GotBowAz

Sweet buck, great write up and tribute to your friend. Is it the picture or is the nose on your buck messed up? Those little gray ghosts are tough! There tougher to kill.

Take it for what it's worth but I killed a good Iowa whitetail after peeing in his scrape. id pee in it every morning and every evening as I came into the stand and left. He was nocturnal, id find his track in my pee in his scrape every day. He finally showed up mid day for a 20 yard shot. I also pee'd out of my stand and had a young 8 point buck walk directly under me and give it a sniff. I almost LOL!

I hang my bow in my game room on the wall next to the patio door. It looks like it belongs there next to my mounts and is very easy to grab and shoot off the back patio.

Awesome story Don. Glad your out there getting it done for these kids! That boy will never forget this hunt.

I dont know if this public land beyond the ranch is inaccessible or not. IMO, anyone that owns land and it supports Elk or deer with water, feed and habitat they should charge and have the right to charge whatever they want for people to hunt on it for your/our ELK. It's their fences, their water tanks, habitat and their feed that the elk are either consuming or destroying not to mention what hunters would do in addition to their property. Why shouldn't they charge? are you repairing it? However, If their property locks out public land then they should have to grant an easement through their property to get to that public land "UNLESS" there is another access road into it. If there is a road or access granted by Forest Service then quit your complaining and use it even if it takes miles to get around the ranch. With that said, I dont have a lot of money and I wont pay their high dollars to hunt their properties. It's their right to charge but my right to hunt the public land they may or may not have locked out. Many of you are not from the northeastern states where everyone owns land with very little public. You either lease someone else property to hunt it above and beyond your tag and hunting fees, or you own and dont cross boundaries,. Most leases are average $2000.00. With that being said $500.00 dollars is getting off cheap if you ask me. Yup, I've watched many of really booner bucks across a fence on a neighboring property I did not have permission to hunt on. It's frustrating but it is how it is. Oh and I helped pay for the monster to get as big as he did too, he spent all summer before hunting season on my place. We have it made in Arizona public land hunting.

Big congrats on your buck and a great write up as well.

I assume your talking about this time of year and not summer? In which case there shouldn't be any snakes out so cross that worry off your list. These are the things I take into consideration. First are the rocks and for this I like to use trekking poles.Even with a good bright headlamp you will find in the dark placing your feet in places that cause lack of balance. I use the Slip System umbrella/blind trekking pole which works great and i get multiple uses out of it in my glassing spots. I always have one heck of a uphill walk into my glassing spots so i tend to get really hot. I only wear a long sleeve shirt on the way in and take an extra to change into once I have reached my destination, then put on my warm coats, gloves, face mask etc. etc... I try to get to my spot at least 30 minutes ahead of daylight for the same reasons others have mentioned here. But what wasn't mentioned was having enough time to let your body cool down so that is doesn't fog up your Binoculars and in my case my glasses. Nothing more frustrating than at daylight to see a nice deer your trying to keep track of and you have to keep wiping off your lenses every minute so you can see to bed him down.

Agree with stiffer spine, you are also taking away from front of center weight with your lighted knocks as they weigh a bit more than standard knocks so increase your FOC and your arrows will react and correct quicker. So yes a heavier head weight would go a long way.

azhamill, you must be really close to dry firing your bow. Speed guy huh? One day you will shoot a big game animal and wonder why your penetration stinks and the blood trail is minimal at best. Light arrows dissipates energy/momentum extremely quick no matter how fast it gets there. If someone threw a ping pong ball and a golf ball at you, which would you rather get hit with? Ping pong ball got there faster but it doesn't hit as hard. GreyGhost is spot on. at least 15 to 17 percent FOC and 350 to 400 grains total arrow weight with COC fixed heads would be a good set up for the OP's wife.

May I ask how heavy your arrow is combined with the head? Mechanicals get such a bash on penetration issues which is mostly due to operator error. Shooting a light arrow with any mechanical is going to give you crappy penetration, specifically with a 3 blade mechanical. I shoot 600 grains total arrow weight or better with mechanicals for Elk and sense I dont like to change my set up I use that for deer as well. A new bow is not the answer, it is nice and makes heavier set ups fly a little flatter but this is not the fault of your bow. Read up on Front Of Center (FOC) and the remarkable advantages is gives any set up combined with a heavy arrow and you should achieve total pass troughs with any mechanical unless its a shoulder/Spine hit.

Another vote for the Infinity Edge, I bought this bow fro my grandson when he was 10 and 5 foot 2 inches, I have had to adjust it as he grew a few times! He is now 14 years old 6' 4" and 30" draw. Man I hope he quits growing! I was able to change his draw lengths with out a bow press and with the binary system this thing re tunes so easily. He started out at 25 lb draw and is now at 50 pound draw and still has room to grow. Also, im not sure about the other bows but you can download the complete manual on the Edge which has the instructions to make necessary adjustments.

Ed, man im sorry to hear about this. I will also get the word out to some friends in the area. I didn't realize you were moving here, welcome! Sure hope you get your rack back.

Usery is the bomb, my grandson thinks so too. Between the 3D coarse the the walk around bale ranges there is a lot of diversity. Very fun to shoot. Years ago we used to work an 8 hour day on the coarse to clean it up, stake rocks along the trails, make new trails/coarses and sift sand for the broad head range etc. etc... We got a free admission permit for a year. It was well worth it.

Will they have left handed bows set up?

Jeff, I also like the Black Accent Gold sight. I have the 4 pin slider with 0.019 pins. The fiber optics lights it up really well but keeps it from getting too bright by having a feature the darkens over the fiber optics when the sun come out. I also preferred it over others because you can get the brackets/mounts out a little further from the riser which IMO help with accuracy. Which bow have you decided on?

Sorry to hear that but I kind of figured that's where it would be found. Sad part is even if you caught them red handed there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it unless you tried to restrain them by force, which might end up with you in trouble or hurt. By the time the cops/Sheriff gets there they are on the res.

My uncle had a utv stolen in Queen Creek and the next day he went for a drive and found it on the SanTan Reservation. This! If she lives that close, must be close to me, I would go check the reservation. My neighbor got his truck back, it took some doing . He should have left it. they drove it through a barbed wire fence and then into a wash berm. its messed up. Hoping the insurance company will total it.

Big heavy duty tire chains, I never leave without them. Anyplace you can pull a trailer/camper in dry you can yank/drag out of the muddy roads. I've had all four tires locked up on my 28 foot toy hauler from the mud packed in between the tires and fenders. I literally dragged the trailer out with tire chains all the way around. once i got to the pavement i had to take each tire off and carefully remove the mud which came out in nasty thick clods. I hope these guys get out ok.

Probably someone on the reservation is a new owner of a shiny red Razor. At least that's where my neighbors new truck ended up. How close does she live to the SanTan Mountains?

This is such a cool stroy and what a pretty elk. Nice shot too! Big congrats to both of you!

Congrats, now theres some good eats!

Congrats and way to stick with it. She's going to be some good eatin! Lighting is nothing to take a chance with. Last August I just got out of my metal ladder tree stand and got less than 20 yards from it when it ( the tree and stand) was struck by lightning. That was as close as I ever want to come to a strike.

Great story and nice bull. Very cool you had some history with him also. Thanks for sharing.

Jeff, Take a look at Helly Hansons Impertech. PM sent.

I lost mine in 5BN during the elk hunt. I figured my chances of finding it are slim to non. I just bought a new one to replace it. Hope you get yours back.