Yuma Outdoorsman

That’s awesome! Congrats!!! Nice buck for sure.

Thank you man. Really appreciate it. Very thankful and pumped to get this buck.

I posted him up in the Arizona Desert thread. I didn’t make a new topic post about him but here he is.

The gentleman doing my shoulder mount told me the same thing.

You think the cost will be the same as a regular tag if you draw?

A lot of guys choose the easy way and want to be shooters instead of hunters! Good on you for sticking to your guns and attempting to figure it out for yourself. That’s the fun part.

Congrats!

I know a guy that hunted 42. He said he didn't realize he had bumped his scope and missed a nice buck opening weekend. He went to the range after work during the week and he was shooting 3ft high at 100 yards so he go dialed back in. He was able to hunt the next weekend but never saw another buck. He had a hard time finding deer moving and so did some of his friends. Overall in Arizona, I do not think the mule deer success rate was very good. We have a processor in Yuma that is usually overrun with deer after the first weekend and I took my buck to them last Saturday (2nd weekend of the hunt) and they were going to skin it within the hour. Usually we have to stack our deer in a freezer on top of other deer but they said the deer harvest was down drastically. Part of that is because the alfalfa deer didn't leave the desert this year because it was green. Gotta love it.

Both

Walk your butt off 😂😂...In my area, a lot of times deer use the main washes at night and bed down in what I consider “finger washes”. The secondary washes that often run into the big wash. We have several main washes that are BLM marked roads that we can drive in our unit. Once I get to an area where I see fresh tracks or a lot of tracks over tire tracks in the bigger wash, I start going and looking for the tracks in the finger washes. Once you can narrow down the finger washes they are using, usually you can start walking them and making loops off the main wash. Keep in mind, I always know where the water is in relation to where I’m hunting. Deer feed their way up to water and back down. My #1 plant I look for is ferry duster. If you find green ferry duster in a finger wash off a big wash, I can almost guarantee there will be deer tracks in it. They love that stuff. It’s a lot of boring walking and not seeing much but if you stick with it, you can usually run into some deer in a seasons time.

Was your buddy ever able to find a buck? It was a tough hunt this year. Very warm and the deer weren't moving long in the mornings. Those flats are tough to cover but they hold some good deer.

Has anybody been out looking around for deer? I've been looking around the last few weeks at some areas in my unit for rifle season and I'm starting to get a little excited. I have been waiting for it too cool off but the weather is not cooperating. My next free weekend is the first weekend of October so no matter what, I will go take my first long hike over 5 miles and see what I run into. It is extremely green in my neck of the woods and I don't see that changing any time soon. Tons of feed and the bucks I've seen have big bellies and a few have quite the head gear. I know a lot of the guys on here are in elk/antelope mode but deer season isn't too far off. A cropped photo of a buck I've got on trail camera.

Loaded and headed back to camp Friday evening!

Dang that’s great you guys have spent so much time hunting together. That’s cool. Well, if you make it out, good luck! Hope he finds a biggun’!!!

I tell you what. If you can go hunt with your dad, get out and do it while you can. I have friends that don’t have that opportunity any longer and I cherish every chance I get to hunt with mine. Obviously, life happens so I’m not sure if you have stuff going on that won’t allow you to hunt but if nothing else, get out and enjoy the outdoors with your father. You won’t regret it! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Hope you guys are able to go. Weather looks to be changing by next weekend. When does the hunt start?

Thanks guys. I’m extremely proud to have him. Can’t wait for January.

Well it’s been a long, hot hunt but if you walk the flats long enough you eventually run into them. No exciting kill shot videos or any of that. They were bedded 4 miles from the closest hill. Just flat as can be. Finding fresh tracks and walking as much area as you. He was with a 3x3. I love deer hunting but I am glad this tag is filled and my hunt is done. It’s been a warm one.

I feel like there a ton more 100” coues shot than there are 170” mule deer. The problem with people shooting mule deer is everybody thinks their “big” 4x4 is 180” until they put tape to it and find out it’s a 150” 😂😂 or maybe that’s just my problem.

Cool buck and great looking mount.

I have the same tag. I know of close to 30 tag holders that have been hunting 43A&B/44B so far. Only 2 groups have seen deer. One group saw a buck headed to water yesterday evening and spooked him and were not able to get a shot. We saw deer 4 miles from the closest drinker. Some of the other people I know of with tags have sat water in the mornings and evenings and walked within a couple miles of the waterholes and are not seeing anything. The whole desert is not as green as I thought it would be with the rain we got during the monsoon, but there are pockets that are greener than others. I had 6 nice bucks hitting water regularly until October and the biggest 2 have not been back since the beginning of October. Typically, the flats hold good bucks this time of year and that is where the bucks were the other day when we stumbled into them. The flats are hard to glass sometimes because the deer are 4-5 miles from the closest hill and seeing them is dang near impossible because of the heat waves. Just have to cover some ground and hope you can find some fresh tracks. We tend to look for ferry duster in the fingers and once we find that, we start seeing deer tracks. If he's seeing does, I am sure there are some bucks not too far away. Hopefully he finds a couple.

Weekend update... Extremely hot and too much hunting pressure. With the weather being so warm, I did not hunt as hard as I usually would opening weekend. Surprisingly, a lot of areas I thought got rain are extremely dead with not much greenery. Sometimes those dead spots hold big deer though so not giving up completely but dang, what a let down. Game warden told some friends that the deer have felt the snowbird pressure and in the last 3 weeks, they have moved into the hills. Next weekend, I will be hunting a little harder and hitting some stuff that I didn’t want to hike into with it being 90°+...not only does it suck to pack out in heat but worrying about meat going bad is a whole other issue I didn’t want to deal with. The reports from everyone I’ve talked to is not many deer were shot in the desert opening weekend and not many deer glassed up. Heat waves picked up around 8:30am so that makes glassing tough if you aren’t on the deer right away. We still have 7 days left to hunt, me personally 3 maybe 4 days. I’ll let you know how it goes once I’m back out there.

Man this heat is no joke today...what a terrible way to start a hunt. 91° In November 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ Just does and fawns for me. I had friends glass up 8 bucks but I haven’t heard back from them after they said they were going after them.

One more day, hope it all plays out for you. Good luck!

Well you still have time and with this warmer weather they gotta come drink. Hopefully one slips up. What a tough break on this weather overall. Looking like 89, 90, 87 for us over the weekend. The dang quail opener was better weather than this. I'm with you in hoping one slips up headed to water. Super new moon starts Nov. 4. I have no idea what that means but it sounds good for hunting friday morning on the 5th! hahaha