Scooter

Yeah Quail is WAY out of season. Feb 9th was the closing day of General Season...

I know it's not an "Alaskan Salmon" trip- but the Great Lakes also offer some exciting action all spring and summer long on charter boats and then they run the tributaries every fall around mid-october... I grew up doing that and if you hit it right, you'll have tons of fresh Kings and some Coho along with Steelhead and big lake-run Browns.

I wish to God that my wife would go hunting with me... When I first met her she was a liberal hippie coffee-shop vegetarian. After 12 years I've managed to get her to go fishing, eating the fish we caught, get her a gun (yes, it's all hers), and during pregnancy a few years back she suddenly had a craving for poultry- so chicken and turkey were added to the menu. She even ate some of the quail I shot this past fall. She sometimes watches me clean the animals I harvest, and I kinda find that a little wierd- but it's time spent together. I'll admit, I've gone on many, many trips to do what she likes- antiques, long walks with no apparent purpose, dressage shows, malls, etc... but she has never gone hunting with me, after many, many times asked. It's a crying shame because she'd like it. She does, however, have a grudge against turkeys due to an incident when she was riding a horse through the western NY woods and a Turkey jumped out and spooked it and bucked her off pretty hard. She has agreed that someday she'll go turkey hunting. BUT, she still is very hesitant to try shooting a shotgun. I have two 20ga shotguns that she could use, but she's so afraid of the recoil that she gets psyched out and won't pull the trigger. I'll keep working on it- and it's funny because there are lots of women (including mine, sometimes) who get sore at their men for choosing to go hunting and not spending time with them, yet when asked to go along and hunt WITH their man- say "No way". Honestly, if I didn't want the hassle of her hunting with me- I wouldn't ask. I just think she would really get a kick out of the experience, it would mean the world to me, and I really believe that we would become closer as a married couple. I mean, the long drives to camp where you can just keep asking all kinds of annoying questions and talking about random crap while I just smile and nod at would seem like a perfect scenario!

Welcome!

I run the same tire. They were the best,and most affordable, in my price range. No issues with them yet. Running them on my H3 since December and they are doing pretty well. I replace the BFG Dueler AT's that were on there for about 45k miles and lots of nasty SoAZ terrain. I really am liking the Cooper's now- except that they don't have the sidewall lugs for that extra traction and protection.

I like public land... Arizona has lots of it.

It's fine, hunt with it. Deer and Elk are more attentive to motion and unnatural shapes more than they care about colors. As long as your silouhette is broken up and you can sit still, you are fine.

I personally like the Marlin 25MN in 22mag... I think it is called something different now- but that rifle can flat-out shoot!!! Put a nice piece of glass on top and let the micro-groove barrel do what it does. 7-shot magazine and it's around $250 for the rifle. The only other bolt-action rimfires I would even consider would be a few of the better Savage 93 series magnums.

That just ain't right!!!

1 1/2" on the tip of a crappie rod is kind of a big deal. Warranty that bad boy- lots of times if youo call them first they'll tell you the real story and not what's on their warranty card or website.

I'm guessing with the new grass growth down here in 35A as a result of the monument fire and which flourished during a "rainy" 2013... I'm thinking a big fire down south here along the border is gonna happen again very soon if we are not all careful.

I'm HAM huntin' this weekend... 35A. Got my 1858 Remington Cap and Ball .44 and my T/C Tree Hawk .50 sidelock carbine all dialed in at the range over the weekend and they're clean and ready to go. One poor unlucky Piggie gonna eat a chunka hot lead.

had me all excited that I'd see an arctic fox. Great job as always!!!

I have the same gun, and buffered loads of 00 buck are fine in there, won't hurt the barrel if you have your choke screwed in all the way and keep it tightened properly. You run the risk of deforming the large pellets though which can and will create "flyers" and ruin the pattern.. With only 9 (per 2.75" shell) or 15 (per 3" shell) .33 caliber pellets, that can translate to a missed or wounded animal pretty quick. Running an extra full choke you'll still get some pellet deformation and flyers with #4 buck, but you'd have more pellets (27 in a 2.75" shell and 41 in a 3" shell) of .24 caliber in the sweet spot of the pattern- so you're less likely to miss or wound an animal because of the superior pattern density. Ideally, if it were remotely affordable, I would run nothing but the Hevi-Shot Dead Coyote loads... Perfect matrix of pattern density and shot size, and patterns excellent and precisely to point of aim out of my 835 with a Carlson's Dead Coyote choke- but it's brutally expensive at $4-$5 per round and a hundred bucks plus shipping for the choke. at least the choke is useable for other loads.

Having hunted in Texas I can tell you that most of the work comes before the actual hunting season. Plus, if AZ was anything like TX as far as hunting leases go... let me just say the mantra of "pure" no-bait-no-fence hunting might change after a couple years of paying $4k-5K per year for a marginal lease in an antler-restricted county and getting skunked on bucks. Maybe not. But that's the game they play in Texas. I personally like and have employed both methods of chasing whitetails... one of them requiring more "chasing" than the other. I started my Hunting career in Western New York and I would have to be careful what gets labled "eastern hunting" and what gets labled as "Mid-Western" hunting. The Tecomate guys are not what I'd consider "Eastern".

So depressing... well, the only thing I can do now is just pour my Jim Beam out on the ground. Can't help it if I happen to miss the ground and hit my glass with three cubes in it..

I guess what I'm saying is... you have to treat .22lr ammo like trying to get Garth Brooks tickets in the early 90's.

...and this won't help much http://www.winchester.com/library/news/Pages/s22lrt-recall.aspx

CJNAZ, the facilities and machines that crank out rimfire ammunition are completely different from what they use for centerfire cartridges. You cannot re-tool an industrial automated centerfire ammo press to produce rimfire cartridges. There's more to the process than the name that's written on the box. The particular brand of ammo you use may not actually be manufactured by that same company- there's lots of contracted work through smaller regional companies. rossislider's Remington rep might be right to a degree- but I don't think that centerfire production would affect anything but the available raw material pool (copper, brass and lead supply) But I digress... The .22lr shortage continues to plague the gun-world due to massive current demand and companies trying to fulfill backorders for the 2012-2013 craziness. Demand is ultimately the reason- whether it be hoarders, price gougers, etc. The demand for .22lr is unprecedented and it will take a few years to catch up with the backorders from the big ammo retailers while still keeping tabs on with current demand. Most rimfire ammunition manufacturers are still cranking at full tilt- and I think about it kind of like the national debt clock... for every batch produced they go deeper in the hole because demand is way higher than what they can possibly produce. It'll be like this for a while, get used to it. At least the markup in most big box stores hasn't gone too far, but it has increased significantly over pre-Newtown years.

ADDICT, can you tell me a little bit about your camera setup? I saw the EOS briefly in the video but couldn't tell much more than that... I shared your video on social media and my buddies are eating it up!!! Great filming!

Availability depends on how much you are willing to pay... If you need it NOW, expect to pay a private seller upwards of .25/rd but if you have some time- get in line at the local Wal Mart every morning and hope and pray there's some left by the time you get to the counter. Stores do get them in, but ammo hoarders and price gougers are gobbling them all up instantly to either store them for the apocalypse or the gougers will be the ones selling it for .25/rd as I mentioned earlier. My advice: Take up Archery or black powder guns.

That's an old warrior of a buck!!! Great job!

I applaud you for knowing and sticking with your limitations. There are way to many non ethical hunters who would have let that arrow go and hoping it found it's mark. I'm not one who could have made that shot either. I'm certain you will be sharing a buck with us one of these days. Good luck! TJ +1! The heartbreaker is that I did take a few dozen shots at the 70 yard target on our club's range and I was making the shot very, very consistently- but once or twice every 10 arrows or so I'd drop the bow arm and it spells low and left disaster!!! I don't regret it, just motivates me to keep shooting at the range.

The last two weeks I've really spent every spare lunch hour or spare minutes trying to get a quality animal on the ground. I've been having close call after close call. Just can't seem to get the stars to align! Been primarily going after Mule deer, but my areas are closed now until the end of the season so Coues are in danger of getting the carbon kabob. Been setting up and seeing them, within easy bow range, and just haven't gotten that magical step-or-two out from thick cover. I did come to full draw Wednesday at a big bodied buck broadside in the open at 73yds, but I just couldn't bring myself to touch the release and chance it. I do practice that far on occaision- but I just had a bad feeling and couldn't settle down on the slight holdover shot. I let down and he followed his doe off over the ridge. Just can't seem to close the deal. I know if it's meant to happen, it will. Sometimes all we need are some good vibes and some motivation to keep hammering!

Unfortunately, these things happen. I really don't have an opinion on this event- I just would like to know, in the heat of this moment and with everything that led up to it, what would you do differently? What are the possible outcomes if you had waited and he was armed? It's just a bad deal all around. Just tell it like it is... a situation where someone had to make a decision (to shoot or not to shoot) that they will have to live with their entire life.