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Lee Marvin went on a guided elk hunt back in 1963 on my grandfather's ranch in South Western Colorado. Here is a picture of him and my dad and granddad and the elk that he shot. There is an article, supposedly written by Lee Marvin in Gun World Magazine May of 9164. My grandfather is right behind Lee and my dad, 18 at the time, is sporting the tactical plaid shirt and glasses. Just lost my dad last week, but photos like these keep him alive. https://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/2008/08/elk-hunting-with-lee-marvin.html

I lowered the Browning custom model and turned the Redfield variable back down to four-power. My dad told me that Browning made him that rifle just for this hunt. In 1963 most people had fixed power scopes and the Redfield Variable 3-9 was new and cost $100.00, about 2 times as much as a fixed power. How it is specifically mentioned in the article goes along with my dad's version of what really happened, imo.

I found a strip club in star valley

I was out hunting for purchase orders at work yesterday I was about 2 minutes from getting hit by this plane.

So i had the pleasure of hunting with my two older boys for the first time in 7 years. Both were competitive swimmers and missed most hunting seasons due to trips and then college. So after a long absence we hit the southern hills for a coues hunt. Glasses up two shooter bucks first morning and they slipped us on three different stalks the first two days. Great hunting though we were having a blast but starting to think these bucks had us beat. Third morning the wind was howling and everything seemed bedded out of the wind. We flipped to a side of the canyon that we thought would block the wind and just before 10am we caught them moving to beds. After some leap frogging to keep them in the glass and move to a shooting spot. The best we could do was 420yrds and we couldn’t get low enough to get out of the wind that was swirling around the top of the ridge line. My oldest got set up and we waited for a couple hours hoping it would stand up. During the time we went back and forth on the two bucks. One a classic 3x3. Most likely 85-90 so good solid buck. But we could get away from the old 2x2 with him. He was unique with great mass and tall. Big body and we just couldn’t pass on him. Yea the 3x3 would score better and look good but this old deer had to be taken. Finally we said let’s take him in his bed if you fell good. I know my son felt confident with his old 30-06. Not the perfect Coues rifle but he trust it and it shoots great. He didn’t have a BT so we were working out the drop at 420 and one of his reticle hash marks lined up good. So he went hot and let it fly. Deer came busting out. Shot was high. He found it again on the run up the to the top and fired an ill advised shot missing Unlike most coues I’ve hunted this buck granted him one last perfect broadside at the top. Reset he fired and the buck went ten feet into a prickly pear and folded up. Ranged 465. Double lung. Side note. Using new Sierra Gamechanger bullets. Went through and blew half a lung out a hole about the size of a quarter. Minimal internal damage. Nice bullet in the wind for sure. Couldn’t have had a better hunt with my two oldest boys after a long gap in the field. Enjoy the pics

I took my son to Hubbard for a 30th birthday trip and also had a friend come down to join us from Oklahoma. We used AR10's with night vision scopes. Started at sunset driving around until we would see them then get out and stalk them across cut fields. My buddy only could stay until midnight and we hunted until 3:30.

. Came on my 2018 kawasaki mule pro fxt Maybe 50 miles on them, no holes,issues Went to 30's Duro Frontier radials on steel wheels 4/156 pattern, Polaris and Yamaha run same pattern 2-26"×9×12 2 26"×11×12 Payson $300

Pops arrived in the unit on Sunday and spotted bucks all week but passed em all up. I was finally able to get off work Thursday and the next day and half was spent chasing nice bucks unsuccessfully. Seems like once we work in shooting range and get set up they decided to boogie out of the area. Finally found this buck bedded and he behaved himself letting us get to 328 yards undetected. Pops waited in shooting position for an hour and half, the sun broke through the clouds and the buck started to get warm. He got up, did a little stretch and pop laid him back down in his bedding spot. I knew the buck was nice but never knew he had giant eyeguards or an 8 inch kicker until 30 minutes before pops shot. When I noticed it I said ****, but I didn’t tell pops anything. After he smoked the buck I told pops about the eyeguards and kicker and that was just a bonus for him.

My son had the early November hunt. We had been watching his buck for about 5 weeks. we had photos and films of him and estimated him to be between 96 to 105. Rough gross was 100 3/8 and netted 96 6/8. Shot was 560 yards, with sun in eyes. he was not behind gun enough so the shot was a little high. but went in and came out the left side behind lungs. Crazy did a 90 degree turn in body. He used my gun since he likes it better..LOL. First day tag out before 9:00 am. I had built both of us 28 Noslers his had a APR hunter action and mine had my Bighorn SR3, We had shot over 300 rounds in each gun over the summer from june (when i finished barrels) to august, Then in sept and oct another 100 or so. We plan to change the barrels out this spring for next year. Shooting brux barrels 195 grain bergers at 2950. Next set of barrels i have a new reamer being built that should help get some more speed but will shorten barrels for weight. Also bought a new chuck to eliminate stress on work TBAS system. Then came my hunt for late November. We hunted every day except for the first day. We saw this buck one day during hunt on the move and was able to located him on last day glassing from the vehicles. Unfortunately with the fog rolling in and out and rain coming every few minutes when i spotted him I had to tale the shot or loss the opportunity. I had practiced for this for years now and knew i had it. 830 yards right behind shoulder and dropped him right there. Never dropped one with a shot behind shoulder but wow it was neat. Been worrying about the boys these past years that i finally got one. I wanted my dad to shoot but he passed since he has a hard time shooting far.

Wanted to share an opening day buck I took during the October central Az coues Hunt. Enjoy and good luck to all the coues hunters still out there.

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.

Muledeer, ask your friend if he still has that 30-06. My dad told me it has a white streak on the stock where a horse rubbed against an aspen tree. The white dust was pushed into the grain. Another part to the story, that is kind of mentioned in the story, is it was a elk and mule deer hunt in early fall. My dad told me they were hunting during deer season, elk wasn't open. Lee's schedule didn't work for the elk season. The guides were a game warden and a sheriff's deputy. There was a Sony camera crew there to get the story. The whole "let the biggest one live" was a marketing ploy. They wanted to get hunters into the area. And the one he shot had just shot his load in a cow, he waited until he finished, was the gentleman thing to do. My granddad was told what booze to have on hand for Lee, but when Lee found out my grandpa didn't drink, he put it all away and didn't drink on the ranch. He did smoke some big cigars, the one that my dad put a cigar load into, got a big laugh around the fire. My granddad was in the army and was in the Battle of the Bulge, Lee Marvin was a Marine and was wounded in the Pacific. They had fun swapping military tales at night. This is all per my dad, who from that time on, was a huge Lee Marvin fan. He raised me watching all his movies.

Little known fact, that is the last pronghorn buck in Arizona

Hello Everyone! Last week, I introduced my 3 year old and 4 year old to coyote calling on a two day hunt in AZ. First: Here are the links to the videos. I hope you enjoy! https://youtu.be/RTjgTweGK9I https://youtu.be/fREXpKq9iAs Day 1, my son and I had success on stand 1, calling in 2 and killing one. Called in 2 more on stand 2 but I missed ... just too dang excited Day 2: My daughter and I saw nothing on stand 1. However, called in 2 on stand 2 and made a couple of lucky running shots! First double and such a special experience! Gun: 7mm08 Browning A- bolt Medallion with Nikon Fx1000 scope Call: Tony Tebbe Hand call Learned that calling, filming, shooting, especially with young kids is HARD. Also, gotta do better at putting the ears on my kids BEFORE the shooting. Next time I will take out someone else that can shoot and I’ll video!

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It's been a lot of years trying in NM and a couple in AZ and I finally managed an archery coues. my first velvet buck as well. I went In for a few days opening weekend and saw a lot of bucks, even had a few spikes and does in range but nothing I could justify shooting. When I got a few days off my girlfriend encouraged me to go back in. I saw a lot of deer but still got my but kicked for about 3 days in the back country. The last day I decided to take it easy, slept in, dried my gear out by the fire for a few hours, struck camp and started hiking out around 9 or 10. I wanted to stop and do a little glassing on the way out but before I could even get to my ridge I spotted a nice buck across the canyon from me. I tried to slide off of a steep hill to cut him off in the bottom but before I made it far a train of about 8 horse riders came down the trail between him and I. Naturally he ghosted, a few does ran out the far side and I gave up. I decided to drop down under cover of their commotion, hit the bottom and slowly worked my way up canyon expecting nothing but still moving slow and quiet just in case. Sure enough despite the riders he had kept right along his line and I spotted him in the bottom. I was able to connect a shot at 33 and had him out in a few hours. beat the heck out of packing an elk out! looks like it wont let me upload a file. I'll try to get a pic in a follow up

I was very lucky to be able to get this awesome buck. Got lots of good pictures of him as he grew. Scored 130 0/8 with the 2% velvet deduction he was 127 3/8.

I have absolutely no idea what a guided hunt would even cost. Just for a rough idea. This boat provided all fuel of the boats, getting us to the dry land, food before and after and snacks/sandwiches. All power to dry out gear, no extra fuel charge and we booked the whole boat and it was I think $27500. + our flight to the boat was $250.00 If you use flight miles to AK etc.. you can get flights between $500-1000. Huntinfool had a great write up about it last year or the year before I've heard it is going up and the average is around 3k+ for a boat hunt but I'm not completely sure on that. The absolute biggest difference is that with a float plane they just drop you off. You are on your own for all food, gear, keeping dry etc... And it costs more to fly you to a new area. The greatest thing about the boat was the ability to get completely dry, generators running with heat, boot dryers de humidifiers etc..and a meal already prepared and ready. Doing a drop camp would allow you to get to some better areas IMO but very risky with weather. One group was planning on staying 10 days but had to leave early since there was so much rain and the weather hadn't dropped to freezing and the meat and capes were going bad. We had freezers and fridges on board the boat so no issue. A few groups that I talked to in the airport told me they ended up spending close to 6k on their float plane drop hunt. (all flights, food,gear, shipping etc..) That really surprised me as I figured I could do it way cheaper but that is what they said. I think the only way an outfitted hunt would be worth it is if they had limited access or a concession that was just for them, you may have better quality of animals. Other than that, they are small animals with heavy hides and fat, but easily taken off the hill with 2 guys. Every day we talked with the transporter about weather and what sides of the island and bays etc... he felt he could get us in land safely and we would look at the terrain and see where we wanted to go and head to shore.

Thanks for the post. I’m booked for a blacktail hunt on Kodiak next November. This post really gets me excited. I’ll probably asking you a bunch of questions between now and then. Congrats, looks like quite the adventure

Wait, is shooting a deer the day before the season for camp meat illegal now?

Accubonds are bad medicine indeed...nice bull!

Way to go! That smile says it all.

Ok, now that I have had two nights sleep and the meat is in the coolers (3 100 qt filled to the brim with boned out meat) and the head is at the taxidermist , now I can write this down. On day 7 right before dark, with two minutes of legal shooting light left, I found the skylined bull standing majestically on a ridge 350 yds away staring down at a cow. In 10 minutes he never moved. Just stood on the skyline taunting me. I quickly grabbed my rifle and rangefinder and tried to get setup but the objective on the rangefinder wouldn’t gather enough light for me to see the moose. I could get a range of the general area on the hillside, and at approximately 350 that was probably good enough. But then I could make out just the silhouette of the bull, no detail of the shoulder or the rest of the body. I had glassed these moose up from 2+ miles away and then threw a Hail Mary and drove the 8 miles around to get where I thought they might end up and somehow all of that worked perfectly, except the light. After 7 sub freezing nights in a tent without a fire, after 7 dark moonless mornings eating a cold breakfast by headlamp light, after fighting the snow and the rain and the mud and the wind after grinding almost non-stop from dawn until dusk, after all of that my goal was within reach and sitting a chip shot away from me and I had a decision to make. I was alone and although I would never get setup in the two remaining minutes of legal daylight it was unlikely that anyone would know or care if I stretched that out by a minute or two. Without a spotter it would be tough to tell what kind of shot placement I made or how the bull reacted... but on the other hand here was a great shooter bull standing broadside right in front of me. Knowing this was one of those moments that can define a hunt, I snapped a few photos gathered my gear and got out as quietly and discreetly as possible. It was going to be a long night of hoping that bull would stay in that canyon. He had a cow so I was hopeful that he would just follow her around for 12 hours and in the morning I could sneak in there and give him a forever home. Well my long night was made longer when I realized that in my haste to get my gear loaded up I had left my rifle sitting by the side of the road. I liiterally forgot my gun. This is when it became clear to me that I was starting to crack. The pressure was getting to me and now I was getting erratic and jumpy. So instead of hitting my nice warm bed at my in-laws home 40 miles away, I picked up my youngest son and we made the hour plus drive to go find the rifle which was fortunately sitting right next to the road, and slept in cold sleeping bags at camp. Daylight could not come fast enough. Day 8 There was no need for an alarm I was up an hour before I needed to be. After waking up Nash we jumped in the truck and waited for it to get light. At the first break of gray in the sky we parked the truck above the canyon and slipped in to find the old beast. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to confirm he wasn’t where I had hoped he would be. The canyon was just as cold and empty as every other time I had glassed it in the past week. Hoping he would be just over the ridge where he had come from the night before we went hiking. We did a 3 mile loop calling and glassing for that bull and never turned up more than an old, frozen track in the soft dirt in a creek bottom. He was nowhere to be found. Dejected we pulled out at 9:30. I was tempted to go grab a nap and decent breakfast at camp but instead off we went to go check all of the areas where I had located cows regularly hanging out. This has become my daily routine. While the bulls were amazingly nomadic roaming all over the country with their giant strides covering miles in minutes, the cows were homebodies hanging in the same willow and aspen patches day after day. I could almost always turn up these cows and most days there was a bull of some kind hanging around. Usually it was the same yearling or two year olds following a few hundred yards behind the cow and hopelessly angling for a piece of the action. However, with the mature bulls cruising for cows, an occasional collision of our courses was inevitable or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. Most of these cows could be found by glassing from a distance but some required me to hike into a creek bottom and see what was around. Regardless, they were reliable and I could almost always count on finding some kind of bull in the area. The first place I headed had been my most reliable. It was a piece of leased state property that was put into CRP. With big quakie aspen stands scattered throughout. This was where on the second morning I passed up a bull that I didn’t get a lot of time to size up but to this point had been one of the better opportunities that had emerged. So like a diligent mail man I headed there to start my rounds. As I came over the hill to look into the first draw it was like an instant replay of morning two. There was a bull standing in the waist high grass and he was headed into the timber, but even with only a quick look I could immediately see he was much bigger than the bulls I had been seeing in this area. Typically when I found a bull I would immediately reach for my 15’s to start judging him. But this was a no doubter first glance bull. Unfortunately it was a matter of seconds before the bull disappeared into the woods. We immediately pulled over grabbed the packs and headed in after the bull. We had only gonna couple hundred yards when a cow came crashing out of the woods where the bull had gone moments earlier. I dropped to my butt and swung my pack around in front of me. I told Nash he would be coming out and he settled in to watch. Soon the bull was trotting across the field behind the cow. I have a quick grunt and he stopped. In the spirit of fair chase I gave him one warning shot and the second one found its mark with the 180 grain accubond expending all of its energy in the vitals before settling under the hide on the offside shoulder. He was down in seconds and some big high five’s and hugs ensued. It was an amazing moment with my son by my side as I fulfilled this life long dream. It definitely wasn’t what I expected and the challenge of turning up a big bull was definitely formidable. I think a lot of that had to do with the weather, with alternating rain, snow, sleet and sunshine I think the animals were left unsure whether to hunker down or go looking for a date. However, eventually these animals are going to do what it takes to pass on their genes and I hope this guy got the chance before we took him home. They are huge animals a unique skeletal composition. When the spine is exposed the hump above the shoulders looks like something off of a dinosaur. The waddle under the chin can come and go throughout the life of the animal, often freezing during winter and falling or being pulled off as a result. The biggest difference is in the front quarters. There is a ton of shoulder meat on these animals that you won’t find on an elk. Fortunately we were able to get the truck into the field where the bull was so packout was 0. I think this is the first time in 15 years that I didn’t have to put an animal in a pack to get it out. From shot to shutting the tailgate was about 3 hours. We did a full gutless, cape and removed one slab of ribs to smoke before we head home. The back straps were more than 48” long!!! This was an amazing adventure and I learned a ton both about moose hunting and about myself. I would be lying if I said I never lost any sleep about this hunt beforehand. Between the weather, my inexperience and trying to know how I was going to recover an animal that big my head was a mess and I had a knot in my stomach when I headed out. But through this I reminded myself that I am of far more than I usually think. It was great that he died where I could get to him with a vehicle, but if he hadn’t I would have lived through it. So my advice to everyone out there is to go live your dreams. Start working now to make “someday” become today. Thanks everyone for following along and I hope you enjoy some more pics.

rip.