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After an all out adventure of getting stuck, hiking miles and I mean miles everyday into the wilderness area, calling in a group of drug smugglers, running face to face into another group of illegals, watching fighter jets dog fight right above us, we came up with a good ram that checked all the boxes, most of all that everyone in the group was able to be involved. Physically brutal hunt but an awesome hunt! He green scored 165 6/8 at AZGFD and they put him at 8 1/2 yrs.

Well, our hunting "party" was fortunate to draw 5 tags in the same unit for late bull. Getting two bulls on the ground and taken care of is daunting, five seemed downright crazy. Out of the 5 hunters, 2 of them would be happy to just get bulls on the ground (both guys around 70 years old) and the other 3 were were going to hold out for good bulls. With all the snow on the ground, it made access to some of our spots impossible but it did push a LOT of bulls into some other country that seemed to have basically zero hunting pressure with much more forgiving terrain. The first morning started with spitting snow, fog and wind. My dad called us pretty early and said the two older gentlemen in our party had both knocked down bulls and they needed some help. The rest of the day was spent trying to get two bulls broken down and into the trucks through a blizzard. The storm put down a lot of snow fast. we had to get out of the country soon before the roads were impassible. I didn't take any photos of these bulls because we were in such a hurry to get them taken care of and the amount of snow coming down would have made it tough anyways. One of them was a broken 300" type 6-point, the other was a raghorn 5. Nothing too impressive but they were happy. We woke up to about 8 degrees and around a foot of snow on Saturday. We headed back to the same area the two bulls were taken at the day before and immediately started seeing bulls. We spotted 8 or 10 on a near ridge (500 or so yards away) but nothing too enticing. I swung and started glassing the opposite direction and found a bull that needed a closer look. Just when we were packing up i took another look at the near ridge and suddenly there were a lot more bulls that were standing up. 3 of them would have been shooters. I just got a look at the tops of what i thought was the biggest bull and we decided we need to kill him. He had a 340" type 6-point, and a 350" type BEAUTIFUL, palmated 7x7 with him. I had to talk my brother out of shooting either of them because the one looked to be bigger. It was hard watching those two bulls walk away. The biggest one bedded after all the other bulls left the country and we could just see his tops. We decided to sneak in a little closer and ended up getting to about 410 yards where we'd wait for about an hour for him to stand up. He finally stood and walked through a very narrow shooting lane and my brother was able to knock him down. When we made it up to him, we found out that his eyeguards were extremely short. He probably doesn't score as high as the 7x7 would have but he is an ancient bull with incredible tops and main beams. I've been around a LOT of bulls on the ground and this one was probably the oldest. Hunters throw around the term "past his prime" "he's digressing" or "he wouldn't have made it through winter" FAR too often, but this bull was most likely all of those. He was bony, hips protruding, his spine looked like a razor back and his teeth were in BAD shape. Now that my brother was tagged out, we decided to bring Forest and Heather into the same area the next morning. Right away we found a bunch of bulls including the 7x7 that was running with my brother's bull. they were on the move and Forest had to shoot fast. He hit the bull and it bolted. we figured with the fresh snow it would be easy to locate. 5 miles and just some pin pricks of blood is all we found, until our buddy got on a high knob and was able to glass him up again. He made a giant loop and ended up in the same spot he was when he hit him initially. It looked like he basically just burned him and top of the shoulders, he'll be fine. After relocating him and realizing the wound was extremely superficial, we decided that we needed to get Heather on a bull that we had glassed up while pursuing the wounded one. He was in a great spot. We made our way around to him and got to 475 yards and waited for him to clear the other bulls. Heather made a fantastic shot through the middle of the shoulders. The bull didn't even twitch. He has great main beams, wide and good tine length on everything but his left G-5. Heather was thrilled, as she should have been. We spent the rest of the day taking care of this bull. The next morning we went back at it trying to relocate the 7x7 or find another good one. We glassed up a LOT of bulls again, including the one he killed later that day. We made a move on a 340" type 7x7 but he busted us. On the way back to the truck, I glassed a few bulls that were BIG. There was really no way to get withing shooting distance as they were bedded in a big PJ flat. We decided to try to push them off the thick flat and into the open flats. I made a loop around them so my scent would push into them and they SHOULD have left the country the opposite direction as my scent. Well, they didn't read the script and ran the wrong direction into some country that that would have been impossible to hunt. This was definitely not their first rodeo. There were around 10 bulls in the heard and 5 of them were no-brainers. The biggest at a glance looked to be a 380"ish bull that was busted past his 4th on one side. At this point the day was winding down and we decided to get a better look at a bull that Forest passed earlier that morning. We were able to relocate him and we decided he probably shouldn't have passed him. we worked our way into position and Forest shot, hitting him a little far back. All the bulls in the heard headed north. We looked around for an hour or so and scattered in all directions, not finding any blood or a sign of a hit. The smart old bull button hooked the rest of the heard and headed the opposite direction. Forest glassed him beddded under a rock outcropping about 250 yards away and put him down for good. He had 8-10" busted off his left fourth is why he decided to pass him earlier. This elk hunt was a blast. I've been on a lot of them and i don't think i've ever seen so many good bulls. We probably saw around 150 bulls in four days. Till next time

37B near Picket Post. The snow in the Superstitions got so deep that it pushed all the bulls across the 60 and into that country.

With Draysen playing his first year of high school football, and miraculously drawing an early archery bull elk tag, we knew it wouldn't leave much early season time to hunt deer. So we threw up a "Hail Merry" and applied his two bonus points towards a late December whitetail hunt. With the year we were blessed with, I really shouldn't have been surprised when he drew it. This past September for his 15th birthday, we bought him his first big game hunting rifle, an upper end Tikka, chambered in 7mm Mag. He saved up his skull cleaning money and topped it with a Vortex Viper HS LR 6-24x50. In short time we had his load dialed in, and he was shooting groupings inside a quarter at 200 yards. I had a funeral to attend on Thursday, so we decided to head down to our unit around 4:00 AM opening morning from the valley. We were towing our Ranger and had to stop for gas, so were a little behind when I had hoped to be to the mountain. I like to be in glassing position well before first light. We just about ran up the mountain cutting our normal hike time to this spot almost in half. I have to admit that I was pretty pleased with myself. Draysen is the athlete these days, but I put a lot of time and work this spring and summer into dropping 50 pounds and getting into my best shape since my early 20s. I got a little pleasure in listening to Draysen suck wind and really have to work to keep up behind me. He says it is because his pack was heavier than mine. Nonsense! 🤣 We reached our spot just as it was about to become light enough to glass. I threw the binos up and on the tripod right at glassable light. In seconds I found a group of about 10 does and fawns 500 yards on an adjacent ridge. I quickly called Draysen's attention to them as I scanned for antlers. While picking through the does, Draysen spotted two bucks coming up behind our herd and shouted in a whisper "There is a shooter!" We did a quick swap, me in his binos and him throwing his rifle and Claw combo on my tripod (it is the bigger more steady tripod). I called out the distance "482 yards, but he is moving away. Dial 13 clicks to 500." Seconds later, BANG!!! His buck flopped and rolled about 15 yards down the steep hill before coming to a stop. I estimate this all went down in about 3 minutes of me first looking into my binos. We have had short hunts before, but nothing like this! He head down and across the canyon while I stayed put to direct him to his deer. There was a rough 4wd road near the base of the opposite side of the hill his deer was on. All we would have to do for the pack out was top out about 20 yards above his deer, and it would be downhill all the way to the Ranger. Once he was within about 100 yards of his deer I started packing up to make the hike back the opposite direction to get the Ranger and drive to the previously mentioned spot. Then my phone rang, Draysen was on the other end frantic! "Dad, a buck just jumped up in front of me and is running away, is that my deer?" Of course, I had cased my binos and put away the tripod. I had watched his deer lay dead in an unnatural position for about 30 minutes, and was sure he had bumped another buck. But Draysen was about to have a meltdown as I relocated his buck. He was dead as ever and hadn't budged. I reassured him and watched him the rest of the way to his deer before heading back to the Ranger. I think the buck Draysen had bumped up was Draysen's buck's buddy we had seen earlier. He had likely bedded by his buddy and we hadn't noticed. Meanwhile, as I headed to get the Ranger Draysen posted a teaser picture on Facebook. A couple of member "friends" from here wanted to know when he would post a real picture. To which he replied, "When my dad gets here" so I could see him first. Of course the JERKS, you know who you are 😉, and Draysen had a great time making jokes on Facebook about my slowness. Of course my punk kid never bothered to tell them that I had gone back for the Ranger, and allowed them to believe he had left me in the dust and gone ahead. Hiking up the backside of the hill to Draysen was nasty. It was much steeper than anticipated, and being the north facing slope, was thick with Mesquite brush and prickly pear. Eventually I made my way to him. About the time I reached him I realized my new cell had fallen out of my bino case somewhere between the deer and where I had left the Ranger. Fortunately, we have a family tracker app on our phones that led us straight to it a few hundred yards back. We got back to the buck, took a few hundred pictures, and I directed Draysen a bit as he capped and processed his buck. It was a challenge on the steep hillside, but we eventually got it done. We eventually made the descent back to the Ranger falling (both of us) many times down the steep rocky thorn filled slope. I had loaded the cooler into the back of the Ranger, so we were quickly able to get everything on ice. As early as it was, we decided to take the Ranger and explore some new country for a bit, and turned up a couple more spots that have huge future hunting potential. While short, it was a pretty great morning with the boy. I titled this post "My Sidekick Closed Out The Year Strong" but the line that defines who is in fact the "Sidekick" is pretty blurred these days. As long as I get to be along for the adventure, I don't really care. From 500 yards across the canyon. We didn't have time for pictures before the shot. Coming out heavy! There was a pretty good debate on the drive home and into the afternoon about whether to do a shoulder mount or euro. A good friend offered a great deal to shoulder mount. But in all the hundreds of deer Draysen has euroed, he has never done one of his own, so that was the scale tipper. He is hard at it this morning.

The dude had a nose ring. Someone commented about it. OP I guess blew up didn't see that part only quotes from responses. People who do gauges, piercing, tattoos in the face (with thin skin) usually want attention, and are the first people to blow up about it. Then there is the other guy who has has the face stuff but just doesn't care about those things, because they just don't care what people think. Wont last long if you got thin skin here, people speak their mind around here.

When I found out I drew a late rifle mule deer tag I knew it was an opportunity to shoot a good buck but I decided I would rather watch my son give it a whirl, so I donated the tag to him. We made a few scouting trips and were real familiar with the area from multiple pig hunts over the years. Last week we saw multiple does but no rutting action or bucks in the area, but we knew they would come as they always do with time. Seems like the hunt was here in no time and we were loading up for a quick day hunt with a plan to spend most of our time hunting after Christmas. We headed out opening morning and the full moon had the deer bedded early. We found a couple does and three herds of pigs. The rest of the day was slow until the sun started to set. As the sun was setting we found two sets of does but no buck. We made one more move to a place bucks had been in the past and we quickly found a rutting buck with two does. His neck was swoll up and he was tearing up the trees. Once I saw the front view and how wide he was I knew it was game time. My son took one look at the buck and said “let’s shoot him.” We closed the distance to 340 yards and he put him down. There was no shrinkage when we walked up to him and he was bigger than I thought he was going to be from the quick view I had. I couldn’t be happier or prouder of my son for staying calm when it counts and willing to work hard to get it done. My younger son was there as well without a complaint and he can’t wait for his turn. Big thanks as always to my buddy Brian for all he does for me and my boys. We have had a lot of success together and can’t wait until the next one. Next year he said he wants a coues after shooting two nice mule deer. See how the next chapter goes.

Big thanks to Eric and Josh and the team at Arizona Desert Outfitters,cant say enough about their help helping me fulfill my dream of harvesting a sheep. Great guys all ! Will post better pics when I have them. 6.5 creed more 143 grain eldx 409 yard shot peak to peak. played in cholla needles for over half an hour waiting for him to get up.Gotta love standing up and having ticks all over your pants and shirt IMG_0040.MOV

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.

my mother knew of my wanderlust and that after HS graduation i would not be around too much longer. So in that short period of time she told me she wanted to spend some time with me on my pursuits-camping, hunting, fishing, trapping. It was hard for her when at about 16yo I stopped bringing bass home for the freezer. But one night trip to Saguaro when every popper or torpedo was hit-and hit again-as soon as it landed she threw all of her bass back also. One morning I took her out to run my trapline in Bulldog and we walked up on a trap in the dark with a truly giant bobcat in it. All I had on me was my knocker stick and I did not want to tangle with it like that. I went back to the truck for my .22-"keep your eye on it mom". Years later she was still cursing me for leaving her alone in the dark with that cat. She slept in the truck bed at Roosevelt and in tents at Big Lake and Lyman and Chevelon. Breaking camp one afternoon at Big Lake she points-"Over there between those two blue spruce is where your daddy and I made you on the Fourth of July!". Oh Mom! LaVonne Marguerite Elbert 1927-1990 RIP lee ps i saw mom cry only 4 times. my graduation, my wedding, dads passing, and the time i walked in her front door in a surprise visit and butchered a 40lb Cortez halibut in her kitchen sink. she was gone just a few months later. Grandmother Bessie couldn't have cared less about the dogs but she always wanted to see the cats.

Good people of CWT, I have a confession to make.....I love big muley bucks. I hope that doesn’t make me a traitor. With that being said, my brothers & I drew some great permits this year including out of state archery tags & rifle Strip! Yes, the famous 13B. We were absolutely shocked when cards were being hit. Seven bonus points somehow got us in the show. Don’t think you don’t have a chance!!! With the early moisture we knew we were potentially in for an epic year of hunting. When the dust settled (and there was lots of it), it was epic indeed. Honestly, the prep for the hunts is the best part for me. I love everything about it. Shooting my bow is one place where I find peace in a hectic schedule. We made a few scouting trips & set up some cameras in hopes of finding a giant. My brothers & I were texting each other constantly formulating plans to the point where our wives were ready to kick us out! 😂 Finally, game time..... Opening morning just a couple hours into the archery hunt I got a text from Trent saying he had shot a big buck. According to him he glassed up a bachelor herd of bucks & made a mad dash to cut them off. Trent can be a bit of a joker so I was fully expecting to see perhaps a “trophy” deuce point. We hustled up to meet him & my jaw dropped when I saw the buck. NOPE, he smoked a giant! We were on cloud 9. I just absolutely love hunting with my brothers & if I didn’t personally have success on this trip I would have gone home a happy man seeing the smile on his face. Trashy Big bucks always get the VIP treatment Little did we know that was just the beginning. Four days later I spotted my buck. Being familiar with the area from previous scouting trips I knew exactly where he would head to bed which would make him vulnerable. True to form he did what he was supposed to do & headed into the kill zone. I stalked through the forest into 40 yards & waited for him to stand. 45 minutes later, it happened. I gathered my composure & let it loose. All that practice in the 110 degree valley heat came to fruition as my arrow hit its mark perfectly. He takes a few steps, his legs get wobbly, & it’s game over. Big buck #2 hits the dirt. Most stalks do not end in success..... Measuring session Onto The Strip! We’ve never been guided before but reached out to A3 for this one. We wanted to do it right. Hunter Weems & Heston Morrell were our help & were absolutely awesome to hunt with. Exceptional guys. The Strip was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced & is everything people say it is. Total of 4 flat tires.... Insane dust due to the drought.... Vast & beautiful...... Oh, & huge bucks!!! The first couple days we were hunting one of the local legends (along with numerous other people), but decided to get away from the circus & check out other areas. In the new spot, I picked up a buck moving through the sage flat bright & early. I casually said, “Got a buck, but I don’t think he’s a shooter”. In no time Hunter had him in the spotting scope & immediately said, “We need to kill this buck”. We went from 0-100 mph in two seconds!!!”. Little did I know we were looking at a true 200 typical. Whoops, my bad. I learned that the bodies on these deer are huge & their antlers are much bigger than you realize. After traversing the landscape we found a good high point approximately 680 yards from the big typ. We just needed him to stand, & when he did Daryl was ready. Buck #3 goes down. Hunter takes good pics! Pretty cool walking up on this beast. Admiring... It felt good to finally be on the board. We headed into a completely different area that evening riding high from the mornings events. On the Strip you just never know what you might see next & it didn’t take long for luck to be on our side once again. Right at dark we spotted just a beast of a buck. He was a super, super, heavy 4X4. Trent looked him over, put his gun down, brought his gun back up, then dropped him in his tracks! The mass was just to much for him to take. I think he made the right decision. Buck #4 - We call him B.A. Barrackus 😂 Perspective. Elk mass. I feel like I’m always the last one. The hunt is starting to wind down & I’m running out of time. I feel a bit stressed. I mean, I can’t eat my Strip tag!!! We wake up Thursday morning but I feel different, like there is no doubt it’s going to happen today. I’ve felt that feeling before & every.single.time it’s been upheld. The morning is slow & we don’t see much. 10:30 rolls around but I keep glassing hoping for some sort of movement, perhaps a change in bedding spots, anything! Finally, some does get up & there is hope. The rut is starting so we know if there are does, we need to double & triple check for bucks. Hunter gets his spotter out & within a matter of seconds finds an antler barely sticking out from under a tree. This wasn’t his first exceptional spot. The dude has eagle eyes!!! He gets up to follow the does & is BIG but has a busted g-3 on his left side. Hunter asks, “What do you want to do?” I wasn’t about to pass this buck because he was broke. He just had to much character. I knew he could be fixed, so off we went. We found ourselves perched on a knoll above the thick cedar country he was bedded in. We will have to wait him out as long as needed & prepared for potentially a long afternoon. However, after 30 minutes or so we hear the dreaded buck snort & they’re off & running out of nowhere. We look at each other wondering what the heck happened? Wind was good, we were hidden...perhaps a predator? Regardless, with no time to waste we head back to the truck to circle around & hopefully cut them off. Hesston is on a nearby high point watching everything go down. He guides us in on where he saw them last. We’re on a little hill overlooking the area & know they’re close, we just can’t see them. Like quail they flush out right below us & are high tailing it directly away. I grab my bipod & sit down to steady myself for a running shot. I find him in my scope & try to pin him down, it feels like trying to shoot a running coyote! I lead him just a tad & squeeze the trigger...miss. I chamber another shell & fire again but this time he drops like a ton of bricks! Holy crap! It’s over, the brother tri-fecta on the Arizona Strip has been completed. As I walk up to the buck I’m elated, relieved, & humbled beyond measure. What a beautiful creature. Buck #5 A3 has trail cam pics of this buck so I know exactly how he looked before he broke. I was pleasantly surprised to learn he has a split g-3. 😍 Trail cam photo credit-A3 I wonder if we could be so fortunate to maybe do this again. The sun sets on an amazing season. Thank you for reading.

My Grandson took his first deer on an Oct left over tag. No new fangle Creed...No Super Scope...No TriClamp "Old School", Spot & Get Closer.. .308 Win. VX 3x10 350 yds. Standing, Resting on Tripod, Safari stile. One Proud GrandPa. I love hunting with this guy.

Hey all, My pop's, Mark senior finally drew his first elk tag as a non resident from Michigan after 6 years of applying. We would be hunting unit 8 for bull elk. As I spend 90% of my time hunting elk in 6a and 22 I had some work to do. I started by looking at topos to find transition areas from fall to winter range and canyons those bulls like that time of year. Mid summer I finally got boots on and confirmed that my research was well directed. Tremendous amount of older scat, great winter brouse, and good thermal cover. Hit the woods one more time in October to cut the canyons apart to log glassing points and it was time to wait. As the hunt got closer we realized the weather was going to be brutal and I now felt even more confident in our location. To make things even better 2 of my best buddies were going to fly in from Michigan to help out. We arrived at camp early Thanksgiving day and set up in the torrential downpour. The evening was spent playing cribbage and yuker, card games for those of you not from the Midwest with the woodstoves keeping our tents toasty. Day 1......woke up to tents wanted to collapse with 7 inches of heavy, wet snow. After cleaning them off we waited for daylight to fully assess and realized with visibility at 100' that we would be better off waiting for a break to head out. That break came at 10 am. We loaded the buggies and the 7 of us headed to the spot I had picked out. After a long hike to our vantage point the snow socked back in and we took refuge under a big cedar and built a 🔥. At 1 the weather broke briefly and we got behind some glass. In 10 minutes we had 3 bulls located and pop's wanted the bigger of the 3. Having never elk hunted before we had decided the first decent 6 point was in trouble. Pop's made a great shot at 400 yards accross the canyon with my 6.5 PRC and the next two days I was extremely grateful for all the help as the packout and drive out was brutal.....another trip for the books!!!!

Hey all, Been enjoying all of the great discussions for many years and finally decided to join. Been in Arizona 9 years now brought here kicking and screaming from Michigan by my lovely wife. I quickly fell in love with this incredible state and have harvested many animals in those years. This year my good buddy and I drew 22 south muzzleloader elk tags, him for the first time and my second. Killed a great bull in there in 2014 so was very excited to get back. We ran 12 cameras all summer and felt like we knew what our expectations should be. We had one bull in particular we were targeting we named El Diablo. We figured he'd go close to 370 and we kept tabs on him all the way up to 2 days before our hunt. Opening day came and we went to where we figured he was living but only turned up a handful of satellite bulls. Day 2......On the second morning I had an old bull with huge 3rds and 4ths at 185 yards and the temptation was to great so I dropped the hammer. Spent the rest of that day with 4 buddies packing him out. Day 3......my buddy and another friend headed to a spot that always had a herd with a great bull and I slept in recovering from the packout. At daybreak we had multiple bulls screaming outside of camp. I grabbed my binos and quickly found a big herd bull pushing cows around. Got a hold of my buddy and after an hour of cat and mouse in 6' Manzanita he dropped the hammer at 35 yards. Spent the rest of the day packing him out. Day 4....we spent the morning of day 4 cutting up and packaging elk as well as dropping off the 4 quarters to a processor in Payson. That evening we decided to go see if we could find El Diablo. We didn't locate him but found another great bull. We had a camp of two guys down the road from us with on gentleman from Wyoming having a tag. I offered to take him in to try and kill that bull the next day and a plan was made. Day 5.......we left before daylight and hiked into the mountain I wanted to start calling from. At light I called in a decent bull but no shot opportunity. I had a bull screaming across the canyon and he sounded mature so we took off. As I got closer I got eyes on him and realized it was El Diablo. He bedded with his cows just out of sight so we found shade and waited him out. At 1 pm he got up to move and Bill dropped the hammer. He had no idea what he killed but I did. After lots of celebration we packed him out and I put a tape to him....366". What a trip!!!!!!

This hunt started before my dad and I were even drawn. A friend of mine and I went scouting what seemed like every chance we could get once I got back home for good from college. We visited a couple different units until I found out what unit I was drawn in. Because of the availability of one of my friends and having family in town during another hunt, my options were to get lucky enough to draw the late December hunt again or draw the early November hunt, which is what ended up happening. I was very familiar with the unit from before and after visiting the unit many times checking new and old spots all I could turn up were a lot of "next year's bucks". This is fine though because I had a friend that I played college baseball with that was coming in for the thanksgiving hunt that could take one of those bucks. The offseason seemed to fast forward and I had completely forgot about my dad's friend that had the same hunt as us. He is 70 years old and cannot walk very far so we were limited to spots that he could get to but I was confident we could get it done. Opening day arrived and my dad only had Sunday and Monday to hunt so it was just me and his friend. Around 9 am I glassed up a pair of small bucks that were working their way towards us. I knew we had a good opportunity here and was getting him set up for a shot. Our hillside was great for shooting in any direction except for the one the deer were in. While I spent the next 15 minutes looking for a shooting bench to lay down, John kept an eye on them. I finally was able to find something that would work for him. I got the deer in the scope for him and had him lay down for the shot. Just as he was getting comfortable the deer never seemed to want to stop walking and crested over the ridge out of sight. Our morning ended with no more excitement and John needed to go home. I switched spots in the afternoon and glassed up two decent bucks but I was willing to holdout. Day two found John and I on the same hill and I brought another friend for another set of eyes but no bucks in the morning. The full moon shut down the movement in the morning but the cloud cover had them moving a lot around 2 pm. After John went home we switched spots and exactly at around 2 pm I glassed up three bucks with a possible shooter in the group. I found them about a mile out so we needed to get closer. We closed the distance to about 1000 yards and I could see them better now but I couldn't get eyes on the bigger buck. We had noticed another group of hunters that weren't there before that appeared like they had no idea the deer were there. A few minutes later we heard a shot and looked at the other group as they were giving high fives. They ended up shooting the bigger buck that I couldn't find. Congrats to them and I kept hunting. Day three had my dad out finally. We went to a spot I had scouted before but not a lot. I went off a gut feeling. I ended up glassing three bucks but there was no way John could get to them. The rest of the morning was dead but I was more excited about the evening anyway. Before John left to go home he gave us these chocolate bars that he gets when he goes to his home in Canada called a Cuban Lunch. We ate them on our way to a new spot and something told us to climb up a hill that easily could be an overlooked area. Sure enough a minute into glassing my dad found a buck and knew it was a good one. We watched it and debated plans and ultimately made a move that needed to be perfect if it was going to work because of the angles of the hills and the location of the deer. On our way to the hill we were going to shoot the deer from I was debating shooting another smaller 3x3 to have the opportunity to double up with my dad. However, luckily enough I realized I had forgot my tag! I had actually forgot it the last two days so good thing I didn't shoot the deer the day before as well. We got to the hill and got set up. After what felt like forever everything worked out and the deer came into a clearing long enough for my dad to dial the rifle and make a perfect 400 yard shot. Of course one of the other bucks stuck around to rub it in my face but we were excited to tag this buck. After day 4 yielded nothing I was alone on day 5, which was also my last day. I finally was was able to go to an area I had high hopes for and could hunt all day. The morning only presented does but there was no shortage. They were everywhere. I switched spots around noon and ate lunch before I started glassing again. I made sure to save the Cuban Lunch for last and despite it being completely melted I enjoyed every bit of it. I finally laid eyes on my first buck at 2:30. He was extremely tempting but I thought I could find better in the last couple hours. 4 o'clock came around and I was regretting not shooting the buck but was reassuring myself knowing I still had December archery. A few minutes passed and I found another buck that got my heart pounding. I got excited and was all alone deep into the country and I knew he was the buck for me. I found a shooting bench, got set up and dialed in and although I was confident I could stay in the scope to see the impact I videoed the shot just in case. I settled the crosshairs and watched the buck drop at 434 yards. After calling my dad to let him know it was going to be a long night for me it took almost an hour to find it because I had confused myself. For those of you who hunt solo, buying a bluetooth clicker to sync up to your phone and putting it on a phone scope for your binoculars to hold is a great way to take pictures alone. After quartering the deer and doing the 2 mile pack out in the dark I was finally back at the truck to end a successful hunt.

Some nice bulls in there!!! I love when the bulls come off the Superstitions

Howdy all, This year has been one for the books. I for once was one of those guys that you love to hate come draw time. Drew an archery antelope and early muzzle loader elk tag with 4 and 6 points respectively. This was my first time ever hunting antelope and I spent the summer on many grassy hills under the hot sun studying their behavior and tendencies. From all of that my main takeaway was that they are some strange animals. In some ways I felt like they appear at first like turkeys in behavior. From a vehicle you can approach relatively easy and often even appear oblivious. Yet, step onto their turf and they'll catch yah itching your nose at 200 yards. As the summer progressed I compiled a list of the best bucks, water locations, and access. One thing was sure, with the exceptionally dry summer water appeared to be the key to success. I arrived the day before my hunt and positioned myself on a good glassing point. I quickly picked up an old friend with a small group of does. He was definitely the dominant buck in the area and I was pretty sure I knew the water he was hitting, an isolated cattle tank. With the tank being hidden from their sight I quickly set my ground blind and backed out. Day one was spent melting in a popup blind under the sweltering 93 degree heat. At 10 AM they showed up to water and just as they were approaching the tank a large gust of wind made a slapping noise on the side of my blind. They lost their minds and blew out of there. My buddy was glassing from a hill and watched them the rest of the day never returning to drink. Day 2 I was back in the blind knowing that their need to drink was going to be even greater today. At 1 PM they arrived at the water. The wind was gusting again and they still did not like the blind although I had reinforced the stakes and guy ropes. They hung out at 55 yards for what felt like an eternity. I finally decided to take a shot. The buck hopped on a doe and bred her. As soon as he hopped off I put an arrow through his heart!!!!!!

Nice rig. I’ve always thought Scramblers were cool...

Dude shot a nice 4x coues. It had really thin skin.

If anyone needs a bow they better grab this

You mean someone actually thinks getting closer to an animal is part of the hunt And experience vs pulling the trigger after dad dials everything in? And taking an ethical shot at some distance that wind and movement and heart rate isn't as big of factor? Wow, I thought I was the only one left! Congratulations to him and you and one heck of a buck especially for left over.

Thanks for the comments! I feel like often pursuit of big game and often older age class animals becomes so competitive that we lose sight of why we hunt and the impact of our actions and examples. I lost 2 trail cameras on this hunt, both in lock boxes and it troubles me to share the woods with such individuals but what can you do. I guess, never miss an opportunity to do good and teach, especially young people and new hunters.

I found a strip club in star valley

CWT.com we have Arizona covered-nothing happens without one of our on-the-scene reporters filing the story! lee