brademan76

Loved hearing about your personal HARD WORK, and SUCCESS! Far more pride to be had by bringing it all together yourself rather than having all the work done for you and just pulling the trigger. Anticlimactic, maybe. But as you said, thinking about the possibility of drawing and the million hunting scenarios you had played out in your mind, it's going to seem that way! But, you didn't need a crew of 20 guys helping you glass and a $10K long-range robot rifle setup to harvest a FANTASTIC trophy!

Any other details? Did you go along and help? Did he end up hiring an Outfitter?

Nice jeep!

Strong work! A goal next season for sure!

I didn't know about this, something new to research, thanks! If a group wants to get together and go on a bigfoot-style locating/hunting mission, I'm all in!

SWEEEEET! Congrats!

Big ole tom bob! Niiiice!

Made a quick, long trek to hunt quail over the weekend with a couple friends who live in Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences. Saturday we hunted around TorC and tried to buck the rain and wind for an hour in the morning until we decided warm breakfast and drying out until the precip passed would be a better idea. Got back out around noon and hunted until 3:30. We took 27 birds home, probably lost 6 or so, Sunday, we hunted around Cruces and stayed dry all day, but the wind was nasty and made for some tough shooting. We finally settled in and shot our three limits, but couldn't recover 14 of them. We all agreed we are going to start shooting straight #7 or even #6 shot on these scalies, because they are tough as crap and don't like to give up once wounded either flying off with a dropped leg or disappearing on the ground. I shot a bunch of my birds a second time as they were going down if I thought they were going to hit the ground running. My dog definitely helped in finding a few downed birds, and even had a couple of points for us. But, I was an idiot and didn't put his boots on in Cruces thinking he could maneuver around the prickly pear... but it eventually got so thick that it was impossible to avoid and it'll take me many nights of plucking to get all the spines out... his paws are so swollen today. Didn't take a lot of pics, chasing these birds is just too chaotic!

Good for her! That is not an easy place to hunt. Any word on how many were harvested vs. how many hunters? It's usually 50 at a time, right?

I grew up in NE, hunting pheasants and bobwhites my whole life. These scalies are 10x tougher than bobs. I was shooting 12ga 1&1/8oz #8s at them with a mod choke, hitting them with plenty of the pattern, the tiny pellets don't carry enough energy. I'll try #6s the next time. What were you doing on McGregor? Did you have an oryx hunt?

Bummer, if this were on a Monday or Wed I'd be there. Hopefully the next one.

I love full plumage drakes of most of the puddle ducks and some of the divers. I will turn those suckers over in my hand a hundred times while in the field when I pick them up off the water just admiring them. Dream mount is a "dead strap" of drake mallard, pinnie, gadwall, wigeon, redhead, green wing, woodie... haven't decided on shoveler, can, or scaup though. Edit: Anyone needing a consistent waterfowl partner- please message me. Just moved here from Nebraska this summer so I have zero experience with waterfowl here, but am highly experienced with waterfowl hunting in general- having hunted up and down the central flyway from Missouri up into Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I've got plenty of gear, am willing to drive and I'm pretty sure I'm tolerable and sane... but I can't be positive... especially considering I like the tortuous nature of duck hunting.

Very cool graphic, Tres.

Is that a taxidermy piece? If not, it should be.

Was it shot with a rifle or an arrow? Looks like a bullet hole in the neck...

I'm new to the state/area so forgive me for asking if its a well-known topic... There is some relatively cactus-free land with decent cover not terribly far from were I live, but it is part of the Gila River Indian Community. Can I obtain written permission from the Community to access this land to run dogs and or hunt birds? Can anyone give me a quick crash course in how that process works? Thanks, Brady

Thanks for the help JJ_Gibbs. You the man! Problem solved, all. Thanks for the input.

I recently replaced the trigger on an old 700BDL and have had a couple issue trying to get the safety put back together. I somehow snapped off the prong on the detent bar (top left) so ordered a new one. Well I had that delivered and it must be just a hair thicker, because when I tried to put the C-clip in place it just wouldn't set into the groove on the pin... now after forcing that too much, I've got a broken C-clip. Does anyone in the valley have any of these parts laying around where I could come by and snag a couple to try and get this safety operating like its supposed to? Always seems like the (supposed to be) quick, simple little projects like these turn into big headaches!!

That is a well-trained pointer, but he takes an interesting stance when those guys get close with the nets! What tiny little birds too. Wouldn't it be nice if gamel's held that well?

JJ, do the stock triggers have the safety assemblies with them?

Rifle Basix trigger 1.5-4# adjustable. Price was right and its nice a clean breaking trigger. I've never squeezed Timney's version but this is a huge improvement over the stock trigger.

I've got a Savage BMAG in 17WSM with the heavy barrel and even with the flimsy stock that comes with it it is very accurate (both 20 & 25g bullets) and a lot of fun to shoot. For the price, I would definitely recommend them. I haven't shot one with the laminated stock and stainless barrel like in your photo, but I would assume thats a really decent setup. My next move with this gun is to put swap out with an aftermarket stock which are under $100. I would recommend trying one out. Anyone saying that the .17 HMR is better is just biased because of their ownership of rifles of that caliber... Both are a lot of fun to plink with and take out small varmints. Its been devastating on everything up to big boar racoons. I had 1 shot at a running coyote, but led him too far and missed.

Awesome and congrats on the solid boar! I'm jelly!

I agree, CP!

Both look like great bears, congrats on the opportunity to choose between two awesome trophies! Forget the hike out, worry about that once you've got one down. Tough choice! Go for what you're going to be most happy seeing on the wall/floor every day. To me thats a big black rug on the floor first, and a big full-body cinnamon second, but hopefully both sooner rather than later