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Deer hunting near Rich Hill, lots of diggings and shafts dot the landscape. Old cans and bottle shards from the last two centuries. Spotted this 12ga. Shotshell brass, dates back 100 years. Next in a miners rock claim cairn monument, I dug down past the top stones and found this claim notice in an old bottle Still trying to get the lid off. It’s pretty beat up, doesn't want to give up its secrets easily.

Hopefully they make tags and licenses much more inconvenient to get. (I know that won’t happen)

I started out this 2022 coues season in Southern Arizona with several goals in mind. 1st was to get my best friends' future son in law his first buck, 2nd was to help all 6 tag holders in our camp ger a buck, and lastly to harvest my target buck that we found sheds on last year. Like a lot of you, it seems like I spend more of my time helping other hunters hunt than I do hunting for myself. November started well with Helping My buddies" Son in law harvest his 1st. After locating several bucks he harvested this one with a one well placed shot from his 6.5 PRC at 480. The next morning we glassed up 3 more bucks and after a several hour stock and relocate My best buddy and my youngest son harvested 2 more bucks with 6.5 PRC at 730 and 686. On to December...... We returned in December. Our first task was to get my Nephew Cody a buck. He has already killed a 103, and had limited time to hunt. We glassed a smallish buck on the first evening and he said he was stoked to harvest the buck. He shot it at 660 yards with his 270 wsm. Now it was time to start focusing on the two remaining tags we had left, and for a change one was mine. On day 6 I located a buck with some real potential. He had huge eye guards and was a supper classy looking dear. After looking at him for over 20 minutes I decided to let my buddy shoot him because he just wasn't what I was after....... And he MISSED at 259 yards!!!! We came home for work for 4 or 5 days and man did he get roasted for missing. I told him that if I ever found that buck again, I was going to shoot it. Well 6 days later I found him again. We hiked into a bad canyon and got within 196 yards from him bedded. I laid down to shoot the buck and said, "come shoot this thing" he is still not what I am after..... This time I made him shoot my PRC and he did not miss! The eye guard buck that we named goal post was dead... It scored over 100, and is Chaffee's biggest buck. Now here is where the story gets even more crazy. Several days late while trying to turn up my target buck, we were driving into a different spot to hunt. A guy starts honking behind us and pulls us over. He explainded that he had a Jr. hunter with him that only had one day to hunt.. He stated that the kid was willing to take any 2 point of better. We took his phone number and told him we would call him shortly as I truly wasn't going to shoot anything under 110. Fast forward about and hour and I glass up two bucks with some does. The bigger buck appeared to be an 18 inch wide 2x3, and I couldn't see any g1's.. So I call the Dad with the kid to come shoot it. To make a very long story short the kid missed him twice, and we ran out of day light. They were both extremely grateful for the opportunity to try on that buck. The next morning my buddies and I hiked into a different canyon and glassed until 2pm. We looked at over 15 bucks , but could not find what I wanted. We had planned to stay there all day, but at 2 oclock I got on the radio and said, "change of plans, let's go back where the kid missed the wide 3x2, I want to make sure there isn't a bigger buck in there. We drive to our new location, and hike about 2 miles into our spot. Within 10 minutes I glassed up the same buck that the kid had missed the day before. But this time my buddy Jay had his BTX.. He took 0ne look at the buck and said, "you are studpid if you don't shoot this buck!" I said, no, I don't think he is what I am looking for. They talked me into going to take a closed look. As we got to 700 yards, we could tell he had 4 plus inch g ones, and was 18 inches wide, then at 410 yards his 2 point side suddenly had a 3rd point.. After doing some quick math in our not so smart heads we had this buck at around 112.. Again Jay said, IF YOU DON'T SHOOT THIS BUCK YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Well I decided to shoot the buck. He ended up having way more mass than we thought and scored 115 7/8.... yep, I tried my coues 2022.mov my best to give 2 bucks over 100 to someone else...... lmao enjoy the video and pictures. Whitey short take my coues 2022.mov short take my coues 2022.mov Chaffee_coues_vid_22.mp4 my coues 2022 2.0.mov

Hopefully the next step will be online sale of OTC tags to residents…with e-tags could have tag in hand immediately 24/7.

I figured I'd share the story of how it went down. It was pretty amazing. I had the opportunity to hunt desert bighorn sheep in the Cabeza Prieta wilderness of AZ. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. The Cabeza is rugged, austere and dangerously beautiful. The only thing that really exists out there are the iconic desert bighorn. This story is filled so many nuanced connections between amazing people. From the moment the original hunter decided to donate the tag to me because he got Covid the hunt was meant to be. People that I didn't know I came from everywhere to help me make this a reality. I literally could not have done this without them. And for that I am forever grateful. When I hunt, I'm not the person who is always chasing antler length. I always have "the quality of the hunt" in mind. It's about the experience. This experience was among the best. In previous years of hunting I've had hard earned lessons, I've beat my body up and I've learned to deal with the frustration of failure often. On this hunt everything went perfectly. It culminated when I was able to harvest this 10yr old beat up and broken warrior at 220yds off the desert floor. I had prepared myself to climb on my hands and knees up these steep 1000' cliffs to make it happen. Instead it all happened at the bottom. I'm still in disbelief. The original hunter had 29 year's worth of bonus point for sheep in AZ. I've only been hunting for 4 years so I assumed I'd never hunt sheep. 2 days before the hunt he gets covid and donates his tag to me through Outdoor Experience For All. I was floored and quickly accepted only to find out that 46b west is a wilderness walk in unit. I called the preserve and they granted me access to drive in because of my prosthetic legs. I got out to the area a week after opening with some great dudes helping me. We glassed and saw some good rams over the next few days. On the 4th day we went deep into the unit and spooked3 rams that winded us when we got to the glassing knob. The rams went up a mountain and were not huntable for me. We backed out and drove a ways to a valley to glass. We glassed up those same rams a long ways a way from where they originally were. They ran up a mountain and down the other side then ran over 2 miles across the desert floor to a whole new mountain range. They were laying at the bottom in the sand when we saw them. I made a mile long stalk in to 220yds. Wind was perfect and we dropped into a wash bottom to cover movement. When I got there we couldn't see the big one but the second biggest one was in sight. I was considering taking that ram because he was pretty good but a little younger. Then the bigger on stepped into sight and I was able to take him 20" off the bottom of the desert floor. It was absolutely amazing.

Thanks fellers. It was a heck of a hunt and I'm dang lucky to have been able to pull it off. It wouldn't have been possible to do without so many great people helping me.

I had the fortune to shoot some Snow Geese recently. The meat is awesome. I know that tradition for most is to just breast the birds but I wanted to share that the leg meat is delicious. I just brined, rinsed, and used a modern Confit recipe. Confit is an old technique where the meat is slow cooked immersed in fat (preferably from the same animal). Duck Confit is a classic. Anyways, my geese had very little fat so I used what I had, bacon grease. I lightly peppered the meat and vacuum sealed with a good dollop of bacon grease. I then sealed that bag in a second bag. Then placed the bag in a crockpot of water and cooked on low for 24+ hours. It was probably done sooner but I did it over Thanksgiving and was otherwise occupied. The meat came out falling off the bones, extremely tender, and delicious. Very mild flavor and nice texture. Think a good slow cooked pork butt. The bacon grease did add a slight porky flavor. Very good eats and doubled the yield vs. just breast meat. We did shredded goose taco's initially and the whole family enjoyed them. I have since been taking bowls with beans and rice to work. I have enjoyed the chance to extend the satisfaction of a successful hunt over many meals. This method worked so well I plan to try with other game meats. I think slow cooking in fat will yield a very tender meal.

Not a huge coues guy and haven’t been on the forum really in years but I used to love scrolling through everyone’s success back in the day so I figured I’d share mine. Got in tight to this buck thanks to a good buddy and made good on the opportunity.

I saw a post made on HuntAz’s Instagram page. I am not trying to steal anyone’s thunder and I apologize if the hunter did not want any publicity but I think this is just bad butt that he shot this in a super tough unit and did not allow his disabilities prevent him from getting it done. Congratulations to him.

How did you get it off? Long breaker bar, heat, and beer?

Mass is king! That's a good one

Game and Fish Dept?

Back from Clay at Mogollon Taxidermy, 104 2/8 was net score.

Cool find Tim. I found a couple of old jars on a hill a few years back from the late 70's. The sun had bleached the paper but there were still fairly readable and are still there.

Another angle

Solid seller here and takes unbelievable care of his gear. Buy with confidence.

Great jobs guys

Good job on getting the first, keep at it and before you know it you'll become a magnet. Them things are anywhere and everywhere so you don't always have to be in the "perfect spot" to get into action. DAN

Managed to fill an early rifle tag near my hometown in Michigan.Great weather for the hunt and managed to get him at 557 yards with the AR-10….Sorry for the delay and bad field photos 🤣

Tessa and myself just got back from a quick trip to Kansas we both took good bucks but mine will need some fixing

Send me a DM with contact info. I am down in this unit now.everybody in our camp is tagged out but I know of some good bucks that nobody could get to.

Here is the Coues deer I was able take with my statewide tag with the help of Kory and Bobby of A3 . There knowledge of the area and with the deer was truly amazing. Once we found this deer they spent hours breaking it down. It was decided that we would try and harvest this deer. We had to relocate to find him again and after 8 hours of waiting he finally reappeared just before dark . Now he was with another buck of similar size but was a typical 3x3 with amazing eye guards. To be able to have two 130 inch bucks standing next to each other I thought I was seeing things. Now I had to make a decision it was an easy one for me. I like em trashy . After we ranged him at 600 yards I let my Axis works 280 AI do the rest. It was now almost dark Kory and I hiked down to the deer When I put eyes on him I was speechless it was bigger than we had thought . I told Kory I was going to do a life size mount so he was very careful field dressing the deer. He then proceeded to load the deer into his pack whole it’s a pack that he has designed and just now starting to sale it was his smaller one about 3200 CI it was amazing all of the room it had not to mention it’s the best built pack I have ever seen I am getting one. His company name is Desert Mountain Outdoors Well after many miles of packing we got back to camp about midnight what an epic day. Still in shock of being able to take a deer like this thanks to A3 and there amazing guides Kory and Bobby.

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 tried both long ago, and liked the Overwatch better. Hence, I have kept and installed in all my guns. Nothing will ever be as nice as a sweet 1911 trigger. Just thinning out the heard and making room for other projects.