billrquimby

Didn't apply for any muzzy elky or lopee tagees this year. Next year maybee. Will see if I can draw a muzzy muley perm. for this fall. Bill Quimby

Tony: You were fortunate. I've never seen a pack in Arizona as large as yours. The most I've seen in a group here was a dozen or so. They are nifty animals. When my granddaughter and i were in South America a few years ago, we visited Igausu Falls on the border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The parking lot on the Brazil side had maybe 100 of them running around and there were signs everywhere in Spanish, Portuguese, and English warning people not to feed them. When they swarmed around us and begged I remembered that Bil Gilbert had written that they were like skunks and bats in that rabies was always present in coati populations and served to control their numbers. All were a lot smaller than our coatis, so I did some reading when I got home and found the subspecies in the U.S. and northern Mexico is the largest. Incidentally, while we were at the falls, they were moving the families of employees of Brazil's park to a town a few miles away because a jaguar killed a toddler there that week. Bill Quimby

I used calls you'd find now only in museums. One was a Burnham Brothers plastic squeaker with a rubber band for a reed. The other had a wood body and a plastic reed and was made by a guy who owned a typewriter (also in museums) repair shop in Tucson. I bought the Burnham Brothers call via mail order after seeing an article in Outdoor Life in 1955 or so, and killed a coyote the first time I used it. Still have the wood call, and in addition to a lot of Arizona critters, it has brought in close to a dozen jackals and an African wildcat in South Africa. To answer your question, though, any type of mouth-blown call should work if you know where a pack is hanging out. Good luck. Bill Quimby

They apparently can't believe there isn't something to eat when they come in, and they'll keep milling around, looking for it. A pack of coatis might hang around four or five minutes, if you don't shoot or spook them. Bill Quimby

I shot several coatis many years ago and can't remember any of them having an objectionable odor. I found they were easy to bring in with a varmint call, or at least the way I called, and stopped shooting them. I usually found them in oak grasslands near areas with shale slopes, such as Brown Canyon in the Baboquivaris, Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas, Keystone Peak in the Sierritas, around Parker Canyon Lake, etc. Bill Quimby

"I refuse to end up that old grumpy geezer in the assisted care home, that can't hear anything, and is too stubborn to wear a hearing aid. " WhoseYourDaddy: How do you know when an assisted-care home is deaf and stubburn? Do they really make hearing aids for them? Tony: Where do you keep finding those pictures of me? Bill Quimby

That's awful, but just imagine all the dried up little old ladies with tatoos who are going to be around in 35-40 years. Yuck! You hit it right on the head! What will be really funny is seeing those wrinkled old petunias with everything else sagging but the implants! KP All I can say is that I'm glad I won't be around to see them. Bill Quimby

That's awful, but just imagine all the dried up little old ladies with tatoos who are going to be around in 35-40 years. Yuck!

I have a dial-up modem and before the photo finally opened up I thought you were taking Amanda fishing. .... Bill Quimby

.416 Rigby.

I don't know Bill. I think he said he moved out to Aravaipa three years ago. Amanda I would guess that he is. That's a unique name. I remember that the guy on Oprah or some such show had a great sense of humor. (Note that I'm not admitting to watchng Oprah.) Bill Quimby

Amanda: Is Langdon Hill the same guy who wrote advice-to-the-lovelorn stuff and appeared on Oprah, among other TV shows? Bill Quimby

"Bill you forgot about carp" I didn't forget. Just didn't think they're worth keeping around. Bill Quimby

"non native species of any kind are a real concern that need to be dealt with swiftly when their presence is noticed." How about: Largemouth bass? Smallmouth bass? Striped bass? White bass? Crappies? Rainbow trout? Brown trout? Brook trout? Northern pike? Ringneck pheasant? Chukar? Rocky Mountain bighorn? Rocky Mountain elk? Bill Quimby

You may be thinking about the fiasco in the Silverbell/Ragged Tops way west of there a couple of years ago. As far as I know, the feral goats in the Catalinas didn't hurt the sheep herd. The goats apparently were from about North Campbell Avenue past Sabino Canyon to Reddington Pass; the sheep were on Pusch Ridge, in Romero Canyon and along the southwestern slope of the mountain. Bill Quimby

Its just an idea, I'm sure the sheep would be an issue.. IMO they are gone ... Unless somebody has heard different... The south slope of the Catalinas used to have a good number of feral goats in the 1950s. The last of them eventually was shot and killed, but they didn't seem to have a negative effect on the sheep. The bighorn population didn't start declining until nearly every rock in Pima Canyon had a path walker sitting on it. Bill Quimby

coueswhitetail.com members may be interested in some quotes I found in a booklet circa 1963-64 called “Big Game On BLM Administered Lands In Arizona” that I found today while looking for photos for my book: “Estimates of state-wide deer harvests are 9,000 for 1949; 18,000 for 1953; 33,000 for 1958; and 36,000 for 1961. “The 1959 estimate for the Arizona Strip District north of the Colorado River placed the harvest at 189 (mule deer on BLM public lands). In 1962, due at least partially to cooperative efforts to induce hunters and to an expanded season, some of the pressure on over-used (by deer) game ranges in the Strip was relieved by a harvest estimated at 1,500 head. Continued adequate harvests coupled with conservation and range improvement projects now underway could help improve stability and production of deer in much of the Strip.” “Total estimates of big game on all BLM-administered public domain lands in Arizona in 1961: Deer 51,800; antelope 1,058; bighorn 2,020; javelina 16,400; elk 310.” “Hunting and fishing are big business in Arizona. In 1960, some 183,000 persons spent over $40,000,000 to hunt and fish in the state.” Bill Quimby Note that from the late 1950s until 1970, when permit-only deer hunting was first imposed on us, 85,000 to 107,000 hunters bought deer tags every year. They bought those tags at sporting goods stores and hunted wherever they wanted in the season that opened statewide on the last Friday of October. The number of deer they killed each year was close to the number of hunting permits that are issued today after 38 years of intensive scientific wildlife management and unequalled efforts to expand hunter access to our vast holdings of federal and state lands. BQ

I don't remember the cost of tags in the 1960s, but I think they were $5. My first Arizona deer tag cost $1 in 1948. A general hunting license was $3 or $4. That's when a brand new Chevy or Ford pickup truck with everything including a radio cost less than $1,000, and unskilled young people in start-up jobs thought they were rich if they earned $0.40 to $0.50 hour. $100 week was big money for a construction worker. Elk, antelope and bighorn tags have always been on a draw basis in Arizona. Our deer permit drawings -- the first in the West -- began in 1970, followed by javelina drawings. Shipped the manuscript and photos to the publisher yesterday. Bill Quimby

"Was simple to build but a pain to get it in the closet assembled. " I give up. How DID you get it in that little closet? Bill Quimby

Mine can't be photographed because 1) it's a mess. 2) it's in what used to be the storage room in what used to be my carport (I closed the carport in to make a trophy room) and there's no good way to photograph it. The room is six feet by 16 feet. I installed a window and built a small closet on the far end, insulated, dry-walled and painted, then built a 12-foot-long loading bench. For the bench top, I used five 4x6x12s and drilled five holes through each, then used five threaded 1/2-inch rods and glue to make a solid, 4-inch thick plank, which I planed smooth with a power plane. It's heavy enough that I didn't have to attach it to anything. Even so, I lag-screwed it to studs in the wall, using short pieces of angle iron. That plank will not budge, no matter how much pressure I put on my loading presses. Below and above the bench, I built cabinets with doors and drawers to hold my reloading, hunting and fishing gear. I have permanently set up a row of Mec shotshell loaders for 12, 20, and 28 gauges, plus two RCBS presses set up for rifle ammo, and a Dillon press for handgun ammo. The two rifle presses save a lot of time and allow me to load short runs of a caliber without having to changes dies. I also have a scaled-down setup in the loft in my cabin, except there's only one RCBS press and one Mec shotgun press, and the table also doubles as my office for my fax, printer, scanner and computer. Most of my reloading stuff was picked up at yard sales over the past 30 years, so I really don't have that much money in the whole works. Bill Quimby

In a similar vein .... A strong young man at a construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength. He made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen. After several minutes, the older worker had enough. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is," he said. "I will bet a week's wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that building that you won't be able to wheel back by yourself," he added. "You're on, old man," the braggart replied. Let's see you do it." The older worker reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then, nodding to the young man, he said, "All right, dumb butt, get in." Do you need more proof that old farts are not to be messed with? Bill

He and his grandfather and I went out three weeks ago to try to find me a javelina between my visits to hospitals, but I have no idea why he's not been seen here for a while. Incidentally, I found a nice whitetail shed one of the two days I went out. Bill Quimby

There's little chance of a hybrid, in my opinion. Bobcats EAT domestic cats. We lost our cat last month to a big bobcat that's been hanging around our winter home. She had escapted numerous coyotes over the five years we had her, but she couldn't get away from the bobcat. We have seen two -- the big one I caught eating our cat, and a much smaller one -- in the past two weeks. We also have a herd of javelinas that visit regularly, along with more coyotes than we need. We have seen seven of the ten Arizona big game animals over the years at our cabin.

Looks like if you shoot one of those your going to need one of those to pack him out. HUGE. That photo has been around the Net for a while. The guy who created it should write a book on how to use Photoshop. Bill Quimby