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Like others it started in July w a 2100 $ hit and goof up from AZGFD, but I got the refund later. Who cares I was going sheep hunting. Scouting started right away and I spent over 30 days scouting in the summer heat and leading up to the hunt. Several target rams we’re seen but as sheep hunting goes they move off in September making it hard to relocate them. Opening day came quick and I spent 8 hard grinding days trying to locate target rams with my close friends. Day 8 we spotted a group of 7 rams and this old desert warrior was a new ram I have not seen before. We’re did he come from ? A quick stalk and some videoing is the rams before the shot my lifetime tag was filled. This ram will probably be the biggest taken in that unit. Rough score 179.5 net 177.5. On cloud 9. I can’t thank my buddies enough for grinding it out with me.

Here are some more pics. This guy had over 106inches of mass. The last pic is my ram standing next to a mid 160s

https://nfalawyers.com/ Buy this trust and follow the instructions. Take it down to Healy Arms, Mr Silencer. They have kiosks to fill out the form 4 and do fingerprints and pictures. Buy the suppressors you want and pay for the $200 ATF tax stamp then sit back and wait. I believe the trust is best unless you plan on being the only person in possession of the suppressors.

I was being generous. Had no idea NAU was such a FB power house

Never met Steve or hunted with him. I hope the penalty matches the crime- to revoke someone's lively hood for 5 years is very long time.

Wtf is a guides report. This thread is lame

I am seriously considering getting a can or two. I have a 9 year old that will hopefully start hunting soon and was thinking about this for him, and also for my hunts. I know this is a regulated item so I have to send in the form 4 I believe. If I decide to get a 2nd suppressor do I have to do the same super long process to get that one approved too? I am assuming the govt takes tour money for every can, not just the original form you submit? Should I just put this thing in a trust with my wife? What is the best process?

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.

Yep pretty soon everything will suck here and you’ll have to know someone to hunt. like the Midwest

Congrats amigo! You earned it for sure

Could have been an honest mistake ,if so you should not lose your privileges for 5 years

That’s the way of the west though unfortunately. Tens of millions of acres across the west in the same boat. In AZ the Baca Float has a ton of checkerboard as well. It’s complete BS but unless they over turn the corner crossing rule (currently going into a high court right now) there’s no way. Here in ND a section line is considered public right of way so not only can you corner hop, you can actually walk down a section line across private as long as you stay on it and don’t actively “hunt” but that’s a state by state deal.

I could be mistaken here but the part I always have contention with is the that a lot of that land 'on the ranch' is checkerboarded with public land but all with pvt land access. I don't believe in this state a landowner has to grant access to public land but sure eliminates a lot of state ground if some sort of agreement can't be reached and sure allows for a lot of 'free' grazing land for the owners of the surrounding land.

It’s a slow but sure progression. I’m not for it, was just surprised it lasted as long as it did. The next thing coming down the pipe is private land tags. Those Indians are sitting on a few million a year in revenue for the elk and antelope they have and they will get that extracted, it’s just a matter of time. Again I’m not saying I’m for it or that it’s good by any means, was just exclaiming that I can’t believe it lasted as long as it did. I watched guys complain about the “greedy” owners because they had to pay $85 and couldn’t drive their side by side where ever they wanted. They were being so generous by allowing that access for free and for pay. You don’t even come close to scratching the surface of the cost of ownership of that land at $85 a person access fee even if you sell thousands.

I wondered when this day was gonna get here. Honestly can’t believe they put up with all the bullshit they did for as long as they did. I’m gonna get flamed for this but I’ve never seen a place with such lack of respect for private land ownership as I did in AZ. Everyone was losing their minds they had to pay $85 to have full run of a half a billion dollar ranch like it was some kind of inconvenience to them.

No chit? Dang I been sending my 1040 to game and fish.

Big whoop.

Does this count as a deer drive

No one is going to throw away bonus points for an archery draw other than strip and kaibab. Just put a cap on tags sold.

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

No draw just set numbers of tags per unit. Open to purchase in december. Tag is good for said unit only. If you hunt multiple units buy multiple tags. Once sold out you are sol. buy a different unit. Each tag allows one hunter and 2 helpers. Any more helpers have to purchase a posse hunting permit that and requires you to wear a posse permit orange vest over your matching kuiu costumes. I think this would work as long as the tag numbers issued are not stupid high to make more money.

Brian has done a heck of a lot more than send an email to get this considered. He has been pitching this idea, adapting and improving it for almost a year in an effort to try and preserve OTC opportunity in AZ. I am learning the hard way that sending a few emails is not an effective way to get anyone to listen to your ideas. Pretending Brian is getting some special treatment is just plain ignorant. Trust me, the dept (Amber Munig specifically) started giving the same nonsensical argument about barriers to participation etc. and Brian didn’t let it go. He took it to the commission, branch chiefs, critter groups, etc. There is no need for sour grapes. Mandatory reporting is good for wildlife management and we have been asking for it long enough. Let’s make sure everyone hears it this time.

Dude that’s awesome!

Beautiful!

Got to see this monster in person right after she killed it. I can promise everyone on here that he is waaaayyyy bigger than everyone thinks. Our buddy shot a 105” (green scored by honest reputable Coues hunters) the day before and her buck dwarfs it.