Becker

This is always a funny topic to me, and one that arises every year, or every time there is a slight increase in pricing when it comes to our wildlife. Based on most peoples reactions it sounds like most of you would rather not have any type of game department. All they do is take our hard earned money at such high costs for tags and put regulations on when, where and what we can hunt. If we didn't have G and F in place you realize there wouldn't be anything for you to hunt right? No regulation equals no bag limit, no nothing. The Human race and strictly just us hunters, have such a high demand for shooting game, it would be interesting to see how fast, everything would get shot out. If you don't agree with this statement look at our history. The bison, most elk populations, passenger pigeons, just to name a few. Proof that we are all greedy hunters. Even though our animals are viewed as a natural recurring resource there still has to be something in place to keep tabs on them. Basically what I see when this topic arises is this. I WANT to hunt animals. I DONT want to pay any money to do it. Those two statements can not go hand in hand in our public arena for hunting. I CHALLENGE you to come up with a management strategy for just one of our state units AND for just ONE SPECIES and see what it takes. Figure out how many animals are in the population, how many you can take out without affecting it. Of course that harvest is dependent on not only hunters. Predation, weather, food. Then determine how you are going to select hunters that get to go because there is an obvious limit to how many can hunt. How you are going to figure out how many of those hunters were successful so you can keep tabs on your population numbers. These are just some recommendations. And as always there are bad apples out there so how are you going to make sure everyone is playing by the rules that you have set out to follow. Do that and figure out everything that you need to do it. Then tell us how much MONEY it is going to cost you. Here is the Response you will get from YOURSELF after you get this all accomplished: I, as a loyal hunter that wants to hunt this unit, am going to go hunt it but I don't want to pay you even close to what it costed you to make this available for ME! Sound about right? The other big picture you have to look at is our economy. What it costs for stuff. It costs a whole lot more for gas now that it did when I was in High School. To think that G and F can keep the same pricing and do the same job!!! COME ON NOW. Now I am not saying that our Game and Fish is the best. There are tons of things that I think they could do different and better, but I have neither the time or the drive to go and make those changes and thusly I can't and DONT complain about it. Non-Resident prices, Thats a whole other topic. Still at $160 bucks to hunt and fish all year!!! Seems like a good deal to me. Thats only like 44 cents a day. Less than you pay for your big gulp or coffee at circle k every morning. I guess in the end what I am trying to say is........IF YOU DON"T LIKE THE PRICES OR WHATEVER ELSE SHOW US/THEM WHY YOU FEEL THAT WAY AND THE REASONING IT SHOULDN'T BE. There's gotta be some proof behind your complaint otherwise SUCK IT UP In the grand scheme of BIG GAME HUNTING as a whole, our prices here in AZ are WAY WAY affordable and cheap. If you don't believe me make a spread sheet, with all the necessary licenses, tags and permits that you want and average it out per day for a year. I think you will be surprised how little money it really is.

^^^^ Especially when the Elk get out where there are limited food and water options available for the animals.

Lots of times the eggs get laid in the hair and various places on the body. I have had a few bison that have them under the skin all on the hump of the shoulders. Apparently they can burrow down a little and have a nice little home in a puss pocket. ;( Anywho never seen them cause any issues with the meat. Just a parasite like a tick or fleas. No biggie

Congrats on another Stud they Scott!!!

WOW TIM!!!! Congrats

Why don't we leave the archery or rifle choice to the person who drew the tag. There's limited tags regardless and now you want to segregate it??? Making tags even harder to draw!

Sven eberson. Wildlife Wings and Designs

That's a beast. Appears he has 3 antlers! That spike in the middle of it head. Awesome buck for sure!!!!

I think you guys are all speculating whether he shot or not. There is no exact proof in these pictures. Perhaps they walked up to the drinker, scared the lions off, saw them leaving, and snuck past the water looking for the lions. Glimpses of lions running from the tank would have me reacting the same way. Sneak up to the water looking to see if the lions were still hanging in the short distance, looking at their tracks. You can't tell what they saw from their point of view when the lions left. Maybe all they saw was the butt end of one through the bushes as they approached. Ask yourselves what you would be doing if you saw lions running off from the tank you were walking up to????? I am sure 99% of us would be sneaking around all suspiciously! I'm sure you would take after cause you didn't get that good of a look and then come back and check out the tracks and what not. Messing with your cam seems a little shady but they didnt take it soooooo. Seems they did not see it in the first place and prob didnt want their picture taken anyway. Really pretty dumb to put on the face masks after the fact. Innocent until proven guilty people!!! Sheesh

HOLY BUCKS!!!! Congrats. I really like how the white on your deer is so vibrant from the grey. Thats going to make one fancy mount if you get him mounted.

Elkman, I know we talked a little on this topic. You are still welcome to check out all the big eyes that I have. Just give me a heads up before you come by so I can make sure to have them at my shop. I would check out the one from Eurooptic that is linked two posts earlier in this thread for the 80mm scopes. I have a good friend that has that bracket and it works great. Its just a little heavy. I would post pics of my new set up but like I mentioned to you my buddy is still working out some patent stuff so I can't really post pics yet. Since we are cutting down weight our set up uses the 65mm scopes. As far as eye pieces go I think the field of view is slighty bigger with the fixed. I have the new 25-50 wide angle eye pieces and they work fantastic. I think with talking with a few other people that with the old style 20-60 eye pieces you run into eye relief issues at high power. As far as getting them set to the same power it really is not that big of an issue. Zoom one to your desired power and then walk the other one in. I haven't had any issues. Your eyes tell you really quick what you need to do. The only other real issue that arises with the variable eye pieces is being able to get them close enough together for you to look through them if you have really narrow set eyes. I have a large head verging on mongoloid so that doesn't affect me. That might determine if you can even use the variable ones. The fixed eye pieces are smaller diameter thus you can get them closer together. As mentioned the biggest factor with the scopes is getting them in line with each other. The best set ups seem to keep the scopes mounted solid. The eurooptic plate secures both scopes permanently but then slides one in and out (wider/narrower) so different people can look through them. The set up my buddy and I have been working on still lets the scopes rotate on their axis so the plate can be one solid piece (cutting down on weight). You simply then rotate the eye pieces up and out for wider set eyed people. It has a few bugs though. Mostly due to the fact that the scopes housings and what not are not made with extreme high tolerances. Basically the tubes are not exactly round. The feet from one scope to the next are not exactly the same size. Some issues like that. The more movement you want in the scopes the more error you are going to get in getting them aligned. Even just tightening the little lock down knob on the side of the scopes can change the alignment some. Other factors for alignment of the scopes are user dependent. Every persons eyes and brains are a little different. Basically your eyes see two images and then your brain turns it into one for you. Some people have lower tolerances in what they can view or look through and still see one image while others have to have perfectly aligned set ups in order to look through them. What it really boils down to is whether you want other people to be able to glass with your set up or if you are ok with it being 100% tuned only for you. Just a few things to really think about if you are really wanting to have the set up with two scopes put together. Some other factors are weight. The Kowas are exceptional but they weigh like 15 pounds, and they have angled eye pieces (bad for looking down hill). The docters MIGHT lack a little in the glass, they weigh 10lbs, straight eye pieces, I still prefer my docters over the Kowas though (no complaints). I am not sure what the two 80mm scopes with the euro optic plate weighs but I know it was right up there with the Kowas and Docters. Hopefully we can get some of the little things worked out in our new bracket and make them available for you guys. Weight being the biggest factor we are trying to address. My set up right now weighs 6lbs, and is substantially smaller dimension wise than any other big eye setup available. I'll keep you updated.

I have had the eberlestock dragon fly for years now. It has finally seen its last day. My major complaint with hunting packs is their weight. My eberlestock is like 7 pounds or something. Its heavy when its empty. Throw in some big eyes and a tripod and makes for a heavy day. It just seems to me that the hunting market back packs are made to be hunter friendly but that translates into unnecessary weight and in some cases they don't carry the load like you should be. I just bought a new pack. Its a kelty. It will carry more than I want and the dang thing only weighs 4lbs. Internal frame, water bladder compatible, now it doesn't have the gun scabbard or any of that COOL stuff but the 3 or 4 lbs I shaved off sure has made a huge difference. If the packs are made to climb everest and all that I figure it can't be bad. I can put my tripod on the side of it strapped on. Has plenty of little pockets and spots for my junk(knife,gps,rangefinder,sunscreen,all that). I prefer to carry my rifle though. Mine is almost to long for the scabbards anyway and I always end up getting hung up in the brush. Plus I don't get to carry my rifle but for a couple days a year so it doesn't bother me any. And for $140 bucks off Amazon vs the $300 plus for now days hunting packs I don't see how I can beat it. Its not camo but I got a forest green with tanny creme color highlights that looks kinda camo-ish sooooo. I'll see how it holds up but thats the route I took this time. Just my 2 cents.

Nice!!!

Wow!!!! Cool buck

Simply Awesome!!!

RATS!!! :(

Like mentioned previously every bullet SEEMS to have its pros and cons. I see lots of people arguing over all of the hoopla involved with them, whether it be BC's, velocity, bullet performance (eg bullet retains most of it weight on impact, or bullet blows up on impact). At the end of the day IMO, none of that matters unless you can actually hit what you are aiming at. My general consensus is "SHOOT WHAT THE GUN LIKES!!!" All bullets are designed to do the job, most of it comes down to the personal preference.

OMG!!! That is awesome! Congrats

Actually grosses 114 if I remember right!!!

Gross (all the extras included) measured him at 373!!!

I do but that's cause you guys dropped it off with me to mount!

Sorry they came in sideways!!!

I have the bigger one here at my shop! But I don't think I am supposed to tell you who it belongs to The one sticking way up in the air. Super wide awesome BULL!!!

I don't know why people would steal stuff like that. It's not like they could really get away with selling it or anything. Too many people would recognize it. Plus even though its a huge deer it's not some world record that would fetch crazy amounts of money. Hope she gets it back!