move around a bit until 3pm when they started coming back out from the cut. We watched as two nice bucks ran each other off, both wanting to be the dominant male for the group of does. The bigger of the two presented a shot when the smaller buck ran him off but I decided to pass. An hour later the smaller buck offered a closer shot but after passing the bigger buck I couldn’t justify shooting him either. My cousin called me an idiot for passing either of them. We watched until dark then slowly backed out and headed to camp. We had a nice dinner and discussed the day, looking at the video we had taken of the two bucks. It was decided we would head back out to the same spot to get another look at them if we could. We woke up extremely early and drove to the same spot, arriving first again and waiting until grey light. We went about half as far in as the day before and stopped not wanting to bump the deer again. We spotted the group with just the smaller buck in it. We couldn’t locate the bigger buck. After a couple of hours the smaller buck gave me a shot and I connected at 475 yards. He hunched up and moved away a bit. We thought he would go down at any second but slowly turned broadside again at 525. I adjusted the turret and connected again. He lumbered a few feet and collapsed. We waited 20 mins and walked towards him. I instantly started having shooters remorse. I was done after a day and a half of the 10 day hunt. When we reached the buck I was surprised at the body size of the deer. He was definitely the heaviest deer I had harvested. I tagged the buck, we took some pics and then we attempted to load the deer into the SxS. Wow was he heavy!!! It took us a couple of tries but we somehow managed to get him into the back. I didn’t want to gut the deer there as I thought it might mess up another hunter who might want to hunt that area. We drove closer to camp, unloaded the deer and gutted him. He was sure easier to load the second time and then we drove to camp and using the winch on the SxS, hoisted him into a tree at the back of camp. We skinned, quartered him and washed the meat. After it dried we put it into game bags and hung it all. We had barely finished when an AZGFD and BLM officers rolled into camp. They checked my tag, license and pulled two lower teeth for an age check. We talked a while and they told us about some coyote areas and a possible spot for a lion. We took the deboned carcass to the lion area and disposed it in a spot we could see from a knoll a few hundred yards away. Over the next few days we switched looking at the gut pile and the carcass hoping for a shot at a coyote or a lion without any luck. It rained, hailed and lightly snowed the next couple of days making it pretty sloppy and messy. We waited until a break in the weather, broke down camp and left late Thursday. It took almost 3 hours to hit pavement which was a slippery and sliding drive out. We also stopped at Jacob’s lake for some cookies to eat on our way home. We had a trailer tire shred 25 miles before flagstaff, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. We pulled into my driveway early Friday morning, took out the rifles, binos, spotters, the expensive gear and put them into the safes. After a quick hello to sleeping family members and a shower we went to sleep. The next few days we dried out and put away the gear, washed our clothes, took care of the deer and celebrated a great hunt. We saw 112 deer, 36 bucks, one fox, one owl, 2 coyotes, 17 turkeys, 14 horses and an uncountable amount of cattle during the trip. Thanks to all who helped and/or offered info. A shout out to Jason “coach” Jones who had the tag a few years ago and offered up everything he knew. He was very unselfish and I hope to follow his footsteps for future tag holders. A special thanks to my wife for holding down the fort while I was gone and to my cousin for taking time away from his day to day to help me. Happy safe hunting ! -Sig

With 2 new grand children coming this fall my wife decided she didn’t want to hunt. It never was in my plans to give her tag back, but she told me she wanted to spend time with the new mothers and babies. So I headed to my draw unit by myself. My son and his wife decided to come visit for a couple days and my wife made the trip up with them. needless to say very little real hunting happened that opening weekend. After they all went home I spent a few days by myself putting everything I had into finding a decent deer that my friend had pre scouted. Lots of driving, still hunting. Glassing and enjoying the woods. I got lucky right before dark. I saw a group of 4 bucks, 2 big bucks and 2 small bucks. Thinking it was the group I had seen opening morning I made the quick decision to shoot the one that was in the opening. Either of the two big bucks I would be happy with. It actually was a buck I had never seen before. It took me a while to find him at night and with flashlights and by myself I took a few videos. These are the best screenshots I got off the video. Here are a few pictures from that trip

After spending 3 days in the desert heat looking for a shooter for my Dad, I was finally able to dig up this buck right as the sun was fading on Sunday. With not much time to make a move, I set him up to take a shot @ 665 yards. Luckily the buck was preoccupied with barrel cactus fruits and gave him plenty of time to squeeze off a shot. The hit was solid and the buck dropped out of sight into a nearby wash. We decided to head to his last location and found him piled up not 20 yards from where the shot took place. Anybody else see a lot of malnourished deer this year? A majority of the does in the area we hunted were showing how rough the summer was on them for sure.

Was fortunate to help my father in law take a good buck on his unit 7/9 champ hunt. About the time I met him 20 years ago, he was diagnosed with MS. For quite a while, he had minimal symptoms, but these last few years it has gotten a lot worse. He has taken a number big animals with a bow in the past but with the progression of his symptoms, archery is no longer an option for him. He did draw a 7e bull tag a few years back but even with a crossbow it was still a struggle and we never even got close to tagging out. When he drew this tag he was really motivated to not just shoot a deer but shoot a really good deer. I had been scouting religiously before his hunt, primarily in 7e but really struggled to turn anything in an older age class up. Opening morning we decided to try 7w and right at first light found one of the widest bucks I have ever seen. He lacked height and had shallow forks so we decided to pass on him. We came back to the spot we found him at 10am and found him again bedded. We decided to sleep on the decision to shoot him, being opening day. It was a decision we regretted as we never saw him again. We hunted all over 7e and 7w but would return quite frequently to that spot looking for him. We did find a number of smaller 4x4s but nothing that came close to the wide buck. On day 4 we did find a better 4x4 in 7e but it was out of range and in some country my father in law could not traverse. This morning we were starting to contemplate lowering our standards a bit when we glassed up this nice buck in a new area. He was at 500 yards from the road we were on so we decided to get set up for a shot. I brought a shooting bench out for him to help with his shooting. As soon as we got set up the buck bedded behind a rock in a field. We waited an hour until the buck finally stood up and my father in law made a perfect shot at 500 yards with my 6.5 prc. He was beyond happy with the buck and it was great to see the joy he had getting out and hunting again.

Glad to see Trump there, because Charlie got him elected. I wish Trump wouldn’t have rambled on, but Charlie changed the course of the world, basically. if you’re not a believer, now is the time.

I think demand has cooled across a lot of markets that use antlers. The dog chew market has so many people doing it that the prices are very competitive with not much margins anymore. I know a lot go to China and I wonder if the tariffs are going to slow their buying. I buy a couple hundred lbs every month for custom gun grips so I am looking forward an easing in prices.