.270

38? naw, that won't even qualify as a marshmallow roaster. you've still got a lot o' easy years ahead. happy birthday. Lark.

genetics play a big part in everything. coues deer are subject to the "sky island" syndrome, like a lot of other SE AZ. animals. their ranges don't cross with other coues and each mt. range sort of develops it's own little subspecies of coues. as well as amphibians, rodents, mollusks, etc. just about everything that can't cross ranges with other animals similar to them. that's why there are so many different little patches of "endangered" species in the southwest and northern mexico. they find these populations of an animal that is minutely different from other real similar animals and then find that it only lives in one creek or on one hillside and all the sudden it's "endangered". even tho it's been getting along fine for eons, right where it's at all by itself. it's real common for the coues deer in a certain area to have similar antler traits and so on, because they don't get much fresh blood in the gene pool. sort of like the ol' movie "deliverance". i've never seen any banjo pickin' whitetail, but i've sure been able to see where they look a lot alike. besides, take a look at bullwidgeon. he swears it's been several generations, but you can still see the squirrell monkey in him. Lark.

hey couse addict, stay away from me. you sound dangerous. you should know to always have your wife dump the gas into the carbonator. after all, she shoulda been the last one to rebuild it anyway. sheesh, these californy guys. you probly don't even make her clean fish niether. Lark.

ethics? what's that? ya killed him didn't ya? personally, i like a straight on shot, with a bow or rifle. as long as the range is reasonable. hit the hollow spot where the windpipe goes into the ribs. arrow disappears inside em. with a rifle, it doesn't matter. ethics are just opinions. whatever works, works. the only unethical shot would be an on purpose gut shot. and nobody is gonna do that. and what is "blaating"? all this talk about gruntin' and blaatin' sounds like the last time we had chili durin' quail season. one thing that intrigues me about grunt calls, is in all the whitetail shows on tv, it never shows a buck grunting. i've never seen one where it has an actual buck recorded grunting.

how'd ya guess treestand? me and my cousin gary, he's the one that drools a little and has the wierd eye, we got our butts thoroughly kicked by a wounded 4x4 mule deer once. i've had a couple bowshot bulls come at me. had to fight a bear over my fish at blackriver once. got swatted by a bobcat when i was a kid. he just happened to be hidin' under the rock i stood on. it slid down the hill a bit and was squarshin' him. he reched up and popped me on the ankle to let me know he was tired of it. sacred me so bad it caused me to flunk 6th grade. again. i heard a good story this weekend. a guy was pronghorn hunting in wyoming a couple weeks ago. shot a nice goat and was tuggin' it to the truck. he said, dang, this thing is gettin' heavier. he turned to see what the deal was and it was standin' up pullin' agin him. finished it off with knife. and besides, how can you ever get attacked by anything while you're loungin' in a tree? Lark.

the key word is "gentleman". ain't nobody ever cornfused me with one o' them wierdos.

so Amanda, how old are ya? my last birthday, when the kids lit the candles, the smoke alarms went off. once we had a birthday party for my mother in law while we were campin' out. i told her to blow out the campfire, because it would be easier than all them candles and besides we were afraid o' the forest circus showin' up to put out the cake. Lark.

fatfoot, you got a boy about 14 or so, that's strong and can work around the house? and maybe be a decent hi school football player? i'll spot ya the price of an Az. nonres elk tag for him. we feed good too. all my lawnmowers grood up and left. this workin' is killin' me. bullwidgeon, i talked with the director of the draw or some deal. he told me that wasn't what happened. said that was bad info. i'm thinkin' you're tellin' the truth and he's a stinkin' liar. i really wish i'da writ his name down so i'd have a place to start. i could kinda tell when i talked to him that he didn't want to talk to me about this subject. and you're right, we can no longer trust the commission we have or shroufe. there has to be a change. everyone needs to go to the next public meeting and raise heck. then need to know that folks ar tired of playing along with their protocol and are ready to rebel. like malcolm x said, by whatever means neccessary. Lark.

the most suitable time will be on the plane trip back there. whenever you want a coke, grunt that tube. i guarantee it will work. remember Jim Varney? better known as Ernest. he did a deal on buckmasters about a grunt call that was one o' the funniest things i've ever seen. laughed til i cried. good luck on the hunt, but i ain't got a clue about grunt calls. i know i see em use em on them whitetail shows all the time and the deer doesn't even pay any attention to it. all they care about is the cornflinger. Lark.

i will. but i don't think you can call this letter advice. more the rants of a madman. you just got lucky this year,111. sending them advice didn't have anything to do with it. they don't even listen to their own bioligists. i'm rebuilding an old horsetrailer right now. gonna make one just like i've always wanted. sturdy and set up to carry all my junk. anyway, it needs repainting real bad, but i probly won't get to that till this winter sometime. too much to do now to get ready for november. i'm gonna paint a couple places at the top of tail gates white and in one i'm gonna write taulman and in the other either griz or shroufe, ain't decided yet. then there's gonna be an arrow pointing to the top of the tailgate. where you'll see a horses @$$. so if you see dirty red gmc with an ugly horsetrailer that has that on the back, wave. and use all your fingers. what's with the one finger deal i usually get anyway? Lark.

yeah, that's all the world needs is a bunch more "me's". hotheaded, ignernt, dimwitted, uneducated. but i am good lookin' and passionate about what interests me. well, i'm headed to the post office to mail off some letters that will probably get me put on the bottom of the back page of the blacklist for folks that ain't never gonna get drawn again in Az. i included my usual rants and raves about how shroufe and all the commissioners should resign and let some folks with some brains and backbone, and who have no political affiliation, take over. sent a note to the desert sheep society to see if they had an opinion on this, but haven't heard back. maybe i'll wait to hear from them to send these letters. also included a copy of the uso press release where boy george declares that there won't be any nonres quotas for sheep. thanks for that resend diablo. sure seems to tie things together. in all the other things that they are going to change, they included at least a small explanation of why they wanted to do it. the sheep change just says they are gonna change it and offers no explanation. i really think they are trying to hide something. i'm firmly convinced these guys are liars. i know the guy that i talked to some weeks back about the goof on the nonres's getting 20% of the sheep permits is a liar. he flat out lied to me. stinkin' pig. are there any game wardens that cruise this site? if so, pipe up. quit bein' sissies. stand up and take your knocks for supporting this crap. well, your odds are all gonna go up next year, because my applications probably won't be accepted. later, Lark.

i called the game and fish and pinned down some drawing coordinator and he told me that the 20% deal wasn't right. said less than 10% the permits went to nonresidents. where did you hear this 20% deal brett? i'm in the process of sending a smoker of a letter to the commission and shroufey boy and if what you say is really what happened, then i got lied to. and, 15% maybe better than 20%, but it is half again more than 10% and i don't give a %$#@ why they're doing it. only thing i care about is that they are. sorry dogs. i'd almost bet this is some sort of a payoff to taulman. my letter even asks that. "hey george ol' buddy if you don't sue us anymore, we'll give ya some sheeptags". Lark.

i can talk fairly fluent mexican. i'm thinkin' if i run into some fellers trompin' in the desert with dark skin and not hunting, if they can't answer what i ask em in mexican, well a guy might just hafta shoot em. no sense in takin' any chances. 'course if they are terrorists they'll probably packin' too, so it might get interesting. crap, this is all we need, a terrorist alert for deer season. it's bad enough that they blow up schools and sky scrapers and cause thousands of deaths and billion$ in losses. but if they screw up deer season, well that's just goin' too far. gonna have to do some walker texas ranger on em. Lark.

does anyone have anymore news about that? it was sort of a popular topic for awhile and then sorta fizzled. was there ever an arrest or even a suspect? never heard anymore about it after those first couple of news stories. i'm thinkin' maybe i need to make another scabbard for deer season. one for something full automatic with maybe a grenade launcher under the barrel. this illegal alien/terrorist crap is startin' to piss me off. if it gets to where a guy has to look over his shoulder as much as he has to look for deer it's gonna get me in a bad mood. toss in a few uso guides and this oughta be a real interesting season. guess maybe a guy oughta pack a little foldup army shovel too. Lark.

what are the chicken livered creeps gonna do here? take over another school and terrorize some more little kids. these guys are worse than the arabs. i really hope i run into a buncha outta place looking guys with backpacks on. show em a little Arizona hospitality. dang, what a buncha sissies. that's all we need. maybe they'll show some spine and blow up napalitano. this is crappy news. Lark.

i got my chd, i mean javelina, app. in. goin' after the b&c world record this year.

i'd go to walmart or someplace like it and see what kinda cheap compound they have for a starter. i'm thinking if you get em one with sights and a release and stuff that you'll just confuse em. remember the ol' "bionic ben"? got my oldest son one when he was just a tike. still have it over 20 years later. he shot the heck outta everthing with it. my youngest boy got a walmart special when he was real small too and shot all kindsa stuff with it. shot a squirrel within hours after he got it. i'd say start out real simple and let em fling arrows all over the place. get em some blunts and don't let em shoot anything pointy, unsupervised. i used to put blunts on and then tape maybe a rag or something over that too. it made a big ugly looking head on it, but no one ever got hurt by one. you'll be suprised at how good a little kid can get once he gets used to his bow. at things inside their realistic range, they'll outshoot you. really. Lark.

i won't enter anything in it, in protest. don't know in protest o' what, but i'll think o' somethin'. besides, if it has a minimum score above 60, i'll hafta get another deer. only good coues i ever got i broke the skull plate on last spring. actually, i'm funnin'. this is a cool idear. i record book that is actually a "record" book. a record of the deer that folks on this site have taken. not a "record" in the sense of world records or in the sense of bragging. just a record of this neat little deer. a journal. oh yeah, i personally have no problem with a guy having his name next to his buck. in fact, feel it is important. my main beef with how b&c keeps records is that they won't enter an animal taken illegally and seem to have their own sense of truth. it deserves to be in the book, just don't enter the jerks name that shot it. i think you guys are on to something. good thinkin'. best run it by cwd, tho. i'm sure he'll think of somethin' negative about it. Lark.

i hope you're right treestand, but there is a bunch of usfws guys and huggers that want to try it. it was pretty close to happening when clinton was in office. really. Lark.

remberant, at one time Az. had condors and ferrets. but they weren't california condors or black footed ferrets. they found some prehistoric condor bones in the grand canyon and someone supposedly saw a condor around williams in the early part of the past century. california condors never made Az. their home. the black footed ferret deal was something that was planted here because Az. wanted the money for the program. and mexican gray wolves are extinct. the things they've released are all part dog. every stinkin' one of em. and that's in the usfws info. it's buried, but it's in there. i've read it. they aren't "re-introducing" anything. they're turning loose penraised crossbred curs. and at a great cost to the folks that try to make a living on the land. there is also a great groundswell to "re-introduce" grizzlies. capture alaskan grizzlies and turn em loose here. can you imagine what that will do? the sonoran grizzly was a species of brown bear, but he ain't an alaskan grizzly. they've reintroduced timber wolves in montana with great success. so much success that they're thriving. the numbers are high enough that the local game and fish wants to lift the protection and make them game animals and control them with seasons. they can't because the endangered species folks won't admit their own success. look at this wolf/dog cross mess we have here. when one of em turns into a true wild animal, they kill it, because it won't stay put and just eat game. it's a joke. you're right, we need to protect wildlife. what we still have. we don't need to make more problems. the entire top of mt graham is off limits because of the mythical "mt graham red squirrell". an animal that most real biologists think is just our common tree squirrel, that has changed a little because of the "sky island" effect. it wasn't even recognized as a seperate species until it became a tool of huggers and the usfws. there are some things about renzi that bother me. he's basically a carpetbagger, but he's doing real things for Az., especially rural Az. if i lived in that district i'd surely vote for him. especially when is opponent is a #@$!%& babbit. Lark.

i've heard rumblings about the same thing. hope it happens. we don't need to be in the same court as california and oregon and all them huggers. renzi seems to be a fighter. he's done some good things for veterans and he's also spearheading an attempt to rein in the endangered species act. which i feel is completely out of control. no sense in letting animals become extinct, but there has to be some sound biologic reason for things. like, why do we have "california" condors in Az.? or blackfooted ferrets, from wyoming and montana. or these stinkin' wolf/dog crosses that the usfws is trying to sell as wild animals. hope he's successfull in this appeals court deal. hope he's successfull in getting re-elected. i think Az. has had all the babbit politicians it ever needs. Lark.

yep, i always tell the truth, as i remember it. plus, i'm a fisherman. Lark.

bullwidgeon been out cullin' the desert herd again. good. shoot all them stinkin' desert elk so the deer will come back. nice bull, for a computer geek. probly was a cow or a spike before widge imaged some antlers on to it. all kiddin' aside, that's a good bull. real uniform and clean. we got one this weekend that'd been livin' in the forest fire up on the mt. sucker was black all over. antlers looked spray painted. tell your dad congratulations. Lark.

ernesto, funny you should comment about the lion. who told on me? as far as makin' stuff up? now why would anyone ever accuse me o' that? i've just had a lot of life experiences. Lark.

this is an interesting discussion. lotta theories, probly all of em right. the rut is a wierd deal to try and outguess. like everything else in nature, daylight hours and gestation periods are the driving factor. the fawns and calves, etc. need to be born when the feed is at it's best. therefore, count backwards whatever the gestation period of whatever you're hunting from when the best feed is going to be available, and you can sorta guess. most young of all kinds, in nature are all born in the same few weeks each summer. even tho their gestation periods vary drastically. but then the rut can always be off a couple weeks too. seems like the desert is a lot more difficult to guess than above the rim. elk, mt muleys and pronghorns, all go in the rut at the same time every year. elk and pronghorns in the fall and muleys in the last of december. below the rim, there ain't no tellin'. usually the last of december is great for coues, like it seemed to be last year. the year before, it stunk. desert muleys seem to me to have a real long rut, at least longer than the mt. deer. usually in late january or feb. when a guy gets to hit it right, it is great tho. hope them u1 bulls are in the middle of it this weekend. Lark.