TREESTANDMAN

WOW, FIRST COUES WAS 80, THAT IS QUITE AN EXPERIENCE.

Andy, What part of 32 did you get him in?

GMM, any bucks?

I just did a statistics survey on the pictures I got from my trail camera from the pines. The survey includes about 70 pictures with coues deer in all the pictures. I found that the majority of the pictures were from noon to 4 pm! These pictures are from december-february. Some were in the early morning just after light, some in the evening after 5 pm. A couple after dark, but the majority was definately between 12-4 pm most closer to around noon. This is an 2 yr established salt hole. The summer time may hold entierly different results.

My choices would be 12A late, 32 late,22 late.

They say the smaller ones are more dangerous, they don't know when to stop injecting venom. They also say that rattlesnakes can choose wheather or not to inject venom or just give a warning bite. Weather this is true or not I'm not 100% sure.

My buddy and I were out last Saturday and saw a couple gopher snakes. Spring has come quick and the snakes are now out of hibernation. We found these snakes early in the morning so they were very lethargic and could not move very fast. They were not quite thawed out. I have had many experiences with rattlesnakes. I used to catch them to feed them to my kingsnakes that I bred. In all the time that I have been out in the desert I have never had any really close calls. I have stepped right next to several rattlers and jumped away with them not striking. I think for the most part they are relatively harmless. That is not saying we should not be extremely cautious.

The stealth cam I use was about 75.00. I agree that having several inexpensive trail cameras is imo preffered to a high dollar digital because of the risk of it being stolen and of course to have several inexpensive cameras out at one time. In December I got a picture of a bowhunter following a trail my camera was on.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITES ARE 22,32,27

I am using a Stealth cam right now. I am very pleased with its performance.

Amen to that.

Has anyone here tried using decoys during the rut here in Arizona. I personally haven't but I am curious to here of any who have.

Several yrs ago in August, I sat some salt in unit 27. At 8 am a spike mule deer came in. One lone whitetail forky came in at about 10am. At 12.30 2 whitetail does came in. At 1:00 pm a 100+ whitetail buck came in. The reason this salt had so much activity I believe that day was that a large ponderosa had fallen over the only dirt road to my stand and there were no humans in the vicinity. This may not have much to do with the topic, I just thought it was kind of interesting that this monster came into this salt at 1:00 in the afternoon. This was a cloudy rainy day raining a little and then stopping for a few hours. A typical white mountain summer day.

Sounds like a blast!! That is an awesome video you posted of that Monster.

Congrats!!! Those are some pretty nice bucks.

Josh, You are the man. What type of terrain are you seeing these scrapes in? What unit? What modes to you preffer to set your trail cams on? ex. 2 pictures every 5 min? I do know of one area in the pines where there are fresh scrapes and rubs everywhere and I want to get my trail cam up.

If youve got time I would love to see the pictures.

Are they good eating?

I was just curious to see if anyone has tried sitting water in december or january. I know that some days in january can get pretty hot and it seems to me that night time is a little chilly to be going to get water. I have never tried it but I would love to get your opinions or experience.

Thanks for the input, I will be sitting a hidden water hole this monday and we will see what happens. This is the first year that the any deer has been changed to any antlered deer in the southern units Ernesto. I personally don't agree with the fish and games decision because in the last 8 years I have hunted January in unit 32, I have never seen a doe kill by an archer.

I notice that coues whitetail meat is not nearly as gamey as the mule deer I have taken. Has anyone else noticed a difference in the meat?

I went up to the pines in unit 22 on jan 1st and as I was driving the road to my treestand, I saw an adult mt lion running full speed across a little meadow. I didn't see anything else so I'm not sure why it was running. This was 7:00 am and not quite light all the way yet. I got out of my truck and tried finding it but never saw it again. Nothing better than to start the new year off by seeing a mt. lion. I just harvested a rutting buck from my treestand in dec and yesterday I put down some doe estrus bead trails all ending at my salt. I also put up a scent dripper. I will be sitting my stand all day tomarrow and I am curious to see what affect these manufactured scents have on the deer. It is supposed to snow up where I will be so hopefully not too hard. I will let you all know if these products work.

The deer preffer the cocaine over the salt pellets I have noted. They don't go crazy over it like the container says.

Where there are javelina, there are deer weather they be mule deer or Whitetail. Javelina are much harder to glass up than deer. Good luck to you! There are very few hot spots in Arizona but everything is good.

My wife just bought me a trail timer. It was only about 89.99 so I'm wondering how the pictures will turn out. I just shot a 3*3 from my treestand in unit 22. This Saturday I will go and put my trail timer on the salt. I believe there are some very large bucks that come in.