Leaderboard

My wife has a lot of patience. There have been seasons logging over 60 hours in a stand, and she usually gets lucky. This season, she did it in 1. Hopefully some of that luck rubs off on me next week.

Day 1: Zero jig strikes all day. Stopped on a kelp @ 8:00 am, wide open rat yellow tail (4-6#) for about 15 minutes. Left them biting. Boat stopped on a breezer of YFT, scratch fishing for 2-3 hrs. Bite stopped, found another breezer and again, scratch fishing till near dark. The boat landed 70+ YFT 15-25#, 3-4 BFT 25-45#, not sure how many YT were landed, I did not participate. Day 2: Zero jig strikes all day. Spent the bulk of the day chumming breezers that would sink out and not stick. Not a single hookup. About 3 pm, "Old Glory" (who had a scratch bite going) had run out of bait and was leaving. Their captain graciously allowed Excalibur to slide in and keep Old Glory's bite going. The grade of fish was 40-50# BFT. Scratch fishing till dark. I'd guess we picked up 15 fish. Most of which took well over 30 minutes to land as it seemed to take light gear to get bit. The youngest member of our group (a 12 year old who was quite a fisherman) had a fish hanging for 1.5 hours before it came unhitched. Quite a few fish were lost due to light gear. It was a great stop provided by the captain of the Old Glory. Excalibur: Nice boat! A/C worked well, slept cool. Big bunks. Galley was large enough to seat all 30 of us at dinner. Head/shower (2) are spacious and clean also an additional head with a urinal + handwash. Big bait tanks although I felt a few more handwells would ease crowding. The crew did a good job, the captain is a riot and should consider a career in standup comedy. Food - It was adequate but I am used to being spoiled at sea by cooks working in a tiny galley producing outstanding food. Adequate is the key word, nothing to rave about. The fishing platform is large, my only concern is the fish hold hatch covers, the got very slippery when blood soaked. Nobody fell but some type of high friction coating ought to be applied. Conclusion: We had a great trip. My son in-laws won 1st and 3rd in the jackpot with their BFT. The son in-laws are hooked! In all, we brought home 12 YFT and 3 BFT. Plenty of fish for the next year. We had good bait. Areas fished looked like a parking lot, the whole fleet was there along with numerous private boaters. Light fluoro and small hooks got bit way more. The bite never went wide open. Although I got my BFT on 20# I switched my son in-laws to 30# fluro as they were breaking off with 20# fluoro. Photo of son in-law with his jackpot fish.

I can't believe we are several years into this pointguard process and people still need it explained to them. 🤦‍♂️

Edit pocket posted. Side note the 251" monster was killed less than a mile from where we camped. Shane koury had sent me pics of the beast. Congrats to the hunter.

My thoughts are the person who has the tag, thus supposedly paid for it, has a right to do with the tag what he/she wants.

All day in a treestand is tough.. thankfully this guy and a buddy showed up around 3 on Saturday. Came into water at 32 yards, 100 grain montec to the heart and he was dead 50 yards later. He needed about two weeks to finish off and he might’ve broke the 100” mark but I’m happy nonetheless.

Hi folks, and I wanted to share my first hunt with you all. I’m in Phoenix Arizona, and on Friday I took my first deer on opening day., and it was a Coues Deer. My buddy Jason who was my guide and really knowledgeable with hunting with a bow and a gun. We sat in a blind from 4:30am until 7:15 pm when I took my shot at 40 yards with my PSE Evolve bow, after the hit it walked 50 yards and laid down under a tree. We were in Unit 22 hunting over water, and if your in Phx, you know we have had very little water this summer. It was a long day with temperatures at 103’ and even hotter in the ground blind. I’m 59 in age and it was a long day, but oh my was it worth it. I couldn’t be happier

My season lasted a little over a half day. I got into my blind at about 7 am. Didn’t have any action until about 10 am, when a doe came in. After she left, nothing went on till just about noon when a two point came in. After that it was a steady stream of deer, couple spikes and does, till 1:30. I had about as much of the heat as I could take. I never had been so hot in a blind. I was wringing wet with sweat. At 1:45 I had enough. I got all my gear ready to go and took one last scan out of the blind to make sure I didn’t miss something. I looked up the hill and here came a big buck down the trail a long with a 1x2. I scrambled to get ready. The buck came right in front of my blind at 15 yards and was quartering away. Drew, settled my pin on the last rib, and released. The arrow it exactly were I aimed. The buck ran up the hill and stopped then walked off. I didn’t like the reaction of the deer so I gathered my stuff and went back to camp. Decided to give the buck two hours. At 4:00 I started on the blood trail. Not much blood. A few drops here and there. When I got to where I last seen him, the blood quit. Slowly I followed a few tracks and a couple broke limbs. 40 yards later there he was piled up. The arrow hit the last rib and came out on the back edge of the opposite shoulder. What an amazing day for a great buck! Brian

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." - Ronald Reagan

Can I use my javelina point guard for elk please?

I don't think anyone is misunderstanding. You can use pointguard once before you must keep the tag, and then you start all over. I guess we just assume everyone knows that by now, so don't bother explaining it again in detail, especially now that this topic has come up at least 100 times.

I have 22 Antelope points and will sell my points for anyone wanting to put in with me! I'm entertaining offers...

Want some cheese with that "whine"? 😂 But seriously, if it is legal and works for you, do it. Remember, people can't point guard tags back indefinitely, or it would be problematic. They can only point guard it back one time. If someone wants to hunt bad enough, there are plenty of guaranteed or near guaranteed draw hunts. Until that changes, I am not very sympathetic to the guy that has to sit at home because he is only applying for premium tags and then complains about it. Educate yourself on how the system works and you will start getting plenty of tags. Most won't take the time to do that, which works out great for those of us that do.

It was pretty obvious that was going to happen as they were putting it in place. Same thing happened when they allowed parents, grandparents, etc. to start signing over tags to kids. The number of applicants spiked as tons of people that had no plans to ever hunt started applying. Every plan they institute makes it harder for the average guy to draw a tag but raises more money for G&F through application fees, license sales, and reselling tags that have been turned-in. Why would they want to stop it?

Ignore the quality of the pic...just focus on the quality of the buck!

This deer is not a monster but I just got him back and he is my first whitetail. The main reason for this post is to publicly thank Morgan Zimmerman of Patriot Precision for building me a rifle I could rely on. I hunted for about ten years with various rifles and was unsuccessful. Morgan built me a 6.5 x 55 AI that shoots “lights out”. I highly recommend him if you are looking to build a custom rifle. JT

BigLakeJake maybe we need to go fishing between Snowflake and Concho! https://www.azfamily.com/news/search-for-escaped-tucson-murder-suspects-focused-north-of-show/article_cd10715a-d0fe-11e9-a5bb-a301df52fe62.html Also info on the initial leak!

I'd like to sell as a set. I'm sorry. Thanks Ray

They’re looking pretty decent this year

I was in the random draw with 9

I have no problem with it. The person building the points has to buy a license every year, app fees, and PG fees. Its a revenue maker.

agree.. i know several people have done this already. Get a group of people drawn but then turn theres in and keep there points...

I thought that’s why they called it hunting? They don’t walk up to your truck and let you shoot them very often.

This posts blows my mind, you wait 26 years for a lope tag, your "NEW" to lope hunting and you "THINK" you can tell the difference between a 78" and 80" lope? Dude your one of those High Maintenance chicks aren't you

You can always go south in that unit. The coues aren’t “pockety” in the southern part. Easier to glass so you’ll see coues deer. If you’re looking for a giant or bust, then you can hunt up in the pines but you’re gonna be up against a pretty big task. Most of the big coues that come from the pines are either killed over salt or atleast found on a cam over salt and then glasses for. If you won’t be around to run cams you’ll be better served to drop down into the desert in my opinion.