Coach

Great news! I'm so glad you finally found him. 2 things strike me as really cool about this post - 1) which I already mentioned, you never gave up looking and totally dedicated yourself to finding him - that speaks volumes about your character. 2) The support of other hunters who volunteered their time to come help look for him. Awesome job, awesome post - and a big thumbs-up to the Arizona hunting community who stepped up to help a guy find his bull.

Great looking rifle - can't wait to see how it performs for you.

Holy smokes! Great bull, but you can't leave us hangin' - let's hear the story! Congrats on an amazing bull!!!

Hey - nice bull. Bet he's exited! Congrats to the hunter.

Kudos to you for doing everything you could to find your bull. A lot of guys would have quit much earlier and tried to find another. You did all you could do, and I commend you for that. Great job, and sorry it turned out the way it did. Hopefully you've earned some karma points for next time.

Nice bull - congratulations!

My take is, a lot of people pick 400 as the magical number. Truth is, despite all the rumors, coffee-shop talk, blurry cell-phone pics...there just aren't that many 400 bulls walking around. Passing a solid 380+ bull that has been found and patterned in hopes of a 400 that might show up is, in my humble opinion, a little over-zealous. Many people see a 330 bull and think it's 360 or better. I've slowly learned that first impressions of bull elk are usually skewed quite a bit to the high side. To break the 350 barrier, takes a lot! I'll skip the math for now, but generally, a big 6x6 has to have EVERYTHING going on to break the 380 mark. It has to have huge (18+) fronts, deep thirds, very long royals (4ths, swords, whatever), long 5ths (10+), and good width (along with mass) on a 50+ inch main beam - okay I didn't totally skip the math. Point being, a legitimate 380 bull can't have ANY weaknesses. Yes, every year elk are taken that break into the 400's, but they are rare. Not every unit has them, and even some that do produce them from year-to-year, don't always have them. In my neck of the woods, unit 3C usually has a couple - but despite being watched for weeks before the hunt, a day or two before the hunt, they seem to vanish. Units 1 and 27 usually have a couple, but somehow they manage to elude hunters year after year. I watched a bull last year in 3C that was beyond a doubt, the biggest I had ever seen. I watched him through my binocs for about 5-7 minutes, then he was gone. I described him to a buddy who guides in that area and he knew exactly what bull I was talking about. They called him the "Burton Bull". He was a few miles away from where he had last been seen. As far as I know, nobody found him again during the hunt. This was a bull that had such a huge frame, and such long tines, you knew immdediately, he was unusually large. Here one day, gone the next. I've got a muzzle looader hunt in unit 1, 2B & 2C starting a week from today. I've been out glassing, scouting, watching bulls and cows for weeks every chance I get. In that time I've seen many really nice bulls, but few if any, that would legitmately break the 350 mark. If I had one bull located, that I knew was truly in the 380 class, that is the bull I would be focusing on.

Wow - that bull is an absolute TOAD! Congrats, and great work on your hunt. That 4th on his left side is amazing! At first I thought it was a huge 3rd also, but the other pics you included helped out - kinda strange how it starts so far down, but he's got an incredible 5th behind it, so long it looks like the royal - That's an amazing bull for sure! Had him scored yet??? I agree this would be a great candidate for "guess the score". He's huge, but hard to figure out. I'm just gonna throw out 388 gross - just from the hip. Anyway you slice it, that is one great bull.

Obviously 2 sides to every strory, but I can certainly sympathize with the hunter in this case. Of all times to do the arial survey, right in the middle of a hunt?? Seems from that vantage point they could have recognized that there was a stalk going on and moved to a different herd for the time being. I'm grateful for the efforts of G&F, and I don't think they had malicious intent, but they could have been a little more discreet, and mindful of the situation. I feel for you my2cats, waiting that long for the tag, only to have the perfect stalk blown - has to be hard to swallow. Good luck on future hunts.

That is awesome! Great job and awesome play-by-play. Looking forward to pictures of your bull!

If it doesn't fit Dave's phone, I'd like to have it as a backup. Is AC or DC? Lemme know if it doesn't work out with Dave and I'll make arrangements to pick up or pay for shipping. BTW - while we're talking - I tried to send you a PM, but your inbox is full. Is there a way to check remaining battery levels on a Covert II? Thanks, Jason

Don't know what unit you are in, but in Unit 1 the rut is starting off pretty strong. Lots of bugling in the early morning. Not much mid day or evenings. Best of luck to you. It will get better.

Wow, what a beautiful buck, and great taxidermy. Congrats on an amazing trophy. I am sure that you will be able to reflect on taking such a beatuiful buck each time you look at him.

Kudos - nice job trying to find the owner. I hope someone on here knows who lost it and you can get it back to him. Stand-up guy, you are, being proactive to find the owner.

Very nice pictures - thank you for sharing them.

Thank you, Mark. I'll make sure to keep it fun, and I'm sticking a video camera in my pocket to try and make the whole hunt accessible to family, friends and this forum. Regardless of whether I find the bull I'm looking for, I'm certain that it will be a hunt to remember for a long time.

These are a little blurry - I'm working out the kinks with my digiscope setup - not to mention, these are cropped out of much larger photos, as they were taken pretty far away. Anyway, a really cool bull I watched for a while yesterday. He had a pretty big herd, and 5-7 smaller bulls trying to steal them. Lots of bugling and rut activity. Not a huge bull, but fun to watch.

So there's this group of 4 kids called the Gregory Brothers that use a technique called "Auto-Tune" to put actual news footage to music, and create some really funny videos. I got a kick out of them, so I thought I'd share them here. First up, is the actual news footage of an eye-witness to a convenience store robbery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpx8O82KLM Here's the same story put to music... Pretty funny, but here's an even better one. Actual news story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y54yESyq6Io And the musical version here: Hope you enjoyed those. And if you want to see more, here's a link to their site. Click the "Video" link at the top to see them spoofing the news and interviews with Obama, Ron Paul and more: http://thegregorybrothers.com/ Hope you get a laugh out of these - I sure did.

Kudos to you for trying to find the owner. You're a stand-up guy in my book.

Hey, thanks everyone - so far this guy is the closest I've personally seen to what I'm hoping to find. Right now I'm trying to help out several archery hunters in the unit (unit 1, btw). They've agreed to keep me in the loop with what they're seeing. Seems like a win-win, with such a big unit - no way to be everywhere at once. I help them out by scouting and glassing certain areas that I know they are not in, tell them what I'm seeing, and the'll tell me where the big one that got away was hanging out when their hunt is done. Got a couple places in mind I haven't even seen yet this year, but Thursday I at least got to drive a huge chunk of the unit, just seeing what's new from place-to-place. Some areas have been recenently thinned, so that's good to know, the entire West side of the unit is soaking wet, where the biggest concentrations of camps are, etc. It should be a great hunt. I can't remember a greener, wetter Fall, and the cows are definately coming into heat. Lots of early rut activity and I don't have to get to 40 yards - lol. I've just got to play the mental game - keep it fun, don't try to be in more than one place at a time, or second guess myself constantly (should I be in the punch-bowl today or in the cedars around Vernon, or maybe the res line up by Greens, or here or there...). Hunting elk can be a lot of fun, but it can also be stressful. I'm trying to get myself in the right mindset so that whether or not I find what I'm looking for, it's a fun experience. This is a tag I'll probably never have again, so I just want to make it enjoyable. (anecdote) The last bull tag I had was Unit 1 archery, and it turned into a nightmare of stress. I lost my bull due to bad shot placement. I was heartbroken and spent the rest of the hunt looking for him - couldn't even bring myself to carry a bow knowing I had lost him. At one point while trying to find him, I had a much bigger bull, maybe 370 class 7x7 within 20 yards and didn't even have my bow with me - I just couldn't bring myself to shoot another. Near the end of the hunt, while going out once again to look for birds or coyotes - anything to find my bull - I was flagged down by some campers who had found a 320-330 bull beaten half-to-death by another bull during the night lying out in a meadow. He could hardly walk more than 15 yards without falling back over. Knowing he was going to die also, I decided end his misery and put my tag on him to keep him from going to waste, as my bull had. Point being, the hunt I had waited so long for, worked so hard scouting for, and had such high hopes for, turned into stress, anger (at myself) and just a bad experience. Now that I have a chance to get back out there, I just want it to be fun. I have high expectations, but if I come home empty, I won't care as long as I know I worked hard, didn't compromise my goals, and have a good time. Whew - venting over. Thanks again for the encouragement.

Thanks - there should be more to come. The rut is just starting! Some new optics on order, so maybe better pix in the next week or so. Good luck to all you archery hunters out there. I'm just waiting for "left-overs" once ML season starts. Not much sleep in store for the next few weeks I'm guessing. LOL.

Nice bucks, and good pix.

Got pix of one pretty nice bull this morning pushing a bunch of cows, bugling chasing off other bulls - definately hot rut action.

I've used the Rhinos, and I like the convenience of the combo GPS/radio, but I have to say the range is really not that good on the ones I used. Even compared to some older el-cheapo cobras. The Cobras had a much longer range.

I don't think the comparison in this case is on track. If you need a range-finding biocular, Leica Geovid is the best range-finder/binoc on the market, despite the button being in the wrong place for archers and most hunters. If you are looking at a "glassing" bino, Swarovski 15x56 are the BEST glassing binocs available. Here's where I see the difference. The Geovids, by design, aren't meant for mounting on a tripod. The center tripod mount is where they chose to put the lazer range finder, so you have to buy some kind of plate with a velcro strap to even adapt them to a tripod. Geovids are designed specifically to be worn around the neck, to quickly look at an animal and have the capability to acquire the range. They just happen to have glass that is superior to that kind of usage - and better suited to glassing off a tripod. Swarovski 15x56 SCL, on the other hand are not a very handy "around the neck" pair of binocs. They are heavy, big, IMO too magnified for a hand-held bicoc, and don't incorporate any kind of range finding. They are meant for a certain job, and that job is glassing in extreme detail, from a tripod. I'd love to have a pair of Geovids, simply because it's a pain to switch from bino's to range-finder. But I'm not forking out 3 grand for that convenience. I'd rather sit between my Swaro 10x42s, and 15x56 to find out what I'm going after, then rely on my range finder to play it's specific role when the time comes. One of these optics companies *might* finally get it all right at some point. A compact, variable 8-15x (on the same level as a Leica Duovid) with built in, angle compensating, laser range finder, that can still be mounted on a tripod for extended long range glassing with super high quality glass -would be the ONE single piece of optics any Western hunter needs. It's not out there yet, and it might not ever be. Western US hunters aren't exactly dictating to German optics providers where to allocate their annual R&D budget. They make way more money on consumer and prosumer grade cameras than they ever will off of all-in-one optics designed specifically for Western US hunters. It's just a matter of "consumer base". As it stands now, no one offers that "holy grail". You need a quality 8-10x around your neck, a bigger 15x type for digging into details and a quality stand-alone range finder. I've got 8x42 Swaro SLCs around my neck, with a Jim White tripod adapter so I can glass by hand or quickly off of a Slik Sprint Pro, In my pack are the Swaro 15x16 SLC for getting in tight, with the same adapter so I can just plop them up for a more detailed look without going to a bigger tripod. In the front-left pocket of my fanny pack is a Nicon 800 yard lazer range finder. 3 three tools can handle pretty much any job. If I fail, it's not because the equipment didn't do it's job.