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Do non hunters watching hunting shows? I don’t remember buckmasters or realtree outdoors being drunken rednecks idk man imo if meateater, joe Rogan, cam Hanes, randy newberg, jay scott podcast etc. didn’t exist we’re not having these conversations on otc deer tags, trailcams, whatever else is next.

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.

I remember several years back my buddy had a 12ae late tag and No deer down low. We went up top and filled by Jacobs lake.

https://www.huntinggearguy.com/equipment-reviews/cabelas-covenant-7-review/

Show yourselves

Guess the rut has started.

I'd like to see the money go to appropriating right of ways to landlocked public lands.

I did not apply as i have no faith in what our money ACTUALLY goes towards. I would also really like to see who actually drew the tags. I am not inexperienced or inept at understanding what kind of finances it takes to run a BIG operation and I can’t make any sense out of where all the revenue goes. G&F officers don’t make much money (they should), there either aren’t enough of them or they have very little presence in the field and i personally see very little habitat improvement. Revenue keeps going up and populations, age class and habitat keep going down.

Well. Took the ram for my check in and it’s now the new unit record. I hit the 180 mark with this special ram. Thanks for all my buddies for helping. It was an outstanding hunt.

It is a favorite hobby of mine.........I ain't stoppin!

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.

Personally I think the owners should just pick half, make it totally private. With the other half going state land and eliminating the checkerboard

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!

Now I remember...

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.

Never occurred to me hunters look like drunken rednecks that kill for horns. I was raised by ethical hunters that put wild meat on the table regardless of horn size. That's what I teach my kids as well. But hey, who doesn't admire a nice rack?

My wife have a good arrangement, she told me I could put the mounts on the walls and when the walls were filled up she could get a new house. So I bought a house with 23 ft walls and keep filling them up..

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!

Nothing really exciting to post about this. My buddy glassed him up within range, I got behind his gun and got a little lucky. Mark and I had a blast and went 2/2. He shot his the morning before, I shot mine yesterday.

This is my Son, Aaron Altaha Jr., 11 years old, this past weekend was the last weekend of his rifle hunt for deer and he tagged out his 1st deer the day before the last day on 10/30/21. And he was blessed to harvest a Awesome 7x8 Coues buck from the San Carlos Apache Reservation in AZ.

Ethan pulled it off. 4pm last day of the hunt and a cow walks up on us at a new area we had good vibes about. Wanna find elk? Take a walk.. This is his last youth hunt. He’s growing up! The interaction we had with the herd was magical and it turned out that baby hoochie got em’ talking after all! Even the bull wanted to play. never had so much fun with a call.

Wanted to share my sons first buck he took the opening day in 22 on the jr deer hunt.

I’ve had my 15x Docter’s set-up side by side with all of the other 15’s, (at the same time on a sheep hunt) my old eyes couldn’t justify the price of the latest technology. I’ve been using my 15’s for 15 years or more. (I also own a pair of 30x Docter’s I pack into big coues country - love’em!) Good luck with the sale!

Whoever gets these for 500.00 wont regret it. Still use mine all the time