mattys281

I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Just need to throw my bow, treestand and tent in the truck and start driving. forecast looks like rain all weekend so I guess I’ll bring an umbrella too. good luck guys

Great spot. Let's see a grip & grin pic with that cinnamon bear!

Poor ole girl. Just doesn't pay to be nice sometimes. I didn't get trampled for my efforts, but had a similar experience a few months ago when the gate was left open and a couple mule deer wandered into my yard. I tried to "help" them find the gate to get out. Those dang things tried repeatedly to launch themselves right through my 6 foot chainlink fence. I thought they would either break their necks or put a deer shaped hole in the fence like a daffy duck cartoon. Neither of those things happened, but it wasn't a pleasant experience for either me or the deer. Lesson learned, next time just open the gate and go back inside and they'll eventually find their own way out.

Very nice. Looks like fun.

Awesome goat! Congrats to him

That bronco is SWEET! I always wanted to build one of those, but have never had the space to work on it.

My shop is only about 800 square feet. I'm not going any bigger. Keeping four of these things going is plenty for me, I don't want anymore and if I had the floor space I know I'd buy another one. I may swap spindles in a few years though, I wouldn't mind unloading my toolroom mill and getting something with a 5th-axis trunion on it.

My tools are my toys. This is the newest one.

There isnt much that isnt going to be a hit lister. Time is short and no other tags. Brian My buddy & I drew a couple decent rifle tags, so we've set our selves a 3pt per side or better restriction for archery season. We'll see how well I do with that when there's a perfectly good forky standing broadside at 20 yards like last year......

Nothing wrong with being a little eccentric. He a hit-lister for you? Looks like decent mass in addition to some great character.

If there's a demand for your skills and you already have the necessary tools/equipment, then go with what you know. That way you do not have to invest time or money into learning new stuff or buying new things. You can just go straight to making money. I ran my own small business side gig for about 10 years before I went full time on my own. I grew very slow and cautiously, one piece of equipment at a time, so it never really put me at risk. It was hard to be patient at times, but now that I'm reaping the benefits, it was worth it.

Very nice bear, congrats to you!

Great tag to have. Good luck to you, sir!

Shooting in urban areas is pretty sketchy. 99% chance, you’ll never have a problem, but if one of those arrows escapes your property as mentioned above, be prepared for the lawsuit and/or criminal charges if you destroy somebody’s property or worse, injure or kill someone. A few years ago I owned my first home in Avondale, about 150 yards from the aqua fria wash. Seemed like a good place to shoot, flat, sandy, a half mile wide. No chance at all of a stray arrow hitting anyone or anything. Well, one of my do-gooder hoa neighbors saw me carrying my bow and target down towards the wash and immediately called the cops, who showed up before I even got to the wash. Cop was fine, polite, professional, etc. asked me what I was doing and I told him I wanted to target shoot with my bow. He explained it is illegal in that town to discharge ANY weapon within city limits, so I had to go somewhere else. Plus the wash is city property and it’d be trespassing too. I’d consider at least calling and asking what the rule is in your town before one of your concerned neighbors calls for you and gets you fined or worse.

Right on, looks good amigo

Man, you're not kidding. We bought our "forever" home last fall south of Prescott up in the pines. Have over 100 trees on 1.25 acres, mostly ponderosa but also some oaks & others that I don't know. So far we must have filled pretty close to 100 large hefty trash bags with pine needles and still aren't done. Do a little bit at a time whenever we're up there. I don't think the previous owners ever cleaned the yard, the carpet of leaf debris is about 3" thick.

Financing vehicles is about the worst thing that's ever happened to the American consumer. $60k+ for trucks.... give me a break! They really don't even make that much money on the vehicles anymore, most of the money is made through the financing. Finance it new, then it gets traded in, financed again, then traded & financed again.... etc. I had a pretty nice jeep commander that had been paid off since the second year I owned it. Planned on driving that thing til it died, but unfortunately it was murdered sooner than anticipated. Had some lady in the next lane over make a u-turn right in front of me and t-bone me. Totaled out the vehicle, and of course she has no insurance. Ended up going down and buying a new truck, and was told if I paid cash I do not qualify for factory rebates. The OTD price of the vehicle would be about $5000 higher than financing. So I financed it, and then paid it off on the third month. Saved about $11k compared to paying the loan for 5 years. Most people have no idea how compounding interest works. Bottom line, if you keep paying interest instead of investing, you probably will work til you die. If you saved $11k on a 5 year note then you must have bought a $110,000 pickup. Id like to see a pic of that thing! You wont ever pay compound interest on a vehicle unless your payment is under the total amount of monthly interest, which it wont be. Most vehicle finance companies have extremely good rates. My current F150 is at 3.2% through ford credit. I could write a check to pay it off tomorrow if needed but that makes no sense financially when I have that money elsewhere making considerably more interest. Having properly managing debt is not a bad thing if done correctly. If prime goes back up to 10%+ a person needs to be ready to move money to pay it off but at current rates one can leverage money and make more of it while having debt. Actually I think it was a 6 year note, not a five. I put $12k down and the monthly payment was $570ish if I remember right. I multiplied the 70 remaining payments and came up with around $45k total, but it was about $34k to pay it off. Don’t remember the exact numbers but it was 10-11 that I saved in the long run. My credit score is low 800s. I got what they called a “premium” rate but I still thought it sucked. Didn’t worry too much though as I knew I wouldn’t pay on it long enough to care anyway Edit: my wife says my memory is terrible, it only saved us $9k. Still worth it to me.

We got a pretty good look at him and did not see an ear tag. That's not really one of my prime spots, but I'm thinking I may hunt there opening day just to see if he's still hanging around and maybe I can get some more pics. There were a lot of flipped over rocks & digging on that ridge, I think that's his summer time hangout.

That oughta do it. Good luck on your hunt.

Antelope crawl under Hilarious to watch too. They all bunch up and go under the same spot one at a time. I've seen that a couple times in 19a. Funny critters.

^This. 27 is a fantastic area for backpacking if you enjoy to hunt that way. I love to backpack, but usually do that on the late hunts in the desert where the units get hit harder & just road-camp and hike in during the early hunt. Sometimes we go days without seeing another person, other days you see a few hikers. Hit or miss. Obviously you see more hikers & hunters on the weekend then you will in the middle of the week. I've had deer around me within 20 yards of my treestand while hikers were going by on the hiking trail about 80 yards away. Deer watched them go, then went back to eating. Hikers had no idea that me or the deer were even there. You can go deep if you want to, but you don't have to to still have a great hunt. IF you're unfamiliar with the area, there's a value to being able to use the roads to cover lots of ground quickly, where as if you backpack in your investing huge amounts of time in an area you may end up not finding what you like. If it's your first time there, I'd save the pack trips for until you know exactly where you want to be and treat this hunt more as a scouting mission with the hope of getting a shot. But that's just my .02.

Financing vehicles is about the worst thing that's ever happened to the American consumer. $60k+ for trucks.... give me a break! They really don't even make that much money on the vehicles anymore, most of the money is made through the financing. Finance it new, then it gets traded in, financed again, then traded & financed again.... etc. I had a pretty nice jeep commander that had been paid off since the second year I owned it. Planned on driving that thing til it died, but unfortunately it was murdered sooner than anticipated. Had some lady in the next lane over make a u-turn right in front of me and t-bone me. Totaled out the vehicle, and of course she has no insurance. Ended up going down and buying a new truck, and was told if I paid cash I do not qualify for factory rebates. The OTD price of the vehicle would be about $5000 higher than financing. So I financed it, and then paid it off on the third month. Saved about $11k compared to paying the loan for 5 years. Most people have no idea how compounding interest works. Bottom line, if you keep paying interest instead of investing, you probably will work til you die.

Bear wallow is basically completely burned. Good glassing country now where it used to be rainforest thick. The blue has some burned area but still has a lot of thick timber. If you haven’t already put boots on the ground and determined some good ambush areas, at this point in the game you’re probably better off to stick to the open stuff and glass. That thick stuff can be tricky and has taken me years to figure out good treestand locations, but now that we have them they produce.

Could I try them on before I decide?

that one's on my list too. But the wife had financial mileposts we have to hit before I can write that check. #batteredhusbands I would have to have "F you" money before I'd even consider going on one of them hunts. Can't believe the money they get for those hunts. Its insane! Thats why its just a dream, will never happen unless I can win a raffle somehow.Move to the Alaska wilderness, those guys on those discovery channel shows shoot them for sustenance I think it's one of those things that's more doable than people think. I read about a guy that did a dall's hunt on another forum a few years ago. As I recall, I think he said it took him about 5-6 years to save up for it a few hundred bucks per month. If you're making car payments and paying interest on $6 cups of starbucks liquid diabetes, then you'll never go. If you can live without making interest payments, you'll be able to pull it off. It all depends on what your priorities are. It's like 16-26k just for the guide. But to some that's not a lot I did some looking online after reading your last post, those hunts are actually a lot cheaper than what I'd thought. I'd heard $35-40k. The most expensive I saw advertised was $25k+tag & travel expenses. Still pretty steep, buuuuuuuut............. still pretty steep.