Yuma Outdoorsman

Just saw this on AZCASTNBLAST...so sad. I never met him formally, just had convo’s with him on that website. dang. Prayers for his family. I’ve always enjoyed his input on topics. These forums will never be the same.

I'll take the less deer and less people over more deer and more people personally. The 40's units don't have any big bucks anyways. People shouldn't even consider them. 🤣

If you are a parent, this will give you a pretty good laugh 😂...

My parents just got another charge on their account about 30 minutes ago. They got the first charge Friday and now today. Crazy but pumped we all get to go hunt together.

All of our statuses are pending until they put the results on the portal. We just know we got drawn because of the credit/debit card charges.

Any sheep hits yet? All I've seen are deer/turkey hits.

Deer tag for me. Hopefully I can find this buck during the hunt this year. 2 years ago we saw him running away from us out scouting. The trail camera photo is him last year the last week of August. Never got him on camera again after this photo last year. Hopefully he didn’t get shot and is still around.

We had a cabin reserved for the week of July 5-9th up in Greer. Our AirBnB emailed us on the 21st and said due to the fires, she had to cancel our reservations and would not be open to booking again until September 1. Bummer for us as we were planning on doing a lot up in the mountains. We are now going to Big Bear in California. I've never been and its actually a little closer drive but I am not too thrilled about going to California.

I got my 2020 Mule Deer buck back. Noel at Ironwood Taxidermy does great work with the quickest turnaround and lowest prices in the industry. Super happy with how it came out. I was the one that started the post about tipping and I did tip. I just appreciate the turn around more than anything.

Is it standard to tip your taxidermist or what's the proper etiquette? Assuming all is well and you are happy with the work they do. Thanks.

The guy's name is Noel Vandiver. He is in Holtville, Ca. The name of his company is Ironwood Taxidermy. He does excellent work and the turn around is the best I've ever heard of. I took another buck to him mid December and had it back by March 17. The attached photos are my buck from this year.

These are just average for the farm....1st and last photo are the same buck, different angles. I don’t hunt the farm but I work in Agriculture so I am around farmland all day. Couldn’t help but snap some photos.

haha ya same here. Pretty interesting to see how farm hunters struggle when they make it to the actual desert and have to find deer. The RZR caravans are legit the worst part of hunting where I do. 99% of the time they are honestly nice people and are just enjoying the desert but I've run into some that will dang near run you over. One of my favorite areas legit looks like a checkerboard right now due to new trails being made. Just have to adapt to the changing scenarios each year.

I have 2 waterholes in my unit that are a little over 5 miles apart and will get the same bucks on camera from both waterholes from time to time...I know a lot of "farm land" hunters in Yuma that think you can pattern desert mule deer. I think they are just used to hunting the farm where deer come and go like clock work morning/night. I have not hunted much outside of the desert but the deer we hunt are pretty nomadic in their habits. We usually have the general vicinity the deer are but we get a lot of snowbird pressure on rangers/razr's and it pushes the deer around quite a bit. Seems like the snowbird traffic is growing more and more each year. They also like to create their own trails and roads in places I like to hunt which really sucks.

Is that late for that unit? In the desert, I believe peak rut is February and sometimes goes into March.

Thank for the responses. I tipped my guy because I took the deer to him in December and he had it back to me by March and only charged $475. I felt wrong not to tip him. This was the buck. I have another buck there this year and didn't know if I should be tipping or not. Thanks for the reply.

Got a cool photo of this buck last week. I was 100 yards from him and he had me pinned. Zoom in and you can see he’s pretty unique. He was solo. Hopefully he’s with some does this weekend and is dumber than he was last week. 🙏🏻

Anybody see this?

Looks like arrow weed too. I would doubt that it would grow in the desert though.

No sexy time behavior at all...

He was pretty covered up in greasewoods man. I took the shot with my camera instead.

Thanks man. It was taken with a Nikon P1000. Check them out. Really cool cameras.

If you think the road hunting in the pines was bad, just wait until you see what’s out in Dateland 😂 my suggestion for you is learn the Kofa’s. If you are willing to walk a few miles, you will not see anyone else but will most likely see deer.

I’m hoping this rain hits this whole state and gives these animals some much needed water! 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Also, I hope the cooler weather that comes from this front helps the rut!

The rut doesn’t get “hot” until the last 10-14 days of January. To be honest, February is probably the peak rut for most desert units in my opinion.