Red Rabbit

Thanks for the comments. I would like to photo that NT again before he rubs the velvet and disappears into the forest. The hard part will be getting lucky and seeing him again. Stan, this should be a nice weekend to take the kids camping. I had taken a photo of that flower "rainbow" on Monday, but somehow managed to cut off the tops of the trees . Of course, that was the needed reason to return to Mormon Lake . Larry, no, I forget the decoy. The first ones were bedded in the tall grass and could not see, so I just walked out into the lake bed. The second group was only 200 yards from a rancher's camp and a running generator. I walked towards them trying to keep a tree in between. Light was failing fast, so I moved quickly. Doug

Monday evening, we tried to get close to a few bulls out in the middle of Mormon Lake. The gig was up rather quickly, and the elk trotted further to the middle of the basin. There seemed to be plenty (hundreds) of cows and calves in the lake, but not many bulls this evening. Next time I will try walking behind the Montana elk decoy to see if that eases the bulls' fears. So, we walked back towards the vehicle, stopping to photograph the flowers and a vibrant rainbow over the carpet of gold. Lastly, we stopped as Marshall Lake for the sunset, as the cloud structure looked very promising. Not much water is left in the lake, with only a few inches over the mud flats. Thanks for looking, Doug

Ryan, did you get the full-blown CS5 version?

With View NX, I am adjusting the RAW file's white balance, exposure, picture control, and D-lighting, and then converting to tiff. In Photoshop Elements 9, I am taking the tiff file and adjusting levels, brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpening, then leveling and cropping. For the web, these are resized, file quality reduced, and saved as jpegs. The two images with sunsets from Marshall Lake are blends of two exposures, one for the land and one for the sky. The others are single exposures that have been processed. I do adjust the camera's white balance to close-to-conditions, and adjust exposure by looking at the histogram after each shot to check for under or overexposures. Doug

Pretty interesting video. I am surprised that you did not wear a heavy leather glove on the feeding hand. Doug

Friends and I drew leftover coues permits for unit 36C Nov 4-10. We did not get our first choice. Doug

Devin, I really like the habitat of the double antelope base. Doug

For Ice, I have found that the 2L soda bottles filled 4/5 with water and frozen in the deep freeze work very well. Fill your meat chest full of the frozen bottles. Be sure to stick one up the neck to the base of the skull if you do not fully cape the head. (I also use the frozen bottles in the regular ice chest so the food does not get wet from melting ice.) I prefer the 2L soda bottles over gallon water and milk jugs as the soda bottles are stronger and do not crack and leak. When I came back from Wyoming last fall after the successfull antelope hunt, I kept the head and cape in a chest and would keep dry ice on/around it during the week I was photographing in Colorado on the extended drive home. Most grocery stores and SuperWalmarts carry dry ice.

Chris- it's been a "few" years since Mormon Lake had fish (and sometimes water), but thinking they were mostly pike. Sorry to mislead you Larry- yes, we have high pollen warnings up here. Maybe why one common yellow flower is called "sneeze weed". The sunflowers are just starting to bloom. Stan- Lake Mary is rimmed in yellow. Suspect most of the parks will be yellow rather soon. Thanks for looking.

Some things I rarely heard mentioned about the supposed "good" of an intense fire is the soil erosion and how the many many years it takes for the soil to form, the proliferation of invasive weeds, and the seemingly impassible tangle of deadfall on the floor in a few years after the fire.

No December tag was awarded in the draw, so I have applied for a leftover in 34A or 36C.

Thanks. These were taken with a combination of Nikon gear. D90, 16-35mm f/4, 70-300 f/4.5, 300mm f/4, 1.4tc, tripod.

Saturday was another monsoon day in northern Arizona . Looked like it would be a good opportunity to hike out to Indian point overlooking Sedona for some evening photos. The sun poked through a hole on the clouds for about 30 minutes before going back and hiding behind the grey moisture and preventing any colorful sunset. Doug

Thanks for looking and the feedback. We have only received one good dumping of rain at the house and a few light showers. We could still use more heavy rains (but not heavy over the burns).

Their antler growth is looking good.

Are you going to do something different than your norm this coues season? Why the change? Hunt a new and different unit? Try bowhunting for the first time? Use a recurve instead of a compound bow? Spot and stalk rather than sit in a stand over water or salt? Backpack hunt instead of having a cushy base camp? Use a 30-30 instead of an UltraMag?

Were you able to investigate the wound channel? What tissues and bones did they penetrate? Did they exit? Pics of recovered bullets?

oppossum = flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.

O, beware of...the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

Unit 66 in CO. In AZ, unit 9

From the Kaibab NF map: Parking along designated Routes Motor vehicles may be parked up to 30 feet from the edge of the road surface when it is safe to do so without causing damage to NFS resources or facilities, unless prohibited by state law, a traffic sign, or an order(36CFR261.54). Motorized dispersed camping is prohibited off designated routes. Obtain a recreation map from your USDA-FS office for more information. So if I read this correctly, travel trailers, RVs, tent trailers and vehicles cannot be more than 10 yards from the road for dispersed camping. What happened to wording for use of the pre-existing sites?

Did you keep it for belt or hatband material?

1011 is the rifle deer hunt in unit 10. Mostly mule deer. You can hunt with a bow during the rifle season (but you can also archery hunt for deer in unit 10 during the regular archery season in Aug19-Sep8 and again starting Dec 9 if you purchase the archery deer permit). The area from the airport to the golf course and further west is popular. Sounds like you may be able to bowhunt your friends property? Have a fun hunt.

On the way back from Sycamore Point overlooking Sycamore Canyon, a stop was made Sunday morning to look for waterfowl at JD Dam. These images are heavily cropped as the birds were 20-70 yards away. Ruddy Duck Canada Geese Red Winged Blackbird Pronghorn on Garland Prairie from about 300 yards away taken during the morning drive home. And a rock shot from Sycamore Point Saturday evening

If you daughter drew the Nov rifle bull tag, hunting the rim for coues in late October may reveal some bulls in their hangouts for a month later