WFGinNM

I agree with Jason, Kittery is a neat town, and the Kittery Trading Post is worth the visit. Real good seafood at the Weathervane Restaurant. Used to live just north of Boston, and Kittery was a frequently made trip. --Bill

Here are a couple pics of a coues buck I glassed with a couple muley doe last Saturday. Not the best pictures, but I was amazed. --Bill

We headed out Saturday morning and my friend glassed up a javelina a couple hours after sunrise. By the time we got closer it had gone over the ridge to a north facing slope into some real thick cover. We headed across the draw to glass back and found a small herd at a little over 300 yards in the thick brush. While my son and I tried to close the distance the wind changed and off they went up the draw. A few hours later glassing and trying to get close we just couldn't touch them in the canyon they were in. We planned on meeting at the top of the highest peak around, and my son and I got there first so we dropped over the south side and glassed and waited for my friend. When we finally regrouped we had bumped the javelina off the top, how me missed them I'll never know except it was extremely thick. We followed after them for about 100 yards, set up to call and within 45 seconds we were runover by a pissed off pig. With some excited yelling we got it to stop at about 5 yards and it walked right at us to 2 yards, I finally asked my son (rather loudly) if he was going to shoot. The javelina ran and stopped at 10 yards, as soon as it stopped the .243 went off and he had hit it right behind the head in the spine. What a rush. I've only seen a couple dead and this sow sure seemed pretty big. We are going to try some marinated backstrap for dinner, and I'm going to do a shoulder mount for his room. Hope these pics work. Little Bill Little Bill and proud Dad My friend Michael, pig squaller extraordinaire... One happy hunter

Thanks guys, it really was a fun weekend. --Bill

Congrats on the successful hunt. --Bill

To me it does have an extremely mild taste, and tends to taste like what you put on it. People I know go crazy over it saying "it's the best they've ever had", I don't know if that is because it's exotic or just bland. I would rather have lion, elk, or whitetail. At least they have more flavor than whitebread. --Bill

Awesome, my son shot his first one here in NM on Saturday. Congrats. --Bill

Thanks for the story, I hope I have something to report before March over. --Bill

What a smile, too cool. Way to go Bulldog. --Bill

That's great, nothing like seeing happy kids after a decent hunt. Congratulations. --Bill

Very nice pictures. --Bill

Congratulations to both of you, love the thumbs up in the picture. --Bill

I got it, Thankyou guys. --Bill

My son has a youth tag for Javelina and I told him that if he could improve his grades in school I'd take him on a hunt soon, well the motivation worked and we are planning a hunt for him. I've seen some javelina in Glenwood, and a few in the Burro's, but I was wondering if anyone knows of any ranches that are wanting to reduce their javelina herd? Any help would sure be appreciated, and I can help folks with hunt info around the Jemez. Thanks, --Bill

I tried a search for Brushbuster and got no results. --Bill

Way to go, sounds like he doesn't need much coaching on when a shot is presented. Congratulations, --Bill

Jim, Having that sighting "burned" in your mind can be annoying. I don't know how many times I couldn't get a picture of something and wish I could just transfer it from my mind to film. Once again, that is awesome that you saw a jag... I'm envious, too cool. --Bill

That is awesome Jim, big cats are amazing, but a jag... WOW. Too cool. --Bill

Very nice birds Casey. --Bill

Doug, That buck grossed just over 103 green so it won't make all time, but it might make the award period. When I shot this buck it took about 2 hours to get over the top to the valley I found him, but we stopped and glassed constantly on the way up and over. A couple days later we went back to find a buck for a friend that has never killed anything and it took us about an hour moving at a pace that kept us from sweating. The alders weren't as bad as I'd heard but we picked our way around them or through them, still they were no fun when you were expecting to come face to face with a bear. I saw 8 browns, 6 while glassing and 2 hurried us off of a buck that we were just loading onto our packs. Also saw about 100 ptarmigan, but I really didn't want to kill one deader than it needed to be with the 7mm. I just got the capes back from the tannery and need to look into some mannikins, but have to find some time first before I can mount them. When you get yours back post some pics please. Long ago I realized I didn't have much desire to spend my life paying off sheep hunts and since I love deer hunting the deer slam seemed like the thing to do, just need a coues and columbian blacktail. To me a sitka in rut is the most striking of the deer. If you are looking for a Transporter to go with ACM is amazing, Tim runs a great operation which I felt a bit guilty with since it was so cushy. I gained weight on this hunt and that isn't right. I've got about 250 pics of the trip and now wish I took more. We really lucked out on the weather, were only stuck on the boat one day but it gave us a chance to cut deer and fish. Then the weather was too windy in Kodiak to send planes to pick us up so we spent an extra day and a half on the boat and island. Just amazing and I'm trying to see when I can fit in another trip up there. --Bill

I've been playing around with resizing some pictures and figured I'd try to post some pictures of my first Sitka Blacktail. Hope it works, --Bill

Tim showed up by float plane for the last couple days of our hunt so we downloaded my camera memory sticks into his laptop. There is plenty of room on the boat and excellent food. Hot shower everynight, the drying room is a plus it's a room below deck used for storage with room to hang wet clothes and fans to dry clothes. I probably saw 2 or 3 doe for every buck, and every doe or little herd of doe had bucks working them. We would get up high look for doe and then start looking around her for the bucks. I actually shot my first buck off a doe he had just got his front legs off the ground and when I saw his back forks through the binoculars I took them off the tripod and used it for a rest. Probably should have let him finish but I couldn't wait, I had dreams of a 5x5 sitka for years. There were ducks everywhere, Eider, Scoter, Harlequin, Old Squaw, Mallards, Widgeon, Teal, and Pintail. I didn't take a shotgun with me since I was more interested in catching halibut and looking for deer. They did have decoys on the boat and next time I will be bringing the shotgun. I had to book the week I went 2 years out to get the 2nd week of November. It was worth it. --Bill

My 2nd buck. Both sets of deer antlers. --Bill

I hunted with Alaska Coastal Marine on the southwest part of Kodiak Island. They didn't say much about last years winter, but I do know that the bigger deer were rutting the 2nd week of November when we were there. We could have shot deer right near the beach but I wasn't much into that, we found larger deer up high and there wasn't a shortage of bucks that I could tell. But what do I know here we have to draw to hunt deer up there you can shoot 3, buck or doe. The meat is good but I would rather have southeastern PA doe, cow elk, or lion. Probably due to both bucks I killed were rutting hard. This meat was by far the best meat I brought home. I'm planning on returning to Kodiak but I missed coues pretty bad last season so I'd like to put in for 34A Oct. this year to hopefully get a chance at a coues, and maybe hit the PA whitetail rut in November. --Bill