Sneaker

In my opinion, nothing is more deadly than a secluded water when it hasn't rained for 3+ weeks and with bucks coming in during the daylight multiple times a week. That scenerio is pretty impossible to beat for lethality, but it usually requires alot of scouting, cameras, and prior knowledge of an area to really get your odds high. Without those, your odds are horrible picking a random water and setting up a blind. Even in deer country, sometimes I only get daylight visiting bucks on a consistent basis on 1 in 20 waters, for instance. Many times they will act like one water is the best thing on earth one year, the next year nothing will touch it and they are watering miles away, same month of the year. FYI, blinds really cook during the middle of the day, lots of frozen drinks help. If it rains, cancel any water plans, no matter how excited you were about them, until its been dry for a couple weeks. That being said, spot and stalk is more fun and can be very deadly if you glass them early and watch them bed down. You just have to be physically acclimated to do a suffer fest heat stalk in the middle of the day, and be able to get the meat taken care of asap. Are you the kind of person that will exercise in 95+ degree heat? Thats kind of what it takes to do desert August hunts, and be good at them, and not die, in my opinion:)

If you can access state trust land by using other public lands or right-of-ways, then you can legally hunt on it during season(hunting only with legal hunt license and tag, scouting would be different). If you want to camp(even during a hunt) and generally recreate(scouting here too), however, you have to secure a separate recreation/camp permit. It can get a little touchy. Like a helper, spotter, kid tag-a-long, technically, is not allowed to be there with you when you hunt, unless they have a recreation permit for themselves. But, they could have a license and a weapon and be "small game hunting" and be ok... If you had to cross private to get to it, then you would need permission to cross the private first. Lots of State trust land that isn't accessible because you have to cross private in northern AZ. Much of the state trust lands aren't specifically marked and fenced, others are marked really well and have signs that explain what it is when you enter.

I was thinking the same thing on low numbers of online feedback so far. We did draw one September bull tag so I am counting my blessings.

Thanks to deer not being so wise during the rut, I was able to bring this buck home with a last ditch evening hunt for the year. The rolling hills and cliffs near me, when they are in the rut, are very conducive to hunting as follows: walk until you see some in a little canyon, since you are not being careful, they are usually standing up and looking at you but they usually don’t spook too bad, back out the way you came until they can’t see you, and circle around down wind and pop over as close to them as you can for a shot. Shot this guy from a large boulder cliff, 67 yards down hill.

Man that stinks. Also proabably want to make sure you are 1/4 mile away from the houses on the north and the south in the future. New rule in place requires archers to also give habitable structures the buffer zone... I don't agree with it, but that's what they passed.

Anyone with the heavier trucks that has done the vehicle permits at the boarder successfully?

Has anyone taken a 3/4 or 1 ton to hunt outside the free zone in 2019? Hearing they started just charging more for heavy trucks but getting first hand verification from someone that has done it recently would be great.

I won't lie, I have a trip planned for Jan, and our ranch is not too far from this latest incident. I have had some second thoughts about it, but still plan on going as of now.

Interesting

0 for 8 is a very bad statistic for sure. I don't think an individual wounded animal means anything necessarily unethical happened. I consider myself a very accomplished bow hunter. When I shoot, I shoot ethical shots, but buck fever and life happens. Quick, clean kills are always the goal and design, but I don't know anyone personally that has killed over 10 animals with ALL perfect shots. Its not possible to control ALL factors in hunting situations, rifle or bow. Hunting is not a simulation and humans and the animals are not robots. If you hunt long enough, you will eventually have some "moment of truth" experiences that will show you the truth too. We try to mitigate all factors possible, but even "good shots" can lead to a lost animal unfortunately.

310

Nice 5. He would have been a pretty nice 6 point on a normal or good moisture year. Could you tell what spelled his fate?

Budget $1,000 for non-alcoholic drinks alone, especially if you have kids haha! My suggestion from having gone many times is to keep looking until you find a beach that you will be happy with and that doesn't have too many weeds/sticker in the sand or too many other people close by. But I'm more of a private person and have lots of kids:) Probably goes without saying, but also best if your parking spot can NOT be facing/open to the channel or any big bay as well(less waves, wakes, wind).

Your premise is often true. But, it can get to the point where the reverse is true in some places. The more dedicated hunters there are that are convinced that further away from roads is better, the more company you will have further away from roads(unless you think you are truly in better shape or far more dedicated than the rest of the hard core hunter population and are willing to go in 6 miles instead of 3 etc). I have seen this trend more and more over the last 5 years through several states, hunts, and just last week shed hunting haha. When I was a kid, we never saw anyone away from the roads and now I seem to see more and more every year. If more and more people are willing to get away from roads, then we may need to flip around and start hunting closer to roads again to get away from people!

Government usually fails when it attempts to fix a non-existent problem. Hopefully they will refuse to take action this time. 99% of the state and hunts and cameras have no issues. Leave them alone.

The elk move around alot and can be in very different places each year. I would just find some nice public land and do some glassing and hiking until you find where they are at in November, keep moving until you find some fresh sign or start seeing some.

Very few Chevy supporters it seems. I have a 2017 Silverado Z71, 5.3, put aftermarket shocks and larger tires on and it drives amazing around town and my beloved dirt roads of Northern AZ. I have not done much towing though, just our wakeboard boat. Is that where people feel a 1/2 ton silverado lacks? I have never owned a camp trailer but am interested in getting one in the short term. Am I in for disappointment towing with a 1/2 ton 5.3? I really don't want to go to a 3/4 ton because of how stiff they ride on dirt.

13 inches at my office in Kingman, measured in the middle of the parking lot. 3,589 feet elevation at 9:36am. Snow still coming down.

I was just starting to internally appreciate the department for being more consistent with the draw... then they had the system failure and deadline extension last week, so now I have to wait another couple years to build up trust again:)

Nobody really shed hunts around Kingman, density is just so low, I probably average like 1 crappy bleached muley shed per 15 miles here local, come one come all! Elk sheds in the Hualapais are worse than that. The good(and therefore secret) spots are far away. I have actually found in the mule deer areas I have had good luck in that there have been higher concentrations of sheds on the north and east facing slopes of the bigger hills, but I find them all over.

Quite the concept they have come up with there: http://www.arizonastripguides.com/zero-guide-fees/

Guess it will come down to how far you live from both, how much the fee is, and what your gas mileage looks like. With fees pretty low, gas will cost you more(for most people in the state) than the convenience fee real fast.

OTC tags is the problem. I wonder what Walmart will do, which I'm sure is the number one seller of OTC tags and licenses in the state.

Shooter!

I have used Gaia for a long time and have always liked it. Has tons of map layers but they have moved to a subscription bases for the full features. Yes it does work when you phone does not have signal, because GPS works off of satellites, not cell towers. You do just need to save the versions of the maps you want before you do go out into the woods. But all of the apps will always be able to track you when you don't have coverage. I put my phone on airplane mode and on battery saver mode and it will last all day while tracking my path that way.