knothead

Always a good time.

Not sure if it the picture angle but that head looks huge. Would be interested in finding out the age of the bear. Congratulations to your boy.

I have been there two times over last five years and never experienced anything close to the stories I used to hear about the quantities of fish people would catch back in the day. We usually go sometime during the first couple weeks of June.

G&F figured out years ago their main source of income is not from the selling of tags but from the application fees, selling points and the selling of "opportunities". AZ just doesn't have the numbers of animals and habitat to support the dept and all their employees off tag and license sales alone. Hunters are still the milk cow for all big game and non-game species. I wish they could figure out a way for all the wolf, feral horse and feral burro lovers to buy a license every year along with some sort of application fees.

I have hunted unit 9, 34 and Valle Vidal. Unit 9 & 34 have lots of private land issues for my liking. I prefer an "average" AZ unit to anything I have ever hunted in NM. It's too bad too. They have more elk, habitat and less people. NM is a beautiful state but Land owners and outfitters rule the hunting. The draw is a straight draw so you don't have to worry about having a bunch of points.

I read stuff like this and it amazes me how so many are quick to jump ship. I wonder if they do that in their personal lives too? SMH

Last year they said I didn't draw but then about 3 days later it said I did draw. I did actually draw a tag.

We sold the heck out of those Redhawks back in the 80's when I worked at Smitty's. GLWS

I made my own and saved a ton of money. Very simple and easy to do. took me about 15 minutes per window and Home depot/Ace Hardware has everything you need. Probably some youtube videos.

It sure does suck and really takes the steam out of a hunt. At least it did for me. I had a very good kill ratio when hunting with a bow and arrow for my first 30 years. Only lost one javelina over that time. I made a couple bad shots on elk but I was able to find them. Over the last 10 years I have hit 4 different animals and lost them. One of them, an antelope, I found the next morning but the coyotes got to him before I did. I put my tag on it and my hunt was over. In 2009 or 10 I had a 5B archery antelope tag and it was the first time I ever saw a guy hunt with a crossbow in AZ. We were pretty much hunting the same 60-70 antelope that had a total of 9 bucks in the area. Over time we would cross paths in the field and talk. He told me he shot 5 different bucks and he was finally able to retrieve the 5th one. I asked him why he was hunting with a crossbow because I didn't ever see anything that was disabling about him. He showed me two fingers that we loosely taped together and said it may not look bad but he cant pull his bow back. He was almost apologetic. One of the bucks he shot out from under me during one of my stalks. 114 yard shot and I couldn't figure out what made them all run. That was my first encounter with him. He claimed he didn't see me stalking them. I think the loss of animals for me has taken away a lot of my drive to kill things. I love hunting as much as I ever did but the candle definitely does not burn as bright for killing stuff. A lot of this is personal and I think every hunter has to deal with it the best they see fit.

I have 13 wyoming antelope points and I am looking at using them in fall 2027 but archery only. I hunted from a blind in 2011 and my hunt was over in about 4 hours, Rut was crazy. The latter part of Sept. the weather was nice and bucks were chasing everything. Might try decoying next time.

I reluctantly did the 1st and 2nd jab. No more for me but I had two 1st cousins in two different states who did not do any of the shots and they died during covid outbreak. They were all in early fifty's and ok health. Not sure what that means but I thought i would throw it out there. didn't mean to get off track but seems it already did.

Yes Weather!!! Sure its hot here but at least we can drive 2-3 hours and be out of it. I have lived in other states where you couldn't plan anything more than a couple of days in advance because of weather. Huge weather changes in a matter of a day or two. It sucks, scraping windows for ice every morning. When I lived in Dallas, I left my truck in 4-high for 3 weeks because of the black ice. I'll take hot weather any day over cold. There is reason why AZ has so many transplants here and its not because of our sports teams. If AZ's summers were more mild then we would have 15 million people living here. Those 115 degree days are what keep the faint of heart away. I love it when we make national news for our heat. Bring it on!!

For all you guys considering moving some place else. All I know is that the grass is not greener on the other side. I moved to Texas for 2 years in the late 80's after graduating college and NM for 1 year in the 90's. Always came back to good ol' AZ. You don't realize how much you take what we have for granted until you leave. The weather, PUBLIC LAND, geo diversity, variety of hunting opportunities and family all kept pulling me back. If you want to hunt someplace else its much easier to just go as a NR. My 2 cents.

I believe at the G&F meeting when discussing the legal use of crossbows for archery hunts the statistics they showed was 38% success for crossbow hunters and around 12% for archery.