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I was debating on mounting this nice mature coues buck, i ended up European mounting it. asking 75 $ for cape. also check out the bobcat hide i have for sale. thanks.

Looking to do more backpacking hunts for clues this year and I'm looking and getting a slumberjack tent and bag. Has anyone tried them and if so what do you think? What other products would you guys recommend without breaking the bank?

Looking to do more backpacking hunts for clues this year and I'm looking and getting a slumberjack tent and bag. Has anyone tried them and if so what do you think? What other products would you guys recommend without breaking the bank?

I thought I'd post a pic of some old finds-sorry, no ATL's. The elk shed is not only my first brown ever, but found on my first day of my first-ever turkey hunt, in 2004, unit 27. It's unique, it's just the eye guard. There was obviously some trauma to this bull early in the growing season. The antelope shed (sheath) was found (among others) on my first antelope hunt, in Wyoming, 2005. The Coues shed was found on my first Coues hunt in the Chiriquahua's, 2004. It's the smallest 3 point shed I've ever found.

Got it done down south on a 115 with serious mass at 350 yards and my brother smoked a 120 inch with double main beam at 600 yards. Be back next year.

Excited to get out this weekend for my first coues hunt. Does anybody know were I can find (internet or store) a map of San Carlos, specifically unit D? We'll have a guide but I like to know where we are at/going... Anybody have any luck in this area?

A buddy and I went looking for coues deer and sheds Saturday. The weather was perfect and so was the day, we saw 7 bucks, 15 doe's and picked up 8 coues sheds. I picked up 5 which is the most I have ever found in one day, my buddy found the big one of the day.

So after seeing some of the latest big "Coues" deer in various threads and other places, I was wondering what GnF and the record books use for the definitive call on these. If a nice 175lb buck clearly has a big forked Mule deer rack and a "white tail" tail, can you hang either tag on him? Even if you saw them both prior to shooting, which way does it go? Or do you just wait for archery season and not worry about it? (Doesn't help with the record books though) I just searched the 2017 Main Regs and couldn't find anything about it. Some of the F1 hybrids may be easy to spot but as time goes by, it's going to get harder and harder to distinguish the differences between the two. Makes you wonder how many F2's, F3's etc will end up in the books.

Me and a couple buddies from here had an awesome season chasing these bucks. We couldnt quite close the distance enough, but we did manage to get some good footage of these bruisers! Enjoy

This looks like a really old deer to me... thoughts?

Here's a collection of some of my favorite video clips from the last 5 rutting seasons. I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while now and even though a lot of you have seen most(not all) of this footage I feel the layout of the video is different enough from the originals to make it worth watching. Hope this gets you coues nuts out there pumped for the upcoming season. Good luck everyone and enjoy!

Here's a little something to help past the time while we wait for the draw results to come out. Hopefully they'll be out within the next couple weeks but until then we might as well watch some coues footage while we wait. On a side note the footage looks noticeably better in 4K/1440 this is if your computer can handle it. Also I don't know if it's just my PC or not but to get the video to play in 4K/1440 I have to restart the video after selecting one of these two settings. I don't know why this is but for me the video will not start playing after I select 4k/1440 unless I slide the red timeline bar back to the start of the video.

Drew a December Coues rifle tag for the 2nd time in 3 years. Am a non-resident and my point total provided the 2013 tag during the 20% pass. I drew the tag this year in the random pass which took lots of luck since very few tags and lots of applicants. Used a local guide for the 2013 hunt and enjoyed the experience so much was very happy the same guide was available for this hunt as well. This guy knows Coues and you can tell he enjoys being out glassing even when he does not hold the tag. Attached is a close up of the horns. Question: Is that the eye guard that resembles a third beam? Shares a base with the normal main beam so do not think is actually another beam. Not sure. You can even see a small point which may be the eye guard nestled between the main beam and the eye guard (or third beam).

Game Planner Maps is an official sponsor of CouesWhitetail.com. Please check out our Sponsor Spotlight to learn more about the resources and products we provide. Be sure to Register and try the free interactive Map Viewer. Game Planner Maps provides a vast catalog of spatial data for researching your unit and tools for printing your own hunting maps. After you register be sure to check your email inbox/spam folder for your confirmation email. Click here for tutorials on printing your own maps and importing maps to your mobile device. Thanks Ed

After drawing late tags last year I didn't have very high hopes going into the 2015 draw but was pleasantly surprised when the results came out as my cousin and I drew our second choice for another late hunt. Fortunately it was for a unit that I know pretty good and have spent a lot of time in over the years. Without waisting any time we got out to some of my old favorite spots and got cameras hung. I was a little disappointed in the lack of sign we found but wasn't to concerned as it was a late hunt! We had some pretty cool bucks on camera but nothing that got me really fired up, we had 21 days to hunt after all. Fast forward to the end of November and our plans changed significantly. My other hunting partner had drawn a unit 22 desert tag so I committed to helping him and the company we worked for picked up a job in Missouri so I sent my cousin to run it. We both thought no problem, get the sheep hunt over with quick and knock the job out in a hurry and we'd be in camp before opening day. As these things normally go neither happened and we got to hunt a total of 1.5 days before Christmas. We did pass up a mid nineties buck during that time though but we had both agreed to hold out for a giant until the last couple days of the hunt. While we were home for Christmas I spent some time discussing areas and strategies with another forum member (thank you by the way) and I had high hopes heading to camp at 3:00 am the next morning. I met up with John and we hiked into an area I had been wanting to look at for a while. It was perfect, snow on the ground and the air was still. Unfortunately that didn't last long and we got hammered with a blizzard. Another day lost. That evening John came down with the crud and headed home as he was in bad shape. That left me solo during the days and my dad in camp at night as he was hunting muley's in the flats with his bow. The next couple days were uneventful with a few bucks spotted and passed in some gorgeous country. The next morning I woke up to some fresh snow and decided I'd load up in the side by side and head over to retrieve our last camera we had out. As I was pulling out of camp John rolled in. I asked how he was feeling and he replied good enough since there were only three days left. We bundled up and headed out. After glassing our way in we finally made it to where we'd hike in to get the camera. John glassed the ridge above our camera and spots a buck rutting a doe. We look him over and recognize him from our pictures as a buck we named the barrel buck due to his large body. I told John to pack his gear and go kill the buck, he however was still felling under the weather and didn't think he could make it up the ridge so off I went. The rest was pretty uneventful. After a long cold ride back to camp that night we looked at our pictures and knew where we would hunt the last two days of the year. After a pretty uncomfortable trip back to where we were a few short hours previously we set up our glass and got to work. Not long after John says those magic words, "I've got a buck, a big buck". He was buried in a jungle chasing a doe hard and I knew this would be a little bit tricky to make happen. We set up some landmarks and agreed on some distinguishing names and off John went to stalk the giant. The next 4.5 hours were some of the longest of my life. The snow would move in and I'd lose all visibility, it would clear and I'd get lucky and re-spot the buck, I'd walk John into him and sometimes he'd get a shot and sometimes it would be so thick he couldn't see the buck which was less than 20 yards from him. We some how kept it all together and John was able to seal the deal on the buck we named Yeti. It was an incredible hunt and got even better when my dad was able to seal the deal with only minutes to spare on this nice archery muley! In tense situations emotions can get pretty hot but having good hunting partners like I do we always come away smiling. Most of these pictures are in this video but I had some live footage as well that I wanted to share. Hope you all enjoy. https://vimeo.com/150602643

Going back through some pics, I noticed the white splotches all over this guy's legs.

Every year I do one trip with some old friends to hunt whitetail in Sonora. This year was especially good since I harvested probably the second largest Coues deer I have ever gotten. My friend also got a huge deer that unfortunately had one whole side knocked off due to fighting. I grew up in Sonora and hunting Coues was a large part of my childhood. My dad thought me the ins and outs of these animals and every year they still amaze me with something I had never seen before. This year the level of rut activity was off the charts. Broken antlers, deer oblivious to our presence or gun shots, scrapes and rubs everywhere, etc. The first photo is the buck I got. It would have been a nice typical 10 point, but the back point was broken off probably during a fight. I got him just about 100 yards from the road. I usually don’t like taking running shots but I took the split second decision to take a shot while he was darting between some mesquites and ocotillos. After I got off the truck, I had probably a 6 feet clearing between some ocotillos and some dense mesquites. Took the shot and the deer turned from broadside to a straight run. Luckily the bullet went in middle of the ribs and exited through the neck. It was only 7:30am and one of my friends still hadn’t taken a shot at one, so we decided to go on search of another buck. After a few hours of hiking we got to an area we knew would probably be fruitful. We spotted a buck following a doe on the same hillside we were hiking. After three shots, my buddy had downed that buck. He was hypnotized with the doe he was following and did not even flinch when my friend narrowly missed on the first two shots. By 11:00am he had his buck and we were on our way back to the truck. Not a bad Sunday morning!!! The second photo is the buck my friend got along with the same one from the first photo. It has awesome mass and the deer itself was huge; unfortunately it had almost a whole side of antlers broken. It had hoofs as large as many mule deer I have seen! The third picture is an old one of my old man with the best buck he ever got in 50 plus years of hunting down there. I believe it was between 2008 and 2010. We haven't scored it yet, but given that it is a typical 10 point buck, it will do pretty well.

So yesterday SPOTnSTALKer asked if I was going to do a coues calendar for 2016 and the thread expired?? I don't understand that but anyway, As I stated I'm wanting to put one together if I'm lucky enough to get some good pics. I would like to see how many people are interested in buying one if I can get it done. I cant promise I will have one but I promise to try my hardest to get enough pics to put one together. Please let me know how many of you are interested. Thanks, Pixman aka Darren

http://www.sportsmanswarehouse.com/sportsmans/Mahco-Covert-Neoprene-Padded-Seat/productDetail/Chairs-Seats-and-Loungers/prod999901363502/cat100884 just do it, you'll love yourself later.

SOLD....... I have a coues cape from the mature (3x3 about 80") buck we harvested in unit 33 on November 9. it was on ice for 2 days then frozen. I took the cape way back to around the last rib so there is plenty available for a pedestal or wall pedestal mount. $100

My 2014 buck taken at 650yds. My wife took her first Muley @ 165 yds with her .243 My daughter took her first muley @ 289 yards with my son's 25-06 My son took his first mature coues at 352 yards with his 25-06. Great year of hunting. 2014 Coues Buck.MOV

Opened my email this morning and saw an email from MeatEater, the tv show with Steve Rinella. Basically the email said the new season started tonight and thank you for being apart of the mailing list. Reading a little further down, they sent a link for a free episode. Follow the link and type in the code MEATEATERMAIL and you can watch it. You don't have to fill in any credit card info just go to the "use code" tab under Postal Code. https://meateater.vhx.tv/buy/volume-9-ep-1-sky-island-solitaire-backpack-hunting-coues-deer-in-arizona I thought it was a very good episode.

I know this story is a little late in the year, but I thought I'd share it anyway! This is my second archery coues deer with my Mathews Jewel. I hunted for 8 long days in the best unit in the world (27) and bagged this boy all on my own. It was my first hunt that my dad let me do on my own! I loved the experience of it but it is definitely better to have someone experience it with you and share that story. Anyways, I made a perfect shot right through the lungs at 30 yds. He went maybe 40 yds before he dropped dead:) I shot him with a grim reaper broad head (as well as my 2014 buck) and I will never use any other broad head again! There amazing-in my personal opinion. Also, I don't care if any of you think he's "too small" because I love him and am very proud of him! Thanks for reading! Good hunting, Shelby Teel P.S. If anyone missed my 2014 buck it's on my page, check it out!

After waiting 7yrs for a December Coues tag, and watching my husband draw it twice!! I was excited to finally..... hopefully....... put my tag on a good buck, I had my hopes set on a 115 or better. This hunt was tough...the first 3 days out we saw 0 deer, none, zip....and this was in areas we have always found deer in the past. We waited out the weather for a few days and tried again in a new area, we had some glassing help for the day so dropped off Kevin Lawhorn to check out one area and Dale and I headed a short distance away. Dale and I had just got to our glassing point when the radio went off...It was Kevin "Hey I have 3 bucks over here, but I fell and hurt my knee" I radioed back and said "Are you OK?" He said "I can't really move, I think I broke my kneecap, but I have 3 bucks chasing does all over, one of them looks pretty good." So Dale and I packed up and headed over to Kevin, after I took a minute to determine if he had broken anything(he didn't, me being a paramedic has it's advantages) we checked out the bucks. Dale and I deemed the biggest of the 3 to be a 105 class deer and decided to pass as there were many days left in this 3 week hunt. Although, I kept hearing a friend Garretts words echoing in my ear "Don't pass a deer that you would be happy with on the last day" I hoped I had made the right decision to pass that buck. We went out a few more times, not really seeing much then ran into the holidays, thankfully the Grandparents agreed to keep the kids till New Years so we could really hit the hills hard the last week of the hunt. I texted Gino (CouesnSheep) and asked him if he had time and was willing to come hunt with us and he said sure! He asked how far I could shoot and I told him I had never shot anything over 150 yrds before. He said he had access to a long range rife for a few days if I was interested. I said I was willing to do whatever it took to get a big buck! So out we went, We froze our a$$es off for days we had to build a fire one day to keep warm enough to keep glassing. (Dale even caught his pant leg on fire trying to keep warm). But the cold weather seemed to finally get the deer in our area moving around. Gino glassed a decent buck up on the 27th and I decided I would try to shoot him. Gino got the gun set up while Dale and I tried to keep the buck in sight. Gino told me to get behind the gun and see if I had a good solid rest, well I just could not seem to get in position!!!! Dale looked over and told Gino "She shoots left handed she can't shoot from there" so he moved the gun but in the process we lost track of the buck. If the buck had offered a shot opportunity it would have been a 677 yrd shot. We continued to glass the area for an hour or so then decided to back out and come in from another angle that evening to see if we could locate the buck again. It didn't work out that evening either and so the hunt continued. On the 28th we went back into the same area but only found 2 smaller bucks. The long range rifle that Gino had use of had to go out with another hunter, Kevin Lawhorn came through again meeting us at the top of the Young Rd the night of the 28th to loan us his long range gun! On the 29th Gino and I headed into a new area (Dale stayed home to get some work done in the shop) it was a pretty active morning we saw lots of deer, just nothing over 85, I was tempted by one buck but Gino wouldn't let me shoot. The morning of the 30th was to be my last day, we had a storm coming in and I was ready to settle for any mature buck, rather than the dreaded "Tag Soup" We split up again with Gino being the "big eyes" over a mile away and Dale and I glassing an area and then moving to another to try and cover more country. Gino radioed us a said he had a couple small bucks in an area we had glassed yesterday so we moved down there to have a look. Gino said the bucks weren't really moving around and he felt there had to be a bigger buck with a doe in the area. When we got to where we could see the hillside he was glassing we spotted one of the bucks lower on the hill, I told Dale that Gino said the smaller one was up higher so we looked up and saw a buck. Dale said are you sure the smaller buck was higher up, I said yeah, he said "I think you need to take a look at this buck"....I looked through the spotting scope and could only make out the main beams on the buck, but he looked pretty good compared to the other buck on the hill. He said do you want to try for him? I said yes. We radioed Gino and he found the buck and kept his eyes on it while we worked our way closer, using the terrain and trees to conceal our approach. We worked our way in from 1200 yrds to about 610 yrds when we ran out of cover and had to set up where we were. I had some trouble keeping the buck in the scope when I would dial it in to 25 power, and the buck took his sweet time giving me a good shot opportunity, but finally he turned and I fired at 607 yards, I hit low just under his feet and got set up again, the buck hadn't moved and I fired again. Long story short.... Thanks to an enduring Husband, a couple of good friends, a borrowed rifle, and some stubborn determination I finally got my buck.....he wasn't 115 or better but he did score 113 7/8" and I couldn't be happier!!!

I'd like to get better at judging coues antlers. I think a great way of doing that would be for everyone to post a picture of your bucks along with their scores. I measured this at 92-93 gross. A friend of mine who has measured many more deer got 95-96 gross. So let's see what you've got. Size doesn't matter as long as you scored it. Thanks