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With this logic, why even have tags or hunting seasons

This is the most important part. Sheep hunting is a team sport and I had a top tier team. I couldn't have done it without them.

Many states require this to buy a license or tag the next year. It’s very effective and doesn’t cost the dept anything.

I think my position on social media and hunting is well documented. In the essay below Matt Rinella makes a few points on why his brother and others like him are bad for hunting. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://freerangeamerican.us/matt-rinella-unfollowing-hunting-social-media//

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.

Holy cow was this an adventure!!!!!!! First, I started off by spending $2300.00 on a sheep tag. Then I didn't know if my wife had the tag or if it was mine. Luck ended up in my favor and I got a rebate for the additional money spent on the tag. In all I made 5 scouting trips and one trip down for the hunt. As it turned out I had 14 days of scouting (buddies had probably more days than me towards scouting). After scouting ended, we had only seen sheep 1 out of the last 8 days of scouting. I can't begin to tell you how difficult it is to sit there and glass for days on end and not see sheep. We had a 3 day and then a 4 day stretch with seeing no wildlife. We didn't even see a deer, rabbit, nothing. As opening morning rolled around the feeling in camp was different than any other hunt I have been on. Normally everyone is super excited and ready to go but everyone knew this could be day 5 with seeing no sheep. We also knew this would likely be a hunt that lasted more than 10 days to get the job done. Either way we knew that heading out before first light would need to happen. We developed a plan and sent everyone to their spots to find the elusive ram. After a solid hour of glassing, I decided to grab some grub out of my daily bag of food. That went so well that I decided that grabbing something else would be even better......little did I know that would be the last food I had before dinner. I kept on glassing and finally found a few white butts moving in the distance. I told my buddy to get eyes on them and then grabbed my BTX's after he obtained them in his glass. He started off by saying he could see 3 sheep and one was a ram. Then he said that there were 4 sheep and all of them were rams. Then his voice changed a bit and he said that one of the rams was really, really good. Once I got my glass on the rams I could see one that was well above average. We were sitting about 2.5 miles from the sheep. We knew he was big enough to look at but we really couldn't judge him from that far away. Luckily, we didn't have heat waves yet so we could tell that I needed to go in for a closer look. I grabbed my pack, glass and rifle and off I went. My buddy was going to stay and keep an eye on the rams. My other buddies were off in the general direction of the rams so hopefully we could all meet up if this came together. After a 2 mile walk (seemed like the longest walk of my life) I would see the rams up the mountain and decided to take a look at the bigger ram with my spotter. He was with 3 other rams. One of the rams was probably in the 150 class and he just looked tiny compared to this guy. I was fairly confident that this was going to be my ram. He had great mass all the way through. He looked like he was turning up at the tips and seemed to have good length. I'm far from a sheep expert but he looked good to me. Well after looking at this ram at 1000 yards I decided to make my approach. Off I went through a wash moving slowly (mostly because it was hot and I was tired) and gaining ground on the rams. They were starting to look like they were going to bed. I continued my stalk. The rams decided to bed down in a spot where I could take a shot if I could get into position. After a good chunk of time, I finally got as close as I could to the group of rams. The bigger ram was at 462 yards and bedded down in a position where I couldn't have a good shot at him. I knew that I would have to wait until he stood up before I could shoot. I'm not a very patient guy so this was going to be a challenge. I found a good resting spot and laid my rifle down on my pack. At the time I could see the ram in my scope but I couldn't see his body. It was now right at noon and the sun was just beating down on me. This was not typical hunting weather in my book. After about half an hour two of the smaller rams got up. Now I'm on high alert because I'm sure the bigger ram is going to get up any second. At many points I was shaking like crazy.....not because of nerves but I was just tired of laying behind my gun waiting for my ram to stand up. Every so often I would put my head down and get off the gun just so I could take a few breaths and relax. Then all of a sudden I look through the scope and the bigger ram stood up. two seconds later there was a light click and then a big boom. Big ram down!!!!!!!! I was super excited but knew the work was just to begin. My buddies joined me for a photo session and then we did a life size cape job on my ram. After breaking the ram down into pieces, we went down the mountain and made the journey back to the glassing spot which was 2.5 miles away. Luckily, we barely made it back before dark. I was plenty thirsty. It was 6pm and I was looking forward to getting some water in me and hopefully a good meal. A few guys were heading to camp to help for the second day but their help would be needed to pack up camp. We might have celebrated a bit and had ribeye's for dinner. Life was good. I was spent. The reward was worth the effort and I feel very fortunate for all the help I received from many people. Many of the people I only talked to on the phone and have never met in person. I even had one buddy Greg that went down twice on his own to scout and found multiple good rams. It's hard to believe so many people were rooting for me to find a big ram.......but that is sheep hunting.

No tags in Arizona for us this year. But it is always nice to look at my antelope from 2020 and my daughter’s from 2016. Considering last year was so dry, my goat on the left looks great.

Mint condition. Asking $4400 for everything. Boxes included. comes with Outdoorsmans BTX case and Marsupial BTX eyepiece case. Phoenix east valley pickup only. Pm or text me if interested. foureighrzer0 22seven 6twoseven4

How does a draw stop that from continuing (if it even does to the level you’re suggesting)? Are drawn hunters more honest and forth giving than non-draw hunters? I’m confused by your rationale.

Next year just give me the app fee money, we’ll go out back I’ll kick ya in the nuts and we will call it a day

Mandatory reporting, no problem. But before azgfd can penalize one hunter for not reporting, they need to get their act together. I got an email days ago urging me to return the harvest report I never received. If some hunters are going to take it in the shorts from azgfd, why always on the back of AZ residents? Fewer NR tags and make them pay more. This last special draw is a perfect example. NRs entering the draw paid $2 more more for an application fee than residents. Gimme a break. If restructuring hunts, I'd like to see some primitive weapons hunts for bows and muzzleloaders.

Kev isn’t wrong that there is a perception among much of the public that hunters are ignorant rednecks. It’s a stupid stereotype that isn’t any more accurate than pretending all inner-city youth are gang members or criminals. Neither of these is correct and the stereotype doesn’t help fix problems that either of them face nor does it value the good that they often bring. Like it or not, MeatEater pushed hunting towards mainstream. There are a litany of challenges that imposes on an extractive recreation like hunting, fishing, gathering, etc. How we manage that going forward is the million dollar question.

I have no problems reporting if I killed an animal or not. I also think it’s the best chance to keep OTC hunts open long term.

Never heard of him or his bro

Great bull!! Holy smokes!

Good looking Bull.

I wanted to share the letter that AZGFD sent me after I forwarded the results of the petition along with an explanation of why over 2,100 Arizonans asked them to stop paying influencers to promote big game hunting opportunities that do not have a non-resident cap (all otc hunts, antlerless and any elk permits and javelina). To me, it’s clear that the department got the message from the many public comments they received on the topic. Unfortunately much of the damage was done. However, I think it’s a good sign that we spoke up and AZGFD acknowledged our request and changed course. Thanks to everyone who signed. Mr. Gillett, I am responding to your email to the Arizona Game and Fish Department Director and Commissioners regarding the use of influencers in marketing big game tags nationwide. The Department has already stopped such activities in relation to big game hunting. These activities were stopped in part because of public input, but also because of declining big game populations as a result of drought and an increasing trend in participation assumed to be related to the covid pandemic and the new interest in outdoor activities such as hunting. As stated we have stopped using influencers to market big game hunts indefinitely, but we may consider implementing similar activities in the future should the trends change. The Department may also continue to employ these types of marketing efforts for small game hunting opportunities such as dove. If you'd like to discuss this further with the Commission, you may speak at any of our regularly scheduled Commission meetings during the Public Comments section, or during any specific agenda item. Thank you for your interest, if you have any questions or wish to discuss further please let me know. HEIDI RAYMENT | MARKETING BRANCH CHIEF ARIZONA GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT

Wow that is awesome! Congratulations and thanks for sharing your experience!

I must be getting old, when I saw side by side, I thought double barrel shotgun!

Grandson Ryan had a 34a youth tag this year. We missed opening morning because of his job. Got to the Gardner canyon area around noon, set up camp and got out for the evening. Saw one doe. Sat morning I glassed up 2 bucks and 3 does. The bigger buck bedded down at 300 yards at 7:30 , while the others went over a ridge. A few minutes later a doe walked by the tree where we saw the buck was bedded. She stared into the tree where he was, and as luck would have it, he got up and followed her up the ridge. When the buck stopped at 350, I told him to hold 2 in. over his back. At the shot, he staggered a few steps, and went down. He was super excited to say the least, but the pack out took most of that away. 4 hours after boning the deer out and packing back to camp, all was good. That deer lived in the steepest , nastiest canyon possible…or so it seemed to this 72 year old, while huffing and puffing him out. Beautiful country though. The grasshoppers down there are HUGE, and they eat meat!

Hi Red Rabbit, I know this was posted a while ago but figured I would share my 2 cents. I am hunting a new unit this year and I hunted one last year as well. It is probably not the most productive strategy as far as killing big bucks but I just love exploring new places. There’s something special about everywhere I have explored with the the intentions of hunting these fascinating little deer. I started chasing coues 6 years ago and have now hunted them in four different units, each one special in its own way. cheers!

Decided to leave my caller at home and just use my squeaker and handmade howler. Big guy with his little girlfriend.

Let me guess who is going to be the gun bearer on your next trip. 😁

Agree. But we need to know what the NR impact on harvest is. We need the data, because I highly suspect that the NR contribution to the overall harvest far exceeds the % permits sold.

Don't hate the messenger but my son drew with 4 points (insert embarrassed face here). Now we need to go find a Gould's turkey....