Coach

It's getting cold here in Lakeside, my outside reading is 37.5 and it's supposed to hit mid to low 20's tonight. Winterized my camper today in preparation for a cold weekend.

Nice job - nothing beats chasing active bulls with a bow. Congrats on a fine trophy bull! Sounds like a great hunt.

Very cool vid - check out the comments.

Thanks so much for all the great advice here - you guys rock. I'm looking into the Davis Tent option.

Dang, Steve - that's a smokin' deal. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!!

I have a travel trailer, but there are times when I'm hunting alone or with just one or two of my sons and don't want to drive the big diesel truck or haul that thing. Most areas I don't want to spend a week driving around on dirt roads with big heavy Excursion, and if the wife doesn't come, that's the only vehicle I'd have if I brought the camper. I've got regular tents but they just aren't as comfortable or roomy as a good wall tent. I've set up wall tents before in under 45 minutes with another guy, and a little over an hour by myself.

We will be out there - getting some bear tags just in case the younger boys get a shot. My boys have been very blessed with tags over the years, and all three of them have made the best of tags available to them. My oldest boys have a couple elk, one deer, a few javis, sevearl turkey between them. Josh is the youngest, and he's got a couple of javi's taken at long range for a kid, a turkey taken days after he was legal. Makes me look back at my experience, growing up with a love for hunting, and how long it took me to stop eating tag soup, and start filling tags. My sons, combined have taken far more game than I have. There is something to be said for dads like yourself who put getting the kids out there, making it fun and passing on the passion for the outdoors, the hunt, the talks around the campfire at night above their own ambitions. Best wishes to you, brother, we'll be out there on the same quest this fall.

Wow - I've been wating for this thread for so long, then got swamped at work and didn't get a chance to reply until now. I just want to congratulate you, and your entire party on the coolest elk hunting thread I've seen yet. For starters, your bull is absolutely gorgeous! And the bulls you, your brothers and Tony took - all amazing bulls. I can't even imagine how cool that was to be hunting with brothers and a close friend and to take so many great bulls. Thanks so much for taking the time to write up a great story so we could all feel like we're tagging along with you on an adventure of a lifetime. Great job, huge congrats! You guys hunted hard, worked your tail off and got it done BIG TIME.

Wisconson was stupid - had it all wrapped up, 20 yard field goal to win. They decided to go for another play with 14 seconds left and no time outs. The refs blew it big time but the coaches are to blame. Doesn't matter too much, Stanford put ASU in place.

I'm not sure if what you are proposing matches what has happened to deer hunting in 24A, but that unit has been ruined, IMO. When I first started learning how to hunt in AZ, unit 24A had one coues hunt - about 475 tags all in late December. Maybe I was just lucky, but I drew that tag 4 out of 5 years applying. It was an awesome hunt. Today, 24A allows 300 Mule deer tags between Nov 15-24, 325 coues tags Oct 25 - Oct 31, 375 more tags Nov 1 - Nov 7, another 375 tags Nov 29- Dec 8, and only 50 in the Dec 13-31 hunt. That equates to 1075 coues tags between October and early December, pre-rut with only 50 tags during the rut. If this is the model for stratifying, I want no part of it. As others have mentioned, unit 1 allowed the biggest allotment of early bull archery tags ever this year, and Cluster **** is an understatement.

I'm interested in the pistol - please PM me.

Yeah, I see it there - AGGRAVATED ASSAULT-VICTIM BOUND/RESTRAINED, RESIS ARREST-RISK PHYS INJ, HREAT-INTIM W/INJ-DMGE PROP. 3 Pages mostly Flag and Williams. First, last and middle name on most - this guy has been busy.

Might have lost me there, oneshot, I don't do facebook, like you said, it's evil. Got a link?

That video is awesome! I would have shot that first bull in the vid in a heartbeat - the fronts and 3rds on him were amazing, and that curl on the left 3rd - I've never seen that. Nice job and great vid.

Wow, great job guys on finding the bull and the shooter. I know what it's like to lose one - probably the worst feeling in the world. My first bull ever was lost, and I sure wish I had guys like you to help me recover him.

Not trying to derail, but I went to that AZ Supreme Court lookup link, typed in my first and last name and got 19 pages - none of which were me. Just something to think about.

It's nice to see the broad head debate going on here. I've never shot the Swhacker, but I've seen how well they work for other hunters. I've seen great results with Rage, and not-so-great. If I have anything to add, it is 2 parts: First, find the head you are comfortable with and use it with confidence. Most of the top-tier heads will do their job if properly used. Secondly, if you choose to use mechanicals because you can't get fixed blades to fly with your target points, you have a tuning issue. If this is the case, even with mechanicals, you won't get the penetration you would with a properly tuned bow/arrow combination. A properly tuned bow will shoot field heads and broad heads together. With an improperly tuned bow, it's up to the arrow's fletchings to try to correct the improper flight of the arrow. This is why so many people choose mech's, IMO. A fixed blade on the front of the arrow reacts to the wind the same way that your fletchings work on the back side of the arrow. The force of air pressing against a solid body is at work at both the front and back of the arrow. If the flight is off in any way, the stronger force of resistant air will prevail. In an improperly tuned bow, the fletchings can still correct the flawed path of the arrow - exactly the same reason we have movable fins on torpedoes and smart bombs. With a well tuned bow, the broad head works with the fletchings to stabilize a wobbly arrow. We've all seen video of an arrow fired from a bow, it's fully flexed and oscillates in all directions until it finds its center of gravity. If that center is off, or it’s being pushed by air resistance up-front, it fights to regain its forward momentum. Moral of the story is: If your bow is well tuned, either fixed or mechanical broadheads will likely perform equally well. If you are using mechs to hide a poorly tuned bow, they probably won't bail your butt out. A bad hit is a bad hit.

Not gonna flame you Bowsniper, I agree with much of what you said. Personally I'd love to see all cattle removed from public land in AZ as much as I'd love to see this failed, super-expensive wolf experiment defunded. But I don't agree that it's all about greed. You argue against cattle because you see the devastation caused by our archaic adherence to the “free range” mentality. That culture in AZ has literally destroyed the natural grasses and other vegetation in AZ, which of course leads to faster soil erosion as the those long-stemmed grasses are replaced by invasive weeds and short-stemmed grasses, and eventually the drying up of streams and rivers throughout the state. It takes little more than a glance at a map of AZ pre-cattle and post to see the difference. But to recognize those facts, and object to them, does not make you greedy - any more than those who object to the failed wolf policies that basically turn loose a hybrid wolf-dog into ranges it is not accustomed to, in the name of reviving “natural balance”. I don’t want to derail this thread too far, but you have to look at not only AZG&F, but the USFWS and their obsession with what they deem “native species”. Their entire mission is to return to some imagined, utopic place in time where everything was supposedly in a state of natural balance. Just look at their obsession with Apache trout, all kinds of chubs nobody gives a rip about – you get the picture. The truth is, that state probably never existed, and if it did, it was a microcosm. Even if it did occur once by accident, with urban expansion, increased demands on water, cattle grazing, huge farming interests, exploding population consuming more and more, we can’t recreate it artificially. But the wolf, somehow is symbolic. If you protect the wolf, re-introduce it and see it succeed, then there is hope for the utopic dream. Only problem is, they tried it, it failed. Millions of dollars later, we’re still on this wolf topic. And the places where re-introduction has occurred with all the accolades and success they wanted, wolves proved themselves once again to be a serious problem – for wildlife, for ranchers, to the public. They became so problematic that they have been de-listed as a protected species. It’s time to pull the plug on the failed wolf money pit, and it’s time to start taking back public land from tiny minority of cattle grazers who view public land as their own private ranches.

Congrats Andrew, that is one heck of a bull! Looking forward to the story on that bruiser!

Great job! That is a beautiful bull.

Wow, those are some great bucks. Especially that 3rd one - awesome pix.

That's really cool. I love those old vintage photos. Sweet rifles too.

Wow!!! Those are some drop-dead awesome bucks. Nice job, and welcome!

Very nice bull, and great write up! Congrats, and thanks for taking the time to take us all along on your adventure.

+1, I've got a short attention span. Anyone want to post the juicy parts?