coueselk

I don't know about the rest of you. But Ernesto and Amanda know me personally. I held that buck in my hands yesterday. It is truly a monster. Mace is a great hunter and would never pull a prank like digitally enhancing photos. He just happened to kill a coues buck that we can only dream about. We put that buck up next to my 118" and it made mine look like dink. It is truly a huge buck. To have held it in my hands, I still can't believe how big it was. It is a monster.

Here are the pictures of a fine nice Safford boy coues buck.

Ok everyone. The score has been tallied for Ernesto's 2005 buck. Here is the just a quick overview of what we came up with. Right Antler Left Antler Main Beam 5 2/8" 5 2/8" G-1 0 1" H-1 6/8" 7/8" H-2 6/8" 7/8" H-3 6/8" 7/8" H-4 6/8" 7/8" Total: 8 2/8" 9 6/8" Inside Spread Credit: 3 2/8" Gross Total for this Trophy: 21 2/8" Net Total: 19 6/8" Ok, who is gonna beat this? Casey?

Easy retlaw280. I'm a Safford boy.

Of course bring the rack. The only ones on the site are of it at Max's. I didn't post the other ones, due to I didn't know who took them and didn't have your ok.

I got some at work. They showed all the different angles of it sitting on a garage floor. And the one from Max's shop. Those are the only ones that I have seen.

If your in town tomorrow. I'm working at PD's Safford office on main street. I have a card reader. Give me a call and come by. We can download them. 928-951-0146.

Mace. This is Danny. If you need help and have them electronically. Send me them and I'll upload them for you. You can send them to coueselk@aol.com.

Headed down to 36A two weeks from today. Brown Toyota double-cab Tacoma, with a CW sticker in the back window.

Rumor has it that the long back tine on the 3 point side was just over 11" long. That it has been measured by a few different people and all have came up with over 134" gross. I won't be the one that spills the beans on where it was taken. But it was less than 20 nautical miles from my house, by the big rock.

Amanda, I can't help with the reticle, but both of my .270's have VariX-III's with adjustable objectives. One is a 3.5-10x50mm and the other is 4.5-14x50mm. They do sit higher than a 40mm. Depends on the rifle. On my Ruger, I had to put extra high rings to get it to clear the barrel. My Winchester I was able to get away with medium. I have a 40mm on my daughters .22-250. After looking the the 50's all the time. I really do like them better. They are also much easier to see through in low light as well.

Wait, here is a different angle of Ernesto's buck. I can taste those backstraps.

Here is Ernesto's brother Mario with his fine 1st Coues Buck. Here is Ernesto with his very good eating buck.

Good story old man. I knew you could do it. You just forgot to leave them hanging with a "To be continued".

I really don't know how to answer this one. My kids have gone with me every chance they could. I have taken pictures with them and my animals every year since they were born. They help me skin them and take care of them. One thing is that I am a hunting fanatic. I fish sometimes, but hunting is a passion for me all year long. So my kids enjoy it also. They like being in the outdoors. They are like me and don't like it inside. When we are hunting, they like exploring. Looking for lizards, bugs, neat looking rocks, etc. My son is a rock hound. We never come home without his pockets full of rocks. Some kids like it and some don't. I expect that my daughter may tend to shy away from it in a few years as the boys come knocking.

I'm back from taking my daughter Alex on her hunt in 36A. We left Thursday afternoon for the 3 hour drive down to the unit from Safford. Before going on with the story, I would first like to thank my best friend and hunting partner Rusty for coming down to help us and bringing his 5th wheel trailer for the kids and us to stay in. The kids really enjoyed it. Friday morning, started with some heavy glassing of the surrounding mountains and hills. We saw numerous does, but nothing with any horns. Around mid-morning, I happened to be glassing a ridge very far away and I caught movement in the bottom of my binos. It was a nice buck. He was a 3x3 and looked to be around 85-90". The only problem was that he was in the flats. We watched him for about 5 minutes before he disappeared from our view into a wash. Alex wanted to try for it, so we made our way around and came over on the small ridge that we had first seen the buck. I glassed under every single mesquite tree I could see. No buck to be found. Rusty had made his way to a high point on one of the surrounding hills. So we decided to try and bust the buck up. Hoping that if we missed the shot, maybe the buck would be pushed out of the flats into more favorible hills. As Rusty watched, we began to methodically work our way down the wash and then turned and went back up a different wash. Walked down a small ridge and back up another. No buck emerged. The gray ghost had vanished. My 7 year old boy was complaining of hunger by then, so we decided to call off the search. This is a picture of the buck before he disappeared, not a good picture as he had his head down. We then decided to try some other hills to the west, since the eastern portion of where we were hunting had numerous other hunters there already. As we were driving along a road, we kicked out a couple of coues does and some muley does. No bucks. We came around a saddle and decided to do some glassing from that point. It took me about 3 minutes and I located this buck bedded under a tree 700 yards away. I showed Alex the buck through the spotting scope and she wanted to try for it. I told her that it was a 2 point, but she didn't care. It was her tag so no arguement from me. Rusty would stay at that point and watch the buck as we made ourself toward shooting range. As we neared the point we would shoot from, Rusty had found another buck bedded under a tree 30 yards from the 2 point. He couldn't make it out good enough to know how big it was. I got my spotting scope on it, but there was an ocotillo right in front of him from my view. I could see antler, but not how big. We elected to wait for the bucks to get up, then decide which one to take. Rusty would make his way to a different vantage point in hopes of seeing the other buck better. To be continued.....

Great story and what a whopper of a muley. Congrats on a good hunt. We tried finding something like that in southern NM for my partner. But no luck. Weather wasn't good. Needed a good freeze to get the muleys to start coming up from flats to the lower hills.

My daughter has been using a .22-250 for her last three coues bucks. It is a youth varmit model, so it is quite heavy with the 26" bull barrel. But it has done an excellant job. I do reload for it and make some hot loads. It has taken a buck out at 340 yards. The last two were taken at 240 and 260. Does the job with a well placed shot.

Ok, I'm back from New Mexico. Here is how the hunt went. Opening morning I spent glassing lower hills only seeing does as I made my way up a really steep mountain. When I reached the top, I spent the next six hours glassing the ridges on the other side. Only saw one doe there. First day was very frustrating. No bucks to be found. Day two, I changed locations. This started out like day one, only spotting does. The wind picked up on this morning, so I decided to try some small canyons that I have never hunted. They looked like they could possibly give some good wind cover for the elusive gray ghost. As I was hiking back into one of the canyons, I noticed some large deer tracks in the bottom. Much to big to be a doe, so I knew there had to be a buck in the area. The wind was still blowing pretty good in this area and it was hot, but I persisted. I climbed to a small ridge top that gave a good vantage point up one of the small canyons. Here is the canyon. As I started glassing up near the top, low and behold, laying in the bear grass was a nice buck. I could see through my spotting scope that he clearly had four points on his right antler, three points on the left, was wide and had good mass. Points weren't too long, but I'm a sucker for extra points. (Tired of just 3 points). I glassed some more around the area with my swaros, not seeing anything else with him, I decided to give him a go. I ranged him at 360 yards. This year I wanted to get some video, so I had lugged my video camera along. I set up the camera and then prepared for the shot. As I ran my scope across the trees to the left of him, I noticed another buck that I had missed while glassing. So, I took the camera off the tripod and back went the spotting scope. The other buck was a smaller 3x3. I then glassed all of the surrounding area with the spotting scope, leaving no rock or bush uncovered. I was confident that they were the only two. So I set up again for the shot. Being confident with my .270WSM, I checked my elevation chart taped to the butt of the rifle. 330 yards 3 inches low and 420 yards 8 inches low. I placed my crosshairs about 4 inches over his back and squeezed the trigger. Continued............

Nice buck Travis. Congratulations on a succesful hunt.

Thanks to everyone from Alex. She's on a role for getting her buck on the 1st day that she is able to go hunting the last 3 years. I told her that the luck will run out sometime, but to enjoy it while it lasts. I tried to video it, but missed the actual shot. My son Chase can't wait, he is tired of just being there to watch. I take them on every trip that I can. They don't care how far we go, they just keep following along. Again, thanks to everyone. Especially Scott for giving the idea for these posts.

Continuing.... 30 minutes had gone by when the mystery buck got up and started feeding. I could see that it was a small 3x3. I showed Alex both bucks again and that the 2x2 was larger. She still wanted the 2x2, so we waited patiently for the buck to get up. The buck finally got up and began to feed. I instructed her to wait for a clear shot. There were numerous ocotillo and mesquite branches out there, so we waited and waited. Alex was really getting nervous as the buck neared a opening, she told me she was shaking. I told her to take deep breaths and relax, with the same words being echoed by her brother. As the buck stepped into the opening, I gave her the ok when she was ready. The shot rang out, I saw the buck hump up and take two steps forward then fall back onto the ground. I noticed that she hit it a little far back. But the buck wasn't wanting to get up. We hurried across the canyon as dark was coming and got to within 50 yards of the buck. With a firm rest, she made the finishing shot. This is her 3rd coues buck. Not her biggest, but she wanted this buck. Here was the whole hunting party. Well in less than a month, Rusty and I are off on our late hunt. So expect a few more stories before the end of the year.

Here is a picture of the possible 120" buck that my uncle got on the game camera. What do you think? Picture is a little rough, he said it has other kicker points not visible from this view.

You guys hit it right on the nose. I wanted to see if you would catch it and I wanted to confess to my screw-up. Yes the shot went high. I really don't know what I was thinking. But, the buck just laid there. He turned his head to see what made all the dust behind him, but never got up. So, thinking that I pulled the shot and I still had 400+ yards stuck in my head, I put the crosshairs in the exact same spot and squeezed off again. Another shot went high, I said some choice words about myself on what I was thinking of the yardage, but the buck continued to stay down. I then put the crosshairs two inches down from the top of his back and squeezed off. That was all I needed. My math calculations inside my head that day was way off. But I was successful in the end. Here is the outcome. I did a quick scoring job last night and came up with 97" gross and 93 1/8" net. He had a 18" outside spread. This buck is also the biggest bodied coues buck that I have ever shot. I think that he was pushing a 120 pounds dressed out. Here is a picture of the 3x3 that was with him after the shot. He got up and looked at his friend, but soon laid down again. He watched me come up the canyon until I got about 70 yards from him. Then he got up, looked at his buddy laying there, almost looking like he was saying "What are you laying there for." and walked over the top, stopping to look back about every twenty yards or so at me and where is buddy was laying. I'm off to 36A this afternoon to take my daughter on the last three days of her hunt. Should have another story and pictures.

Good job Scott. It was a tough hunt this year. Windy and hot.