Leaderboard

Each year I look forward to a Merriam Turkey tag… sentimentally it’s because this species was my first “Big Game” harvest back in 2017. Yesterday marked my 4th solo shotgun harvest. I like to walk the woods and cold call 2 days prior to opening day for a first morning success, but I’ve never shot a Longbeard opening day! I usually go through the highs and lows of hunting before earning these big birds. This year was no exception. The wind was down right awful to hear or be heard. This year’s Tom was memorable because of how long we danced before pulling the trigger. I saw him walking the woods before he saw me so I quickly sat down without any real structure to blend into. He liked my slate scratching enough to fan out and strut at 55yrd, but there were brushy limbs between us. I kept that call close to my chest without any movement except the wrist. Little did I know, his Hen was behind me and walked past me to group up with the Tom. Once the two reunited, he wasn’t about to leave her and walk uphill into my shooting lane. After 50min of him fanning / strutting / feeding, I realized I had to move in. Slowly removed my vest and all other non essentials that would drag during the creep in. When he fanned facing the opposite direction, I balanced the 12ga on my lap and crab crawled in with the slate call. Occasionally throwing out some clucks and purrs to keep his attention. Took him at 09:45 35yrd puffed up in full fan. What a show!

With a little luck, and a little bit of magic in the mountains I was able to take this beautiful tom this morning. At first he was hesitant to commit to coming in but after calling to him for about 30 mins I was able to connect on him at 27yards. Hid beard measured at 10 inches and his spurs where just over an 1 1/4".

Had an opportunity to hunt in Sonora in January for my first time and it was an epic adventure. Hoping to roll out a few episodes on this one so here is Episode 1. Enjoy!

ger this year!

Beauty! Hope you find the match!

Take the tag. I will send you a new mouth call I just finished developing this year that you can use on your hunt. I think it sounds great. Send me a PM if your address if you want the call.

Found a matching set.

Took the kids, wife and father-in-law out fishing Saturday. We decided to go to Whitehorse, a lake I haven't fished in over 10 years. I didn't know what to expect so I brought rigs for catfish, trout, crappie. Well the large mouth bass were sure hungry. We caught about 5 in the 11" range and I caught this nice 16"er that was almost 3 lbs. These were my first largemouth I've ever caught. On Sunday I took my son out shed hunting here around Flagstaff and we did turn up 1 muley shed. Overall a good weekend outdoors.

Some things I will not be using much anymore or have no need for: 1. Two Burris Fullfield II scopes, 3x9x40 - $75 each... SOLD 2. One Leupold Custom Turret Scope (300WSM) - $350...SOLD 3. BowTech Allegiance compound bow, fully loaded with many extras - $400 4. Double Bull Carbon Blind (used once) - $250 PM me your cell # and I will send pictures to you, thanks!

Love that beard!

Yes and yes

CFE still available. If buyer takes all three, I'll throw in a box of .224 50 grain V-Max bullets

Is that really what a tanned cape is worth? might need to sell mine and forgo plans to mount my buck

Sold pending meet.

Is this the M5 DBM? From the looks it would take some extra fitting to fit in a non-greyboe stock, is that correct? Thank you.

Here is my new mouth call model for your hunt. It is a 3 1/2 reed call with a ghost cut. I named it Maverick after the ghost town on the Apache reservation. I used it this year and was really impressed with how good it sounded all day.

Congratulations on a Nice bird. From the look of his spurs I would guess he is a 4 year old bird. Sharp and long. Well done.

beautiful bird! Really enjoyed the write up. congrats

Nice work and solid report! The wind was no joke on Thurs, Fri and Sat in 5A, no dice for my tag so far.

That’s awesome…congrats! I still love/hate Merriams due to the highs and lows and have yet to tag one myself.

Congrats and nice write up.

Made it out a couple days ago after work. I like to start my shed season checking fence lines, I usually scoop up a few a year that way. Lucked into a good one to start, 76.5” four point. Lots of miles in my future looking for the match.

The misinformation in this thread is amazing. I laugh the whole way through. 10-12K hahaha. I too was misinformed until we test drove a few and found out the real numbers. We paid $500 for the Tesla charger and $500 for the install. Arizona has a $1K rebate that we received so the charger was a wash. We spend $35 a month extra on our electric bill to charge the car and we drive a lot. We can get a full charge in under an hour in the garage that happens at night while we sleep. No more oil changes, no more stopping to get gas in the morning and being late for work. We bought a Tesla model Y that was 3K more than the Toyota Highlander we were going to buy. Bought the vehicle in a few clicks rather than dealing with turbo salesmen at the lot. We paid 166 for 5 years of registration btw. The amount of money we are saving on gas and registration alone makes it worth it. Plus the car is very very fast and extremely fun to drive. We drove to California and back and I didn't steer or use the gas/brake pedals the entire time, and we spent $35 total to charge it both ways. My wife will not go back to ice vehicles. I wasn't a fan until I actually did the research and experienced it myself. It has a 8 year bumper to bumper warranty including the battery and the batteries are supposed to last 200,000-250,000 miles. Tesla comes to my house and does anything I want to free while I'm at work. If you need a car for driving around town its a no brainer. It's cheaper, faster and more fun to drive. That being said I'm keeping my Tacoma for hunting/fishing/camping. The electric thing isn't far enough along for that yet.

I think he said his daughter is looking for a car, not a driving school. 🙄😭 Maybe there’s a cream puff somewhere in this bunch, Kevin? https://www.edmunds.com/used-cars-under-5000-tucson-az/ Good luck to the young lady!!

Sorry about the wreck, glad they are ok. I put both my boys through this hands on training course where they learned to handle a loss of traction and how to properly use their abs systems to avoid collision. They drove cars with plastic skid covers on the rear wheels. It was a great experience for them. Knock on wood, so far so good. Doug Herbert, a top fuel drag racer, lost both his boys in an auto accident when they were driving to McDonalds on a Saturday morning. Absolutely tragic, worst nightmare for any parent. He started this program. https://putonthebrakes.org/about https://putonthebrakes.org/shop