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I didn't really want to start my own thread but I haven't seen a meat pole thread all week to add to. I did want to thank the forum for all the help and advice, though. Being from CO originally I had a lot to learn about AZ elk when I moved in 2015. I drew my first AZ elk tag in 2017, a late rifle tag, and it's what pushed me to join the forum (thanks for the recommendation @cpugsie). I didn't fill that tag in 2017 and had to face the fact that I had a lot left to figure out about these elk. Drew the same tag this year, learned from my mistakes, and got it done on a bull I was very happy with. Thanks for all the lessons, guys!

Thanks to everyone that gave some guidance on my sons first elk hunt. Was a tough hunt for us as it never got cold enough for the elk to move down and the country is just big. Seen a few good bulls but with no way to close the distance and not wanting to shot a 1000 yrds, we did not have opportunities to shoot the first half the hunt. On Monday morning he was still hopeful of a good bull, he decide to pass on 2 rag horns and a spike that were within 400yrds. Monday night this 5x came within his range as we where glassing cuts that led to water. Cody decided he was the bull as it was only the second one he had ever glasses up. Made a great shot and we were able to find him that night. Got him skinned, guartered out and hung in a tree till the next morning. Pack out was great being the first time we were able to use our two mules on elk. Can’t wait to do it again.

I had an opportunity to do my 2nd DIY moose hunt in Alaska this year. I traveled to a remote village with an old friend and we spent 6 days with our friends who live in this village. It is always important to be reminded of what it is like to live in the bush and realize how challenging life can really be. This is a special place. But, sometimes the wrong kind of people are discovering these areas. We see how trophy hunters and a few guides have caused quite a disruption to the way of life up here. It is not uncommon to see hindquarters sitting in the sun on a pallet at the airport. Chunks of meat dirty and rotting away. Some guys go out to areas for the sole purpose of shooting a 60 plus inch moose. The problem is that these big bulls need to be left to breed another season. Not to mention, the meat on big musky bulls has to be hung for at least a week in order to get rid of all the smell from testosterone running through their bodies. Most people don't have this kind of time. So leaving a hunt with a 40 to 50 inch bull is okay with me. It equals great meat and a respectable rack. But, most importantly, respect from the locals........ Day 1 - Rain all day, no live bulls seen. Day 2 - Sunny all day. 13 bulls seen. 5 cows seen. One bigger bull passed up due the difficult of the pack out. Three of us in the boat and we are all over 50 realizing our limitations we decided to look for something closer to the river. We spotted a bull feeding in the shallows of the side channel. As we got closer I decided it was a nice bull. I raised the 375 Ultra mag and shot him in the lungs, between 2 ribs. Bull ran and we saw the pink blood. He turned to go into the willows, so I shot again and hit him low in the front leg. He turned again and ran into the main channel. He is running like he was not hit. I waited for him to exit the river and shot him in the head. The last thing we wanted was for him to travel into the wilderness. But, at the same time, you do not want a bull dead in the river. Well, instead of him dropping on the shore, he flew backwards into the river. Trying to keep the motor out of the rocks, reaching for the bull and hanging on to antlers and not having a workable reverse all turned into a challenging situation really quickly. Two of us grabbed the bull, while our buddy controlled the boat and found a piece of shore a few hundred yards down river. Tied up the boat and used a come along to get the bull on shore. One guy working the come along and two of us pulling the moose and we could barely move it. We laid out some tarps and got to work. If you have never handled a moose, here is the break down into 10 manageable pieces - neck, brisket, rump, 2 sides of ribs, 2 front quarters, 2 hind quarters, head. Put all the meat in game bags and on a clean tarp in the boat and got back to the village at dark. Day 3 - Snowed all day and night. Started butchering that night. Day 4 - Snowed all day. Butchered and wrapped meat all day Day 5 - Finished butchering, wrapping and grinding meat. Day 6 - Flew back to Anchorage with 400 pounds of deboned meat. Stayed with another friend in Anchorage and filled up his spare freezer with the meat for the night. Day 7 - Flew back to Phoenix with the meat in totes lined with foam board. Each tote held 90 pound of meat. All the meat stayed completely frozen. My friend and I each lugged a soft cooler of 40 pounds of meat onto the plane. He gave me grief the whole time! Basic hunt. Nothing fancy. Just good, down to earth people and incredibly good meat.

My bride and I got our bucks from last year back the other day, making not getting tags this year a little more palatable! Sorry, couldn’t figure out how to turn the pics

My son is stationed in Alaska and was lucky enough to draw a Kodiak Brown Bear tag (2% draw odds) for the fall hunt this year. We will doing a DIY hunt and will be in Area 16 (Larsen Bay). It should be a lot of fun and great memories for sure. Anyone here hunted on Kodiak Island? If so share your experience so I know how bad my body is going to get beat up and possibly die from a bear attack.......🤪 He shot this caribou Monday morning on Chicken Ridge in NE Alaska.

I’ll start off by saying I don’t know if this is the proper “category” for my post, but I feel that it is as good as any. This is more of my journey as an archer than anything else. I am beyond blessed that I was born into a family that owns a large piece of land in Texas, in good deer country. I grew up hunting the place with my father, grandfather and cousins and have had many “firsts” there in the world of hunting. I started bow hunting when I was 12, exclusively here in Arizona and exclusively for deer. It was more of a way to spend more time afield with my father, I was never a very good archer as a child/young adult and the limited opportunities I had always failed to pan out due to lack of practice and nerves. I stopped bow hunting around the age of 15 and didn’t pick a bow up again for almost 10 years. When I did, all my childhood experiences and failures quickly caught up to me and I gave up within the year. Fast forward to mid 2020. Amidst a major career change and the pandemic, I knew that I needed a “new” hobby to occupy my time. My parents recognized this and my father who is an accomplished bow hunter generously offered birthday money in the amount to afford a modern economy type bow to get me back into archery. I ended up with a bare PSE BowMadness unleashed. I researched endlessly, watched videos, talked to pro shop employees, and came up with a solid setup. I practiced for a couple months and shot literally thousands of arrows and began to feel confident as an archer for the first time in my life. In early October 2020, I made the drive down to the ranch in Texas. Their archery season opens the first Saturday in October and I thought it would be a great opportunity in a target rich environment. I figured it would be easier to kill a deer there than in the desert, and even thought I may kill multiple deer during my week long hunt. I got a reality check. I missed 2 great bucks, and 3 does. Branches, string jumps, and nerves were to blame. I made an incredibly poor shot on a feral hog that was somehow lethal, and the glory of my first archery success was shadowed by failure just like all the years before. This time I didn’t give up. I took what I learned and started from scratch to build a “correct” arrow, properly tune my bow, and practiced consistently. I hunted all of the OTC season without a single shot opportunity. In March of this year, I drew an archery cow elk tag. I continued to practice and revised my setup as necessary in preparation for my upcoming elk hunt. In April of this year, my father and I traveled to the ranch in Texas to hunt turkeys and pigs and do some ranch work for the 2021 deer season. On that trip, I killed another feral hog with my bow - but this shot was far, difficult, and the arrow flew exactly as I had intended it to. I watched the hog expire a mere 32 yards from the point of impact. That was my first moment of pride as an archer. In September, I found myself in the elk woods on opening morning of my hunt. I had some good intel on the area and the elk showed up right on schedule. At 7:30 a large cow made her way in front of me at 35 yards and as I drew, she spooked. Simultaneously, I heard elk behind me. Knowing that the cow in front of me was gone, I turned 180 degrees to find 15 or so elk. I was already drawn, so I picked the biggest cow, estimated the range and let the arrow fly. I watched it sail 3” over her back. Discouraged yet again. I returned to the same location on day 2 of my hunt, and at 7:01am I watched as a bull pushed 2 cows directly to me. The bigger cow stopped at 22 yards and my arrow found its mark. After a 315 yard tracking job I had my first “game animal” with a bow. I still wanted that “first buck” with a bow. October 1st, I set out for the ranch in Texas. Opening morning found me in a new setup I had constructed solely for archery hunting. To say that things didn’t work out is an understatement. No shots fired, but plenty of frustration. The whole first day was spent working out the kinks. The second morning was foggy, and 30 minutes after sunrise I was looking at the largest buck I have personally seen on the ranch to date - a mere 120 yards away. He never came closer. The evening of day 2 and all of Day 3 were days of more frustration. No opportunities, poor weather etc. The morning of October 5th found me in the same blind where I had the encounter with the big buck on day 2. Before it was light enough to see, I could make out a deer about 70 yards in front of the blind. As the sun came up I realized that this deer was a good mature buck. I told myself if he came into range and offered me a shot I would take him. 10 minutes later he was 23 yards in front of me, oblivious to my presence. I drew, anchored, and let the arrow fly. The buck ducked at the sound of my bow, but not before my arrow reached him. Much to my surprise, the buck immediately hit the ground. I’ve watched enough hunting shows and videos to know that when deer drop from a bow shot, they have been hit in the spine and that is almost always a non lethal hit. I quickly got out of the blind, approached the buck and put another arrow in him. He expired quickly, and I watched it all from 10 feet away. The moments that followed were special in a way I will never be able to accurately describe. The light fog, the cool morning air, the sun rising behind me as I laid hands on my first buck with a bow. 16 years after I first tried my hand at being a bow hunter. All the failures, ducked arrows, twigs, straight up misses, all brought me to those moments and I wouldn’t trade that journey for anything. The buck is a mature 10 point that scores right at 120”. By no means a giant, almost enough to get into the Pope and young book. He will soon reside on the wall next to my first ever deer, which was taken less than 1/4 mile from him on the same property nearly 20 years earlier. If you’ve made it this far thanks for sticking with the long read. I hope that this post inspires those struggling to be successful as a hunter, and reminds others of the struggles it took to get where they are today. Good luck out there!

All done except for outside corner moulding and foil tape on inside seams. Dropped to 36° in less than 10 min.

I wanted to share something I thought some of you might find this interesting. Check out the cool color differences between these two bucks. The main difference that immediately stood out to me was the difference in velvet color then after watching the video a bit more I noticed the color differences in their fur as well. One buck is mostly grey while the other has quite a bit more color to him. He's got a reddish orange color on the back of his legs, tail and armpits. I never gave much thought to velvet color before but I must say I'm quite intrigued now after seeing this. I did a quick Google search but couldn't find anything on a bucks velvet color. I wonder if there's a correlation between velvet color and the color of a bucks fur? What have you guys noticed? Is this just a coincident?

😜😜😜

Headed out. Was hoping for cooler Temps but oh well.

H1000... I wasn't sure anyone would pay for an 8lber, more wanted it than I figured, if I see anymore in the future I'll buy it and put it up, I don't use it myself. Kent

No luck. Unit was good to me last year. Been off work and in the field since Thanksgiving minus a few days back home to take care of shoot. Can't complain. Last year's buck. 24A is bitch sometimes.

OBO

I attended ASU and all four of my kids went to UofA. I can definitely vouch with notags and tell you the Tucson school student body is much more conservative than the Tempe Campus. Sadly, today's woke ASU campus is nothing like what I attended and grew up around.

O nice... ya idk how I missed this one. Congrats

Good luck to you guys. I was there last weekend helping some buddies on their late bull hunt. SUPER TOUGH hunt, the elk just weren't anywhere I've seen them in the past few years. Hopefully they'll move into the more glassable country for you, the only recent sign for any elk were in the thick timber, all we saw was a flash of 2 running away. Has been unseasonably warm too. Just when I thought I had 7E figured out, got punched in the gut and humbled.

20ga O/U.

"He was a couple of miles away from where we saw him the day before opener." That's why we pay guides! Great job by all

Wow, congrats.

Great Bulll...

Very nice beast ! Congrats!

Living in soft sand areas

I will take any and all info you can and will share. We have a transporter through Kodiak Marine Charters and will be staying on the boat nightly. There are 4 of us going and I am the only one from out of state. From my understanding they are allowed 3 deer and two goats each in addition to my son's Bear tag. The boat also offers duck hunting, fishing, crabbing and fox hunting. I am stoked and can't wait!

I would have never noticed their color differences with that head gear.....