hntr4life

SOLD...I have two NIB Swarovski flip up objective lens covers, will fit EL 42mm, old SLC 7x42,10x42 binos. Will sell both for $20.

Where are you located?

I am in Mesa, but will mail at no extra charge.

Is it a 4 wheel drive?

Rick, It was nice meeting you. The swaro's seem to be in great condition, can't wait to try them out this weekend. Thanks, Albert

When my generation of hunters were coming up, hardly anybody sat a glassed for more than 5 minutes at a time. In fact most hunters then didn't even carry bino's. Heck, back then a lot of hunters didn't even have rifle scopes, good boots were far more important than bino's. However, in recent years I have become convinced that good optics and lots of glassing is definately the more effective, efficient way to hunt. These improved hunting tactics as well as improved gear is leading directly to more big bucks being killed. The big question is whether the dear population can support the increased pressure and continue to produce lots of big bucks. I certainly hope so, but only time will tell. Oh, and Dur stay off the Bud light and you won't feel the need to go every 15 minutes..

Ahh… New Mexico, Land of Enchantment - and the cedar country in western New Mexico are home to vast expanses, big bucks, and big dreams. But those dreams can turn to despair and disappointment, for in reality, the deer population in this area is very low. It is not unusual to hunt for days and only see an occasional doe, if you are lucky. Most hunters, including me, are eternal optimists and believe that a monster buck is always just over the next ridge. I know from personal experience that can be the case, for two years ago my nephew and I each simultaneously scored trophy bucks in the same unit I hunted this year. As I arrived in Springerville the night before the season opened I had big dreams. Unfortunately, my nephew Luke, who hunted with me two years ago did not have a tag this year, but he did have a couple of horses, so we planned on spending opening day on horseback, thinking the more country we could cover, the better our chances of seeing a big deer. So as we set out opening morning I was very optimistic and thought this is the only way go; let the horse do all the work, all I have to do is spot a deer. Well by about mid morning my thoughts on the situation had taken a complete 180. Aside from a scraggily little bull elk all I found opening day was one very sore you know what, I looked forward to walking the rest of the season. Day two found me on top of the highest point in the unit where I sat and glassed until my eyes bled, then I glassed some more. All I saw in the way of deer were four does, I did glass up one very nice bull so that was kind of exiting. On the third day of the season I was joined by my nephew Durand, who had killed one of the big bucks with me two years ago. That morning we walked and glassed and glassed and glassed and walked and only saw three does. By this time I was becoming a little disappointed and disheartened. Nothing so far had turned up so much as even a hint of a buck, and this was my last full day to hunt. I was almost resigned to the fact that this just wasn’t going to be my year. For the evening hunt, Durand thought of a spot that he didn’t think had been hunted for a few years due to access reasons, and we headed out for it. After driving for about an hour on a very rough and dusty road we arrived at our destination, got our packs together and set out on foot. After walking for about a mile we found a nice spot to glass from so we sat down and started looking. It wasn’t long before we glassed up several elk that were feeding. I watched the elk for a few minutes then started looking on the ridges above and in back of the elk, and saw a deer standing under a juniper tree about one and a half miles away I said, “I see a deer and it’s a buck!” Durand’s response is, “ya sure.” We got locked in with the spotting scopes and can tell that it is a pretty nice buck, but can’t really tell for sure just how big he is, it’s just too far. When I squinted real hard I could see what I thought might be antlers, and if they really were antlers then he is really big, but it is probably just tree branches I see. We watched the buck for about 10 minutes and then he laid down, so we decided to make a move on him. We hoped we could close the distance to under 400 yards without spooking the deer or the elk that were wandering all over the place. We made our plan, packed up and lit out, in order to stay concealed we would definitely have to take the scenic route and it was already well after 2:00 so we had to move. Finally after closing the distance to about three quarters of a mile we stopped to see if we could relocate him. Durand had picked out a “landmark” tree near the buck that we thought we could always locate, which should make it easier to locate the buck. After looking for a few minutes we were able to find him again, still lying in the same spot. We wanted to get a spotting scope on him to see just how big he really was. Durand got him focused in through the spotter and just said “wow, he is a toad”. I took one look and literally fell over backward, those branches I had hoped were antlers, were really antlers. My heart was suddenly in my throat. We grabbed our stuff and took off again. We wound our way down a wash until we thought we were near the spot on the ridge we needed to climb up. By now we are both sweating like pigs and very excited and nervous at the same time. After taking a few moments to collect ourselves we begin to make a final approach. As we near the top of the ridge we took off our packs and quietly sneak to the crest of the ridge and peak over, hoping above hope that the buck is still there and that we can find him. After looking and looking we see nothing, no deer, and no landmarks that look familiar, nothing. So we decide to back off, move parallel along the ridge for a ways then pop up again and take another look. By now, the on again off again adrenalin rushes have taken there toll and I am a wreck, but we push on. As we topped the ridge for the second time, Durand is still looking for his landmark tree, I stepped into a little opening, look up the hill, and there he is! Still lying under the same tree as he was two hours ago. That image will be forever burned into my mind, I thought I was looking at a pictures from a Kings calendar. There he was not more than seventy yards away. I raised my trusty 7mm mag, shaking like a leaf and squeezed the trigger. The buck didn’t appear to even move, once I recovered from the muzzle blast and the smoke had cleared, he was still laying there. Then he kicked a couple of times and I realized I had just taken a deer we all dream about but few of us are lucky enough to ever see! After taking several pictures, and a quick butcher job we had him loaded onto our backpacks and happily ready to make the 2 and half mile hike in the dark back to the truck and a cold Bud light. A fantastic end to another great hunt!

I am a long time watcher, first time poster. I arrived in Springerville with the hope that my upcoming New Mexico mule deer hunt would be more productive than last weeks Southern AZ Coues deer hunt. I was to be hunting with my nephews Durand and Luke, both of whom live in Springerville and both, especially Durand know NM very well. The cedar country of Western Central NM has some very large mule deer, but they are few and far between, and very difficult to hunt. The first morning of the hunt we set out on foot to climb to the top of the highest point in the area we were hunting, about five minutes into the walk we heard a pack of coyotes yipping and yapping and raising all sort of commotion. About ten minutes later we saw a nice 5x5 bull elk that we watched for a few minutes before going on. By 7:00 AM we had reached the top of our look out point and everyone got set up for glassing, we immediately spotted a group of elk with two more nice sized bulls. I was looking at the elk when Durand said “I see some deer, nice bucks too”. The deer were about one mile away and seemed to be headed for a heavily wooded area on the other side of flat about a 1/4 of a mile wide. We quickly packed up our stuff and headed to another point about a mile away where we thought we might be able to get a shot, so we half walked and half ran and covered the ground pretty fast, but by the time we got to out point the deer had already crossed the flat and were just entering the trees. We could see that there were three nice bucks and one smaller buck. Unfortunately they were still out of range and into the wooded area where we figured they would bed for the day. We decided rather than push them we would come back in the afternoon and try to find them when they got up. That afternoon we went back to the top of out look out point and started glassing, at 5:00PM we could see them moving around in the trees not far from where we had last seen them that morning. We once again ran down off of our hill to try to close the distance between us and the deer, unfortunately it got dark on us before we could close the deal. The second morning once again found us at the top of our look out point where we again spotted the big 5x5 bull, this time he had 10 cows with him and he was bugling and carrying on, very cool. After a few minutes I spotted our bucks again, this time they were only about a half a mile away, we thought they were probably going to go to the same place they had bedded the day before so we high tailed back off of our hill to try to get to an ambush point. The problem was to get there without spooking the elk which would in turn probably spook the deer. We successfully got to our desired destination without spooking either the elk or the bucks. We set up in a perfect spot for an ambush and waited, and waited. The deer never showed, we decided to go back up our hill and see if we could glass them up again. The day before Durand had said that when you’re chasing big bucks it’s always a good thing if they have a small buck running with them. He said that if you are patient and stay after them long enough the young buck will eventually give them away and get somebody killed. So we got back to the top of our hill at about 10:00AM and started glassing and glassing. At about noon I noticed some movement on a little point directly below us about 600 yards away, I concentrated on glassing area and finally saw that it was indeed a deer. It was a small buck and ever so often would step out on the open to feed, we watched him for about 30 minutes but he finally disappeared into a thicket. After discussing our options we decided that one person should go down and walk in from the far side of the point where we had seen the small buck, if the big bucks were there they would almost certainly have to flush directly towards the two waiting on the lookout point. Durand wanted to be the one to walk the point, Luke and I made our way to a better position on the hill side and waited. We could see the small buck moving around again, but no other deer. Finally Durand had made his way to where the deer was and still nothing was happening. I was ready to give up all hope when all of a sudden four deer busted off of the ridge where Durand was and were headed directly towards Luke and me! They were our bucks! When they got near the bottom of the draw we opened fire, with my second shot I dropped the lead buck, Luke continued shooting at the other two big bucks and by now Durand had sprinted across the ridge he was on and could see the deer going up our hillside and he opened fire and connected on the buck of his dreams. Unfortunately Luke missed on all of his shots and we had to settle for 2 out of 3. My deer is a big 4x4 with one broken tine; Durand’s deer is a beautiful 9x6 non-typical with five four inch eye guards, a drop tine, and big hooked cheater! Thanks to both Durand and Luke for making this one of the most memorable hunts of my life.

Hey Assassin, do you even remember shooting the deer? I take it you and Luke were unable to find any other shooters the rest of the season?? To bad he (Luke) had such a case of the fever, it would have really been awesome if we could have made it a three fer. I'll probably see you when I'm up to pick up my meat. Thanks to everyone for all the great posts.