Hyperwrx

All fur meant for sale needs to be 'put up' appropriately so you make the money it is worth. It really does not take that much know-how or money to get your fur ready for sale. After you have skinned.fleshed, and stretched your pelt and it is dryyou give it a bath in borax and brush it so the fur looks clean and fluffy. If you are selling a bobcat pelt, AZG&F requires you purchase a CITES tag from one of their offices. They cost $3/pelt and starting this year to get one you need to submit the lower jaw if you trapped the bobcat but no jaw if you shot it. You get a nylon tag that goes on the pelt in an eye hole and that CITES tag stays with the pelt as it is sold across the United States from one person to the next. Gray fox, coyote, or any other bur bearing mammal you need nothing but the pelt. Also a little known law that comes in effect if you shoot a bobcat and want tot sell the pelt is a transportation tag. All called, trapped, or chased with hounds bobcats need a transportation tag (free from AZG&F) when they are killed. You just attach it to the pelt and when you go to get your CITES tag they pull it off and keep it for predator studies and such. If you don't have one they'll hassle you and in some cases make you fill one out. I know that was kind of rambling but that gives you the basics.

Got a new Minaska Outdoors AR-2 a few weeks ago for this upcoming season. I had Todd Borland dip the entire caller in King's Desert Shadow. I also had them omit the smaller 2nd speaker built into the back of the caller as I had a single Beston RT002A ribbon tweeter I wanted to install in its place. Did the install and connected the extra pair of supplied leads and the tweeter fired up and sounded great. Loaded up the caller with a mess of gray fox vocalizations and Madl Lips and headed over to Unit 27 near the New Mexico boarder to do some scouting for deer for an upcoming mulie hunt. There wasn't time for a lot of predator calling but I did steal away one afternoon to call small rocky bluff I had driven by a few times. It began drizzling on me but I decided to call any ways. Only had by shotgun so I found a small clearing at the base of the hill and began with a gray fox distress sound. Within 30 seconds I had a fox running down the hill toward the caller. It approached the caller and stopped about 15' shy of the caller and about 20 yards from me. I shot it and it began screaming. I cut the caller and took advantage of it's own distress call. Not more than 2 minutes went by and I had a bigger fox approaching the stand from the right. It ran up to the 1st fox and ran in circles around it and hackled up and bothered. I shot that one. Foxes were both in good shape but fur was still a thinned out summer coat. Weather there was 80 in day time, 60 at night with scattered showers on and off in the afternoon and evening. Caller performed great for the few minutes I used it. Volume was very loud and crystal clear. New Bulldog board with the 40 watt amplifier was at least as loud as my CS-24B. Got around to taking a few pictures of the Beston RT002A ribbon tweeter installed in place of the mylar cone tweeter Minaska AR-2 comes with. Had to dremel a square hole in the back panel and drill holes for the nuts/washers/and bolts to hold it on. I push the button and turn off the TOA horn and play high pitch cottontail distress and man does that speaker sing. Madl lips sounds crystal clear and very bright. I need to put on a high pass crossover so I don't damage the tweeter with frequencies lower than 2500 Hz. Also need to purchase some rubber stoppers to put on the back panel on the 4 corners where the new tweeter is so it can sit flat down (TOA horn facing up) and play. Specs on the RT002A Power handling: 40 watts RMS/80 watts max • Impedance: 6 ohms • Re: 5.8 ohms • Frequency range: 2,000-40,000 Hz • SPL: 92dB 1W/1m • Minimum recommended crossover frequency: 2,500 Hz • Dimensions: Overall diameter: 4" x 4", Cutout diameter: 3.7" x 3.7", Depth: 1.32".

Best bet is to call and speak to Todd or Steve personally. Make sure they have what you want in stock and ready to ship. They are easy to get a hold of now that they have moved to the new facility.

Mark- what is the flat section on the top of the caller used for. The area with the atom symbol. It looks like something slides into it. I like how the caller is 1 unit, no extra pieces hanging off to get damaged. Looks solid.

You are to be commended for realizing the monetary value gray foxes have. Hold off for a few more months and easily pay for your gasoline with a few pelts. Kill all the coyotes you can get in your sights- they compete for food with foxes and bobcats!

Try something new- target gray foxes. Few hunters target them on purpose. They are much more forgiving than coyotes and if taken in the colder months can be sold for upwards of $35 each at the ATA Fur Sale in Globe. Find mountains or hills and play any gray fox distress sound at full volume. Use a shotgun and sit about 15 yards from the caller. A shotgun doesn't require you to be such a good shot. Use $20/box duck or goose loads (get the cheap stuff as you'll be shooting a lot). Typically if there is 1 fox there are more, so continue calling even after shooting 1 or 2. If the road enables it, drive down the mountain range stopping ever 3-400 yards and repeat. I have shot probably 75 in 37B in the last 5 years. The unit is full of them.

Shooting a coyote with a bow is an accomplishment few can say they've achieved.

I wish we could use snares. As bowhuntaz1 said, we are currently limited to Belisle foot snare. AZ trappers are required to have a 2" stop with them which makes them basically worthless. I purchased a few with high hopes but when the new regulations came out I hung them up in my garage to collect dust. Here is what they look like. Basically when your target animal steps on the pan the rolled steel jaws throw the snare up on the animal's leg. Here is a video of one. Not my video.

I have met Jerry Blair several times. Great guy. Last time was at a predator hunter gathering about 7-8 years ago up near Ashfork. He brought his wife and told stories around the campfire. Fantastic story teller. I don't have the best vision but is that a air gun or is that a lefty gun with the bolt on the other side? Lefty Savage model 93 I l believe. .17 HMR. Fun little plinker of a rifle. Crumbled that bobcat at 20 yards. Very chancy with a .17HMR. It didn't have enough kenetic energy to drop a bobcat or fox in its tracks without a picture perfect shot into the vitals. This cat presented a lucky shot and I took it. Sold the rifle shortly there after.

For every 1 bobcat shot by a predator hunter there are 20-30 taken by trappers. It's probably higher than that.

Whoops, wearing a camo t-shirt and ASU camo hat. (Camo pattern didnt even match! OH NO!), and my lucky Ropers and dang blue jeans. Nothing covering the face but a scraggly beard.

FYI- A coyote can't count past 1. He has no reasoning skills and develops his 'personality' based on the negative and positive feedback he gets while interacting with his surroundings. With thousands of years of evolution providing him a nose that can smell the parts per billion and an acute set of eyes that can see finite movement as a great distance we as hunters are still able to call them to within spitting distance. And the bobcat? It's the dumb one of the bunch. The gray fox? He would be on the short bus if they all went to public school. I have pictures I can post where I kill bobcats in blue jeans, ropers, and a t shirt at a distance of about 15 yards. Fancy expensive camo is like putting a NOS sticker on your Toyota Corolla. It's more so about movement (or the lack there of, than fancy camo)

AZ G&F said they are aware some trappers might try to be sneaky and say the bobcat was shot rather than trapped so they can keep the skull or not hassle with removing the jaw. I would not want to go head to head with them when I am getting my CITES tags. Just use dikes and snip the jaw bone behind the last molar and be done with it. It is too bad for those who use the skulls. I have a vast collection of skulls and realize collecting will come to an end for a while. The reason this new regulation is enacted is to combat the same stuff that happened last year with California trappers where antis came in and tried to claim that the bobcats were being over-harvested and the practice of killing bobcats should end. By collecting lower jaws the G&F in AZ can have a tooth bisected and the true age of the bobcat determined. With that information they can provide important data on the harvest of bobcat each year and thus hopefully thwart antis when they come knocking (which they most certainly will). In my opinion the problem surfaces with the lack of juvenile bobcats showing up in the data collection. Most trappers in the field will pass up taking juvenile bobcats. Other state trapping associations with comparable bobcat populations asked to collect jaws for data recommend the taking of juveniles to reflect the true age breakdown of the population. For many of us, it's a tough crossroad. The alternative if we don't arm ourselves against the antis is a shortened season or a quota. A month less taken off the beginning was debated at length at G&F but luckily didn't see the light of day. Quotas would be disastrous. The collection of jaw data is CRUCIAL if we want to see trapping continue as it is now practiced.

Do you really think the bobcats, foxes and coyotes care the firearm doesn't match your outfit? I currently shoot a black 870 with wood furniture. They seem to love it. They come in awful close to take a look.

I have eaten bobcat and lion and neither one tasted as good as a beef hamburger. I'll try anything once.

Sounds good.

Briarpatch Cages out of Carefree, AZ.

Great shotgun and perfect load for coyotes. IC is a bit wide for shooting beyond 30 yards in my opinion but it really has to do with how far they typically are when you decide to pull the trigger. I typically am calling for fox and bobcats so I use a heavier than lead load for goose and duck. I have had a ton of shotguns and settled back with a simple Remington 870 with a 22" barrel and some trigger work done on it. I prefer a pump shotgun over the autoloaders.

There are all kinds of rifle stands that can be made but I have found using a shotgun is much more exciting as it lends itself to more close encounters in brush and such. Plus with a shotgun with the correct choke you don't have to be as good of a shot!

AZG&F thinks differently. I think they are more concerned with how SMALL of a hole it took to kill it. I don't consider that a waste of fur. It serves a logical purpose. The trapper takes exception to the taking of unprime fur in part because it is a waste of a natural resource. It's throwing away money that could provide someone with an income to feed a family. It's not a hard concept to understand. The vast majority of summer predator hunters do not save save the pelts for a home decoration as you mentioned. They get tossed in the weeds where they are wasted. That is a travesty which I will always voice my opinion on. That you'd skin and keep a pelt as a trophy is just fine with me. One of the main purposes of AZ Predator Callers (the oldest predator calling club in the Southwest) is to educate predator hunters that they are hunting a renewable resource that ought to put money in their pocket. On a side note- There is nothing wrong with spirited discussion of controversial topics. There are always those who can not participate because they haven't the ability to post without insulting and demeaning people. Oh well.

A high altitude coyote sure looks different than what we see at 2500 feet in the winter. Too bad even a nice AZ coyote doesn't fetch what our neighbors get in the Northern states.

Not as well as past years. This next season looks to be exceptionally good I hope.

I agree and my apology if I misinterpreted your initial post. Shooting puppies during the summer months is no accomplishment I'd brag about to anyone. That's like walking up and bragging about how great a shot you are shooting fish in a barrel. The rest of the guys sitting around are just looking at you screwy for making a fuss about it. Walk amongst the same experienced crowd and having shot a nice healthy adult May coyote with a shotgun from 25 steps and you might get a few atta' boys and pats on the back.

What does the best coyote shotgunner in the SW USA wear when he shoots coyotes? If you want the scoop of the REAL DEAL on coyote hunting read it here. http://http://deserthunter.com/dhp/content/gear

Movement (or the lack there of) is more important than camo. No need for fancy camo prints that cost an arm and a leg. I have shot many predators in blue jeans and a t-shirt. I think there is a direct correlation between the proximity the coyote is to you and the ability to get away with wearing less than optimal camo. 100 yards in brushy country and you can get away with almost anything. 25' and you probably should wear a facemask and gloves. There is also something to be said about positioning yourself in the shade while you run your caller vs. in the sunlight where a coyote can distinguish movement more easily. Gary Clevenger from PCOC in California shoots 100 coyotes a year, all with a shotgun, all wearing tan pants, dull earth-tone sweater, cheap gardeners gloves, and a mask covering his lower face. All less than 40 yards. Jimmy Steward in AZ has shot over 100 coyotes for a few season in a row and wears nothing fancy and takes most of them with a shotgun. All less than 35 yards. These guys depend more on their ability to identify a stand that will increase the shot to kill ratios than other industry tricks weekend hunters and Cabellas feel are a must have. Fancy caller? Hardly. Expensive firearm? Pass. Camo prints? Only if they're in the discount bin. Don't believe the hype. If you want to shave light years off the predator hunting curve go read the how-to manual to close quarters coyote hunting from the man who has perfected it. http://http://deserthunter.com/dhp/content/red-zone-hunting When you can get these results in just a few outings without really putting much effort into it your words should be chiseled on the wall for others to read.