thegunsmith2506

For some reason 8 years ago I decided I was going to kill a bear with my bow. I have dedicated many hours to this pursuit. Calling, glassing, sitting water, I tried it all. I have yet to fulfill this goal. About 3 years ago my sister's boyfriend mentioned that he would like to start hunting. I figured he would be like most beginners I know and lose intrest after a few trips. I was amazed at his dedication! I have a passion for hunting and calling predators, he seems to share that passion. From the very first hunt , he was determined to kill a bear with a bow. We have spent countless hours in pursuit of these animals. Although he has made a few gun kills, Jason had never made an archery kill until this day..... This year we didn't have much time to bear hunt due to other hunts we had drawn. We hunted for 7 days in the spring, and for a few days in August, but just didn't have the time to get serious. I guess its safe to say that if the season is open, and we are in the field, we are always bear hunting. This wasn't a dedicated bear hunt though. Heck, we hadn't even had a bear on camera at this spot. There was a little sign, but they just wouldn't come by the camera. This had been our deer spot in August. Jason had sat in his stand for 9 days with no bucks and no bears back in August. Deer season was over now, and I don't know why we decided to sit these stands but here I was. It was 4pm on a Saturday and I was tucked away in my groundblind on a good trail. Jason was 400yds behind me sitting in a ladder stand over looking a little basin. Shots are limited here, so we usually just carry a bow. I was just sitting there enjoying the fresh evening air when I glanced at my phone. I had a txt from Jason. I was sure it was going to be a pic of turkeys. The turkeys were in his little basin every night tearing up the acorns. He had been having a blast watching them from his stand. Instead of a pic, I had a txt. "Get over here now! I just shot Yogi!". Huh.... Jason can be a bit goofy at times. Don't get me wrong, it does keep things interesting, but its hard to know what he is thinking. I thought he was kidding around, so I txt back asking if he was serious. "Get over here now!" was all I got back. Huh..... I guess he actually saw a bear. So about 20 txt later I talked him into meeting me back at the jeep. I still didn't believe he had actually killed a bear. He was at the Jeep long before I got there. He proceeded to tell me how this big bear had walked up the trail behind the camera and looked straight up at him. Took him a couple of trys to get his bow drawn, but he finally made a shot. He wasn't sure of the hit, but he had found blood when he got down from his stand. "What? you found blood?". Now I was convinced he had actually shot a bear. We dumped most of our gear at the Jeep, and headed up to his stand. Light was fading fast, but we found blood and started trailing. Almost an hour later we were 200yds away with no trail, and things were not looking good. Jason was unsure of the shot. He thought it looked good at the time, but was starting to second guess himself. I wasn't too keen on tracking this bear with nothing more than a flashlight in my hands. It was time to head back to the Jeep for better lights, and a gun. I headed downhill towards a well used trail that would take us back to the Jeep. I had never seen that poor guy so down on himself. He was just sick thinking he had made a bad shot. I don't know why, but for some reason I shined my light off the trail about 20yds to my left. There was a big brown lump under an Oak tree. No way... I walked over to it and sure enough, there she lay. A beautiful brown colored Black Bear. Piled up less than 200yds from the stand, straight down a steep hill. His shot was good. The Copperhead broadhead had done its job well. Lots of backslaps and high fives and we were headed back to the Jeep. We were able to get within about 800yds of his bear with the jeep. Its a good thing cause I was beat by the time we dragged her that far. It was 2:30am when we finally got her in the freezer. I have never been so exausted! G&F aged her at 6-7 years old. Congrats buddy on a great bear! You earned it! We took pics after we got her down off the mountain.

Been using a Dead Coyote choke and it patterns #4 ok out to about 45yds. It shoots the BB's great inside 35yds. I really want it to pattern better so I need to put some more time into working up a good combo for it. I think I might start loading for it this next season. As far as the shotgun goes, its by far the best I have ever used!

I have used everything from #4 Turkey loads to 00 buck. I really don't like anything smaller than BB's for coyotes. In my experience it seems like the smaller shot just can't break bones as well. When skinning the ones shot with turkey loads I found a lot of pellets just under the hide. I know a lot of guys have great luck with them, but I prefer larger pellets. The last few years I have had pretty good luck with the Remington HD BB's. If you catch them on sale they aren't too bad, but normal prices is over $30 a box. I use 3in lead BB's for the really thick stuff where I know the shots will be close, and if I am calling for fox. If I am in more open yote country, I use 3-1/2 #4buck or 3-1/2 HD BB's. The last shot in the mag is always 3-1/2 00buck. I like the larger shot if I have to shoot at a wounded dog running off. I think the most important thing is to know how your gun patterns, and know your limits. I have been lucky a few times at longer ranges, but anymore I keep my shots under 50yds.

My dad, buddy, and I went to Showlow last weekend for a little fishing. We fished Big Lake on Friday and did ok. It was probably the worst fishing I have had there, but it was a great day with my dad. The weather was brutal on Friday with high winds and some snow! We tried Showlow Lake on Saturday and did a lot better. We caught all these fish trolling lures of one kind or another. This was only the second time my dad and I have fished together in the last 12 years. It is great to see him back out enjoying the outdoors. The highlights were a: 19in, 17in, and a few in the 15in range. Only a couple little fish were caught on Friday.

Nice Job! Took me a long time to call my first cat.

Rhondas did a terrible job on my elk last year. I will never go there again! All the meat was very dirty and not trimmed at all.

Finally got a chance to get out and start off the calling season. My buddy and I grew up calling coyotes in the southern part of Az together. He joined the USAF about 10 years ago and we haven't been able to hunt together too much since then. When we do get together its usually for a spring turkey hunt. Anyway, he moved back this year and drew a deer tag for this October. We got out to do a bit of calling and scouting. He had never killed a fox so our goal for the day was to get a nice Grey into shotgun range. About 9am after a little scouting I picked a stand that has produced a few foxes in the past. Less than 5min into the bird distress I saw this big fox slipping through the scrub brush. I had the gun up, and followed him in, but held off in hopes that my buddy would see him. When the fox was about 10 feet from the call I saw him lift his gun. A shot of 3in lead BB's and he was down for the count. Two stands later I called in a young male coyote with the Psyco Tweety. My buddy got him with some 3in #4 buck at about 20yds. It was a great start for the season.

I was sitting in my blind in unit 8 last weekend and heard a few bugles. Seemed a little early to me.

Here are a few of the better pics from where we plan to hunt elk and deer this year. First rubbed bull of the year.

If you look back at my other posts you can see this bull before and after he damaged his horn.

Congrats!

Here are a few pics from our deer and elk cams. Can't wait till the 19th!

We had thousands of pics for our 4 cameras. All 4 were dead after 5 weeks in the woods. Here are just a few of the pics we got.

Finally got out to collect a few pictures from the elk cams this weekend. We had over 5000 pictures since the first part of April. I was shocked to see that we had several pictures of a bull missing about 1/2 of his rear leg. I think we have pictures of him from last year in the same spot with all 4 legs. We have lots of deer this year as well as elk and turkeys.

Hey Blake, I am using the little Tasco cams (same size as the bushnell's), they take 4 or 5 AA batteries. I had one cam out for almost 6 months and it took over 1500 pics and was still going. They aren't the greatest pics, but the cams seem to work good. We got them for 79.99 on sale last year, and I think they were a good buy. I like my Moultries better, but the 6 D batteries get really expensive to replace every 4 weeks. The biggest problem for me, they are only good to about 15ft in the dark. Aside from that, they are great.