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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/04/2024 in all areas
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11 pointsDrew an early rifle tag this year! Had written and tried to post but it kept fighting me trying to post pics. My first rifle kill. Only my 2nd elk tag. My brother in law Scott and my wife came up to help me. Went to a spot we know on opening day. Bulls beat us there. We tried to follow but they can cover a lot of ground when just walking. Hit another spot on the backside of the hill. Heard some bugles going away and getting distant. Back to camp for lunch and then took a drive to check out some canyons and possibly glass some. No luck glassing up any bulls. Decided to just chase bugles. That afternoon we went to a spot hoping to hear some bugles. None heard. Got lost on the way back to the truck. I had forgotten my gps in the truck and google map sucks butt. Sent a pin to a buddy and he was trying to help out. Then a couple dudes out getting wood stopped. “You see a white F250?” They laugh and said yes. Gave us a beer and a ride! They were young dudes, I was thankful for the ride and being handed a beer that wasn’t bud light 🙃 Back to camp in bed around 11:30. Saturday woke up a bit late. Bulls were on the mountain already. Bugle up a different bull. They moved thru a draw below about 137yds. Nice 6x6. We passed and moved on. Been windy both days. My wife felt ill with altitude like sickness. She tried to stick it out but had to run her home Saturday evening. In bed after 11 again. Scott said some chick was coming up Thought he was kidding. Got to camp and there was a Nissan Sentra!!?? How the heck she drove in there without tearing off and oil pan or something?! I get up a bit late don’t wake Scott. Coffee, heat up the burritos and boogie. Back to where we seen the 6x6 because I lost my cow elk call. Took 15 minutes and finally found it. Walk down in the draw a bit and sit to listen for bugles. Blow my bugler(Phelps easy metal bugler awesome call for people that can’t use mouth reeds), a cow comes from my left moving down towards the draw we spotted them in before. A couple minutes later another. A few minutes and another. Then nothing. I decided to move down around a little finger where they came from. Catch a glimpse of elk color in the shadows to my left. Like under 60 yds but can’t see antlers. 15 minute stand off. Even through the scope I still can’t see. He’s feeding and I move to my left. He turns but still can’t see antlers. A minute goes by and he puts it in overdrive and I see a giant bull running away…gone. Sickening! Hit up another spot where I killed my first bull Walking in I heard a bugle but sounds far. I quickly move towards it. Slow down and scan the forest. Spot a cow, then a few more at like 40 yds. It’s really windy. He bugles then beds down. 6x6 with a broken #2 on the right side. I back out and head to camp. No more encounters that day. A cold front was supposed to hit on Monday with a high of 62 deg. And moderate winds. I had rented a room for a couple days for my wife and I. Left Scott with his skank after dinner and said I’ll see ya in the morning. She was supposed to be leaving in early am. Showed up to camp she was leaving. Scott had coffee ready and we headed out. With the full moon the elk were up on the mountain early every morning. Today there are a few bulls bugling we drive to a spot to cut them off. Hiking up the mountain we bump a heard and they spook. Make a big loop following. The bugles were strong this morning! Back to the truck as the bugles are really faint. Drive a couple miles to the west. Head into the hills chasing bugles. After a mile or so we get into some. Wind is swirling changing directions. I thought for sure they would bust but the kept doing there thing. We flanked them seeing several small bulls and a herd bull. Never get a great look at him. It seemed as a few small herds joined because there were a lot of elk running around! We flanked them for a long time bumping them occasionally but not spooking them. They bed down 40-50 yds from us. We sit and wait. Herd bull bugling like crazy from his bed. Across the draw up on a ridge another bull starts screaming! Bugling and chuckling! He sounds big! The other bull is bugling back but gets up and takes his herd with him. We follow. We get to the road and the elk were way in front of us. Still bugling! I am getting discouraged and not thinking we can catch up. I am sore, tired and everything hurts! I tell Scott we’re not catching them, we blew it. He ignores me and pushes on! I follow begrudgingly. Bump a muley doe. Spot a spike! A little boost for my mind. We get to a little hill with a good saddle and the bull we followed was just over the hill still bugling! It’s just after noon. We been on them since 9 or so. Scott says shooter bull! I see 2 bulls! I look at one bull and don’t think it is. “Dude that’s a shooter all day!” The other bull was shreading a tree and started walking towards the other bull! I thought they were going to fight, but he slowly walks by him. I look through the scope and see how long he is with an extra on the left side! I had forgotten my shooting sticks in the truck rushing to go after the bugles! He stopped broadside! I was afraid to move! Thinking I will blow it! I decided to shoot offhand! Put the gun to my shoulder, put the cross hairs on his shoulder. Take up the slack on my trigger, let out a long breath and boom! He flinches, but starts slowly walking. Scott says “you hit ‘em”. I put the cross hairs again on his shoulder. Heart rate is out of control! Rush the shot and hit his stomach! Rack another quickly as he is still walking slowly! This time tried not to rush, good breath squeezed and boom he was down! Having doubts he was as big as I thought! Gave him a couple minutes and walked over to him. I could not believe he was as big as he was! It was like a dream! Somewhere along our expedition I took my game bags out of my pack for god only knows why??!! Quarter him up andwe pack out 2 quarters and the head. Haul but back to camp grab extra bags and pillowcases lol. Found a closer road and the last part wasn’t too bad. Really surpassed my expectations! I was not really hunting a number but wanted a mature bull. 372 1/8 Sorry for sideways pics james
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7 pointsIt was a good year for me. The company I work for was sold to a bigger corporate type, and the benefits are much better with a pay raise. Drew an early rifle elk tag and smoked a monster. I tried posting a story with pics, but it keeps fighting me. James
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6 pointsOpening day took us a while to find some pigs. We spent most of the morning looking over deer, the muleys were rutting while the coues were not. The first two herds we spotted were no where to be found when we got to where we last saw them. We regrouped after the two failed stalks and hit the spotter for long range glassing. It didn't take long til we spotted a third herd. The third herd stayed around long enough for my 72 year old pops to get within range. His shot was 27 yards and the sow didn't go too far.
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3 pointsSo 2023 is all but done. Amazingly crappy year in my mind with wars being fought in two plus locations, Christians massacred in Africa , Little Rocket Man threatening more nukes…insane inflation in our country, record numbers of illegal immigrants flooding our country, kids don’t know which restroom to use at school…. I hope and pray that 2024 will be better for both our world and our country. Here’s to a new and better year!
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3 pointsI've seen a few whitetail on the edges of sheep country in recent years. Always trying to hunt outside the box, I decided go in with intent to fill my '23 archery tag or get my butt handed to me and let go of the idea the terrain is worth hunting. Yesterday, I didn't even get to glass the more predictable deer country as a small 3x3 coues was spotted in the gentliest terrain on the sheepy side of the mountain. He bedded down at 730am right in the open. I decided to get aggressive under the cover of rain. I turned 1000 yards into 66 yards in 30 minutes and picked the perfect rock outcropping to pop out around. 20231222_082625.mp4 The rain had scent locked down and while I was comfortable to not be busted immediately, 60 yards is my coues limit and my gut told me this deer was not going to get up and feed towards me and the rock ledges. Turning 66 into 60 without cover took an hour and a ton of patience and frozen moments as he would snap his head in my direction. Finally, at 61 yards, he got up and as he shook off a gallon of water, I drew and released an arrow that went lower than I'd of liked. The soaking wet drop away felt significantly slowed my arrow prior to release. Thank goodness for the Lumenocks helping me understand this quickly and when he stopped at 100 yards to understand what hit him, I put my slider on 130 and put him down hard. I ran up and put another one in him as quickly as possible. Not the greatest part of the story but one of my favorite things about this forum is reading lessons learned. With everything soaking wet, this will go down as one of my heaviest pack outs of all time, in sheep country!
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2 points
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1 pointBeautiful pistol and an awesome shooter. Just got one that’s threaded to shoot suppressed so I no longer need this one. $450. Comes as picture and with everything in the picture. Located at 101/Thunderbird. 602-989-0670. Small lines in finish where a rail once was as seen in pics. Still in great condition with only a few hundred rounds through it. Has loaded chamber indicator as well. 2 mags.
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1 pointI 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
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1 pointAwesome story and way to stick with it. Great bull and not an inch broke off. Congrats
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1 pointIve been going down through Douglas for 16 or 17 years to hunt deer and occasionally some Goulds. The ONLY problem we have ever had is being extorted for $40 or $50 bucks occasionally, and the dang knuckleheads on the US side coming back in. Sure is funny how much grief they give hunters over some ticks that can't get over the border any other way than on a dead deer cape. Sure wish they had something else to worry about, oh wait....... To be fair, we travel in the daylight and we don't hang out in the towns or cities. Once we cross we head straight to the ranch. I know its different than Rocky Point, but it sure isn't much of a risk if you ask me. A lot more dangerous in parts of the US. JUST TO BE CLEAR, I'm not knocking our border patrol, I know they have a thankless job and their hands are tied sometimes. My beef is with the Fish and Wildlife
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1 point
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1 pointQuite simply because It’s cheap, convenient, and more fun than here. And it’s relatively safe. The hair on the trip is part of the fun. Rocky point, Cabo, etc., there isn’t even any hair. It
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1 pointAnother new year's, another otc archery tag in the fire pit. But I'm not complaining. We're it not for that tag, I wouldn't have had any.
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1 pointAnd now we’re bringing in a demographic with a MUCH higher propensity for violent crime. I can’t wait to see what their 2nd generations are like. That should be really interesting.
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1 point2023 was a rough year. From December of 22, until now we have lost my uncle, dad and grandma. Along with all the other turmoil in the world, massive inflation, and the immigration problem that one can not fathom without seeing it with ones own eyes. On the plus side, I spent a ton of time in the field, my dog is turning into a better and better hunter every time out, and my son still wants to do fun stuff with me.
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1 pointI shot out the barrel in my old 7mag about the time 7prc was introduced. Decided to go 7prc for the replacement. I did it myself with a proof barrel on a Tikka action. Love my rifle and the fact I was able to do it myself. The 24" 7prc shoots 175eldx at same speeds my 26" 7mag shot 162eldx. The 7mag had a 9.5 twist so I never shot anything heavier than 168. This 175grn/162grn comparison is the closest apples to apples info I can give based on my results so far. Haven't done any heavier bullets yet but I'm sure the results would be the same in comparison to a 7mag with 8 twist. If my 7mag was still going strong, I would have been very happy to keep shooting it and spend all this prc cash on some new optics!! In the end I think 7prc is definitely here to stay, but 7mag will never die! And......if you decide to go with 7mag, I have a set of Redding Premium 7Mag dies I'll sell you at a great price 😁
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1 pointBeen chasing deer in Arizona with my bow for more than half my life, never been able to connect until yesterday. My first coues in nearly 10 years. Very grateful to share the experience with my parents, couldn’t have gone any better - 48 yard shot, buck expired in sight. Already looking forward to doing it again January 1st!
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1 pointAll the deer there burned in the Woodbury fire. The ones that lived moved south and then burned in the telegraph fire
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