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Griffin and I hit the road with high hopes and much excitement. We connected with 2 locals who volunteered to help us out. You never know what to expect. Does this mean here’s a dusty 2 track I once saw a deer at or rolling out the red carpet. We were humbled by the level of commitment to help us. Each day was filled with hours of glassing and holding out for a good one. We passed many bucks and held the bar high. Finally on day 4 we spotted a heavily palpated 4x4 about a mile away and 800-1000 feet higher. We watched him graze and knew he’d be the buck of dreams if we would be able to hang our tag on him. We formulated a game plan and off we went. 4.5 hours later we sat above the thicket. We decided to wait him out. Unfortunately the gray ghost gave us the slip and we never saw him again. It was an epic 2 hour hike out in the dark with our egos bruised but our hearts full of the experience. The next day was to be our last in AZ so we decided to take the first legal buck we saw. Finally on the opposite hillside we spotted a buck and moved into shooting range just as the buck disappeared into bottom. He was about 200 away. As we sat there picking apart the hillside just looking our local friend hissed “he’s right there!” 100 yards away the buck emerged from the thicket and stood quartering to knowing something was up. Quickly griffin steadied on the sticks and the crack of the rifle broke the silence. No buck in sight. We decided to give it 30 minutes and give it a look. No blood at all but we spread out and began grid searching. Just a few short minutes later we located the buck and the celebration was on! I want to say I’m so humbled to the 2 gentlemen who took time out of their schedules and spent 5 days helping us chase down the gray ghost we are forever in your debt. We came as strangers but now I consider you good friends! The hunting community is filled with good people who are the salt of the earth with kindness in their hearts! Cant wait to return to AZ next year!!

We finally found the pigs today in my normal honey hole again. Me and my son doubled up shot mine at 40yds and his at 25 yds. Had a blast good luck everyone its been tough!

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7e is mediocre on a good year, both archery and rifle, and really tough on bad rut/ warm and dry late hunt years. If you have time to hunt the whole hunt plus a good deal of pre season scouting you can land yourself a decent bull. There are Elk all across the unit from waputki nat. Park to the north all the way to twin arrows to the east. With 5 points I would try for something like 5bN. You will have a much better experience. There are some good bulls taken on occasion in 7e though. Here is one that I chased for a couple years. Never could turn him up during hunting season.

Them cows deer are fornucating. Saw a old mature muley totally distracted at last light. Snuck with 60 yards when he turned and ran full throttle right at me, he turned at 20 yards. A much larger buck was getting him away from his does.

I had only a bow in my hand 580 yards away. I found the doe and buck bedded at 7:04 AM. They were in an extremely killable position but I just got done processing my last deer a few days ago and decided to stay put. When they got out of bed at 7:50, I started scanning around them and saw the lion broadside just 50 yards upwind. Initially, it looked like it had no idea the deer were there, then they started feeding towards the lion and I started the swap to my spotting scope from my binoculars. Once I started filming, I immediately focused on the deer for a while thinking I was going to get an attack on camera. The lion was within 25 yards or so on two occasions, but it was like he/she knew they weren't close enough and tried their patience. I swear it was like the deer knew it was there and just maintained their 30 yard barrier and fed away until ultimately flagging, blowing and weezing a hundred yards over and slowly away. Eventually you can see the lion kept its pursuit but the coues deer had the upper hand this morning. Like so many encounters, if only the stalker saw the coues deer sooner.

Life was simple when hippies were dirty and poor. Game and Fish is nothing more than bureaucratic bs at its normal operating level. And we need to start fighting the bad guys with their own tactics. keyboard warriors are slowly winning.

This is strange to me. I always thought part of azgfd job was to help protect our rights to hunt.

I have a kimber mountain ascent chambered in 6.5 cm brand new with box comes with 2 box's of eld-x 143 gr for sale not on sale

So close to winning it all.. dam.. next year!

Well got it done yesterday again like last year. I couldn’t pass on this one. Smacked him right at 27 yards quartering away and he didn’t run 50 yards. Scored him at around 110” and he’s a 2 point. Old deer too

Sold

Pristine. Not much of a following here in Arizona since the late 70's. If you can find a hunting forum in Wisconsin or Michigan you should post it there. Pretty reliable and a great woods gun out to 100 yards.

Google bark scorpions

Just ban it all I’m tired of hearing about it.

All good advice. If you’re renting a car be sure there’s a spare and jack as you’ll probably wreck a tire if you climb out of the flats anywhere. There’s deer all over that unit and plenty of hammock trees in the canyons.

Bring lots of water and a gps.

You can find trees to hang a hammock in.

Jeff William makes learning geology fun. Different detectors for different detecting. The Equinox 800 is perfect for coinshooting and artifact digging. Tells you with a high degree of certainty what your digging while canceling out the non-ferrous junk. I borrowed an Equinox 800 from Minelab dealer Bill Southern a couple years ago. Had more of a learning curve than I had time to invest.. I have a Whites Eagle II I use for coins and artifact hunting. Bought it off Craigslist for $200. The $1200 price on that E 800 seems a little high. Minelab offers a 15% discount for vets. Here's a little piece of gold bearing rock I found today with the Minelab Gold Monster.

from the article I saw on FB “At a recent National Turkey Foundation zoom meeting Amber Munig, Arizona Game and Fish Department Game Branch Chief said that the Department is getting a great deal of comments lately concerning taking away the legal hunting of lions, bobcat and bear. On the other hand, she said there have been NO comments from the hunting/conservation community in favor of keeping it the way it is.” Saw this and I’m gonna ask the same thing here. Why is azgfd saying that that lion hunters didn’t come out to say they like lion hunting. Am I supposed to be writing in every year, letting them know I want to keep deer hunting?

3rd gen (1996-2002) 4Runners are pretty hard to beat. If you can find one with the rear locking differential they are great awesome!

I'm still looking for early bull rifle with 100% draw odds. Maybe I'll check FB. Thanks.

Good, competitive league this year boys. Congrats to the winner.

Solid year boys congrats to the winners

Ruger calls this finish "Case Colored", it simulates case hardened but not very well. They no longer offer it because they had too many problems with it. If you email Ruger's customer service they will offer to refinish it at no charge. I bought a similar Vaquero from a member here a couple of years ago and Ruger refinished it in blue at no cost to me. If I remember correctly they even sent a prepaid mailing label to ship it back to them. The gun came back looking brand new.