Non-Typical Solutions

3A3C is where we were hunting and I could probably get somebody in the right area if they still needed some help. I would have been really bummed if I did as bad here in my back yard as I did in 36B......I have some pics but I think they are to big to post here.....can't get them to load up. I put in for extra javelina tags for my boys. waiting to hear on those....I can't ever get my crap together to get put in for spring. I retired from coaching wrestling so I am thinking about getting a rez permit to hunt coyotes this year........funnest hunting there is IMO........

Part 2.....it had turned pretty cold by the time we got my bull dressed out so we decided to check out another spot we had scouted out before the sun went down. We bumped into a bull right off the bat and got Wyatt a shot.....3 shots to be exact......he wasn't even close...couldn't get the bull to run.....Wyatt had a serious case of the wobbles. My older boy had built him a shooting stick earlier in the week but we had left it back in the truck. Wyatt needs a shooting stick if you know what I mean. We went home very happy, we had one bull hanging and Wyatt had had an opportunity...... Second day, colder that hail.......wind blowing, I took Wyatt to a spot where I had seen bulls, got him set up to watch a heavily traveled trail. I am sitting there glassing freezing my kester off and look over at Wyatt....he isn't even paying atttention so I told him he was on his own....and I went back to the truck to get warm. I waited about 20 minutes and sent my older boy out to take his turn in the cold.....next thing I know I get a call on the radio.....Wyatt has spotted some elk and there is a rag horn in the group....... I get out of the truck, I have my 10 year old tagging along this time.......the two older boys have already started getting in position to intercept the elk. I find them in my glasses and we get them within 200 yards of about12 cows and the single raghorn....the cows gather around the bull and Wyatt can't get a shot. So we sit and wait.....and wait......and wait....freezing my hands off trying to keep them glassed up.....finally they start to file out and Wyatt gets a walking away shot....misses bad.....forgot the shooting stick again.....dang it he needs that shooting stick..... We run home to pick up mom, go down to another spot we had heard about but not looked at yet. We went walking (I took the shooting stick) through some of the burn area…which by the way is not an easy thing to do…..tons of downed trees. We saw a lot of sign, the sun is headed down and we decide to head in…..and behold…a gift is given to us….two spikes at the top of a ridge….200 yards….broad side….we get Wyatt set up with the shooting stick…..shoots……nothing……shoots again the spike buckles but is still standing……..his brother tells him to put another one in him….he shoots again as the bull starts to turn……..we watch him go over the other ridge. We all go hauling up the hill except mom, she doesn’t want to see blood….50 yards over the edge…bull down….3 bullet holes…7Mag…we get to do the dirty work by flashlight….. Waited months for this hunt…..didn’t get the monster that we had dreamed about, but the experience was priceless………………..and Wyatt dropped his first bull and that was what was really important in the long run…..

OK, I'll try to keep this short........but probably not. Opening morning finally arrived, we knew it was going to be tough because the spot we chose always has lots of hunters, but we thought we had done our homework and we were ready for the challenge. Before shooting light, we have already spotted 6 hunters on foot, and 4 vehicles driving through the area below us, but we were patient and finally as the sun came up, we found our bulls headed up a ridge about a mile and a half away. We hop in our rig, jump off the ridge we are on and head over as fast as we can on a two tracker. We get to where we need to be, get out of the truck, just as another truck pulls up. They ask us if we had seen any bulls, and like the honest idiots we are we said yes, and that we were getting ready to put a slow stalk on the ridge below. We say our good byes and start down the ridge...which is a very lazy, slow sloping, not much of a ridge at all, and that SOB drove straight down the ridge, off road, cross country, right there in front of us, right where we had told them we were going. We did not see the bulls again, and our only hope is that we actually saw G&F stop the guy....hopefully he got a big bad fine. Anyway, we of course are pissed off, I realize that this is no longer an elk hunt, but this is WAR. We head off to some thick cedar, I put my two boys up on a good glassing area, and I park about two miles away and start following fresh sign up through the thick cedars, hoping to kick something up that my boys can glass up and get a shot at. I am walking slow, have the wind in my face, lots of good sign, it is probably 11:30 in the morning, I am just happy to be off work and out in the woods when all of the sudden about 200 yards away I see bulls. Three bulls headed in the opposite direction that I was headed, and they are just mosing along.... At this point, you must know that I had plans of hunting all week, looking for the bull of a lifetime.....but my bull fever took over. After watching the circus earlier that morning and knowing that my son still had a tag to fill, I took off to get myself in position to take a shot at one of those bulls. I get the angle, keep the wind in my favor and sure enough, there they are, and in less than......well........a split second I had already pumped a 150gr. .270 round in to one of those bad boys(I thought). He was probably 70 yards away at the most, and he took off over the little ridge he was standing on.(surely I hadn't missed???) I ran up the hill, found serious stumble prints in the dirt, then blood, so I decided to actually look up and.......there he was The shot had hit him right behind the front left shoulder and exited out the other side right behind his right shoulder. Sorry about the blood, but this guy was bled out by the time I got to him. I radioed my boys and they came to my rescue. Obviously not the monster bull of my dreams, but it felt good to have one down…..now all we had left to do was get Wyatt a shot at a bull. Part 2 coming up….. Sorry, I can't get the pics to come up right..........they are bloody anyways....he is a 5X5, nothing special but one heck of a fun time with the boys out hunting.

I am headed out the door...everybody be safe, have a great turkey day.....and an even better late bull hunt. We'll be back in touch after the hunt....and yeah.....gonna need some luck....

That is where it is all at........keep him at it, those 3 1/2 years won't come fast enough.....an then all the sudden.....they are gone doing their own thang.......good job.

I used to do alot of loading with my brothers, I am sold on it but........time has become a serious issue these days and I have used factory over the last couple of years. My 22-250 load was 35 grains of 4064 behind a hornady 60 grain spire point......used it for varmints and deer for years....my 270, I struggled with it a couple of years ago when I was getting ready for elk season....never was really happy with it so I am relying on Remington 150 Corelokt for this coming Friday morning.......I have shot it enough I am sure it will do it's job if I do mine.....man I can't wait for Friday morning....

When you spend so much time with them, it is like losing a kid. Sorry to hear about the loss of a good animal.

I believe it.....I sent pics from our hunt trip to Napolitano, Flake, McCain, Kyle, TV12 and 15 two weeks ago...haven't heard a word from any of them... I suppose I will have to send out hundreds more to get a single response, which response I don't expect to be anything of great significance. My wife was so worried about the retrobution that was going to come to our peaceful home, we both teach school and have kids in school....I told her not to worry, nobody would pay attention to the pictures anyway.........we will just keep ignoring the problem.....the real problem.....

Gotta love the spike.....nothing better eatin.....and a grand slam for a first timer...nice job...

Hats off to the lady......

Back in the early 80's my dad was in the thick of raising alot of pigs, and everything you ate caused cancer is some way or another, the report came out that bacon could in fact cause cancer(in rats). It later went on to explain the amount of bacon that was fed to the rats which in turn caused the cancer to appear in the rats. If you were to go ahead and do a pound for pound comparison, transfering the weight of the bacon fed, to the weight of the rat eating the bacon, a human would in turn have to have eaten approximately 686 pounds of bacon per day, every day for 3 years. dang I say, we ate alot of bacon back in those days, but I am telling you, 686 pounds of bacon in one day by itself would have killed me, forget the cancer. I have no doubt that the testing on this lead business is slanted tremendously in favor of the condor. They ain't getting enough lead from a gutshot animal to kill them.

I would have been in there 15 or so years later I am guessing, it was still a logging hub at that time, at least as far as I could tell. There are alot of good hunting two trackers, that started out as logging roads.....and yeah, those bulls in the rut can be stinkers.....sorry, got way off track.

Not sure if you have seen this one...a buddy sent it to me....thought it might fall under the ouch catagory. Crap.....didn't work.....I'm a computer nut.......

Times long past....must mean we are having fun. One of the old roads we used to travel....not sure if it still exists or just in my memory, I think the place was called Maverik, up there by Reservation lake on the US side of the line, can't remember.....during the monsoons, those roads were wicked.

Sorry about the assumption there.... I just figured they must be putting pavement down as long as it was taking them. I remember when McNary was still a hub, we busted an oilpan on that Big Lake road and was one of the only times I ever heard my dad swear. That is a nice drive, lots of beautiful country, just was worried they were putting the pavement down. It will be fine then, but they better keep some of those camping areas open or it will turn in to down town......I really lost intrest in Roosevelt lake when they went to the developed camp area, haven't been there for years....is it pretty much all developed camping only or can you still pull up next to the lake and camp??

I had pretty much avoided that neck of the woods just because of the construction, but I see it kind of a contradiction in messages. On one hand we a making a freeway back in to Big Lake, and then saying that we are going to cap off the little roads...so a basically run the cows down to the catch pen and expect them to stay right there? I do believe that fingers can be pointed in every direction with regards to barricade busters. People who would bust them with a wheeler, would probably do the same thing in a jeep or gigantuous 4X4 four door truck. What about the barricades all along the burn area on the rim? Convienient excuse to close the roads, but will they ever be reopened again. One more thing....with the population growth that Arizona has experienced over the last 10 years, legal or illegal, and the continued projected growth in population, we can only look forward to more of the same with regards to the management or lack thereof, of our forests, hunts, fishing....outdoors.

Bill, What is your take on the freeway they are building on the backside of you there going through Sunrise, across to Sheeps crossing, etc? You have probably had a chance to check it out first hand, I haven't tried to check it out at all. Is the plan to go all the way to Big Lake with that? Jeff

Gotta love the Kiabab bucks....nice......

NIce....real nice....I vote the one on the right.....

I would agree on the wolf thing, which again is something that was put into place and now has strings attached. Just read the signs along the side of the road, Mexican wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act under a special rule which allows people to scare away or harass wolves in an "opportunistic and non-injurous" manner. This means you cannot seek out, pursue, or attract wolves, nor can you phyiscally injure a wolf in any way. However, you can scare a wolf away by making loud noises or by throwing rocks in the animal's direction. I always stop long enough to read the sign for a chuckle, but you are very right about it being part of the underlying wolf protection. Seems to fit the border idea as well........

Would never have equated "old, health or laziness" in your case Bill, and have found in the past that the only hunters, people or otherwise that have rubbed my bald head wrong have been those who were too lazy to show any respect for what we have, especially here in the white mountain area. People too lazy to clean up their camp after they are done. People too lazy to walk across the meadow so they drive across it. People too lazy close the gate that they just opened. People who leave the crappy diaper along the side of the highway. None of which has anything to do with age or health. My point was simply that my perspective is different because I have, as of yet, not reached any of those points in my life and probably can't see past my own nose to know any better. As I stated previously, I don't like the idea of what might be packaged with the road closure. I remember back in the late 70's, we would pack back into the Gila Wilderness with our mules, there were holding corrals at the head of the trail, Gila Cliff Dwellings, we would always take some alfalfa hay with us to feed just before we left, pack a little pellet feed in with us but mostly rely on grass to keep our mules up during the week. We went in one time, signs posted all over that fines would be handed out for any use of foreign feed such as alfalfa, rye, wheat, oats. This was due to the "fact" that new "grasses" were being introduced to the area by the feeds that were being brought in by "horse and mule" parties. I think there is a happy medium, unfortunately it always seems that they keep inching up on us taking more and more away and that is the scary part.

Anymore, planning for the crowds is part of planning the hunt. I have a 3a3c late bull tag coming up, and I have about 5 different areas that we have been scouting just to make sure the bulls are in there. But come opening morning, those bulls will probably not be where they were the day before, so we just have to have plan B, C, D and E. Not exactly the way we want it...but that is the way it is. People can be considerate of others by treating the situation the way they would like it if they were in the same situation...

Hope to have the same ground shrinkage problem some day...heck of a buck, congrats....

Nice job on the 36B hunt, glad to hear you found him and put him down. For some reason your pic isn't coming up on my dang computer, but I'll try on my one at home tonight.

I guess when I am too old or lazy to hike it in I might have a different view and opinion, but I know it is very frustrating to hike into an area, only to find somebody busting through in a vehicle. 27, has some wilderness area in it and is about the only place you can go in that area and actually hunt without being disturbed by vehicles. I guess the part of me that wouldn't support road closure is the part that worries about what is packaged with those closures and what is next on the agenda. They gonna say I can't take my mule in there? Seems like there is always something next.....