twigsnapper

Well, tomorrow morning is the opener and Amber and I have to work. I will try to give updates as the hunt progresses. It is her 1st Antelope hunt so we are not being picky. Wish us luck and stay tuned.........

This is the one I like the most. The powder is purple and much easier to see on a calm day. I have had the same one for about 5 years. It's even gone through the wash several times and the powder is still nice and fluffy. The powder seems to float better on some of the the others I have used. You can pick it up at sportsmans. For a few bucks extra I think the purple color is worth it.

So the tale goes like this. We got up early on Saturday morning and made our way to our parking spot. It was about a ten minute walk into the spot I wanted to glass from. We started our walk just a little after light so we could see. I'm in the lead and Amber is walking behind me and to my right. I am keeping my eye out for snakes and what do you know I see one about five feet ahead of me to my right. I stop as soon as I see it, unfortunately Amber didn't see me stop and just about walked right into it. I reached my right arm out just in time to grab her and tug her far enough to the left that the snake could not strike. It instantly coiled up but thank goodness it did not rattle or I would have been chasing my ole lady all the way back to Phx. It was a big ole snake but I played it off like it was no big deal. But he was a big deal!!!!! After a few minutes of shaking and crying I finally convinced her to stay right behind me. We continued to the glassing spot. I got my tripod set up and started looking for the heard I had been scouting. I picked up a couple mule deer does and pointed them out to Amber in an effort to get her mind off snakes. She still refused to sit down for fear a snake was near. I had even brought her a little stool to sit on but she refused. About ten minutes into our glassing and Amber says "look there's a deer walking right there" and she points to our west. I take my eyes out of my south facing binos and look up. Sure enough there's a deer, no wait, that's an antelope. I take my binos off the tripod and holy cow it's a nice buck walking down the draw. He's only 200 yards away. I get Amber set up to shoot off the tripod. I range him one more time and he's at 196 yards. We have done this before, see the pic in my first post. I reminded her where to hold and to remember, full breath in, half out and squeeze. I am watching the buck when she fires and he takes off like a rocket. The first words out of my mouth were, "Sounded like you hit a rock, I think you missed" I watched the buck for a minute but he didn't lose a beat for 1000 yards. I wrote it off as a miss and started to look around for other antelope we may have not seen before the shot. Nothin. So I sit down and put my binos back on the tripod and pick up the buck she just missed at 1500+ yards. This time however I see red on the inside of his rear legs. At least I think I do?? After about 10 minutes of staring at him I notice he is starting to limp his back legs. Now he is just standing in some thick brush. I know he is hit but can't tell exactly where at this distance. I decide to give him an hour. Well after he does nothing, and I mean nothing, not lay down, not try to eat, he just stood there for at least an hour I decided to try and get closer to have a better look. We worked our way down to about 400 yards completely undetected. He was still just standing but now I could see he was not bleeding too bad, and not enough to convince me he is gonna bleed out. So after about 20 minutes of mental tug -a-war of do we try to get close and get another bullet in him or do we let him lay down? Amber was feeling sick about the wounded antelope and said she didn't want to make him suffer so I made the call to try and move closer. We got to 180 yards but the only shot was in the butt walking away. I made her wait. Our wind was wrong and we bumped him. He made his way another 500 yards but now he cant even use his back legs, they are just dragging. For a second I thought to myself, "I should just shoot him and get this over" but the other side of me said, "hey this is part of hunting and Amber needs to finish what she started" We let him settle down and by now he had work down into a big bottom and was out of sight. We worked up to a nob with a big cedar tree right on top. I polked my head over the hill and the buck is at 50 yards, staring right at me. I drop down, get Amber moved up and we re-emerge over the hill and he is gone???? I pull up my binos searching for the buck, he was just here at 50 yards when I catch some movement out of my right eye. I turn my head and it's a big ole coyote at 50 yards trotting right down the trail of the antelope. Amber asked if she could shoot it and I said no. I watched the coyote trot down the hill and out of sight. From our vantage point we could see the far ridge for about 270 degrees and I was confident the buck hadn't left the bottom. We had about 20 yards to go before we could see the entire bottom so we slowly crept forward glassing and listening. Amber was about 10 feet behind me when I took one last step and bam, there's the antelope in the middle of the bottom fighting with the coyote!!!!! I signaled to Amber and she crept forward and got setup. The buck never even knew we were there, he had other more immediate concerns. The Coyote was running circles around the buck, biting at him and the buck was doing his best to fight him off with his horns. It took Amber a few second to calm down with the chaos we were watching. I ranged him, 185 yards. Right before she shot she asked me, "after I shoot the buck can I shoot the coyote?" She dropped the buck, jacked a 2nd shell but could not get the coyote, the brush was too thick. I watched the buck drop in my binos so I knew it was over. What a relief, I almost cried. When it is was all said and done we were 2 miles from the truck. After we get down to the buck and are done with our celebration hugs and hi fives she looks at me and says "next time I'll shoot the coyote first."

The buffalo don't cross the fence they just run it over. It's not like the fence on the boundary is 10' high chain link. There are places up there where the fence is layin on the ground for hundreds of yards. These topics drive me nuts.

We have coyote to thank.

She got it done early Rattle Snake - check Tarantula - check Deer - check Coyote - check Antelope - check check check story to come....

Good Luck

In very good condition. 9 out of 10. These are the best of the best. These already have the outdoorsmans stud in for the very best tripod setup($50 cost). Comes with everything as they do new including box and papers. The warranty card has been sent in but with Swarovski the warranty goes with the binos regardless of owner. Bought from fellow CW member. If purchased from CW i'll throw in an outdoorsmans tripod adapter and donate $20 to CW. $2300 Call text or pm Andy 6O2-881-O61O

Wow

SPF

Sure which spotter?

Over the last few years I have really fallen in love with my Havalon. But I was up at Hunters Headquarters in Flag and a new knife caught my eye. This is tuff to do, I haven't even considered another knife for several years. I'm not much for writing reviews but I thought you guys n gals should check this one out. Just like the Havalon it has removable blades but it is much easier and seems to be much safer to remove the blades compared to the Havalon. The blades on the Outdoor Edge are much sturdier then the Havalon. The overall weight is more then the Havalon but the Razor Blaze just "feels" better in my hand so I will accept the weight difference. We've got a few tags in the St. John house this year so hopefully I will have a chance to put the new knife to the test. Check it out and let me know what you think. By the way, I have never understood why people buy camo knives or camo wallets??? If you drop a camo wallet or knife in the woods you can kiss it good bye for sure.

http://www.mountainoptics.com/

Sunday bump

Now that the crazyness has subsided and I am confident in my ability to get another one down the road I am parting with my Remington R15 223. Less than 200 rounds through it. Full Max 1 Camo, comes with 3 - 30 round mags, 2 - 5 round mags, new Nikon Coyote Special 4-14 X 40 Scope in matching Max 1 camo, hard case and 100 rounds of ammo. $1700.00 $1500.00 or trade for high end spotter. If it sells here I will donate $50.00 to CW.com Text or PM is best. Andy 6O2-881-O61O

Nice work

I have bought and sold lots of hunting gear, trying to make a little on each deal till I worked up to what i want. When my wife and I got married we agreed she would get her ring and I got a pair of Vortex Kaibabs. I liked them but didn't love them so I bought and sold binos for about a year and a half till I had the cash saved up for my 12x50 Swaros. I spent $850 of our money on the Kiababs but the rest of the money for my Swaros came from buying and selling binos and bows. also, I always buy used, with the way our tag system works here in AZ, most guys gear up for their tag then sell off their stuff since they won't have a tag for a couple more years. My buddies tease me but, other then a few sentimental rifles everything I own is for sale for the right price. When gas prices rise, my scouting trips get cut back though.

Sorry for your loss. All dogs go to heaven, I'm sure of that.

Arrows, I did that once on an elk hunt.

I would buy the best you can afford today, take good care of them, use them for a season or two and sell them when you have some more money saved up. Eventually you will work your way up to Swaros but there's no rush. They haven't changed them, other then a lens coating or two, in 15 years. The 12x56 nikons are really good for the money and you can pick up a used set for cheap. I would recommend the 12x56 nikons over the 15x51 bruntons. As mentioned before the 15x58 minox are good for the dough too.

The answer to your questions is yes there are panheads out there that compare and don't cost an arm and a leg. I have had the Jim White, Outdoorsmans panhead, Slik 707E and the Velbon 157Q. Right now I am using the Outdoorsmans pistol grip with the Outdoorsmans panning attachment. My backup is the Slik 707E. The difference between the high end models and the lower end stuff is mostly weight and smoothness. Do a little searching on Ebay and you can find one for cheap. If you like to spend your money local contact Amanda or Jim White, you might pay a couple bucks more but at least you know where the money is going. Manfrotto has a coupe good ones but I haven't used their stuff. Velbon Slik

I think there were 185 max pointers going into the sheep draw. I may not be exact but it was close to that.

Price Drop $1500.00. Would also trade for a clean pair of 15X swaros.

"not a close friend but someone i known since high school" Did I miss something?

Here my 2 cents and its just a guess. Being new to the guiding game the guide/friend just wants to take some guys out for a discount and have them kill big bucks or bulls so he can use the pics to show the he had "clients" with success. Not such a bad deal if you ask me. Better then putting up pics of your buddies hunts that were not guided and claiming to be a guide. Anterfreak sounds like you could use some pointers. Your buddy slash "not a close friend" slash new guide, needs a client. I say spend the $300 and learn as much as you can from the "guide". It will make you a better hunter for sure.