HighschoolHunter

I just got back from the greatest hunting experience of my life up until this point, maybe ever, though hopefully there are more adventures like this to come. Newfoundland moose with my grandfather, uncle, and younger brother. My uncle and brother and I were all fortunate to bag great bulls. The rut hadn’t kicked in yet so we weren’t able to call as much as we were anticipating, a lot of hiking through swampy bogs and tundra thickets, glassing from the tops of rolling hills and ridges. The first day we glassed up a small bull at first light and watched him move across the opposite canyon side for a while. Then we hiked a few miles further from camp and came to the edge of a cliff where there was a bear on a rock directly below us, and another young bull with 4 cows a few hundred yards further out below us. We watched the bull for a bit, it would have been a super easy shot as he was bedded 250 yards below us with no clue we were there, but he just wasn’t big enough for the first day. My uncle got his bull that morning though. The next day was cloudy and the fog rolled in while my grandpa and his guide were stalking a big bull a couple miles away, ruining their stalk. Then it poured rain most of the rest of the day so we stayed at the same little glassing knob the rest of the day. Funny enough, we had a small forky bull walk through a bog just 400 yards below us in about the only spot you could see with the fog. Adam (my guide) made a quick cow call to him and he turned on a dime making his way toward us. We lost him in the steel thicket at the bottom of the hill below us but probably 45 minutes later he showed up 100 yards behind us. That was the only bull we saw that day. The next day we headed back straight to the spot where we’d seen the bear the 1st day, and then about a mile further out to a big open valley. It took us about 4 hours to get there but after 10 minutes of glassing Adam glassed up a bull about 2 miles away with a few cows. You could barely see his paddles from that far away, they were like white specks, but we know if we could see them from that far away he had to be a decent bull. ‘well after about 3 hours of plowing through tuckerbrush, sinking through bogs and crossing streams we got to where we thought the bull had been. Of course with it being so much later in the day I had just about given up on finding the bull, especially because once we got to the general area we realized the ‘hill’ he had been on was such a gentle slope and so thick and flat you really couldn’t see more than 100 yards in front of you. Well that was just when Adam whispered, ‘there he is! Get your gun on my shoulder!’ All you could see was his antlers sticking up in the brush about 100 yards in front of us. Adam made a bunch of cow calls at him but could not get him to stand up, finally he just started yelling “moose! Get up!” And that got him up. I emptied my gun at him and he didn’t go anywhere but just stood there, finally falling over for me to run over to him after 4 shots. I was ecstatic. My brother got his bull that same day about 10 miles in the other direction from camp. We both had to spend the night out on the bogs before we could make it back to camp since we had shot our bulls so far from camp and so late in the day. It wasn't too cold but my clothes were wet from sweating and sinking in bogs all day so it was a pretty miserable night, though I probably saw more stars that night than I’ll ever see again in my life. Huge thanks to my guide Adam for filming the shot while letting me shoot off his shoulder. I’m still amazed he did that for me; I didn’t even ask him to film it, he just whipped out his phone right before I started blowing out his eardrums. And of course thank you to my grandfather for the hunt of a lifetime.

That is my dream hunt right there. Huge congrats to your buddy and his son on some great rams.

Anyone know anyone that drew one of these tags?

How many points did you have?

If a couesWhitetail member draws one of those tags I hope they share about the experience, I’m really curious how those hunts will pan out.

Quick reminder if you already got a desert sheep you can only do the 1 horned ram Rocky hunt. I’m sure you knew but just to be sure. I’m guessing on those 1 horned ram hunts you will need to rely heavily on G&F for intel on where exactly the 1 horned ram they want harvested is at. Hopefully when they mail the tag out they also mail out or email a map or something of the general part of the unit/s to find a 1 horned ram, if not I would reach out to the g&f officers for the units and see if they can provide some recon. You are correct it would definitely be a needle in a haystack and on the rocky hunt it looks like every single unit with Rocky’s is open so I would definitely find someone at g&f and poke their brain on where they’ve seen a 1 horned ram in their flyover surveys.

Grew up in the valley but am in construction and have been hunting all over the state for the last 10 years. East of Prescott/Mayer area sounds the most like what you are describing and I know some people that have done that exact thing, buy an acre outside of Prescott to homeschool the kids and the dad drives an hour into the valley once every couple weeks. Even if it’s as much as twice a week, Mayer is less than an hour from north phoenix so I have considered that before. Only problem is I think those areas are pretty expensive especially as you get closer to Prescott/higher elevation. wickenburg and buckeye kinda fit your description but they are crazy expensive and will only get more crowded as development moves out that way. Also just hot dry desert. Payson is awesome and truly the gateway to the best fishing and hunting in the state of AZ, also while only 45 minutes from fountain hills/the valley. And will probably never get crowded/overdeveloped cause it basically sits on a rock pile that’s impossible to build on. If you can afford it that’s where I would go. Oracle is a small town north of Tuscon that could work if you are mostly between Tuscon and the valley, and sits at 4500’ so cooler than both, and has amazing Coues hunting in every direction. But I don’t know anything about schools/reputation/cost of living. Let us know where you land and God Bless.

What makes you say that? I haven’t heard anything so I don’t have a clue but was planning on being in 27 this weekend. Is there a lotta deep snow still up there?

Might not be your story to share but is that a cataract canyon ram from the 9/10 hunt? Unless I’m mistaken that’s the only sheep hunt that opens that early in AZ. Curious because that seems like it would be a really cool hunt and that looks like a good ram for a hunt with a bad reputation. Good on your friend for gettin it done.

If you have an old rifle or shotgun you’d like to get rid of for less than $300 let me know. Functioning or non functioning. Ideally just looking for old shotguns or 22s for under $100. Please send a pm. Thank you!

I think I’m 3rd in line now but if it’s still available I can pick it up this afternoon after 4pm

Travis what did you end up doing? Let us know how the hunt goes. I’m hoping to do WY pronghorn in a couple years when I can draw a tag with a bit more public land available. I only have 2 or 3 points right now.

Pics of the buck??

This is the only map I’ve seen. Everything I’ve read about it says acreages and borders have not been officially determined yet so I guess this is just the supposed areas.

Never hunted it but congrats on the tag, have heard very good things about it and hope to draw in the next couple years. There is tons of public land, national forest and BLM, and decent deer density all over the unit. Heard the biggest bucks come off of or near the private near the borders of the unit where they feed in the fields at night. Good luck and keep us updated

Curious if the OP drew his tag. Hasn’t been a single verified CWT member with a sheep hit yet as far as I’m aware

Not sure if the OP’s question ever got fully answered on here but if you listen to Jay Scott’s podcast with Brian Rimsza he talks about the 22 hunt falling off a bit the last few years. He was with the guy that shot the one sheep that got killed and he said it was a grind, and didn’t even go BC. Still a great sheep and a lotta guys with max are probably still gonna put in for it but if I had max, and I think Jay said the same, I’d be looking at 24B or 37A. Or one of the Rocky hunts since they’re just so tough to draw and expensive if you go to Canada.

Dude complains about 10 year olds getting drawn their first year, then says his kids will never have a chance. Pick a side. I’m happy with the AZ system as it is. Everyone gets a chance and the guys that have been in it a while get a 5-10x chance vs the first timers if you actually look at the draw odds. 0 points as a resident and you have less than a 0.5% chance for almost all sheep hunts. And it’s less than .1% for nonresidents for all hunts right up until they have max points, they don’t put a dent in your draw odds. 30+ points as a resident and you have a 3-7% chance for all but the Primo salt river hunts. It’s still terrible but statistically it’s way better than the guys starting out with nothing. I’d be fine with squaring the points too, but don’t flip the 80/20 random/bonus split. Your kids odds of ever drawing a tag would virtually disappear if they did that.

Any ideas on how old this shed might be? From a desert unit with only Muleys, looks like it was probably a broken 2 point. Can definitely tell that it’s been gnawed on by rodents or other deer and been scorched by the sun. When first picked up I assumed it had been dropped at least 3 years ago but now rethinking that considering its location, maybe it just got real weathered in the last year or 2.

They’re all over the unit from my understanding, I’ve never had a tag for there tho as that’s not my regular pig unit. Out predator calling a couple weeks ago my brother and I saw a few herds up on the Aqua fria monument. We bumped a couple groups while just trekking the desert between bishop creek and silver creek. Also saw some down in the low rocky desert right off the bloody basin road closer to the I-17. If it was deer or elk I wouldn’t give you this much description but I don’t think anyone gets too jealous or petty over their Javelina honey holes. Hope I didn’t offend anyone. If you get one be sure to post up pics and good luck

My younger brother and I have been hunting Az for 7 years and specifically predator calling for about 4 now. Very excited but also a little embarrassed it took me this long to get my first coyote. We’ve both missed a few over the years and also just messed up a few opportunities. We always felt like we didn’t really know what we was doing but it finally all came together a couple days ago. We had just finished the 2nd stand of the morning and after seeing nothing for 30 minutes, I suddenly noticed something on the opposite ridge about 200 yards off, literally as we were unloading our guns and packing up the call and ready to call ourselves the worlds worst predators hunters. I quickly got set up on it in the prone position and dropped it at 185 yards right as it was about to trot back over the ridge. We went ballistic when we walked up on it. Hopefully we’ve broken our curse and will start harvesting more predators now. Hunting 21 with the deer and pronghorn populations being decimated by coyotes. Thanks to anyone that bothered to read this. I know a lotta guys are able to shoot hundreds of these things a year but we were very excited feeling like we finally cracked the code.

That’s a close encounter! Cool video

Thanks everyone, appreciate all the comments