yotebuster

I just spent the last couple weeks in 24A and can tell you that the rut is not happening as of lately. I sat in a treestand for many hours and had multiple does with fawns in tow. In all the hours sitting I witnessed a smaller 6 pointer chase a doe away from a group of 3 does and 2 fawns. The following day I had the same does and fawns back in minus the doe that was chased. It wasn't ten minutes and the doe that was chased the following day was back in with the group with no buck in tow. By the looks of her backside she wasn't bred. I think the young buck was premature with chasing her and abandoned mission was he realized the time wasn't right. My $.02 on the rut in my area is it has yet to begin. It can only get better in the next few weeks. You can tell they are bred by looking at their backside?!?

Now if I can just find someone to release a big fat cougar tom just over the rise for me without me know it I'll be a happy man

I think your bro in law got that as a forward. I've seen that pic before claiming to be from several places. Cool pic for sure, must be some light fluffy snow! Also, Utah doesn't have whitetails (or very very few of them).

I was fortunate enough to draw a september archery tag this year in a slightly less desirable unit! I was pumped either way! I was up above the rim nearly every weekend all summer and learned a LOT about elk hunting in AZ! Lesson 1: The bulls definitely don't stay put from July and August till they rut! I had 50 different bulls on 6 cams on salts and water that I would've loved to shoot, and of all those bulls, I never saw one that I had on camera during the hunt! I had a couple bruisers that were hitting water like clockwork till the velvet dropped, then gone! Anyhow, the hunt was a rollercoaster for me but was an awesome time. I have no idea how AZ is able to give out so many tags and still have quality hunting! I didn't see a soul scouting all summer, then on opening day it was like someone opened the flood gate! I saw more people in one week of elk hunting AZ then I have in 15 years of hunting general hunts in MT and CO. Here's the weird thing, I saw way more elk too! I tried some quiet areas and was able to get away from the people to some extent, but it's still beyond me how the elk tolerate that much pressure and keep bugling, you guys in AZ have to consider yourselves lucky! I've bumped bulls 7 or 8 miles into the backcoutnry in montana and blown them out of an entire drainage just by having one cow in the herd wind me! Here it's totally different, despite the Indy 500 on quads that went on every morning, the elk bugled right through it! I had an opportunity at a 320 type bull that stopped broadside at 80 yards on a logging road, completely unaware of my presence, but I failed to realize that the overhanging limb halfway there was in the way! He got dang lucky that day. I had another chance at a monster bull that we glassed up in some open country. I was making a stalk on him and something spooked them right past me. I saw him coming and drew back, and tried every different noise I could make as he trotted by at 40 yards. He finally stopped after he got past me behind a tree of course, with his cows stopping at 20 yards staring at me and my drawn bow. Then they all bounced out of my life forever! He was a hammer with huge tops (for me anyhow, I would say he was a 370 bull, which is big for this guy!). Anyhow, the hunt dwindled down till the last morning, after having a rough go and getting screwed up by other hunters with a hoochy momma yet again, I was literally driving out of the unit to the highway to head down to the valley. I was 800 yards from the highway when a herd of cows ran across the road in front of me. I didn't see a bull, but knew that there had to be one somewhere, so I drove past a quarter mile and snuck back around and began flanking the herd in the ponderosas. I'm sneaking along at about 150 yards thinking to myself "this is the stupidest idea you've had all season". I finally caught a glimpse of a bull pushing them, of course it was the smallest herd bull in all of Arizona, but I wasn't about to be picky. They slowed and started feeding along, completely silent, so I slipped out ahead of them and snuck in a bit closer when I reached a thick spot. I couldn't beleive my eyes when all of the sudden a cow came feeding by, then another, then another. I ranged them at 30 yards. The bull finally trudged by after the 9th cow went past. I couldn't beleive it, I was about to kill a herd bull! He took a slightly different course and actually walked right toward me for a few yards, and I drew as his head went behind a ponderosa. He stepped out at 19 yards, slightly quartering toward me. I put it right on the front edge of his shoulder blade and drove a FMJ tipped with a 125 rage crossbow head all the way into his opposite shoulder. He lit out over a small rise and I almost instantly heard a crash, thinking it must be cows running away, I backed out and waited an hour. It wasn't necessary as the broadhead took the top of his heart off and he died mid stride about 65 yards over the rise. Another thing I'm thankful for is driving off trail to get a downed elk! All of the places I've shot elk before you wouldn't dream of getting a vehicle to! I was bound and determined to get this big guy in my truck whole. Using a seriies of straps and ropes, I almost did, I ended up sawing him in half and loading him in, took way longer then it wouldve to just bone him out there, but I really wanted to say that I loaded one in my pickup whole! He was a big bodied dude, but kinda light on the antlers. I took him to millers and he weighed 390 without head hide, guts, feet, or backstraps. I do believe he had to have been a mean butt bull to keep 9 cows in a place where he was 50-60" smaller then any other herd bull I saw! Someday I'll stick a 350 bull, but considering it was litereally the last 30 seconds of my hunt I'm pretty pumped. Side Note: I was worried about the taste of this bull as the 3 year old bull I shot in NM was tough as heck, but I was amazed to find out that he is excellent! Not that I think he's an old bull or anything, but hes defintely more mature then the tough little one I killed in NM, but way way better eating.

you gonna mount up a pair of em and make some big eyes?

$15k each... and they take six hunters.... $90,000. I'm pretty sure you can buy 5500 acres in mexico for $90k.

When do the turkey tags sell?

Pesos?

Sorry Scooter I'll keep it on topic!

I always get a kick out of how people know a "lion kill" when they find one. You have 100,000 guys running around banging away at deer and elk every fall, most of them don't even sight in their .270's and bought the BDC reticle and take 600 yard shots without even checking to se if they drew blood. I would wager that a majority of the dead bucks or "lion kills" as most people call them are somehow related to a 130 gr soft point and not a 130 pound Tom. The reason it seems like you rarely find dead does is that how often do you pay attention to a pile of bones if there isn't a rack laying with it? You don't, you just walk by it and make sure there isnt a rack. Not saying lions don't eat deer, not saying I'll ever pass up a chance at any predator icluding a lion, just saying that the two legged predators in jacked up trucks account for waaaayyyy more kills then the lions.

I missread your post, thought you were saying you could only shoot one with 4B out to 20 yards!

Most blinds have either shoot through mesh or blacked out interiors, or both, so they can't see in them. It might feel like they are looking right at you, but they are most likely looking at the black spot they see on the front of your blind. I don't like shoot through mesh, but a lot of guys use it. I use double bull and primos blinds and they have black interiors, I just leave my shooting window open when I put it out so they get used to the black window. Just get a good comfortable stool with a backrest and make sure you can draw your bow while in the blind, on the chair, no acrobatics needed. Good luck!

20yards with 4 buck??? You can kill coyotes with 7 1/2's at 20 yards! I wouldn't go larger then 4buck, especially for light furred AZ predators. I've killed coyotes with Hevishot and lead BB's at 50-60 yards. In my opinion 00buck is far to unreliable with only 15 pellets. Unless your gun patterns extremely well with it, I would stay away from it. A hevishot or lead BB will penetrate to the opposite ribs of any predator under 60 yards, I actually shot a deer with 6's at 50 yards and folded it once (another state another time

I've seen some big coues bucks in the 4's, quite a ways north in them I might add!

I shot a mule deer a few years ago just outside of Joe Montana! It does exist! SE part of the state between Baker and Miles City. More big game in that area then any other place on the planet.

Move to ND and drive truck in the oil fields! You'll make 30-40 and hour, you can work 7 on 7 off if you wish and hunt your butt off the rest of the time! Not much for housing in NW ND, where you would be working, but there's a ton of cheap housing about an hour and a half away, so you could work long hours on and commute and have a bunch of time off. Lots of opportunity up there.

Scooter's right on the money, first part of January would be best, but make sure you talk to someone at sportsmans center and get your ducks in a row. I would suggest looking off post for OTC january hunting, they got shot pretty hard on post during the Nov/Dec rifle hunts. There are some good bucks in there, concentrate on the places where they don't let you rifle hunt in Dec. Good luck and thanks for your service!

This is the best news I've heard in weeks!

+1

I believe SPOT already offers that technology and uses a smart phone to do the typing and the SPOT to send it as Redman said. The whole key is whether or not they actually work! I think I'll wait a couple more years till something comes out that works and gets good reviews.

I think he has unit 24 NEW MEXICO as this is in the NM hunting section. No A or B in that unit. I have no idea about the unit, just trying to clear things up.

Having worked for a butcher I will stop you for a second and tell you that when you bring in boned out meat, you get back what you brought in. This includes anything you got on it in the field. A good butcher will do his part in keeping the hair off your meet when you bring in a gutted carcass, but if you bring in a big cooler of boned meat that you butchered in the field, they cannot afford to spend hours cleaning up your 30 pounds of boned deer when they only get paid 85 cents a pound to process it. It sounds harsh, but the old saying goes, "sh1t in sh1t out", and if you had hair and grass on your deer meat, then you would be well advised to clean it up before dropping it off, or do a better job boning it out in the field. As far as your deer that "didn't taste right" there is nothing a butcher can do about the prep leading up to them putting the deer in the freezer, I assure you whether the carcass was hanging or on the floor in a walk in freezer, the fact that it was the correct temp in there was what mattered, if anything, being on the floor in the cooler would be better for your carcass. There are tons of good how to books on cutting your own game, give it a shot sometime, I find it rewarding and money saving.

I would look into the .25 WSSM however, that way if she ever wants to shoot an elk with it, you bump it up to a 110gr. Accubond or Scirroco and you've got yourself an elk rifle. Other good options would be a .260 Remington or 7mm-08, perhaps a .257 Roberts if you can find one. I would stay away from the muzzlebrake unless you want to wear ear plugs 24/7 while you are hunting, I've had my hearing destroyed by muzzlebreaks, had hearing proteciton in my pocket but forgot about it in the heat of the moment one to many times. Your shoulder will heal, your ears wont.

.243 WSSM has very minimal recoil, nearly identical to a standard .243, but with slightly better ballistics due to shorter powder column... perfect youth cartridge and perfect coues cartridge. I believe some of the above guys are confusing it with a WSM which is in .270, 7mm, 300 and .325, a much bigger cartridge and much more recoil.

Happy Birthday Marines! Try not to do anything stupid... nevermind