Leaderboard

We had some good success this year on elk in 11m. We were able to get my brother in law his cow on the first hunt and I was able to tag out on a nice 5x5 last night on the second hunt.

Tagged out on my last available day to hunt on a tough hunt. Pics and story coming. Not the big bull I was dreaming of but I went into this hunt with the reality I would shoot the first bull I saw. When I first found out I drew my first archery bull tag I was surprised and excited. I only had one bonus point besides my hunter safety and my loyalty point. Right away I told myself i would be scouting like a mad man and dedicating all my spare time to making the best of it. I work six days a week and scouting was slow on my only day off but I found some good elk activity in spots I already knew of and felt confident. Then the sheridan fire started. My top 3 spots were shut down to entry . Well good thing I still had plan D and a few more spots I had hunted on previous cow hunts. Opening day my plan D spot had a couple hunters working it over so I went to plan E. Plan E turned out to be where half the cow tag holders were hunting and only half the tanks in the area had water. Monsoons sucked this year. After a few days of searching and only finding old sign and multiple hunters getting to water earlier and earlier to beat the next guy in I decide to go back to plan D. A couple hunters for competition beats a dozen. Went home on wednesday night to take care of some business and was back to the hill Thursday night. I woke up Friday morning to the first sounds of the rut I had heard all week. Tried multiple times to close in on the action throughout the weekend and either got busted or they were moving to fast. Sunday night I was kicking myself for not taking my only week off work on the second week of the hunt instead of the first. My hunt was pretty much over accept for the last sunday of the hunt. Spent the week grumbling at work and thinking about my sons junior deer hunt coming up. My reason for not taking two weeks off for elk, I wanted my second available week off to give him the whole hunt to get his first big game animal. Well thursday came around and my boss found out my hunt was a three week hunt and not a two week hunt and told me I could have a two day weekend. Go hunting he said! Thanks boss!! Saturday I hit the woods and spend some time doing recon to find fresh elk sign after the big rain storms we had. No fresh sign found. Slightly discouraged I park my truck and decide to head into an area i had a blind set up on a trail at a fence crossing. Ten minutes into my trek as im slowly moving and looking for any sign of elk still being in the area I see something out od the corner of my eye. I turn, its an elk . I Can see everything but the head. Then it lifts its head to take a break from eating acorns off the scrub oak and I see horns. No time to range! He is looking right at me. He is not running away. He lets me knock an arrow, still not running away. He lets me draw! Still not running away. He is farther than 20 yards but not farther than 30 yards i tell myself as I set the 30 yard pin on his third rib and aim for the opposite shoulder for the quartering away shot. Release and thump!! He takes off. I just shot my first achery elk!!. I cow call a few times and hike back to my truck. Gotta give him an hour at least. Call in the buds to help haul out and sneak back in while they are getting geared up to come meet me. Track good blood a hundred yards and find him on the ground..with his head still up and he is looking right at me. Not what I wanted. He didnt try to move so I stuck him again and he stood up. Stuck a third arrow in the boiler maker and he walked about ten yards and did the drunken merry go round and hit the dirt. My first archery elk was down! Friends arrived and we gutted and loaded him and headed out with an amazing sunset. All three hits were vital hits. Was surprised that the elk was so tough. But, I was dissapointed that my first shot went through both sides of the elk but didn't completely pass through at a range of 25 yards. Im going to do some more thorough research on what im using before my next archery elk hunt.

When I'm trying to hunt but my cat wants to make friends.....

So after about 5 years of putting in I got drawn for a good unit with lots of public land. I didn't want to jump around private land all day so I was okay waiting for a better unit with more public. Besides I already have 3 antelope from New Mexico so I was okay waiting for a unit with more public. But this would be my brothers first goat hunt. He lives in Denver so the first thought was to drive up there and meet him. Then he had the great idea to have me fly and stay with him and we can do the 4 hour drive up past Casper. Well that sounds a lot better then driving 14-15 hours so thats what I did. Ive been on 4 goat hunts and shot ok sizes and this time I really wanted to take my time. This year I had bad luck and missed 2 really big goats pushing low 80 inch's in New Mexico. Even though this unit isn't known for large bucks I wanted to have the enjoyment of glassing hunting and passing on bucks and choose when Im ready. Well looking at the forecast it was almost 3 days of rain. On our way up there about hour out of Casper it didn't stop raining. Lucky for us the main dirt road we were turning off was a well maintain gravel road. But everybody says Wyoming mud sucks. You step off the road you will be sliding all over the place and its more like a clay that doesn't come off. The whole time it felt like your boots were 20 pounds each. Well We knew we weren't turning back and thought lets just find them off the road then. Sure enough not more then 15 mins into our hunt. I spot one from in the truck with my 15s. I get out into the rain and set up my tri pod to get a less shaky view and turns out from all the bucks we saw driving on the high way he was the biggest and tallest. Its rainy, muddy and it doesn't look like it will be giving up soon so I was no longer going to be picky about this hunt. He was about 800 yards out and hiked into 400 yards. Thats when he stood up. I had to lay down in the mud and get into a prone shooting position. Waited until he gave me a broadside shot and let it rip! Hit but couldn't tell how good of a hit. He ran not away but to the side about 100 yards. 450 yards and shot again. Miss, (turns out I hit him in the neck meat). Concerned I didn't hit him good I shot again and missed. At this point he bedded down and my brother could see him bleeding from his vitals so I know I got him good. HIked up to 250 yards and got prone again on a really muddy slop. Looking from my scope he doesn't even looked phased! What the!!! Ok Im going to end this. He is quarter away and shot and hit him right behind the ribs going into the vitals. A big thump sound from there. What does the buck do??? Nothing! Hes just sitting there like nothing is happening. What the!!! My brother is calming me down and said just wait a min and see. Sure enough about another 30 sec goes by and he just lays his head down and kills over. Well success not how I like it, I love to see the one shot drop but it didn't go that way but we got him. High fives and give him a few mins. On our way over there my brother says wait theres a buck. He happen to be running our direction and stops at 200 yards to look at us. I range him and my brother not enjoying this sucky muddy hike we are doing and decided to take him right there!! Boom drops like a rock. All excited we are looking both bucks in site. Probably about 100 yards apart from each other!!! About an hour in on our 3 day hunting trip just ended!!! It was a shame but man oh man that mud sucks!!! Process it out and hiked back 800 yards up and down slipping in mud. That was one of the toughest 800 yard hikes Ive done. For the short time and weather we still had a blast and hope to come back soon. My Buck Brothers first Goat IMG-1070.MOV IMG-1070.MOV IMG-1070.MOV

keep hammering

I find it funny that the start of elk season always makes me think about the upcoming deer hunts. Is there really a better time to share a coues video than the day before elk season??😄 Elk suck! Coues are da best! Hope this gets some of you excited about the upcoming deer hunts.

What a hunt! We busted our tails since the opener. From finding crazy things out in the hills to a bunch of close calls, it was an amazing adventure. One to stick in the memory bank for sure!! I am so dam proud of my wife. From nearly wanting to quit archery due to shoulder issues, learning to shoot left handed, etc., your persistence is incredible!! I was able to call this bull in from a burn and pull him right in front of Lorie, where she made a perfect 17 yd double lung shot....he went 60 yds and piled!! Congratulations!!!!! I’m sooo proud of you!!!! Beautiful 6x6 bull from last Saturday.

With some surplus 7mm Mauser. In Tucson

This Kimber is like new and will shoot 1” groups @ 200 yards (3 rnd group) I worked up a load for and it was so close never tried any other on it.. Shooting 140 Accubonds around 2700 fts. Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14X50 cds (cds has been used different bullet) other information -30MM, SIDE FOCUS AND WIND-PLEX..... I’ve shot it out to 600 yards on rocks and it’s a great shooting rifle! 76 total round count. weight 6.10 lbs. $1075.00 0.b.0 — not looking for any trades....

An electrician near Glendale it sounds like...

SOLD

Officially moose hunting. Visibility sucks but the rain and snow should quit around noon. Its on!

Who cares, shoot him!!!!!!! Awesome Buck!!!!!

No way is he a "hybrid". 100% muley. I would shoot him in a heartbeat, archery OR rifle. Decent mass for a desert buck, decent length, good width. 150s in my opinion.

My concern is the fact that I usually have to wait 6 to10 years to draw an archery bull tag and when I am finally successful getting a tag, I have to dance cheek to cheek with 150-200 cow elk hunters at the same time. Frustrating.

Wife stuck a bull last year at about 25 yards at around 6pm. We had a good blood trail we tracked for a couple hundred yards. Looked until about 10pm. Following day we looked all day for that bull and at the end of the day we couldn't find him. This was the third day of the hunt but she was done after that. In her mind that was her bull and if she couldn't find him it wasn't right to try and get another one. Hunting ethics is different for everyone. Talked to several hunters after that and all believed of we gave an honest effort to find that bull they wouldn't see a problem continuing to hunt another one. She didn't feel that way though. Believe me we gave an honest effort spending that entire next day looking for him.

ATTENTION! As a result of the diesel fuel in the water tank, the Arizona Elk Society is offering a $2,500 reward, upon conviction, to find the culprit of the vandalism. Please call AZGFD vandalism hotline at 1-800 VANDALS (826-3257). Callers can remain anonymous. Callers should reference case #19-003149.

Owner has been found! Thanks.

Here was my target buck, he went MIA. Hope to find him late Dec.

Hopefully he paid you enough to buy another gun😄

My neighbor wanted to take some pictures of their newborn and asked if he could borrow a European of one of my bucks to use. He didn't tell me his idea or anything but the set up and picture is one of the coolest I've seen.

I think you should tell better half that a .243 is not enough and you need another rifle 😁

I'm going to throw in my $0.02 on the topic. I used to be an awful glasser. I couldn't ever find squat. I took Duwane Adams glassing class and it really opened my eyes as to what to look for, and really just how to go about it. Ever since, I've started glassing up bedded deer, and overall finding a lot more game. First, I will say you need quality glass, and you need to have your binos setup on a tripod. No tripod, no deer. Period. In the AM you need to be glassing the south/southeast facing slopes. Get in position about 30-45 minutes before first light and be ready. Use a grid pattern and start glassing the hillsides. Once you find a deer, if it's not exactly what you're looking for, move on. You can always come back to it to see what it's doing and where it's going. Once the sun is up and you can feel it starting to warm up, it's time to move. you need to get in a position you can glass the North/Northwest facing slopes. It's really a pain in the butt glassing the north facing slopes with the sun in your face. It's hot, it's difficult, and it's tedious. Remember though that that's where the deer are at that time of day. No doubt about it. Most hunters are unsuccessful because they're glassing areas where there are no deer (south facing slopes in the afternoon). This is because glassing the south facing slopes is easy. There's not much growth and it's just not difficult. While glassing the north facing slopes, use the grid pattern and pick the hillside apart. Look in areas that would be hosting deer such as shadows, shade of trees, etc. Typically deer are not in the open once the sun is up. Think of it this way, God gave the deer a warm winter parka to keep them warm in temperatures into the negatives. If you were wearing a huge winter parka, would you want to be somewhere where the sun is directly hitting you? NO! Same with the deer. Finally, the one thing that was really shocking to me when I first started located deer on the north facing slopes in the afternoon is this: From what I've seen, deer don't bed down for long periods of time, and not all deer are bedded down in the afternoon not moving. When glassing North facing slopes, I'd say the majority of deer I find are bedded down, then will get up and walk to the shade of the next tree, then bed down there for another 15 minutes, then get up and do it again. They'll just walk around in the shade of the trees throughout the day, randomly bedding down, munching on some grass, etc. The one constant I have found is that they are always in the shade. ALWAYS! Finally, it's important that you have the correct angle at the shadows. Try to get straight on with the shadow, have them going from the treetops to directly toward you. As the sun moves throughout the day, adjust to the shadows. This will give you the best opportunity to find the deer in the shadows. Also, one thing I think a little differently than most is this; if you've picked apart a hillside for some time (say you've covered it 2-3 times) and found no deer, you probably won't find them if you try again. The binoculars don't lie. It's best to try a different angle at the same hillside to give you a different perspective, or simply move to a different hill. I hope this helps give you a bit of a different perspective.

I am not sure what happened yesterday evening while out glassing, I am hoping it was mistaken identity and not giving up too soon and shooting another bull this soon. Anyway, while glassing last night I am watching a bull (decent 6x6) and see him jump and take off running, then I notice an arrow sticking out of him, not a perfect shot but not too bad either just a little far back. Then I see a guy following him right away, pushing him and the bull keeps going. The bull loses the arrow or breaks it off and has a pretty good blood spot on his side but then I lose track of them over the side of the hill. Not 30 minutes later I see a 6x7, definitely not the same bull or frame even really close to this action. This bull was bugling and must have been coming into a call by his actions, then I watch him get hit by an arrow and run a few feet and fall over. I t was the same shooter just a different bull. So anyway, whoever shot the 6x7 in 22s yesterday evening I think you have another bull laying out there somewhere .