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My son drew the late youth hunt in 33. Opening day was the Friday after Thanksgiving. We made a family plan to head down Wednesday, picking up our daughter up at UofA, and have a family camping trip followed by a deer hunt. Our good friend, Christian, drove down Thursday night to help out. He's like a little brother to me and a great mentor/role model for Jacob. Our daughter even asked me to throw her hunting gear in so she could help glass Friday before heading back to UofA to study Saturday. We glassed up a couple dozen does, a handful of spikes and forks, and a few 70s bucks Friday. We got chased out by rain Saturday morning, right as we found a buck Jacob liked. We watched the bucks bed down, so we went back to camp to wait out the storm. The rain let up a few hours later and we were back out glassing, quickly relocating the bucks from Saturday morning. I was sore from a steep, rugged hike the day before, so Jacob and Christian put a plan in place to stalk up into the steep area they were and I stayed back to glass and talk them in. Something in the canyon bottom spooked the deer as they were setting up and two deer turned into about 9 running all over. By the time they settled down, the objective buck was nowhere to be seen; however, this young fork presented a perfect broadside shot at 248 yards. As was told to me, Jacob said "I didn't hike all they up this $h!t to not shoot something!" Good for him! He ended up packing it all the way down the ridge and up and down the next three ridges. He earned every bit of this young buck, but now he says he's holding out for 80s or bigger moving forward. Again, good for him! 248 yards is officially his shortest shot at a non-javelina or turkey game animal. I'm super proud of his determination and grit.

Anything else. Cheap Leupold are better than most Vortex. I looked through my friends “high end” Vortex 15’s and thought my cataract had reformed.

I had three flocks of turkeys come into a pond (tiny) during my cow hunt. They just seemed so stupid and easy to take but they have internet and know the season closed 5 days previous! They sauntered withing 25 yrd of me on the way out. so humbling.

I hunted this unit last year and got skunked. I had never seen it so bad since I started hunting it over 30 years ago. I put in for it again to challenge myself to find a good buck. I did find a 180 plus buck about 7 weeks ago and spent several weekends trying to relocate him, but had no luck. I changed locations and turned up this buck 3 weeks ago. I only got about 45 seconds of footage before he disappeared. I came back the next weekend and couldn’t turn him up. About ten days ago I found him again, and got about 30 seconds of video before he melted away into one of his hiding spots. Opening morning found me and my son looking for another buck I had found for him, but that deer didn’t want to cooperate. We hunted all day and only found several young deer. Saturday I decided to go searching for the big 3, but he never showed himself. On the hike out, I found several lion tracks and figured he had been killed or pushed. Sunday the wind was gusting 20-30 mph and most of the deer I found were bedded, and also 600 yards out with no chance to shoot with the cross winds. The wind blew hard all day and we just couldn’t find much moving. Monday morning started the same with the crazy winds, but we had a plan to relocate another tall 3x3 I had seen several times for my son. On our way to that spot, I said let’s go take a look for the other big 3 and just see if he is up and moving. We were glassing from a spot that didn’t really give me the angle needed to see into his normal feeding area, but I wanted to at least try. I turned up one doe in a small cut feeding away from us. We kept glassing the area over and thought for sure there is no way this buck would be out feeding. I glassed for a while and was getting ready to move on and decided to glass below me. Standing in the open feeding was this buck at only 225 yards. I had just looked over this spot five minutes earlier. He must have been down inside a deep cut where I couldn’t see him before. I put a 168 ELD-M right in the pocket and he spun and dropped about ten feet away. While we were packing him out, we hiked down the same wash that I had used a couple days earlier. There were more lion tracks on top of my boot tracks. We scouted this area for weeks and kept seeing lion tracks in the road, but we were never able to glass him up. Unfortunately we never found a good buck for my son to shoot, but it was a great hunt and had a great time hunting with my son. David

of a (supposedly) 170" coues from Mexico

Lots of scouting, long drives, and it all came together opening morning. We found several groups of sheep and 7 rams. My buddy got it done with 1 shot at 392yds. When I glassed him up I knew we was a shooter. He is a 9yo ram.

Looking to sell my slc 15’s, very lightly used and in great shape. No chips or defects to glass, comes with outdoorsman’s stud. Located in N phx, will meet in person at sportsmans warehouse near I17 and 101 $1950

Sold

swarovski, buy once cry once. Or go cheaper, japan leupold

I'm not familiar with the ranch names but very familiar with the area. So are we talking about the guy on Zennif that used to be hay farm and the ranch to the east of that north of the rr tracks south of the big power line? I tried to get in there on 2 hunts in the last few years and it is all locked. We have been hunting in their since 93 off and on.

I’m not super familiar with these ranches, what percent is deeded and what is check boarded with public? As a private landowner in another state, I’ve always felt that true private ranches in AZ get the shaft by the draw system, but that all goes out the door when it land locks significant public land, especially when they have grazing rights for pennies on the dollar for those public acres. A lot of states, my home state included have non transferable landowner tag systems which I feel are a reasonable compromise. While I have certainly benefited from landowner tags in other states, I do understand the frustration and fear of what transferable landowner tags can do.

No, he locked his gates and doesn’t allow anyone on paying or otherwise.

Get the "smaller"? one's antleres filled & recolored and bronze what is left of the skull or maybe even copper with green patina for a classic AZ look. It's not a bad DIY.

Kenny Dingleberry is in way over his head, next year will be even worse

That's some True Grit you and your brother showed, bandanna or not. Welcome at my campfire anytime.

RUN!!!!!!!!!

I don't see anything written on the tire about DOT or only for off road or anything like that. If you want me to look at something specific, happy to but just your basic pressure info and size from what I can see.

The Cats ended the PAC 12 conference over Tempe Normal with a complete asz whopping! Now on to the BIG 12 where the Cats had to drag their little brother along kicking and screaming. Seriously what a fall from grace for ASU , ASU ended the PAC 12 era with losing more than they won against the mighty UA, face it, ASU's basketball program is an embarrassment and the baseball team hasn't been relevant in two decades...All that sh it talking about Noglaes North is over, ASU ended the Pacific Coast Conference being UA's bitch. To all the ASU fans - suck it bitchez you all suck azz!

Crazy how many hunters I know who have no idea how much subsidy money public lands ranchers get to then turn around and stick it to sportsman. Many of these ranchers are by far not low income! Google “welfare ranching in the west” For those who don’t know that the taxpayers have provided a way for them to play cowboy for decades and control sportsman from accessing public lands by just owning as little as 40 deeded acres. This will be an eye opener! Thanks for posting. Email will be sent today

This is why it’s BS: Prior to 2022 ranchers in 3A and 4B banded together and started complaining about all the elk on the ranch lands north of the forest boundary. The hundreds of elk in the juniper country are eating them out of house and home. There is legitimacy to this, there are lots of elk in places they hadn’t been for several years. AZGFD responds by creating a bunch of new draw hunts starting in July and running through December in 2023. Success is pretty high. Game and fish also runs a BUNCH of pop man hunts which are also pretty successful. Not even halfway through 2022, before the draw hunts even start, the ranchers decide everything north of the forest boundary has to be OTC. They threaten to lock their gates and deny access to ALL hunters if their demand isn’t met. Sportsmen contest this but AZGFD concedes and converts everything to OTC starting in March 2023. Carlisle had already locked his gates due to a dispute over a AZGFD violation years before. He had at one time given A3 exclusive access, but that agreement is no longer in place. Elkins locked his gates and refuses hunters access to remove the elk. At some point Elkins sells exclusive access to Big Chino Outfitters who has a similar arrangement on a large ranch in western AZ. They advertise hunts for $8500+. So essentially, the ranchers used their ploy to get OTC tags as a Trojan horse to create land owner tags that they can sell to the highest bidder. The have unlimited supply and the most generous seasons in the state. This was never about elk eating grass or drinking water. This was always about ranchers maximizing their return on the public’s resource while simultaneously flipping the public the bird. That is why this is BS. Please write to AZGFD and ask them to discontinue the OTC Zeniff hunt area seasons until Elkins enters into a public access agreement.

Get rid of outfitters. They seem to be the common denominator

Big Bo is not like this yet but outfitter has tried to lock up. It’s all about money and outfitters don’t care about anything else.

wealthy people that listen to joe rogan.

Thanks, Andrew, for dissecting the proposals and letting us know. I just shot off an email to the department with my disagreement in the boundary change.

Total BS, thanks for the heads up I'll be commenting.