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Here is my son’s 2025 NM mule deer. 470 yards, 6.5 prc, 156 Berger EOL. We spotted this buck right at first light. He bedded without giving us an opportunity. We set up and waited, and as the sun started to shine on him he stood up to change beds and my son sent a Berger through his shoulder. Truly Blessed!!!!

Here is my hunt recap. My Dad and I came up Wednesday and went out in the evening to see what we could find. Driving around we saw probably 30-40 deer, mostly does but a couple of very small bucks. Thursday we head out and don’t see much in the morning. Even after the rain we got ~3 weeks ago the area was back to being pretty dry so we head to a water catchment and glass from a high point in the road. We were able to glass up group of about 10-12 does. We go check out another water catchment and discover someone had constructed a blind. Friday morning we setup in some of the clear cut to glass. We see a couple groups of does and one single deer I could not determine if it was a buck or not prior to it going into cover. We move to another area but don’t see anything. For the evening we decided to sit in the blind we found at the second water catchment. After about an hour and a half a couple of does come in to drink. After about an hour my dad decided he has to stretch his legs and walks up the hill away from the catchment. While he is gone a deer comes in and it’s a buck! I text my Dad not to come back so he doesn’t scare it away. Of course there are 2 small trees that he drinks behind leaving no shot. It feels like forever that he is drinking behind the trees and my dad is texting what was going on. As he is leaving he finally presents me a shot at about 70 yards. After a long night of breaking it down and the long drive out we were both exhausted but thrilled that I was actually about to be successful and share the hunt together.

I need to add a few adventures from this year. My dad and I went to POW island to catch a few silvers. We had a great time.

Yeah I like to fish, but it wasn't my dream trip. As I thought it about it I decided it didn't matter. I needed to do more with my dad. Who knows how long we each have on this earth

77 K10 with a Boone and Crockett buck in the back.

After spending 3 days in the desert heat looking for a shooter for my Dad, I was finally able to dig up this buck right as the sun was fading on Sunday. With not much time to make a move, I set him up to take a shot @ 665 yards. Luckily the buck was preoccupied with barrel cactus fruits and gave him plenty of time to squeeze off a shot. The hit was solid and the buck dropped out of sight into a nearby wash. We decided to head to his last location and found him piled up not 20 yards from where the shot took place. Anybody else see a lot of malnourished deer this year? A majority of the does in the area we hunted were showing how rough the summer was on them for sure.

Great footage on this one.

I was fortunate to draw and early 12AW rifle tag with my good friend and hunting buddy Dan. He was guaranteed to draw with all the points he had and I just happened to get lucky. I was not able to get up before the hunt to scout due to work and my sons baseball commitments but was not to worried about that. I have spent quite a bit of time up there in the past and had some good friends provide some great info. My buddy Dan drove up the Sunday before the hunt to get familiar with the unit. He had never been up on the Plateau before so this was a whole new experience for him. I arrived on Wednesday with a couple of my good friends that made the trek up to help. We got camp set up before the rain started and got a good night sleep. Woke up Thursday morning to scout and were greeted with Thunder snow and rain. We ran a lot of roads, glassed lots of fingers and points but did not turn up a mature buck, just lots of younger 4x4's and does. Opening morning we greeted by a parade of guides and helpers cruising the roads at 3am spotlighting trying to find a good one for their clients. this would be a common theme throughout most of the hunt. we hit the areas we wanted to hunt hard and saw several deer but nothing that we wanted to fill or tag on. For the first 3-4 days we hunted everything from the Warm Fire (a zoo opening weekend) at 8800ft down to Sowats in the winter range. We saw and passed may deer in all the areas we hunted. By Tuesday of the hunt I made the decision to stay in the area i felt gave me the best chance a mature deer. I really didn't have a number in my head of how big it had to be, I just knew i would know when I laid eyes on a good one. We continued to run and gun, glassing every point in the burn we could and picking the country apart. It was starting to become a little frustrating to be this far in the hunt and yet to lay eyes on a good mature deer. I just kept tell my buddy Dan and myself that we just needed to be in the right place at the right time and good things would happen. Friday the 31st comes and neither of us had laid eyes on a decent buck. I told my Buddy Dennis that this would be the day and we would finally get lucky and tag out on a Halloween buck. We hit several good looking glassing spots and picked them apart but nothing. Dennis decided to take a two track that looked like would get us out into some smaller cuts in the burn to glass. As he parked and got out to glass I saw a deer bedded about 100yds from the vehicle on the edge of a cut. I through up the binos and immediately knew that it was a decent buck and by far the biggest one we had seen thus far. I grabbed the Seekins 7mmPRC and chambered a round, got settle in on him and let a round fly. The buck jumped out of his bed and started to run, he made it about 30 yards before he piled up and expired. It all happened so fast that my buddy an I were in shock and could only laugh at what just happened. All the work, time behind glass, miles on the boots and to have it happen just like that off a two track road was unreal. We got the buck taken care of and checked in pretty quickly. My buddy Dennis and I decided to stay Friday night and Saturday morning to help my friend Dan try to fill his tag before heading to flag to drop the meat. Unfortunately we were unable to turn up a good one for him. We headed home and as I was cleaning up and putting stuff away I got a text from the guys and Dan was able to fill his tag on a cooler older buck. When you think of the Kaibab you instantly think about the land of giants. I was never fortunate enough to lay eyes on one of them, neither did my buddy Dan. We did have a heck of a hunt with great friends that we will remember for many years to come. Hopefully in a few years luck will strike again and we will get a second chance! only time will tell.

I'm in the same boat with my truck. It's a ram 2500 6.7 and it doesn't seem to make a big difference on brand . I've had Bridgestone, Michellen, bfg ,and toyo and if I get 20k miles it's a blessing it seems. Had nitto on for a few months but they were to noisy. At over 2 k a set it's expensive. No issues with alignment or anything . Just seem to wear them out . Ive been told its a heavy diesel and its normal .Put a set of Cooper at3 on my jeep about the same time as the bfg on the truck and the bfg are going to need changing again . The cooper still look good . Hard to really compare as the truck weight is much more.

I'm not sure tires are where i would want to save some bucks.

It's been 5 or so years, but here was a decent December Forky I shot.

Ended up doing a leader with a t loop close to the top so I can add or remove the second hook. Been a long time since we've been fishing, tied my Palomar wrong and lost the first fish but we got the kinks worked out past few weekends. Last nite was our best night. All my kids have now caught their own flatheads. Last night 2 nice channels and 2 flattys

I saw that the other day. Great footage. Start at the 20-minute mark for the meat and potatoes.

Great thread, thanks for sharing! I have the late tag and leave a week from today. Have gotten 3 days of scouting in so far and will have almost a week before the season starts. Really pretty bucks, this is getting me more excited than I’ve been all year!

Just fyi, You’d have a lot better chance selling it if you took the body lift off.

Yes :: Sorry It's definitely a 383 stroker. Has less then 8000 miles on it. Complete motor with 950 Holly carburetor and intake,and electronic ignition . New exhaust system,new radiator, new front axles and seals,new transfer case, and all new A/C system. New tires and rims. Has 3 inch bed and body lift. And a 4 inch lift kit. And loaded up with Ridgid lights.

Do you mean a 383 stroker?

Start a new topic in the Campfire and explain that engine to me.

I can help in getting you tires below what retail is, just shoot me over what you’re interested in.

He should pay someone $625.00 to haul it away

Dang they went full rape. They ain't got crap for antilope.

My boy has been making us some great dinners out of his deer.

I just got back from the greatest hunting experience of my life up until this point, maybe ever, though hopefully there are more adventures like this to come. Newfoundland moose with my grandfather, uncle, and younger brother. My uncle and brother and I were all fortunate to bag great bulls. The rut hadn’t kicked in yet so we weren’t able to call as much as we were anticipating, a lot of hiking through swampy bogs and tundra thickets, glassing from the tops of rolling hills and ridges. The first day we glassed up a small bull at first light and watched him move across the opposite canyon side for a while. Then we hiked a few miles further from camp and came to the edge of a cliff where there was a bear on a rock directly below us, and another young bull with 4 cows a few hundred yards further out below us. We watched the bull for a bit, it would have been a super easy shot as he was bedded 250 yards below us with no clue we were there, but he just wasn’t big enough for the first day. My uncle got his bull that morning though. The next day was cloudy and the fog rolled in while my grandpa and his guide were stalking a big bull a couple miles away, ruining their stalk. Then it poured rain most of the rest of the day so we stayed at the same little glassing knob the rest of the day. Funny enough, we had a small forky bull walk through a bog just 400 yards below us in about the only spot you could see with the fog. Adam (my guide) made a quick cow call to him and he turned on a dime making his way toward us. We lost him in the steel thicket at the bottom of the hill below us but probably 45 minutes later he showed up 100 yards behind us. That was the only bull we saw that day. The next day we headed back straight to the spot where we’d seen the bear the 1st day, and then about a mile further out to a big open valley. It took us about 4 hours to get there but after 10 minutes of glassing Adam glassed up a bull about 2 miles away with a few cows. You could barely see his paddles from that far away, they were like white specks, but we know if we could see them from that far away he had to be a decent bull. ‘well after about 3 hours of plowing through tuckerbrush, sinking through bogs and crossing streams we got to where we thought the bull had been. Of course with it being so much later in the day I had just about given up on finding the bull, especially because once we got to the general area we realized the ‘hill’ he had been on was such a gentle slope and so thick and flat you really couldn’t see more than 100 yards in front of you. Well that was just when Adam whispered, ‘there he is! Get your gun on my shoulder!’ All you could see was his antlers sticking up in the brush about 100 yards in front of us. Adam made a bunch of cow calls at him but could not get him to stand up, finally he just started yelling “moose! Get up!” And that got him up. I emptied my gun at him and he didn’t go anywhere but just stood there, finally falling over for me to run over to him after 4 shots. I was ecstatic. My brother got his bull that same day about 10 miles in the other direction from camp. We both had to spend the night out on the bogs before we could make it back to camp since we had shot our bulls so far from camp and so late in the day. It wasn't too cold but my clothes were wet from sweating and sinking in bogs all day so it was a pretty miserable night, though I probably saw more stars that night than I’ll ever see again in my life. Huge thanks to my guide Adam for filming the shot while letting me shoot off his shoulder. I’m still amazed he did that for me; I didn’t even ask him to film it, he just whipped out his phone right before I started blowing out his eardrums. And of course thank you to my grandfather for the hunt of a lifetime.

Here is a 12b west buck