MULEPACKHUNTER

I have some printed photos that would shock you guys, me and my wife used to slam 5 lb large mouth left and right about five years ago. A few years before that we caught mostly smallies and in a few tournaments before that it was all largemouth so go figure

I'm in the market as well, my opinion is Kifaru or exo. I have used both and can't decide but leaning toward Kifaru

Really nice man, great post

I have a little baggy of high end, light weight tent stakes that have found the ultimate hiding spot and it's driving me crazy that I can't locate them. Thanks again Bob now I'm searching for those again

This^^^^^ this subject hits home for us. I blessed myself with the gift of time a few years ago so I have more than most. So with 50 plus days in the field and several different camps it seems like a full time job staying on top of gear. Switching from backpack to horse base camp to horse pack in to wall tent to bivy and tarp to our cabin then back to backpack and so on . My garage and den are covered in gear packed and half unpacked, the horse trailer looks like a tornado touched down. Thanks a lot Bob now I'm stressed and need to go clean and sort

plan on 1 to 1.5 liters for hike in and hike out, I would say about the same for the day while glassing and depending on food you may need some for dinner cooking? so 5 or 6 liters. The nice thing is if you bring too much you can dump before hauling out. We did a hot hunt this year about 5 miles from truck, I hauled 6 liters total in and filled 3.5 liters while in there, stayed 4 days and had mountain house dinners (16 oz per) came out with 2.5 liters in pack and didn't dump any. we did a lot of miles each day also.

The casings were natural. My buddy orders them but not sure from where. They were pre cleaned and loaded on plastic tubes so they load up super easy. The 25 lb stuffer helped a ton. We burned up one motor but it was still easy.

I would call it mild

45 lbs knocked out last night. Made a special trip up north for the cold temps to make some sausage, man was it a lot of work. Chorizo, regular hot, and hot Italian. Thanks to whoever on here mentioned AC Leggs seasoning because their chorizo is spot on. Every one have a great week

I know you guys do the work on the front end and it pays off. Congrats both of you

Inciweb started off early stating human caused at Woodbury trailhead. Later it was changed to unknown. Human means just that, any human. I've met more solid hiking humans than some other folks so I would lean toward tweakers out late in some stolen car lighting fireworks. The roads will be taken care of , way too much history and sightseers using that place not to. I see more cars on that road than anything else. Apache is my favorite lake in az.

Ya we were a little surprised as this was a premium tag, just bad timing I think. With all the rain the mules had some tender feet so we had to change plans and we struggled with the new areas. Everything I scouted was off limits without the mules.

A little unsettling to have a lightning started forest fire near camp. The 30 hour straight rain took care of it a few days later.

My partner drew an early tag while deployed and we started to plan by encrypted message. Between the military and his work the scouting was up to me and range time would be tough, leave it to Brian to have a new bow shipped overseas so he would be ready. Bowtec had the bow all set and ready to shoot with arrows and release. Great company, they sent the release and arrows on their own. We hit the mountain a week early and did some OTC deer and bear while scouting around our main camp. Had an exciting full draw moment on a good bear but just couldn't get a clear shot. Only made one stalk on a deer but it was a two hour show through the binos so that was fun. Bulls were talking only in the evenings and they were pretty spread out and seemed to be alone and in the thick stuff. We packed the mules "thanks Tim for loaning me his mule" and made a remote camp way up the mountain. 5 days of really good although butt kicking high country elk hunting had Brian at full draw a few times but no shots. Next up was 30 hours of rain and some cabin fever followed by silence,,,,yep no more bugles and we kept running into hunters. Other than the first few days this was one tough slow hunt, we ground out the entire hunt to the last day and only had one more opportunity on a bull, of course a quad came rolling in and blew him out. Really happy to have spent 3 weeks in the hills but man was this a tough hunt.

Downed logs was the main obstacle on the pack out, the kids did great finding the way.