rossislider

Don't know how I missed this till now! Congratulations and thanks for the shout out for Draysen.

I enjoyed living the hunt vicariously through your Facebook posts. Thanks and huge congratulations!

This was just posted today. It seems very rare when one of these Hunter Education courses gets offered in our neck of the woods, so I thought I would post it up for my fellow southeast valley people. The dates are the week of January 22nd, 2018. Classes are Monday (1/22), Tuesday (1/23), Wednesday (1/24), and Thursday (1/25) evenings from 6:00-9:00 PM at Heart Cry Church off of Sossamon and the Hunt Highway. The field day will be Saturday (1/27) for 8:00 AM-12:00 PM at the east Mesa AZGFD office. I have my 9 year old daughter signed up and hope to see a few of you join us. 26 of 30 seats still available as of now, but I am guessing this will fill up quick! The field day does conflict with the youth javelina hunts. So if we can't get my son tagged out on opening day, Friday the 26th, I may have to send my wife with our daughter to the field day. https://www.register-ed.com/programs/arizona/112-arizona-hunter-education-course

Done

Going that compact it going to cost you on the stability end. I can't think of anything of quality that meets your parameters.

When you brine in the bucket of ice, is that deboned meat, whole quarters, etc. and do you have salt (and how much) in that brine?

I'm a bit old school and still use a traditional wood smoker with logs from a local wood supplier. There was a much steeper learning curve with it than the others you mentioned. But once I get my fire going and stabilized, I can go for at least 10-12 hours without touching it and keep my temperature within 5 degrees. I started smoking long before pellet grills were a thing. Every now and then I contemplate upgrading to a newer version, probably a RecTec. But ultimately I am too cheap and take some pride in doing it the traditional way.

Should make for interesting late bull hunts. A lot of your scouting in this warm weather we have had this year may be affected. I'd be prepared to change up my plan to more traditional late hunt areas and patterns once that weather hits.

Great analogy. I have been trying to put my finger on it to explain that to other people. Thats why I went from havalon to outdoor edge. Outdoor edge feels like a regular knife I have and use both. For my son's taxidermy euro business. he uses Havalon because the are razor sharp, about 1/4 the price to buy in bulk, and are fantastic for caping skulls. In the field I pack the Outdoor Edge for the reasons you mention.

Good price for this pack. Kifaru is by far the best and most comfortable pack I have ever put on my back.

Thanks elkster9 for referring your friend. Draysen finished up his deer last night. Awesome big old desert muley!

I'd like to get the Vortex Diamondbacks 10x42s at Cabelas for $129 for my kids. But I'm not driving from San Tan Valley to Cabelas and waiting in line at midnight for them. But if any one is going and wants to grab a pair for me...

That was me, I just changed my name . When can I come pick it up.

Yup, been there and done that more than a few times!!!

Hey guys, I have been following this post but have refrained from commenting because I think you guys all have great suggestions and don't want to come across as a know it all or suggest that any of you are doing anything wrong. If you are doing something that works for you, stick with it. I'd thought I would just ad the two bits that I have learned with my son. As many of you know my son got licensed and started his own skull cleaning business early this year. Since then we have probably cleaned in the neighborhood of 250-300 skulls and have learned a lot about what works best FOR US. 1. Simmering (not boiling) in Dawn or Oxi powder both work great, in fact we often use a combination of the two which seem to give us the best results. Be cautious of the amount of Oxi you use, too much seems to accelerate the simmering process and can break down the bone more than you might like, leaving the bone on the drier/chalkier side. Watch your skulls carefully through the simmering process and avoid simmering more than once if possible! We have had multiple skulls brought to us for repair that were "overcooked", and the final product really shows it. Once that tissue on the bridge of the nose splits and is pulling back from the bone, get it out of the pot. We have a bull right now that was dropped off to us for repair that is in rough shape and super fragile because of a poor initial cleaning. 2. You really can't beat a pressure washer after simmering to strip all of the meat off. Just watch the power (psi) and be careful on the more fragile areas (like the bridge of the nose and lose teeth). My son uses a 1600 psi electric pressure washer from Home Depot. I would be very cautious and deliberate if using anything with more power. 3. Wrapping those antlers in plastic will save you a lot of work with recoloring, however, it is tough and there are some circumstances where you will want to tough up the color a bit. We have found Minwax stain in the the colors Provincial and Early America applied carefully by dabbing with a q-tip are your best bet for most southwestern antlers. Go slow and deliberate when doing this or you can end up with a mess. 4. Whitening with "40 Developer" (12% peroxide) cream painted on will get you a decent initial whitening. However, keep in mind that you are only treating the surface of the bone. This will help to loosen any remaining bits of meat and make the surface white. However, since you are not treating the entire bone structure, you will notice that you skull will start to yellow back up after a short amount of time as the residual grease (it doesn't all come out in the initial simmer) and other properties of the bone will cause your skull to yellow back up and your skull may smell a bit from the stuff that wasn't treated internally. This isn't a bad thing if that is the look you are going for. The best way to get a long term white and to treat the entire skull is with complete submersion in peroxide (be sure to wrap the antlers and do what you can to keep them out of the peroxide). We use liquid peroxide and dilute it down to between 5% and 6%. For complete submersion (especially for elk) you need about 4-5 gallons so it can be pricey for a 1 time do it yourself guy, but if you keep it in a sealed bucket, you can get quite a few skulls out of a batch. For greasier animals (pigs, bears, etc.) we have found the best degreaser (and we have tried many) is the same whitening peroxide. Throw those bears and pigs in the peroxide bucket for at least a week and it will slowly draw the grease out. You will notice the grease collecting at the top of the bucket. If you cool the peroxide it will solidify and you can scoop it out with a strainer. If you think you are done, set the skull in the sun or on a shelf for a while, and if you start to see grease spots within a few days, throw it back in the peroxide. Anyhow, I hope this helps some of you out. Again, I don't suggest that our method is better than anyone else's, it really comes down to what look you want and what resources you have available to you. We have continued to refine and change our method a lot since we first started and have found that thus far this method has by far and away given us the best results.

I like most of you have suffered my share of meet processing nicks and cuts from rushing through an animal. I see a couple of others have mentioned the cut proof gloves. I have mentioned them on a couple of other posts in the past and strongly recommend them. Obviously, nothing replaces slowing down and safe practices, but these have been MONEY for me. They are skin tight stretchy material, weigh under an ounce, take up virtually no room in my kill kit, are relatively cheap, and give me a lot of added grip. I've tested them using a brand new Havalon blade with a fair amount of pressure (I did not have my hands in the gloves) and there were no signs of cuts on the glove. Also, to wash, I rinse and soak in soapy warm water and then throw them in the washing machine. Mine have been used on multiple animals and are still going strong. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015MGKX4E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

One more thing I'll add. If you have the tools and supplies, it is a pretty good skill to learn. But I would refrain from trying to do something "trophy" quality for your first time. While it isn't hard, we have had a lot of skulls brought to us for repair that were over boiled, broken, etc. If anyone does want to try it themselves and just needs some coaching or tips, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Thanks for the referrals guys. Yes, my son has done work for quite a few for guys on here. Lately he has had as much work as he can handle, and space in his freezer has been the biggest challenge. But now that our hunts are over for the year, he has been working hard to get caught up. With a little help from dad, he has knocked out about 20 skulls over the past couple of weeks. He hopes to be completely caught up after the Thanksgiving weekend. We finally have freezer space again if anyone needs to drop something off. Please check out his pages and give them a like or follow. Facebook- Great Hunter Skulls Instagram- gr8hunterskullz One more side note/disclaimer, because he does these out of our home, driveway, and backyard we have neighbor considerations. We recently ran into an issue where we had some really smelly, maggot filled skulls brought to him. He doesn't mind doing them, but the neighbors had some issues with the smell. We committed to them that we wouldn't do any more rotten ones. It isn't a matter money, just necessary to maintain good relations with the neighbors and not getting in trouble with the HOA. Thank you for your understanding. That said, we have built relationships with several other guys in the valley and state that do the same type of work. Some live on large pieces of property where neighbors aren't an issue, and have said they would be happy to take any of the "smelly" ones that we can't. So we would be happy to refer you to one of these guys if you fit this situation. Most charge a fair bit more than my son, but have said they would be willing to work with any of our clients on the price. Thanks

Did he find that this year? I was up in kaibab and there was a truck parked in a camp with that sticker and had a big ole buck next to it, made me laugh, it was awesome. But i think that truck was red. Yes, I think it was just a few weeks ago. They found a couple of bucks that has gotten stuck in the mud (almost like quicksand) and had died there. They were able to get salvage tags from AZGFD and were able to keep the heads. The meat had long since expired. Nastiest and stinkiest heads my son has had to do to date. We ran into some neighbor issues with those two and have since agreed with the neighbors that we would have a policy of turning down any rotten animals. It has been hard to tell a couple of guys that we couldn't help them. But it is that or risk potentially getting shut down by the HOA and having bad relationships with neighbors.

Yikes, that is a dangerous practice.

Would you allow those parties/organizations to put your logo on their campaign signs? It makes it appear you have signed on and are complicit. Not a wise business practice to do it so blindly, if that is the case.

I used to like there pizza as well. Never again.

My son did a euro for him (pictured below) on a nice "fresh" deadhead he found up in the Kiabab. Really nice guy. I asked him about the sticker. I think he is working on getting a brand together and out there. I wish him luck and hope it does very well for him.

That is awesome! Congratulations.

We're going to have a BIG camp next year cause I was thinking the same thing....lol Congrats Draysen!! Someone might as well take advantage of his luck. My daughter turns 10 next year. If she has half the luck her brother has had I won't have time to hunt for myself. Good thing I only ever draw when I have max points. After the deer hunt was over, we got her out for a little practice.