WHT_MTNMAN

Yeah its crazy, I'm at 19 this Sept. its been a good place to spend some time.

Nice job on a summer bull! Congrats!

I have rarely seen big bulls do much if any growing after the 1st week of July, often times they will keep their velvet on for a while longer but don't grow much. I've seen lots of finished bulls by the 20th of June also. What a giant bull. So far what ive seen videos and pictures of this year is looking pretty dang good. Lots of big bulls will be killed this year. .

What a cool buck, congrats.

Things are getting tight and people are looking for great deals not just a good deal. IMO they are worth every single penny. Good luck with the sale

I spent most of December looking for deer up here in my neck of the woods and was quite disappointed with the quality of deer seen. Maybe January will be better. Here are a few pictures, some that I took with my camera, and some through my spotter and phone.

Had a chance to catch up to this tall goat. 16 6/8ths

I missed responding to you, sorry about that. It was a ranch tag. This is one of those situations where we had to pay a "guide" but in reality the "guide" only allowed us access to the property. He showed up with 10x42's and cowboy boots and told me to shoot the 1st 70" buck we saw. He was quite surprised when we glassed up and passed a bunch of bucks after looking them over in the spotting scope. I think he was used to driving around and letting the hunters shoot the 1st buck they saw. So I have some time so I'll update with the story. My friend Mike and I glassed this buck up almost 2 miles away the first morning and knew he was good buck that we needed to look closer at. We spent half the day driving/walking the ranch and looking over as many bucks as we could. This buck lived in a giant pasture with no stalkable terrain or trees and he was very spooky. We saw him bed upon this bench which we figured was 500 yards from the top of a hill. Once we got around on him we finally picked him up and he was 800+ yards away and had us picked off. He took off and ran about 2 miles. We jumped in the vehicles and worked our way around to the other side of the ranch trying to put a plan together. Again we picked out a low hill that we could work around and hopefully get into shooting range. After climbing up and slowly peeking over we came to realize he was about 1500 yards away still. Over the course of the rest of the day he slowly worked his way back up to the hill/bench that we had jumped him from. The next morning we went in slow and couldn't pick him up at all. after about 2 hours as we were driving to the other side of the ranch he came out of the bottom of the draw and ran almost a mile and a half before he even slowed down. He again went right up on top of that wide open pasture with no way to get within 800 yards. We decided to try a new tactic and came from another direction. This time we made it to about 600 yards before any of us had picked him up and again he had already picked us off and took off to the same location as before almost 2 miles away but in the same pasture. I decided that I was going to sneak into where he had bedded and spend the rest of the day there in hopes that he would want to come back to that spot like he had 2 or 3 other times. Mike and the "guide" took off and tried to circle around and get into a position if they could. From about 8am to 4 or 5pm I stayed in this open pasture laying down on my back, sitting up and laying back down, waiting for this buck to work his way up to me. He would walk a few steps and keep looking up toward me, feed and keep working his way toward me. It took him almost 9hours to get to me. At about 400 yards he didn't like something and he started to move off in another direction. I estimated the distance, (couldn't get a good range with how flat it was with landmarks) whistled and as he slightly turned toward me I shot him. I hit him just a touch back, watched him bed worked my way up to him and shot him one more time as he stood up. He was one of the spookiest goats I've chased or hunted and I was glad to put him on the ground. Exit

Great buck and thanks for posting it up. Its funny how fast a score adds up with deep forks like that. Nicely done

We have some land I want to start "farming" or raising hay on and I have a pretty bad Prarie Dog problem. I can shoot them but I can't seem to flood them out or make a very big dent in their population, does anyone have any good methods or poisons? Also does anyone use water reels? vs wheel lines etc... just looking at cost effective and minimum time to irrigate about 50 acres. Thankfully the land has a large well on the property already Thanks,

I have a few acres that have a good bottom and will flood irrigate ok but the rest will soak up more water than I can put on. I ran my 35 gpm pump for a month straight last summer and got about 30 square yards of water on the surface. Who knows where the rest went (pratie dog tunnels partly)

Yeah they come in with or without alfalfa, I’m happy to have them even though I do have quite a bit of firsthand experience with elk damaging fences and trees etc..

I appreciate it. Thanks, Houston

Thanks. I’ll be working on getting a bigger well and bigger pumps (just takes money) but I was hoping I could at least start growing something.

Yeah I know it isn’t a lot, hence the reason I’m asking for any real world experience with the reels. The #s show it may be done but the reality is I have no idea.

This is a quick design by the water reel company. As long as my well produces what we hope and think This should cover that property

I don’t have that much water. I have a deep well with a 12” casing which can handle 600gpm but I don’t have power or pumps that can handle it. Right now since I don’t have 3 phase power I’m having a 25hp and drive out in that should give me about 180gpm and 100psi, That is why I’m looking at a water reel. I have a design that will use a reel and water all that I need from 5 locations. It will take some moving but a lot less work moving pipe all the time. I just don’t know reliable or don’t have much experience with them. Thankfully we are in an area that has plenty of ground water, it is just deep. I’ve looked at quite a few options but this seems like a good compromise between time/money and irrigating efficiency But I have no idea hence the reason I’m asking i will have to look into the prairie dog bombing that looks pretty crazy

It’s up here between Snowflake/Show Low/Heber. 6300’ I want to irrigate and raise a few animals. And to be able to feed a few year round. I’ve lived in Az my whole life and have seen the extremes of wet and dry AZ has to offer. I’m not doing it for a career just trying to break even and pay for upkeep on the property.

Great Tom Roy. Congrats

So it has been quite a while since I've been very excited about pulling the trigger on Coues buck. A few days into our Mexico trip this year my buddy and his friend glassed up this buck and took this video. Only the 1st 30 seconds are worth much of this video but you can see the weird stuff on the bases We spent the day looking for the buck from about 8am to about 5pm with no sightings, I wanted to give the opportunity to Rob or Paul if we could, but both said if anyone saw the buck they should shoot the buck if at all possible. At about 5:15 with just a few minutes of shooting light my brother glassed directly into the sun about 1200 yards from where the buck was last seen only to pick him up staring at us at 400 yards about to walk out of our sight. Here is where the story started, I was kind of a nervous wreck when I'm normally pretty calm. Well I made a quick/rushed shot but it felt good and I saw the impact in the front shoulder What I didn't realize was that I hit him Infront of the shoulder in the brisket. With the help of everyhone we searched until dark, the next day I had the cowboys of the ranch and most of my friends helping to find the buck. We tracked him with some minimal hair and blood for almost 2 days before we had to leave for home. About a month a go I got these pictures from the Rancher. I hate wounding critters, but I hate wounding and not finding them even more. It wasn't how I wanted it to all play out but a pretty cool ending to a crazy cool buck. I was able to make it down this past weekend and pick him up and do a little turkey hunting Huge thanks to my long time friend Rob for glassing this buck up and going down to pick him up with me. Also a big thanks to my brother for going with me and finding him at last light and letting me shoot.

Not bad, I only took one day since the priority was the deer. I made a follow up shot that damaged the fan with my broadhead so I decided to leave this one for the rancher and some day I'll get back down there to kill one to mount. For some reason the beards on our turkeys this year were shorter than in years past not sure what that was about.

I seriously doubt you are able to get a ranch or ranches that will accommodate a "group" of hunters but I could be wrong. Mule deer #'s are just not as high as Coues deer in general and the good ranches are taken by outfitters. Most of the outfitted mule deer hunts I've seen range from $10k to $25K for anything with good opportunities at decent bucks.

literally speaking you are correct I stand corrected, I still stand by my stance that there are very few to no elk on that piece of "forest" after the OTC hunts. Every elk I've seen have been moving over to private property to the east past the bio mass plant. Carlisle has recently locked all of his land that used to be open. He has allowed access to certain people for a price but I'm not sure if that is the case this year or not.

3a doesn't have forest. 3a is the unit in the title of the thread. 3a is the unit I commented on.

My BIL who is an avid fisherman and lives in Page says that some of his friends say there have been reports of small mouth in lees ferry now. Warm water with the low lake level is the cause. That would be detrimental to the river