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Last week, I figured I didn't get drawn so after a few days I decided to check my credit card. There was a hit for $300. I literally sat there for a few minutes in disbelief....oh...oh....as I frantically search for the regs to check pricing to confirm. Sure enough its a sheep tag. Then all the talk about cc hits being taken away, add that which unit I got. I didn't dwell on it too much(as if I couldn't), started to tell some people that I may have a sheep tag. I just logged on my portal, sure enough. My first choice was 45c, Kofa National Wildlife refuge. I have tag #4 for the December hunt. I have always assumed it would take forever to get drawn, for the first 10 years or so I probably put in for 22 and 24b, until I realized that was never going to happen in my lifetime. So I would listen to various podcasts and randomly put in for units. This year I put in for Kofa due to the tag number, I figured it would help my odds. I had 19 bonus points. But still thought it wouldn't happen till I had 25-30 bonus points. I am at a loss of words, I am very excited but already feel overwhelmed and unprepared. My first thought was to post here to start getting some feedback. I'll go get some maps this week. I did a search on hike az for hikes, there actually doesn't seem to be too many hikes. At least at first searching. So...How should I prepare? I feel like I have a good base of equipment, I have been hunting coues deer for most of my adult life. So I have 15 binos, 10 binos, but no spotting scope. Should I look for one? I have a good hunting backpack. I'll increase my exercising, good benefit of this is I need to lose 20 plus pounds. Very soon i'll need to actually start to head to the unit and see it. I read somewhere where someone said to contact the Bighorn society. I will take all the advice and help I can. I don't want to make anyone hate me....but my wife got drawn for late bull in 3C this year. Our plan is to give it to my 13 year old. That hunt runs from 12-1 to 12-7, then my sheep hunt from 12-8 to 12-31. Hopefully work understands! Added a picture of my boys deer I am getting very excited!

OTC does not let me down! Filled the freezer and had a blast with my Oldest boy!

Time to focus on new passions and pursuits. https://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/boa/d/queen-creek-2013-bullet-bass-boat-21xrd/7653613606.html

Big congrats! I hope to draw a tag before I die. It seems "help" comes out of the woodwork when you draw. I'm sure things will fall into place.

From 5 years ago? Were you incarcerated? Must have been weighing on your mind. Congratulations on the harvest it must have tasted good?

if someones serious, they will ask for pics,

White Mountains haven't got much rain yet. I was up around Big Lake for a week...no rain. Very dry. East Fork and Upper Black is real low.

I just wanted to follow up to tell you guys my son did fill his tag in the Aubrey Cliff area. It was tough finding the deer; they're scattered in little pockets that you have to find, and the area is tremendously huge. I wanted to thank all of you who sent me advice. It helped quite a bit. Greg

If you can drive to baseline and Mesa drive I’ll pay you not to take @PRDATR $25 primers. My dad will be in Payson tomorrow and should be home Saturday. Let me know. cliff

I'd like to say I've never made that mistake, but I have. Welcome to the imperfect club.😁

Pictures sell products

Did quick Yellow Tail with a creole garlic butter pan fry, with asparagus tips and sweet potatoes. No pics

Super tall Coues buck from southern Az. 😍

Lol

contact zack doster, die hard ram junky. This is username @SwarovskiCoues he was telling me about 45c

Contact Eric Hunt at Arizona Desert Outfitters.

Just back from black river, fishing a little slower than usual but still 10-15 a day do-able. Catfish were pretty active on nightcrawlers or shrimp. Had the usual bear visitors at night. Was at tick flats.

I Hate to say it but as an old guy and OBSERVER, they need to do away with some archery hunts and lower tag numbers .......BOB!

I think everyone is pretty much there. I made this illustration to show the movement of water in the ground. It's always being pulled by gravity toward the center of the earth. Some of the soils and rock are porous, and the water moves through them over time. Then the moving water will run into a non-porous rock like granite, and will either pool up, or move laterally depending upon the slope of the bedrock. When the surface is lower than the bedrock, the water moving laterally along the rock will re-surface creating a spring or a seep, and there may be deciduous trees like cottonwoods around it. If it's deep under the surface we call it an aquifer, but the principle is the same. I think in the case of the seep that Mason A found (what a find!), it looks to be an extremely steep slope, and judging from the old stumps and dead trees and such, perhaps there was some mass movement in the soils at one time that exposed the granite, making the seep possible, other wise the water would have continued to move toward the bottom where it would hit exposed bedrock in a creek bed and move as part of the creek system.

A lot of great information on this thread - maybe the best I've seen in a long time. Since none of us are geologists, I'll put my $.02 out there. The previous posts have said pretty much anything I can add, but I'd describe it like this: Arizona has rocky, pourous soil, from the mountains to the desert. When Spring rains fall and snow is melting at the higher elevations, the water always drains to the lowest point, and does it quickly. On tall flats surrounded by rocky cliff areas, the water seeps out of the cliffs, onto the flatter areas. In the rolling hills, it obviosly flows through the sandy bottoms that make our landscape, but is soaking in as it passes through. I'm no geologist, but I've seen what the soil looks like here compared to the narrows and slot canyons in Utah. The Escalante Staircase is perfect example of what our desert lands would look like without soil. There is a hard sandstone or granite base under most of AZ, and the water is squirting through the top layers of dirt and rock, like a sponge under pressure. All that water has to go somewhere, and it either soaks downward or flows on top of the ground West and South as fast as gravity will take it. When a lot of water has soaked in, the water tables start pushing it back out to the top, through the lower sandy or broken rock that it origanally seeped in through. So, from a hunting perspectivet, like others have suggested, when you find a sandy draw with old cottonwoods, you know the water is only a few feet under the surface. It may look like a dry creekbed, but where the water has to take a sharp angle underground, it pools and gives those big trees something to live on. More likely than not, there will be pools of standing water where those cottonwoods grow - and they are easy to spot year 'round. Green in the Spring and Summer, colored during the Fall, and brown in winter months. Seeps, from what I've seen, are usually found around cliff areas, and are easy to spot by the moss or other lush vegetation in an otherwise dry area. These are the spots where water takes its sweet time filtering through tens of meters of limestone or grantite drop-by-drop. To me, these spots are golden because when he cattle ponds have dried up and the sandy washes are dry on the surface, they still produce drinkable water. It's because the water coming out of a hard granite seep probably landed on the ground above a couple of years ago - and has taken that long to finally drain out. In a tough drought year, the creek bottoms will be dry, the cattle tanks will look like an alligator's back, but a rocky seep will still be draining the excess of years past. Just my ramblings on the subject