TAM

Nice buck!

Beautiful buck!

RR is right! In fact you could even apply for a tag and draw it, you just can't legally shoot a deer.

I really don't believe that BPS is designed for the local hunters. I think it's a tourist trap!

I've already posted my Bass Pro mis-adventure so I won't bore you all with the details again. Needless to say I won't be shopping there anymore!

Karp are from the Kaibab, and Carp are from anywhere else!

Jason, I seriously think you should up your Mexico minimums to 95+ and then keep hunting for a monster. You have to remember we're not hunting state land in AZ or NM. You should be seeing a lot of deer and a solid 95 incher should be pretty realistic. JMO Tim

I just got back from my late hunt on the Kaibab and wanted to share my story and a couple pictures. After months of preperation pretty much everything I planned for got thrown out the window. During the late hunt the snow and rut is supposed to push the deer down to the lower winter range where the country is more open and a little legwork can put a hunter on a ridge top overlooking miles of country. I scoted the winter range and studied topo maps to look for good glassing points where I could hike in and get away from the crowds. I exercised in preperation for the long hikes in the morning darkness over rough country to get to a good vantage point to glass. I spend countless hours handloading the perfect load for pin point accuracy. I shot hundreds of rounds at ranges out to 700 yards in preperation for that long cross canyon shot. I was prepared with high powered German glass to find the perfect buck at distances over a mile away. I even brought a shovel and tow chain in case the roads were sloppy with mud from foul weather. The simple truth is that none of my preperation mattered one bit!!! The weather never came and the deer never moved. For the most part the deer were still in there summer range on top of the mountain. After the first day of hunting down low we realized we had to change our game plan if we were to be successful. Most of the deer we were seeing were up high and they were concentrated around water sources. As crazy as it souds we decided to sit water. After the first evening I had 9 does and 2 bucks come in but no shooters. One of the other guys in camp had 7 different bucks come in including a nice 170 class four point which he shot at about 5:20 in the evening. The next morning I sat the tank where the buck was killed the night before and had 11 deer come in, but no shooters. After a short break at camp to stretch my legs and get a bite to eat at camp I was back at it, sitting in my bright blue camp chair some 70 yards away with my rifle rested on my tripod kind of like a turkey hunter. At 4:40 in the afternoon six does came in followed by my buck which I proceeded to shoot at a mere 72 yards! I didn't even think to range the distance until after I killed him and I was curious how close he was. Kind of ironic I guess, all the preperation in the world didn' matter one bit in the end. We just had to tweak the game plan and make a few adjustments. Our camp went four for four in three days killing four nice four point bucks in three days. My buck is 27.5 inches wide with a score of 182 inches. We also weighed it guts and all at 236 pounds at the G&F check in station. I never would have imagined getting a late season Kaibab deer tag and killing a big buck off a water tank on the summer range at 7500' elevation in late November.

Welcome and thanks for sharing the pic's. Those are a couple of real nice bucks!

Matt, I think the answer to your question depends on your maximum shot distance? If it's over 600 yards, I'd go with the 1200. If it's 600 and under then the 900 should work just fine. Remember that even the Leica 900 won't pick up at 900 or even 800 every time. You have to leave yourself a little buffer space.

Perhaps you guys are right, I don't know. Perhaps it's related to weather? I can remember as a kid having much colder winters with more rain. I can remember having to scrape ice off my winshield quite regularly when I was going to school. I haven't had to do that for a long time. The summer monsoons hit hard each year every other day or so and lasted two months. We don't seem to get as extreme weather either way anymore. Just my observations anyway.

Great ram! Great story! I can't wait for my turn........ 12 points and keeping my fingers crossed!

Clay, not everyone limits themselves to 400 yard shots. While I do everything possible to get 400 yards and under, sometimes it just isn't possible or there isn't enough time/light to do it. That's why I have a custom rifle and custom hand loads to shoot out to longer distances. I practice year round at the bench and in the field under "hunting" conditions to make such shots and feel confident in my equipment and abilities. Yes, I'll admit the 1200 yard range finder is over kill for myself, but they aren't always perfect either. The way I figure it is that if I wanted to take shots out to 400 yards I wouldn't buy a 400 yard range finder because they don't work as well at there maximum capicity. I have a Bushnell 600 rangefinder that will almost always work out to 450 or so, but after that it is hit or miss and depends on light and the reflection of the target. Even my Leica 1200 will not pick up every object at 1200 yards every time, but it's pretty darn reliable out to 900+ yards! For shots out to 400 yards I'd buy at least a 600 yard and perhaps even an 800 yard range finder. If I wanted to shoot futher I'd adjust accordingly. Sometimes it's also nice to know what the distance to a target is even if it's outside your shooting range. That way you know how much further you've got to move in to be within your limits.

Yep, ASU won like I hoped they would, but in my opinion both teams looked real bad! You would have thought that one of them would have brought there A game and made the other look bad, but that wasn't the case at all. Dissapointing game to watch either way if you ask me.

I've seen rut activity during the first part of the late December hunts, but it intensifies the later the hunt goes. I also think that the further north you go the earlier the rut will occur. A lot of times you will see middle age bucks gathering does early on and seemingly rutting it up. However as soon as the rut really kicks into full swing a larger more mature buck will step in, give the boot to the middle age buck that did all the work in gathering the does, and cash in on the younger bucks work.

Nice bull, cool pic's!!! I love the indian rock art, I've always wanted to find some on my own.

Congrats on a nice buck!

I'd be surprised if a 222 buck was the biggest unless you're talking net score. Opening morning a guy shot a 43 inch wide buck that I think would easily score more than that. Perhaps it's the buck that Cory's talking about. I personally measured the spread on this buck so I know it's no rumor. Grizzly, I was in camp with Howie, and he did shoot a real nice buck. We took 4 nice bucks in 3 days! Here's a link to another website with the 43 incher. You have to scroll down nearly to the bottom. http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID6/15739.html

Great buck, especially considering the weird weather conditions up there this year!!! Congratulations.

Real nice! Up high is where it was at this year.

Nice write up and a great buck! Thanks for sharing.

I use a Leica 1200 and love it! I wanted a range finder that would preform everytime out to 900 to 1000 yards and this one does just that. Check with Doug at Cameraland, I think he's got some real good prices on them.

I know you're comparing the Leupold and Nikon, but I like the direction that Red Rabit is going. I own a Zeiss Conquest and I personally think that it is the best quality scope out there for the money right now! How does the conquest compare in price to the others?

I didn't say I forgot about it, I said I blocked it out. I just wanted to focus on one thing at a time!

I just recomended Guns Etc to a friend today. He just fell on his November coues hunt and busted his rifle stock and was looking for a good shop to get it replaced. I don't live in the valley anymore, but I've bought one gun from them and had several trigger jobs done with there gunsmith. I always got first rate service over there and if I lived closer they'd probably be getting more of my money!