Couestracker

This is a great thread! Lancetkenyon, you sir are a very lucky man to have shared and learned so much with your Dad. I have to admit I shed some tears when you mentioned your Christmas present to your parents. Awesome family you have! Thank you for sharing your story! Of course it made me think of my Father and how I wished I had even a few of the opportunities that you had had. So I got into hunting by being taken at a young age by my Father, Grandfather and Uncle when they went deer hunting in the Chiricahuas. We lived in Tucson back then, I still don't know why they wanted to hunt there when they had ample opportunities in the surrounding mountains. But man, what an adventure it was getting there back then, I'm guessing it was 1964. I recall riding with my Uncle Rob in his 48 Buick Roadmaster with a fluid drive transmission. I liked that car, looked like a upside-down bathtub with wheels. I was impressed that the hood would swing open from either side or from the front like all other cars. Anyway, I don't remember what my Dad drove up there, no one had trucks back then I know. I recall getting there at night and taking some terrible "roads" through the woods-we had to get out often to stack rocks in the washed out areas so the cars could get through. I was too young to hunt deer (well that's what I thought for years until I learned otherwise. Now I know I could have, because I was about 12, just don't know why they didn't let me) so I went out squirrel hunting with my Grandfather's .22 automatic rifle - don't remember the brand-but I remember I could shoot it well. So well, I came back into camp carrying almost more squirrels than I could carry and thinking how awesome it was going to be when they saw how successful I had been. Holy cow, my Grandfather came unglued and ripped me a new one. He was mad because I killed way too many and so he made me clean every one of those squirrels and I ate squirrel until I got almost sick. Learned some ethics and conservation ideals over that. Next day I went out hunting again (no squirrels!) for whatever, when I saw this rather large bird. Of course I shot it, thinking it might be good to bring back and eat. Man my Grandfather about had a cow when he saw that bird-turned out to be a blue grouse-yelling at me about how it's a protected species, it's not even grouse season and you need a special license and bird stamp, etc. I got in trouble over that one. He made me clean it, we burned the feathers and all of the remnants. Afterwords we cooked it over the fire-it was pretty good! Anyway, learned another important lesson that day. So as the years passed, they all quit hunting after a few trips, I would hunt quail, dove and rabbits with my best friend Rick after school and the weekends. We'd shoot the birds' heads off with our .22's and cook the birds over a fire in the desert. We took salt and pepper out with us. Only killed what we wanted to eat at the time. Never occurred to us to shoot a bunch and bring home the dinner. I would go and spend weekends at my Grandparents place often. I was the only one of us 6 kids that wanted to. I loved my Grandmothers cooking, she'd cut corn off the cob and cook it in butter-yummy! And biscuits, cookies, pies-what were my siblings thinking. I loved watermelon, so my Grandmother would stop at the roadside fruit stand and pick one up. I would eat the whole thing before I went home. My Grandfather and I would play cribbage for hours. I remember my Grandfather called me (my parents most likely) I think I was about 16, and asked if I wanted to go deer hunting with him to the Chiricahuas. Man was I excited! It never occurred to me then that I could have gotten a tag too and tried my hand at it, I was just so thrilled with the idea of getting to go with him on a hunt. He had a 67ish Dodge dart, 6 cyl 3-on-the tree. Man that clutch got to stinking going up the mountain. He darned near got his door handle knocked off in a turn by a vehicle going down the mountain. I never seen him so mad-except maybe the grouse incident, lol. Seemed like forever, but we finally got to Onion Saddle and we got out of the car. I'll never forget how anxious I was for this hunt, a chance to help him on a hunt as an "adult"- well, grown up more anyways. So he walks around a few minutes, didn't even go for a hike looking for sign or anything, and says "Nope, nope, not any good, let's go home". I was shocked and confused and didnt understand, but man was I ever heartbroken! To this day I don't know why he did that. That was the last time I ever got out anywhere with him. A couple of years later, I graduated from High School and soon joined the Navy. His health took a bad turn and he passed away that next year. Several years ago, I traded a shovel full of dirt from his grave with some from Onion Saddle. On one of my hunts in unit 29, I took that dirt and spread it out in Onion Saddle and I carved his initials in a juniper tree. I go up there every hunt and cleanup the area and have a beer or two. Anyway, I loved to hunt, but didn't until I moved to Phoenix after getting out of the Navy and got a job at Airesearch Manufacturing Co. in 1978. I soon got married and made friends with Mike, who worked at Honeywell with my wife. We began deer hunting every year together. More like camping with guns! I now know we didn't have a clue about it, but we still had a lot of fun. We kinda got out of the hunting thing for a bunch of years and life changes. But I still had the bug. I had friends at work that would go elk hunting together. Man, I never even thought of going elk hunting before, but when I heard them talking about it, my bug got to itching bad. I worked on my friends for a couple of years to let me go with them. Finally they said ok, but you have to go take the Game and Fish hunting safety course first. I signed up for the week-long evening course in 1999. That's when I made friends with Jorge, now one of my best friends and constant hunting partner, but that's another story. So I passed the course and me and my 3 friends put in for a late bull hunt for unit 1 in the next year, 2000. And we got drawn! That hunt was the most awesome of my life (up to then), I shot my first elk, a 5x5, out of a running herd on opening morning in 9 degree weather, in knee deep snow! I'll never forget that sight, it was like a movie, the elk were running up a ridge in front of us, about 80 yards away, mostly single file, steam blowing from their noses-it seemed like 2 feet in front of them-I watch.all this through my Leupold scope on my Browning .308 BAR. I waited until my friend Bob shot, then I looked for a bull to go by, I saw a nice one, so I fired and my 5 by 5 fell out of the group. I got my first ever elk! I was hooked for sure after that, and have been hunting like crazy ever since. I didn't mean to write my life story, I might have gone overboard a little. ☺ Thanks for reading though! Happy hunting everyone and Happy Holidays to all.

Good luck on your hunt! Which unit are you headed to? Please post some success pictures and the "story"!

Awesome vintage photo. That thing has tons of mass! Thanks for sharing that.

Sorry about that-learn something new every day! Thanks! Good luck on your hunt buckmaster21.

Uh, 19B is WAY up the road from Picacho Peak.

Where's the picture? I have a friend looking to buy an AR. Can you post the recent pic please? Thanks.

Wow! Monster buck there. That's an eastern whitetail, isn't it? Was it free ranging? Big congratulations to your son-in-law!

Welcome to the site and good luck on the hunt.

Very cool! Congratulations on getting one down, good luck with the next one!

That's extra awesome you got one with a bow! But the video is unavailable.

Very cool pictures and some nice bulls too. Even one bugling! That shed was too white to have come from any bull in the pictures, plus wrong time of year if the dates were correct. Thanks for sharing those pictures!

Really awesome find! Massive/long eyeguards on that guy. My guess is 107".

Going after Christmas.

Congratulations to your wife on her super buck! That's a big neck on that dude. Thanks for sharing her success with us.

Nice bull! Congrats on finally tagging your first bull. Come on, want to read the "continued" part. ☺

Sorry we couldn't make it over Keith, looks like everyone had a good time. Thanks for hosting the get together! Merry Christmas to you and yours. Tommy

Looks yummy! Agreed, will you share the recipe? Man, sorry, I guess I'm just a diehard hunter, it looks like the burrito got gut shot, lol!

Awesome! Congratulations to her on her 1st. That's a huge cow!

Yes, quite the spots you have there, smorgasbord of some nice critters! Thanks for sharing and I hope we get to see 1 or more of those wearing a tag!

Merry Christmas to you and Peg. Hopefully Julie and I can stop by for a visit. I'll call first of course. ☺

i can't see it.It was pictured in earlier post, "out breaking in the barrel".

Congratulations on the draw success! I know you'll tag a big one, can't wait to hear about it and see some pictures!

Nice job on the dogs! Looks like you trained them to heel! Nice picture and nice shed. Congratulations on your double!

What an awesome buck! Congratulations to Anthony on his success.

I had a Tikka Whitetail Hunter in .270 WSM. When I first started shooting it, I had to quit early because my shoulder was killing me. Put a Sims Vib Lab pad on it and I could shoot it as much as I needed to after that.