Leaderboard
Popular Content
Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/03/2020 in all areas
-
6 pointsThought I’d throw up a quick update. Got my mount back last fall but finally got around to hanging it this weekend. We have 22’ peaks in our house (which is a shop with living quarters) so we have to rent a scissor lift to hang anything heavier then deer!!!
-
4 pointsThe downside to this philosophy is that units are overrun with people who don't have tags. Not to cool when you have to back out of an area because a spot is taken ........ by someone who does not have a tag. Hard to tell who is hunting and who is looking.
-
4 pointsSome people don’t want to sign a bill of sale and some don’t have a problem with it. Personally I won’t. I try to judge a book by its cover and use common sense with selling and buying privately. I’ve refused to sell to a few guys once I’ve met them based solely on attitude and appearance.
-
3 pointsI was super lucky and blessed to take a nice Javelina last week! Things went from nada to full throttle on Monday when I finally hiked into a nice sized group and the ol’ Browning A-Bolt in 7mm-08 did a number on her at about 70 yards. I was able to capture a lot of the story, scouting, and action on camera and hope you guys And gals enjoy it!!! There is also A LOT of coues action. I did all the butchering and processing myself and just tried a round of Javi tacos last week and was PLEASANTLY Suprised! Going to try some more recipes that you guys posted on here and I will keep you posted.
-
3 pointsYeah, I tried 3 times to buy guns from this guy. He kept turning me down for some reason....
-
3 pointsHe would sell Draysen, cause he keeps taking his tags every year .... 😂😂 jk that kids a rockstar...
-
3 points
-
2 pointsCalled in 3 dogs yesterday. came into about 200 yards and started circling my wind. This guy stopped on the second ridge over. Without time to range him I did a little old school guess work.. lol, held the crosshair about 4 inches over his shoulder and let it eat...bang flop with a 50 gr ballistic tip out of an old ruger 77 223. I had my buddy range me when I hiked over to pick him up.... 437 yards. Probably my furthest shot on a dog, and definitely one of my biggest.. Good day calling before the wind hit. Whitey
-
2 points
-
2 points
-
2 pointsSince finally starting to apply for AZ a few years back, I have been lucky enough to get the opportunity to hunt Javelina 3 times. I had another great trip and was able to catch up with some guys that I met in AZ on my first hunt, which now I'm happy to say, are good friends. To top it off I was able to punch my 3rd Javelina tag on opening day. AZ has been very good to me, I wish I wouldn't have procrastinated so long.
-
2 pointsSelling my guns?!?!? Selling a gun would be like selling one of my children, maybe worse, (depending on which child). Plus, selling your guns makes baby Jesus cry.
-
2 pointsI have 24, my brother has 24 and my dad has 28. No lope tags again. I’m only 34 and am honestly concerned that with the current state of pronghorn in AZ combined with point creep and application increase, i might never in my lifetime draw antelope. Meanwhile, people with zero BP’s keep drawing
-
2 points
-
2 points
-
2 pointsSo I’ve been off CWT since they switched the format and figured I better get back on here and update everyone on the hunt. It was an absolute grind, and I’m glad it’s over, but it was a really great time!!! I ended up buying a proof research 28 nosler and topping it with a 2.5-25x52 March. It was under 8# all put together. This thing is scary accurate with 195 eol Berger’s sitting on 86.5 gr RL 33. Anyhow, onto the hunt! I was lucky enough to have my 3 brothers along for it as well as my wife and my sister in law. To say I couldn’t have done it without them is an understatement! We picked out and area on google earth that I found based on the biologists suggestion. Her exact words were “it’s reallt hard to get to but you’ll find a lot of goats in there”. We all met for breakfast the day before the hunt opened and headed to the trailhead around 10:00am. The hike in to base was only 5 miles so I was thinking we’d be in easily by mid day. Boy was I wrong. Ran into another tag holder on the way in and he said “you’re going in there? You realize there’s no trail and it’s solid blow downs right?” On the plus side he did say they glassed some goats “way the heck back there” this summer!! We trudged on climbing about 2000 vertical feet in the first two miles. We followed the spine for a mile or so and then it dumped into the basin we picked out. I guess I have to say that I was a little underprepared for it!! On google earth I could see some blow downs, but I didn’t expect this! Literally every 30’ for the entire next 2 miles was a blowdown! We plodded on, finally making camp about 4:00 pm. We got a little glassing in that night and were pumped to find plenty of goats!! We glassed up a lone billy above camp a mile or so. We planned on getting a closer look at him in the am. We had to do all the bear stuff, hanging food, no chapstick etc. I had never dealt with that and it’s sort of a pain but I guess considering there was grizzly crap everywhere we needed to do it! The next morning we awoke to high 20’s and clear sky’s. We hiked up to the billy we had glassed. We found him not far from where we left him the night before. One of the many drawbacks of the blow downs is there was literally no cover to approach the goats with. While he was still way above us, I wasn’t sure how much activity they would put up with. Most of the goats I’ve run into on other hunts have been fairly stupid and just watch you from above within easy rifle distance. Realizing we didn’t have any choice, we just headed at him. At about 1000 yards he just got up and hopped over the ridge out of our lives. This made us realize this might be a little tougher then we expected. I wasn’t too bummed as I had gotten a pretty good look at him and he was the type of billy I knew I probably shouldn’t pass but also wasn’t a giant so I was a little optimistic that we would find a better one. It didn’t take long glassing and my brother glassed up a big group of nannies and kids. I had made a decision that I was only going to shoot a billy so we kept looking. About an hour later my other brother picked up some goats that we had somehow missed. It was two mature animals together. It didn’t take long looking to realize they were both mature billies. One had a Snow White coat and the other a kinda piss yellow one. The yellow one may have been a 1/2” bigger but the white one was much prettier. We decided whichever offered a shot would do. This time we were smarter and found a ridge to hide our approach. We picked a spot that we figured would get us to 500 yards and looped around to it. When we got there we peeked over and ranged them and it was 770 yards. I am capable of the shot with a decent wind read or a calm day, but the wind was literally blowing 3 different directions including straight up!! We pushed on and found a new location that got us what I thought would only be 100 yards on them. When we got there my brother ranged them and said 435!! Bingo. That’ll work! We slid into position, the only visible one was the Snow White billy. He was bedded with his left leg hanging off a cliff looking down on us. The obvious chest shot was actually blocked by his nose as he looked down so I decided to slip a bullet right past it and into his shoulder, hopefully catching some back lung and liver and breaking his close shoulder. With my brothers all locked on him I sent one up. He jumped up at the shot carrying his leg. I assumed it was a lethal shot but slammed another in his opposite shoulder as fast as I could. He dropped at this shot, anchored on the ledge he was bedded on!! Billy down! High fives all around! We didn’t realize that we were just getting to the hard part! It took us around 2 hours of rock climbing to get to him, and these billies were in some of the easier to get to stuff in there!! I was blown away with how gorgeous he was when we got to him. I had a lot of people tell me to wait for later season for better hair, but I’m in love with the dense look of his hair. It’s probably 3” long and dense. My first shot broke his close shoulder but wasn’t lethal due to the steep angle. I was very lucky to get a second one in him. His horns were awesome. I really didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t worried about an inch of horn either way but was really excited to see he was a mature billy. The biologist later measured him at 9” long, 5 1/2” bases and 7.5 years old. A really good billy for this part of Montana. We were able to get some pics on the shelf he was on but had to lower him with paracord to get him somewhere safe to butcher. With packs loaded with meat and a life size cape we slowly picked our way down the mountain and back to spike camp. The next morning we got up and loaded our packs and headed out. We had between 40-60# packs going in with our food and gear for 5 days. There’s a surprising amount of meat on a mtn goat and that combined with the cape (which weighed 40#) we all ended up with 50-70# packs on the way out. It took us 5 hours to go the 5 miles out. I can’t explain how demoralizing those blow downs are!!! I’ve never been so happy to see my truck!! We were all wiped out so we stayed in Cooke city that night. A giant ribeye and a half dozen Coors lights never taste so good!! I’m really lucky to have drawn the tag while I was still fairly young and somewhat fit. When we got home we butchered the meat, which looked and smelled excellent. I had heard so many horror stories about goat meat but I don’t believe what I hear as I’ve heard people say antelope, Sandhill crane, and sharptail grouse are all gross as well and they couldn’t be more wrong. My wife cooked up some tenderloin and backstrap that night and I have to say it was incredible. Similar flavor to antelope but maybe a little tougher. I was really thinking I would have to grind it all I to chorizo or jerky but we instead did all roasts and steaks with it. We got back to ND and turned and burned to the Missouri breaks for an archery elk hunt. Saw 25-30 bulls and had some close calls but no arrows in the air. I had to go back to work for 2 days to make sure the place didn’t burn down and now I’m off to Utah for an elk hunt! I love this time of year!
-
1 pointI dont trust a fella that sells guns. It does make it hard to buy used
-
1 point
-
1 point26 pts for Antelope and no draw for me. There is just too many applicants in Az compared to 20 years ago and few goat tags available. Az population in 2000 was 5.13 mil. 2020 population 7.38 mil.
-
1 pointJoys of applying for only 1 choice.... I got 5bs early archery bull!!! And this is the first time in 9 years I can brag about being drawn!!!🙏🏻 Last bull I killed in Arizona was in 5bs on a late rifle hunt so I am pumped to hunt them in the rut.... especially with the late September archery dates 🤙🏼
-
1 pointWhen my ex FIL passed away my ex wanted to put together a plaque of his ribbons for the family. Everyone knew he was a WWll vet, but when she got his 214, he had been awarded a bronze star, I knew him for about 15 years and he never talked about his service.
-
1 pointEnd of next week sounds about right. Then we will know if we are hunting cows or pot-bellied bulls.
-
1 pointNot uncommon to not get a tag, when you apply for a hunt with less than 25-30 tags available. Friends draw every yr. , for cow tags. They always put 5th choice a 100 % draw unit/hunt. If you play the long shots with limited tags, one shouldn't be surprised when not drawn . Sure it sucks I'm in same boat as most of you. Just like hoping g&f go to a 3 yr. Wait if drawn . Let applicants buy bonus points during 3 yr. Wait. G&F would increase profits and hunters would have up to 5 bonus points when they could reapply. Better hunting draw odds for everyone.!
-
1 pointI recently picked up my 11 year old daughter a cheap Savage model 11 youth rifle in 7mm-08. Got some hornady reduced recoil loads in 120 grain sst. Properly broke in the barrel and this thing shoots lights out with factory loads and is very easy for her to shoot. After doing research for her a rifle I figured the 7mm-08 is hard to beat for a youth caliber due to being able to shoot a 120 grain reduced recoil up to a 180 grain bullet.
-
1 pointWait... so there was a time when CWT was centered around the exchange of useful information and sharing ideas relevant to hunting coues? 2010 must have been a weird time.