Coach

Nice cat - is that a momma? Looks like she's nursing, or just has a jelly roll - lol.

"I gotta wonder what rabbit he's gonna try to pull out in the next couple months and years." Amnesty.

Enough!!!

Wow, what a great buck. No surprise EBJ picked it up. Congratulations on a heck of a buck! Sure would like to hear the story behind him if you get the chance.

My prayers go out to Garret and your family - with all my heart. Jason

The last week of the bow hunt is almost always better than the first, IMO. If I couldn't take off the whole hunt, I'd rather be out there the few days of the season than the first.

Assuming we get the normal spot, there will be a cluster of campers on the South side of Pole Knoll. We do some great "Mexican BBQ", hanging by the fire, driving rangers and quads around, shooting archery targets, shooting the breeze, throwing horseshoes and playing "cornhole" (yeah, laugh, but you gotta try it out). Some "low stakes" (read chips only) Texas Hold'em in the late afternoons. In the evenings, when the grownups are telling hunting stories around the fire, we usually set up a big projector playing movies for the kiddies on a big sheet on the back of one of the trailers - popcorn and sodas, they love it. If you happen by our camp, stop in and say hi. It's a nice group of families enjoying the white mountains, always happy to welcome in some new friends. Look for a big blue Ford Excursion, some big trucks, big tan Dodge Quad, a blue f-250, no tellin' what Casey will drive up in but it will be big, lots of campers and lots of kids running around.

It seems these days that a lot of guys are really into following the “celebrities” of the hunting community. For example, Michael Waddell has blogs on many of the current social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, where people can keep current on what he’s doing. Nothing against Mr. Waddell, personally, but I just don’t get the obsession with these celeb types. Does anyone care what he’s doing from minute to minute, and can anyone relate their own hunting experiences to guys who are paid to hunt the most exclusive private land in America??? I was thumbing through my latest Cabela’s catalog and saw a whole series of knives dedicated to Jim Shockey, with his supposed profile, hat and all, laser etched on the blade. Then I went to buy a bag target, and just about all of them were some kind of Michael Waddell “Bone Collector” series with his lame-butt skull in lime green stuff all over them. I won’t buy one, even though it’s the same Merrell Infinity target I’ve shot for years and worn out. Look at Bass Pro-Shops for a rod and reel, and it’s even worse. Rick Clunn signature this and that, every rod, reel, stick bait has some dude’s name on it taking a chunk of change off MY purchase. It’s getting old, and I just don’t see the logic behind the obsession with “some other dude”. Am I missing something here?

Thanks all - more on this later. Heading up to Sunrise for the shoot, then Utah. RR, I'll take some pix, but don't expect them to look like yours!

Three words..."Fine Focus Knob"....Dunno why Leica and Kowa (even Pentax and Nikon) have figured this out but Swaro still hasn't. That one feature will do more for you than lense coatings or magnesium body.

Gettin' it some - my oldest boy can pull legal weight now... but all I can think about right now is that Unit 1 ML bull hunt Hard to concentrate on deer for some reason.

Nice buck!!! So don't flame, but that looks like Sowatts point country. Just a little fishin' because my next deer tag will be 12AW no matter how long it takes. Congrats on a great looking buck. You can pack my deer out anytime -

I thought this would be an easy Google trip for the answer - not so. I have a similar setup - same head, almost (maybe) the same legs. I think I paid somewhere around $230- $280 for it - seemed like more at the time. B&H is selling a similar setup, but all black, and doesn't appear to have the spiked feet, for $229. (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/503871-REG/Manfrotto_190XB_128RC_190XB_Tripod_Legs_Black.html). So, I guess I'd put the price used at somwhere between $150 and $190. That said, I wouldn't part with mine for that. It's one heck of a tripod. Too heavy to pack around the desert just for binos, but a necessity for a full-sized spotter. Hope this helps. Given that it's discontinued, and a great hunting/birding tripod, I think you should hold out for top dollar. Just my opinion. Jason

Somebody got a heckuva scope!

Yeah, I posted a link to that on another thread, but it really deserves a thread of its own. The gall of this guy is simply staggering - accusing the minutemen of shooting people, the audacity to say that our borders are "quite secure" - his overall condescending attitude toward the people he is supposed to be serving...We have to find a way to get people like that out of office NOW. He isn't qualified to clean the bathrooms in a public library, yet he's somehow a congressman??? Totally mind-boggling.

Here's one... http://phoenix.craigslist.org/wvl/cto/1813270747.html

Ah - that makes sense. Thanks!

I've heard the term that a rifle/action has been "blue printed". Christian's sweet new rifle is a good example. What does this mean?

But with what looks like around 1/2 inch of blade exposed before it expands, does it still fly with field points from a bow (or shooter) that has trouble getting broadheads to hit exactly with fieldpoints? If it does, then you might just be on to a winning combo with thes head. I will definately try them out. The reason I'm asking, is I've spent countless hours trying to fine-tune my bow to make broadheads and field points hit exactly the same. I've worn out numerous targets, but for some reason, good broadheads always group together, but they want to turn left and low at longer shots. Inside 30 yards, like from a ground blind, I'll always shoot a fixed head, but most spot-n-stalk shots are a little longer. I'm considering a mech for these types of hunts because I can group fieldpoints really well at 40 and 50, and routinely practice out to 80 yds. But my broadheads at that range are, well, let's just say, "less predictable". Just a little nitpick'n before I buy yet another set of broadheads.

Any tests through ground-blind mesh to be sure they don't deploy on the mesh? Could be my new head, but I'm a skeptical old curmudgeon until I've seen it in action.

Here's California's response to the situation... This is the way liberal politicians think, and until we boot every last one of them, not a dang thing will change.

Looks like a good head, but for the sake of argument, there is a lot of exposed blade. Seems most people who shoot a mech are doing so because they want the same flight characteristics out of their broadheads that they get with field points. In a properly tuned setup, that can be achieved with fixed heads. So the advantage only goes to a mech when it has the same profile as a field point, which these don't seem to have just looking at the pictures. So, what I'm wondering is, if this head still has enough exposed blade to fly like most fixed point heads, what is the benefit? Not trying to start a ruckus, just askin'.

I have an older Nikon, LRF800 if memory serves, and it has always been very reliable and accurate out past 800 yards, and wasn't very expensive - around $200 - but that was something like 12+ years ago. If I had to replace it, I would look hard at the Leica as well. I have used a few Leica Geovids and found the range finder built into the binocs to be exceptional - I would think that their dedicated range finders would be hard to beat.

Well crap Gino, you had to go and do it... I just weighed my hunting arrows and I'm right at 423 oz. I'm sure my Bowtech Allegiance from 2005 is spitting faster than 298!!! You better bring a chrono to Sunrise and a buttload of beer, 'cause I'm guessing I can out "old-school" you on suds slurpin' too!

A lot of great information on this thread - maybe the best I've seen in a long time. Since none of us are geologists, I'll put my $.02 out there. The previous posts have said pretty much anything I can add, but I'd describe it like this: Arizona has rocky, pourous soil, from the mountains to the desert. When Spring rains fall and snow is melting at the higher elevations, the water always drains to the lowest point, and does it quickly. On tall flats surrounded by rocky cliff areas, the water seeps out of the cliffs, onto the flatter areas. In the rolling hills, it obviosly flows through the sandy bottoms that make our landscape, but is soaking in as it passes through. I'm no geologist, but I've seen what the soil looks like here compared to the narrows and slot canyons in Utah. The Escalante Staircase is perfect example of what our desert lands would look like without soil. There is a hard sandstone or granite base under most of AZ, and the water is squirting through the top layers of dirt and rock, like a sponge under pressure. All that water has to go somewhere, and it either soaks downward or flows on top of the ground West and South as fast as gravity will take it. When a lot of water has soaked in, the water tables start pushing it back out to the top, through the lower sandy or broken rock that it origanally seeped in through. So, from a hunting perspectivet, like others have suggested, when you find a sandy draw with old cottonwoods, you know the water is only a few feet under the surface. It may look like a dry creekbed, but where the water has to take a sharp angle underground, it pools and gives those big trees something to live on. More likely than not, there will be pools of standing water where those cottonwoods grow - and they are easy to spot year 'round. Green in the Spring and Summer, colored during the Fall, and brown in winter months. Seeps, from what I've seen, are usually found around cliff areas, and are easy to spot by the moss or other lush vegetation in an otherwise dry area. These are the spots where water takes its sweet time filtering through tens of meters of limestone or grantite drop-by-drop. To me, these spots are golden because when he cattle ponds have dried up and the sandy washes are dry on the surface, they still produce drinkable water. It's because the water coming out of a hard granite seep probably landed on the ground above a couple of years ago - and has taken that long to finally drain out. In a tough drought year, the creek bottoms will be dry, the cattle tanks will look like an alligator's back, but a rocky seep will still be draining the excess of years past. Just my ramblings on the subject