billrquimby

"Pretty sure Jerry Day said their closely related to rodents." I doubt that, unless he was misunderstood when he MIGHT have said something about peccaries having a remote ancestor that somewhere very, very far back in prehistory MAY have gone separate ways with one group evolving into peccaries and others becoming rodents. I don't know if he said that, or even if such a thing happened, but if it did and he did I'm certain he would be the first to say that does not mean they are closely related. I know Jerry, and saw him at a funeral for a mutual friend recently. If you were to ask him about the peccary/rodent myth, he would say something similar to what Benbrown just said: Rodentia and ungulates are in no way closely related. Bill Quimby

IA: You and I are of similar mind. I introduced this thread to get others thinking about this nifty animal so they would learn more about it. I really don't care whether someone calls the aoudad a sheep or a goat unless he's a client and I'm helping write his memoirs. If my name is connected to his book, however, he shot aoudad billys not rams. Incidentally, IA, the SCI record book views the elk/wapiti of North America and Asia and the red deer of Eurasia as one species, Cervus elaphus. It has separate categories for trophy measurements based on where the animal was hunted. Lately, many experts have categorized our elk as Cervus canadensis. I have hunted red deer in New Zealand and Spain, and elk in Mongolia and three U.S. states, and despite obvious differences in their coats, rutting calls, and antler conformation, as a hunter and not a scientist I would say SCI got it right. Bill Quimby

"Have taken several and have been very pleased, and surprised at how good they are. No fat, very lean, a little tough." It's nice to know the flavor is good. Cooking the toughest meat in a Crock Pot for 10-11 hours or 24 hours in a mesquite-fired pit Mexican style will make it tender. Bill Quimby

It's an Ammotragus lervia. Bill Quimby

If an animal will breed and produce hybrid offspring with a goat but not a sheep, it is more goat than sheep. Calling them rams, ewes and lambs is like calling a male elk a buck, a female whitetail a cow, a young duck a gosling, or a baby coyote a kitten. hoghntr: I didn't like the taste of my desert bighorn, but I do like cabrito when it's prepared properly. Bill Quimby

Arizona's most famous plane crash site is in the Grand Canyon. The following is from Wikipedia: "The 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision occurred on Saturday, June 30, 1956, at 10:30 am Pacific Standard Time when a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 struck a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation over the Grand Canyon within the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park, resulting in the crash of both airliners. All 128 on board both flights perished. It was the first commercial airline crash to result in more than 100 deaths, and led to sweeping changes in the control of flights in the United States. The location of the crash has been designated a National Historic Landmark." On my first raft trip down the canyon in about 1970, there were blue airliner seats scattered all across a certain hillside above us and the raft guys pulled over to the beach, allowing passenger to climb up to them. My other trips down the canyon were in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, and although we didn't stop we saw a few blue seats that hadn't been removed yet. Incidentally, rafting the canyon is something I'd do again in a heartbeat, even at age 80. Bill Quimby

Chances are the wreck you found is much older than 30 years if was a military plane. There are many crash sites in Arizona's back country, especially in the Rincons and Galliuros. Tucson's Davis Monthan Air Force Base was a flight training site beginning even before WWII, and more than a few pilots-in-training crashed and died. My father-in-law and I found a crash site on China Peak in the Galliuros in the late 1950s and reported it when we returned to Tucson. We were told that particular site was known, but that we should report any others we might find because there still were wrecks that hadn't been found. Bill Quimby

Yotebuster: Your bag on geese and ducks reminds me of Yuma in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when there still were big flights there. If I'm remembering correctly, the limit was five "dark species" geese per day. Cranes were protected, but I never saw one near Yuma. Bill Quimby

I’m of the old school, I guess. It’s my belief a wildlife agency should not mandate hunting techniques, methods and ethics unless it can be shown such things are detrimental to wildlife or to our hunting heritage. As for hunting ethics, the definition I like is that these are practices accepted by the majority of hunters in a region. This is important because ethics vary everywhere there is hunting. For just one example, hunting deer with dogs is legal and ethical in some southern states, but illegal and unethical nearly everywhere else. I do not use trail cameras for hunting, but it’s because I have no need for them. I no longer am interested in antler size, and tracks show me everything I want to know. That said, what does it matter if there are a dozen cameras in every tree around a pond? Bill Quimby

No advantage for me. I'm legally blind in my left eye. Even so, I never had a problem using my Leica spotting scope with just one when I still had two good eyes. Bill Quimby

Congratulations to you and Peg, TJ. Hope you can visit us at the cabin this summer. You will be surprised at what we've done since you two were there. Bill

In my era, kids didn't grow up wearing backpacks because schools still had lockers. When we hunted, if something didn't fit in our pockets or attach to our belt, it stayed home. As a result, the only pack I've ever owned was a packboard. I never felt deprived except when packing out javelinas. With small deer, we split the knuckles on their forelegs, so we could run their tendons through the gambrels, and wear them (head down) like a pack. Javelinas are too small to do this with them, and carrying them by using their gambrels for handles quickly became a chore. Some friends and I eventually came up with a better way. We took a 12-inch-long, 2-inch-wide strip of leather and punched a hole on each end. In each hole, we tied a 6-inch loop made from a leather bootlace. One loop would go around a javelina's rear leg, the other loop would go around the javelina's jaw. Rigged like that, we could carry a javelina on one shoulder with both hands free. We called them "javelina slings." Incidentally, they are collared peccaries, not "collard." The name comes from the light-colored hair between their heads and forelegs. ----- Bill Quimby

I have a Coleman fiberglass Scanoe with a square stern. I also have a lightweight kicker outboard for it. (I think it is 3hp). I would like to sell both, but they are in Greer and I will not get back there until spring. PM me if you're interested. Canoe paddles would be included. Bill Quimby

Welcome back, Scotty. I seem to remember we had plans for another lunch before you left. Maybe we can find another friendly maître d'. Bill Quimby

"70 decades has got to be a misprint!!!!!!" Yes it was, but I must say it sure seems like I shot that buck 700 years ago. Bill Quimby

Those who say you would shoot, shovel and shut up if you came upon a wolf need to realize the penalty for shooting a wolf in Arizona is beyond severe. If found and convicted, you would be subject to prison time, a huge fine and the loss of certain rights, including the right to vote and own/possess firearms. It isn't worth it. Bill Quimby

My first deer was mounted and is at our cabin. It still has the metal tag I put on it in 1948. The mount itself is in awful shape. The taxidermist didn't put forms in its ears, and they now are shriveled and wrinkled. The eyes bulge out, the nose is cracked, and the cape has shrunk, leaving a two-inch wide gap down the back of its head and neck. Sorry to say, I have not fared much better after nearly seventy decades. Bill Quimby

I bought a lot of those metal tags over the years before Arizona went to sticky-back paper tags. They made a big bump in my wallet back then. I've got some on a couple of mounts at the cabin, but none down here to tell how the numbers are positioned. They should tell you the year the tag was valid and the tag number. Don't remember if they will tell you the species, but I do know AG&F was the acronym for the Arizona Game and Fish Department before two-letter postal abbreviations came into being. Bill Quimby

"That's correct after the economy has stabilized and found a new normal level based on it, but inflation does not happen over night it takes time. There will be an immediate influx of larger amounts of cash, which nets a near term benefit." ............ --------------------------------------- Mattys281 : That near-term benefit from an immediate influx of large amounts of cash in the marketplace is only brief, and can also be inflationary. The data Edge published shows inflation in the U.S. has caused the cost of living to outpace government-mandated minimum wage increases every 3.5 years over the 79 years covered. When I joined the workforce with my first hourly job in 1950 at age 14, the minimum wage had just been increased to $0.75 hour. The arguments pro and con for government intervention in the minimum wage then were the same as today. The economic law my Econ 101 professor cited all those years ago has been proven time after time, but is mostly ignored so Ill cite it again: Government-mandated minimum wages are inflationary and provide only temporary relief to entry-level/bottom-tier workers. Bill Quimby

That senator knows taking the issue to voters ended mountain lion hunting in California, and a similar ballot measure would end it here. He and his supporters are convinced that wildlife requires total protection, and they cannot be convinced otherwise. Their bias against hunting cannot be changed with facts. Bill Quimby

Higher minimum wage legislation does not benefit government, because the inevitable inflation that results also affects the cost of government. For an example of inflation at its worst, look at pre-World War II Germany and 1990s Zimbabwe, where at its peak one million German marks and Zim dollars wouldn't buy a bottle of Coca-Cola. Bill Quimby

I'm interested in knowing how many wolves it took put the elk down, and how long it took to reduce it to a pile of bones. We've had wolves and elk come together at our cabin in Greer, but the elk got away -- then. Bill Quimby

The chart Edge provided is proof enough that government-mandated minimum wage increases are inflationary and provide only brief benefits for entry-level/bottom-tier workers. The minimum wage in America has never been a living wage, and never will be. Even if there were a Congress dominated by socialists/Marxists and a president named Bernie Sanders (God help us) and the minimum wage became $100.00 per hour (or $208,000 per year), the cost of living would rise and eventually put the poverty level above $208,000. ------ Bill Quimby

Forgot to say this happened four years ago. I've since hauled off the tree and built a larger pumphouse with a carport using money from our homeowner's insurance and my own labor and cash. Hope you will be as lucky, Coach.

I know how you feel, Coach. When I opened our cabin in Greer, I arrived to find a huge ponderosa about 30 inches in diameter and 40 or more feet tall had fallen over the winter. It could have gone in any other direction without damaging a thing, but it chose to fall square in the middle of our pump house! Fortunately, our pressure tank and well head somehow survived. Bill Quimby