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I was able to put closure on my archery deer hunt today. Last Saturday I had this buck come in. I drilled him perfect right behind the shoulder. As soon as I hit him, It proceeded to hail and rain. I got out of the blind as fast I could to start following blood trail. Only made it about 40 yards before hail had covered the ground and washed all the blood away. For the next 2.5 hours it proceeded to rain 4 1/2 inches. I searched the whole time in the downpour but to no avail. I decided to head out and make a few calls for help. On way out to cell service, I barely made it out due to flooding. So I made my phone calls and tried headed back in with it still raining but flooding had overtaken the roads and they had been barricaded and closed. So now for the rest of the weekend the roads were closed and I couldn’t make it back in. I was just sick. Couldn’t believed what had happened. So my tag was filled and wasn’t going to do anything else but find this buck. Finally today, one week later, I was able to catch a whiff of a dead animal while seaching with a friend. Few minutes later he hollered and said he had found him. He had only went about 125 yards. I had probably walked by him 4 or 5 times with 20 yards and just couldnt see him where he fell. Bear had found him and chewed his antler points pretty good. Wasn’t much left of the buck. About gagged me to death cutting the head off. Velvet was mostly ate off. Bear had Chewed up eyeguards, ends of main beams and other points but I was happy to put my tag on a really great buck. Taxidermist is going to be able to rebuild points and put velvet back on him. Bitter sweet ending losing the meat but was able to recover him. Brian

Ernesto. You should have gone in there and got your elk anyway. Screw those idiots

My first deer hunt. My dad and grandpa found a herd of 3 bucks that was unbelievable for the unit/area. One was truly exceptional, pushing 200" typical. Opening morning came and we found them immediately and close. If I remember right we were only like 150 yards away. My older brother pulled up to shoot the big one but his rifle, a .264wm, was jammed. He grabbed my middle brother’s rifle (.270 m77) and it just clicked. He grabs my rifle next, which was a Remington mohawk .243 that had a sawed off stock and was really short. He shot the big buck and knocked him down. I was 2nd up and shot the next biggest buck in the neck and he was down. The great big buck was kinda flopping around and my middle brother was trying to line up on the smallest buck (still a great buck). He had trouble finding it in the scope. In the meantime my oldest brother told my dad he fixed the jam in his .264 and was going to shoot the giant again. I briefly remember my dad telling him to stop when all heck broke loose. He pulled the trigger and the rifle exploded, i remember the barrel wizzing by my head. When the dust settled, my oldest brother was bleeding from both ears and was extremely concussed and my dad was bleeding all over his face. Me and my middle brother were fine but confused. After an eternity everyone gathered their wits and walked down to the bucks. My deer was dead but the giant was nowhere to be found. There was a huge puddle of blood and a bunch of drag marks but we looked all day and never found him. My brother and dad spent the night in the hospital when we got back to town. They both had a bunch of metal removed from them. My dad had the shell extractor burried in his jaw muscle. Crazy, traumatic first deer hunt. Turns out, the weekend before the hunt my brother went out shooting with a buddy that somehow mixed a 7mm mag round in with his box of shells. The bullet traveled a few inches down the barrwl and absolutely exploded the whole rifle. Lucky nobody died but dang…..that was a giant buck that got away. We scoured the country for years and never found him.

My first big buck and elk... Had a friend was hunting with and he poked a buck. We searched all over trying to find it eventually gave up. Him and a buddy went out the day before he was to check in to jail for a 30 day dui sentence. When they got back to the truck they bumped a stud right there! He told me about in case I had a chance to get out, and I had been pondering this particular spot as it's somewhat of a pinch point. Fast forward a few days and only 3 days left of the otc Jan. Archery season. Decided I'd go out. Now I was still kinda green, I knew real big bucks did exist but never seen one (didn't know about real glassing). I decided anything with horns would receive an arrow. Ended up poking my biggest buck to date. I was in complete disbelief when I walked up on this deer. Used a new to his biz taxi on this buck and had it back before he got out of jail. He called me up and I was like dude come over to the house. He walked in and saw the mount, "son of a bitch!" He was pissed! Couple years later we set sights on elk. I didn't know at this point how the draw worked. I didn't put in for elk because I wanted to be "better" at hunting before drawing a tag. Dang, wish I knew then cuz I woulda had like 12 or more points. So we looked into otc tags. Of course I did all the homework and made calls to game cops in the areas I was looking at. Finally had some info to look at. After Google Earth homework I chose an area. Day one, we hike our asses off all morning. Dude is like "you got tp?" yeah here.... He wanders off clenching it in. Comes back and I'm like yo where's the tp? "I did something evil in the woods" like really man that was an entire fresh roll...wtf? So the hours drag on humping hills and hand glassing (still before I really knew how to glass). We get to our last hill to climb and finally get on top and he says "dude I am fucking done" the swamp butt had finally caught up with him due to an apparent improper wipe. I'm thinking dam we drove together and he wants to give up. Standing there pondering my situation I figure might as well glass the bottom of this draw. Wouldn't you know it? One lone solitary cow 100 yards away from her safe zone is standing down there feeding. Suddenly he's ready to hunt with his bow, I'm like are you fuckin nuts? This is a meat hunt and you wanna blow it with a bow? I agree to let him give chase. He makes a loud noisy decent as I watch the cow clime the ridge completely aware of his presence. I decide his turn was up. I took a standing shot with no rest at 180 yards and drill her. After the shot rings out I heard the loudest profanity my buddy let loose ever. In the end, my buddy had an itchy asshole and I got my first otc elk. I still look back and laugh how it all happened.

After 2 years of preparation everything came together to harvest the ram of a lifetime in Alaska an 11 year old monarch! Hardest hunt I have ever done both physically and mentally. My pack was 60 lbs for the first 6 days sleeping bivvy style wherever we ended up each night. Out of 9 days it rained, sleeted, or snowed 6 of them. Ram down morning of day 7 and my pack went to 100+ pounds hiking 27 hours over 3 days to get out of the mountains. Truly an incredible adventure!

I was truly blessed again this year being able to take this buck. I had actually passed this buck up 2 years ago waiting for something bigger ( still kicking myself). He is actually not much bigger than 2 years ago, but did add a small point off his G2. I sat in my stand for 35 hours before this guy made his appearance. That is the only good thing that will come out of the trail cam ban... not knowing what's coming in, I wasn't waiting for a "bigger buck".

Selling 96 Toyota T100 4x4 3.4 litter V6. Runs good,Manuel transmission. Has lift and 33in tires. In overall good condition for 26 year old truck. 8,000obo

9mm Springfield Armory Range Officer like new. About 4 mags fired thru it. Nice piece.

Hey everyone, The link included is to a recent harvest of an antelope down south, any support is welcome and I hope you enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqJIgPGdc7k

My first deer hunt…12-13 yrs old on youth hunt in TN. So excited I probably hadn’t slept for a couple of days. Sitting in my uncle’s huge platform tree stand on a corn field…they called that one the hotel stand and it was big enough for both of us with me on the seat and him sitting on the platform. Probably could have fit another person in the stand with us. A couple does came out at first light, then a buck. My uncle tells me to get ready and I proceed to lose my breakfast off the side of the stand. needless to say the deer were gone. Safety harnesses weren’t widespread then, but every year he threatened to get me one for Christmas. struck out the rest of the weekend, but made up for it shooting my first buck out of the same stand the next year on the same youth hunt.

That is hands down the best story ever

Took a Marine on leave from Iraq, varmit calling years ago. We were west of Eagle Eye Rd in the Harquahailas about 2am. Set the speaker up in a clearing and after about 15-20 minutes I hear something shuffling through the brush towards us. I hit the varmit with a red led light and illuminated his eyes like pancakes. It was an old hippie wearing sandals and tie-dye. Despite the fog his brain was in, he realized his mistake and just kept shuffling south towards the highway. Took awhile for us to process what we just witnessed, kind of unsettling. Can't believe anyone would be wearing sandals out there in the dark. Must have seen a half dozen rattlesnakes on the road that night.

I know some of you probably already heard this story, but here it is again. A while back I decided to try to go do some calling for bears up in unit 1. I really couldn’t find anyone to go with me so I ended up going by myself, I really dislike going by myself. I ended up making 3-4 stands calling for around 45-60 minutes starting from Escudilla to Mt Baldy. I drove my quad around and hiked a lot of miles that day. I headed back to the house around 3pm to grab a bite to eat after all the unsuccessful attempts and getting discouraged. I decided to give it one last go, so I remember a aspen grove up on top that was close enough to a road that headed down a thick canyon. I arrived at this spot around 4:30-5pm hike over to the boulders that over looked a small Meadow of about 2 feet of grass with aspens around it. I sat on the ground having a boulder to my back I felt pretty safe nothing could jump out from behind me without me seeing it first. I got my favorite reed call out and started calling for about 10-15 minutes noticing my left leg was going numb from the lack of blood flow. Getting a little nervous I paused the calling and attempted to move my left leg around to get some blood circulation into it. As I tried to move my leg something came in and latched on to the end of my boot. I screamed like a little girl feeling helpless. I couldn’t figure out what the H#%L it was. I took my right boot and kicked as hard as I could and it finally let go and backed off making a terrible noise. It started coming back towards me so I pulled my S&W 357 from my shoulder holster and fired once at it. It was gone, not knowing where it went I started to make sure I didn’t shoot my leg. Luckily my legs were intact as I missed them. I stood up trying to realize what just happened and getting the feeling back into leg I couldn’t figure out what it was. I had phone service so i called the wife and told her I just got attacked by something and that I was ok. Chatting with the wife I came to the realization it was a badger after she was trying to guess what it was. Wife asked if I shot it and I told her I didn’t know. After getting off the phone with her I walked down about 5-10 yards where I found a big ol stinky male badger piled up next to a bush. One hole from the 357 entering its neck and bullet lodged in its back leg, at point blank range it incredibly did not pass through. It’s nut sack was bigger than a baseball, and had a bald spot on them from dragging them around, it WAS the king of the mountain.

Ultimate group buck fever. A million years ago now. Hunting muleys in 36c. My dad, me, two brothers(all had tags) with my 4 year old nephew at the time. Driving back to camp in the evening just before dusk, I spot the largest desert muley I've ever seen 60 yards off the road. I get out and try to pull my rifle through the door of the truck without angling it. My dad tries to shoot from the bed of the truck leaving the safety on. My brother also inthe back of truck dives out and starts running after it likes he's flash. My other brother leaves (driving) the truck in gear grabs his gun and goes for an angle. Missing twice. My 4 year old nephew left alone in the moving truck now with me next to him trying to pull my gun through the truck frame Is smart enough to get his short leg onto the brake pedal. Buck got away.

One time here in AZ. in unit 27. I lost a big bull elk thanks to Forrest Service and their "Control burn". They almost burned our camp! They almost burned my brothers truck, we had to drive trough flames to get out of there! Once we got out of the fire my brother confronted the fire chief! Their eyes (F. S.) where wide open and their faces where in shock! Like if they couldn't believe we were coming out of the fire/flames! They never inspected to see if someone was there. They never posted signs that a control burn was going to happend. When we told them were our camp was located they all hauled butt to our camp and they saved by a hair! Out camp was surrounded by fire! When I told them that I needed to go back in there and retrieve my elk they didn't let me. I told the Az. Game and Fish what happened and ask them if I could get my tag back or get my bonus points reinstated. Az. Game and Fish told me they couldn't do anything about it, so I lost my elk too on that "control or controled burn"!

Had a Great hunt! 2 weeks ago my dad got a call from azgfd saying someone turned in a tag and he was next in line. They called on a Friday evening and said he needed to let them know Monday morning. We drove up to the unit and started a frantic search to see what we could turn up. We found several decent bucks so he opted to take the tag. The fallowing weekend we found this buck. He spent all this last week patterning this buck in the mornings and evenings. Opening morning dgaf Cwt and I were glassing while my dad was in there normal path, however the buck didn’t fallow the script and did something completely different than normal. My dad did stalk in however he chose not to take a walking shot do to range. That evening Dgaf Cwt and I were joined by my 4 year old Quinley. We spotted the buck and after some crazy rut activity from the buck chasing does and gathering more, we were able to guide him into position. He took the 170 yard shot and hit him right in the pump house! This buck has some crazy mass all the way up! Such a fun experience thanks Dgaf Cwt for your help.

Sorry buddy!!! If you need help, I can easily fix those Antlers and put artificial velvet on them.

Buncha noobs. One tag+white out=endless seasons

Chef, I will post more pictures and story hopefully soon. Just got home and crazy busy. I will be putting together a video as well as I have about 4 hrs of video to edit.

done...

Buck i purchased on Craigslist for $400 bucks.

I think its becuase there is always someone starting or talking chit about there kill or hunt pics. People are a$$holes now days

All I need is a dumb, deaf, and blind one to stand in front of my arrow!

Get a spear gun and work the jetty off Wrecked at the Reef. We usually get a few nice grouper, snapper, and Spanish mackerel. It's a lot more fun than getting hung up on the rocks. Here is a pic of a couple grouper my boys shot last time we were in Mexico.

Apple on the head…