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Anyway here's a few more pics of the bison portion of the hunt. Will be adding the elk part shortly. It was great to have the kids up there with us. Mom made them have a contest to see who could collect the most firewood, clever of her huh? Auggie won! Also a pretty cool pic of my daughter squishing a bison with just 2 fingers.

3 girls 3 junior elk tags 3 days to hunt 3 shots fired 3 elk at the meat locker = Happy dude(dad) Once again we were blessed to get 3 junior elks tags for our daughters in 23. So we loaded up Thursday and headed up. I kept telling myself this was going to be a lot of work but we had Abbey(15) Becca (12) Elizabeth (12) (twins) Cousin, Nephew, Brother, son, wife so I felt the help was there but still a lot of work. Opening morning Abbey chose to go with Josh and my wife and I was to take the twins. Bottom line if Josh is guiding you will get opportunity guaranteed. Well it happened early Abbey Shot her cow 250 yards by 7 am. I was so excited when I got the text but just as sad that I was standing next to her when she shot. In the end I'm happy for her although I'm selfish in my thoughts. So we headed back to the ranch to celebrate and take the rest of the day off and enjoy the time. Saturday we took the twins out , I found the elk again but there was a lot of pressure although nobody was banging away in that area there was a lot of people driving the roads. So we opted to go to another spot and low and behold on the way over their 5 cows crossed the road in front of us and we were able to get ahead of them pull over and make are way out in front of them and Elizabeth made her shot and the party was over. 100 yards at 7 am, so we took the rest of the day off to celebrate and just relax we did look in the evening but as far as I was concerned the pressure was off we had 2 elk down until those puppy eyes came to me and said Dad I sure hope I get a chance at one. I said challenge accepted. Sunday morning Abbey found the elk right by the house so Becca and I slipped in to them and they had back doored us down a thick haired over canyon so I blew 1 soft cow call and the bull responded right away so we had to move around to get the shot and was able to get set up fast and Becca sent one , although I had ear protection on I heard the thump but it didn't look like a great shot so we backed out for about 1.5 hours and came back in with help. I looked long and hard and could not find blood and Becca was really taking it hard then all of a sudden I smelled the smell of elk and I pulled a lighter out lit it up started following the scent and there she laid about 60 yards from the shot. 6:45 am 265 yards. I let out a yell that would curl your hair. Becca was very proud of her first elk heck all my girls were happy. But I have to tell you honestly there is nothing better for me to see it in their eyes. Passion just like me. I'm far from mister kill everything maybe 30 years ago I was But now to be able to take the kids out and watch them light up like a Christmas tree when they harvest makes all of it worth it. My wife and I are truly blessed and thank are lucky stars for the blessing's bestowed upon us all 4 of them. Thanks for the read and good luck out there, Pete

First time elk hunting and first time hunting 7W. Our scouting trip in July gave a few potential spots to camp and hunt but we did not see any elk at that time. When we arrived on Wednesday, 10/16, we were happy to see our primary camp location was still open and we quickly setup camp so we could get to scouting. We went out to our primary hunting area that looked promising in July but did not see anything moving and no real fresh sign. Thinking that maybe this area would be more suited to a morning hunt, we headed back to camp for the night. We were excited to hear a few bugles in the early night and went to bed feeling optimistic for the morning. Thursday morning scouting was very uneventful with no game seen at our primary spot. We decided our afternoon scout would be closer to where we thought the bugles from the night before were coming from. We didn't see any game that afternoon but decided that we would sit this area in the morning hoping to catch something in the field before they headed to bed down in the hills. We set up our blind with good views of a field and tree line. We had some downed trees in front of us and set up plenty of natural background to hide our silhouettes. No bugles were heard that night. Opening morning we head over to our blind and wait for the sunlight to start to peak over the hills. We were not super optimistic since we hadn't seen any elk and did not hear any activity the night before but to our surprise, at first light, we spotted 2 bulls and 6 cows in the far corner of the field. We watched them for a while but we could not get them any closer and they slowly made their way off into the hills, well out of our range. Feeling better that we at least saw some elk, we went back to glassing the area hoping for another chance. Within a few minutes, we spotted a bull and cow about a half mile away. My buddy let out a few cow calls and they immediately perked up and started looking our way. A few more calls and they both started heading towards us. We continued to call and they continued to advance. The bull was a beautiful 6x6, the cow was good sized and they continued to come towards us and our call. There was a barbed wire fence about 100 yards in front of us and the pair continued to advance. They quickly closed the distance to fence line with the cow in the lead. One last call and the cow jumped over the barbed wire. She was broadside and I squeezed the trigger of my 7mm Rem Mag. The cow gave a quick jump and started to bolt to my right, A quick cycle of the action and the second shot had her down for good. This was all by 0645 opening morning. I was extremely excited but almost sad that it happened so quickly. We got her field dressed, loaded in the truck and took off for Casey's Processing in Flagstaff where she weighed in at a nice 294lbs dressed and caped. We cut out a backstrap for dinner and headed back to camp happy with our success and looking forward to filling our other tag. That afternoon was uneventful but the next morning was very similar to opening day. We had a group of 4 cows that we were able to call in to approx. 150 yards and my buddy quickly filled his tag. 2 days, 2 cows, mission complete! I'm blessed to have such great hunting buddies, that helped me on this hunt and allowed me to take the first shot. Here's my girl.

Almost forgot...This is how cool Kevin is. He stayed in elk country an extra morning to try to help us get an elk for my wife. That means a lot to me and displays what a top notch guy he is. Thanks Kevin!

Hey man I need to make my little girl feel better.

Opening morning 12A West we got a late start but she tagged out @ 7:50 AM. Kids hunts are so much more fun than my own!

I have a Sirui pan head for trade for outdoorsmans panhead plus cash or possibly buy.

I've seen this mentioned in a few replies to threads on here, but wanted to add my own 2 cents since I'm (a) new to hunting in general (b) have my first big game hunt coming up with my muzzleloader Coues in a few days and (c) couldn't have predicted how amazing it was to spend the morning with Duwane learning where and why to look. I met Mr Adams at 5a in Oracle and we meandered into the Catalinas. I brought my own tripod (too short) and bino's and we pulled up on to a road and started glassing. Duwane is constantly letting me know why this spot is good and, as we timed it for sunrise, we spotted a ton of deer. Does with their fawns and plenty of bucks. It was the first time I'd seen bucks tussling with my own eyes. We scanned and Duwane kept pulling me to his binos to see the detail he was noticing and slowly I started to be able to spot the deer first (not too often), and even saw a pack of coyotes working the hill side between two big deer groups. We went to a couple of other spots so that the I could see first hand what the angle of the dangle was all about and it was impressive. We never glassed the same ridges or sections of mountain, but the formula of when and where the deer move was reinforced every time we stopped. Mr Adams fundamentally changed everything I will do in the future with my binos. Admittedly I don't have the sort of experience most of the forums members do, so I'm still years behind most of y'all with equipment that is right at the beginning of the journey, but I feel a lot more comfortable heading into my first hunt. He's a gracious and generous man, and talking with him put so much of the info from books and podcasts either into context or allowed me to change how closely I adhered to it. Highly recommend it, and can't say enough positive things about my morning with him: It was incredible.

If you want really good Glass look into Athlon Cronus. Athlon has been getting into the Scope business with some really nice scopes that competes with the 2k scopes. I bought one and the next year they came out with 8x binos with the Cronus Glass. My brother had 500 dollars Pentax it it blew his out of the water. They just came out with the 10x and 15s. The 10x is on sale at Amazon for 374.00. This Glass will match up to any 1k type binos. Best bang for your buck with Athlon. They are trying real hard to get their foot in the door of the Glass world.

That's a shopping cart full of better eating turkeys at Frys when they go on sale! They are fun to hunt when they are responding, but dayum. $210 for a thunder chicken tag now? Ouch.

I don't know if Scaled quail have made a comeback in South Eastern Arizona. I hunted them for years and their numbers have really declined. The Gambel quail seem to have taken over in these areas, as it seems they are more resilient to drought conditions. I hunted the Safford area, Sunizona, and the Dragoons. If you get out after them and have any success let us know how it went.

Interesting year for birds. Hunted the last 3 days and limited each day, but found that the populations were very spotty. I would find an area that had several big coveys, and then less than 10 miles away where I use to find lots of birds, it seemed that there were no young birds and very small coveys.

I'm interested to see the answer to this one.

I agree. He hauled a deer out for me a few years back. He's got a good setup. Nice pack mules and horse.

I’ve met bones a couple times out there. He’s a good ole boy.

Spend alot of time in 21 every year. Mule deer #’s in my opinion are increasing slowly from 2 years ago. My son took a 3x4 on the jr hunt 2 weeks ago and we saw about a dozen bucks. Area’s to look at would be New river Mesa, Cooks ,Dugas and bloody basin. All the spots mention hold the most mule deer but will also hold the most hunters come opening day. Good luck..here is the buck my son killed this year.

Nikon monarchs are sweet.

Thank you! My experience was much the same at first - I felt great and "thought" I should be seeing the pounds coming off each morning, but it took a long time to actually start seeing results on the scale. About the time I leveled off in "feeling great", that's when I actually started to shed fat and see results. It's been up and down with the way I feel and my appetite fluctuated back and forth between not being hungry at all for days at a time to feeling like I could eat all day and never be satisfied, but I stuck with it and once the weight started dropping, it just kept consistently coming off week after week ever since for the most part... I do hit flat spots now and then - go a full week without losing anything, then the following week I'd lose 2-3 lbs, seemingly at random. I don't understand the science of it, but I have started to identify foods that obviously stall out my metabolism. Pizza, for example... work buys us pizza all the time. I used to indulge in 2-3 slices, but since starting the weight loss journey I limited myself to 1 or 2 slices. I'd notice that even after just one or two slices of pizza for lunch, I wouldn't lose any weight at all for 2-3 days afterwards. Once you get rolling, you should be able to identify things like that to avoid. Then it just comes down to having the willpower to say "no thanks" when they flood the office with pies! 😂 Having a good, reliable digital scale that measures down to 1/10th of a pound consistently is helpful in that regard. I got mine at Costco and it's been amazing. Good luck Quagmire! You can do it!

This is true. On the phone with my wife I said I killed a bison on day one, brakes didn't lock up on the highway with my kids in the truck and we are all safe and alive. Son killed second day and daughter had a shot. Heck I'm just happy to fill my bison tag. Even after all the bad luck I still feel lucky to have a once in a lifetime harvest and all my little ones safe and sound. My oldest baby girl has true grit when it comes to hunting, I'm proud of her regardless of what tomorow brings.

Sucks that it happened but that’s pretty cool to hear you got it knocked out. Those boys learned some stuff that night, not just how to change out an inter cooler in a Walmart parking lot, but that giving up when life gives you a little crap isn’t the answer. They learned to figure out what the problem is, how to fix it quick and keep on going. I’d say honestly 90% of the guys in here, myself included would have punted on a day or so of the trip and turned around and waited for the next day and headed up a couple days later. Kudos to you for pushing on and teaching your boys to do the same!

If you go to ashurst get there as early as possible. The bite is better early in the morning.

Thanks for the info guys. Will try Ashurst and Kaibab. We’re all pretty excited about fishing up there, not much water down here in Marana.

Lower Lake Mary will be lucky to have much water in it. You're better off hitting Ashurst, or driving to Williams and fishing Kaibab Lake. Always had good luck with trout in Kaibab using power bait. Kinnikinick Lake is supposed to be great that time of year, too. I keep forgetting to head out there then, though.

Your worrying to much. Be cautious and hunt. Your hunt will be more affected by border patrol doing their job than illegals.

You guys crack me up with all this new bullish!t , I’ll continue to use my good old trusty Leica , and kill every year . If that don’t work I’ll lick my thumb and put lead in the air.