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Day 2 Hunt Update Another before-5 a.m. wake-up call had us dragging a bit, but we pushed back into the same canyon we hunted opening morning. This time, no other hunters were in there—just us, yes! As the first light started creeping in, my buddy with the tag whispered that he had an elk spotted. Hard to tell in the grey light if it was a bull, but based on the size and the fact we haven’t seen many cows in there, I was pretty sure it was. A few seconds later, I spotted another elk the same time my brother whispered he had eyes on a second one. Things were getting good fast. About five minutes later the light got just good enough, and we could clearly tell they were both bulls and one of was definitely a shooter. They were feeding their way across the ridge to the south of us and heading up into a draw. We were really hoping they'd pop back out along the ridge directly in front of us instead of disappearing up the draw. Another few minutes passed and then a third elk stepped out on the far side of the draw. Bingo. Three bulls, all headed in a direction that would put them about 300 yards in front of us. The three of us quietly glassed them and then all agreed on which bull was the biggest. My buddy loaded his rifle. I gave him the yardage—255 yards. Perfect. The bull stepped out from behind a bush, standing perfectly broadside, and my buddy sent it. Looked like a hit, but the bull barely reacted. The bull walked maybe 20 yards and stopped broadside again. I told him to reload and hit him one more time to be sure. And then the worst happened. His gun jammed. Probably ran his bolt too softly in the excitement. As he tried to clear it, I scrambled to sort out his mag. Five seconds… ten seconds… felt like ten minutes. The bull was still somehow just standing there. Finally got the jam cleared, took aim, and sent another round. Again, not even a flinch. We were all thinking, what is going on? Then the bull suddenly tipped forward and started going down. Yes! He went down for good and we were all super excited! As we were high fiving and giving congratulations, five more bulls came out from nowhere. It’s always crazy how many elk can be right in front of you without ever being seen. My buddy asked if we should’ve waited and I told him absolutely not—250 yards, broadside, on a great bull? I would take that any day of the week, at least that’s my opinion. Then came the part every hunter loves: the pack out. Took two full trips to get him off the mountain. Long day, heavy loads, sore legs, but totally worth it. Could not be happier for my buddy—his first big-game animal with a darn nice bull. Thanks to everyone following along with this thread, and good luck to everyone still out hunting. After roughly 20 miles in the last three days, I’m honestly looking forward to “sleeping in” until the babies wake me up probably around 6:15 tomorrow haha.

The alarm went off extremely early (0230) and we were off to Wilcox..... Hes the best co-pilot. Met with everyone and headed out. Blind was set, as were the decoys. Birds were working really well. Levi stayed in the blind, I was in a layout in front of the blind and it AWESOME! Levi was shooting my buddy Steve's shotgun.... and shot it extremely well, likely resulting in me buying it from Steve. He tagged his limit and had a blast!

The hunt was an amazing adventure. I left home late Friday/early Saturday (midnight-ish) and headed up, stopping in flagstaff and fredonia for fuel along the way. I reached my camp spot 9 1/2 hours later and heard my passenger rear tire leaking after unhooking the trailer. After plugging the tire and airing it back up, I started unloading and setting up. Around 3 pm I jumped into the SxS and set out to check some of the spots I had scouted. I found lots of fresh sign in most of the same areas as before. Once it got dark I broke out the spot light and drove every road and two track I came across until around midnight, then headed back to camp to sleep. I would then wake up around 4-5 am and head out spot lighting until the sun came up and I could see. Usually I planned it so I could be stopped at a place I could glass for a couple of hours until mid morning. Then I would head back to camp and sleep until 2-3 pm and repeat. I did this until Wednesday afternoon when I needed to drive into St. George to pick up my cousin from the airport and resupply. We spot lighted that evening and into the early morning of Thursday before heading to camp for some much needed rest. Around noon we checked a couple of areas we had chosen as opening day spots and decided on which was best. We glassed until dark then headed back to camp to organize our gear, have a quick dinner and then go to sleep. We woke up early to ensure we were first to our spot and waited for a few hours until grey light before slowly walking in, glassing along the way. We unfortunately bumped the deer and broken heartedly watch them head to their bedding area which seemed like a position we couldn’t access them or have a chance at them in. Nor did we want to push them out of their core area. There were lots of vehicles that seemed to want to be in this spot so we didn’t want to leave and give it up. We waited, glassed and move around a bit until 3pm when they started coming back out from the cut. We watched as two nice bucks ran each other off, both wanting to be the dominant male for the group of does. The bigger of the two presented a shot when the smaller buck ran him off but I decided to pass. An hour later the smaller buck offered a closer shot but after passing the bigger buck I couldn’t justify shooting him either. My cousin called me an idiot for passing either of them. We watched until dark then slowly backed out and headed to camp. We had a nice dinner and discussed the day, looking at the video we had taken of the two bucks. It was decided we would head back out to the same spot to get another look at them if we could. We woke up extremely early and drove to the same spot, arriving first again and waiting until grey light. We went about half as far in as the day before and stopped not wanting to bump the deer again. We spotted the group with just the smaller buck in it. We couldn’t locate the bigger buck. After a couple of hours the smaller buck gave me a shot and I connected at 475 yards. He hunched up and moved away a bit. We thought he would go down at any second but slowly turned broadside again at 525. I adjusted the turret and connected again. He lumbered a few feet and collapsed. We waited 20 mins and walked towards him. I instantly started having shooters remorse. I was done after a day and a half of the 10 day hunt. When we reached the buck I was surprised at the body size of the deer. He was definitely the heaviest deer I had harvested. I tagged the buck, we took some pics and then we attempted to load the deer into the SxS. Wow was he heavy!!! It took us a couple of tries but we somehow managed to get him into the back. I didn’t want to gut the deer there as I thought it might mess up another hunter who might want to hunt that area. We drove closer to camp, unloaded the deer and gutted him. He was sure easier to load the second time and then we drove to camp and using the winch on the SxS, hoisted him into a tree at the back of camp. We skinned, quartered him and washed the meat. After it dried we put it into game bags and hung it all. We had barely finished when an AZGFD and BLM officers rolled into camp. They checked my tag, license and pulled two lower teeth for an age check. We talked a while and they told us about some coyote areas and a possible spot for a lion. We took the deboned carcass to the lion area and disposed it in a spot we could see from a knoll a few hundred yards away. Over the next few days we switched looking at the gut pile and the carcass hoping for a shot at a coyote or a lion without any luck. It rained, hailed a lightly snowed the next couple of days making it pretty sloppy and messy. We waited until a break in the weather, broke down camp and left late Thursday. It took almost 3 hours to hit pavement which was a slippery and sliding drive out. We also stopped at Jacob’s lake for some cookies to eat on our way home. We had a trailer tire shred 25 miles before flagstaff, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. We pulled into my driveway early Friday morning, took out the rifles, binos, spotters, the expensive gear and put them into the safes. After a quick hello to sleeping family members and a shower we went to sleep. The next few days we dried out and put away the gear, washed our clothes, took care of the deer and celebrated a great hunt. We saw 112 deer, 36 bucks, one fox, one owl, 2 coyotes, 17 turkeys, 14 horses and an uncountable amount of cattle during the trip. Thanks to all who helped and/or offered info. A shout out to Jason “coach” Jones who had the tag a few years ago and offered up everything he knew. He was very unselfish and I hope to follow his footsteps for future tag holders. A special thanks to my wife for holding down the fort while I was gone and to my cousin for taking time away from his day to day to help me. Happy safe hunting ! -Sig

Dinner was leftover yams with scallops

As new as used can be. No meat, etc stored in it. Pick up in NE PHX/N. Scottsdale area. Price is $100. The first "I'll take it" will apply. PM with questions. Eddie

Elk flank carne asada

I clicked it and got the exact same thing. I know I don't search for that stuff.

You can still get tickets at the link above. I'll ensure they are filled out and entered. Winners so far: 31 DAY RAFFLE WINNERS! CONGRATULATIONS TO: EARLY BIRD: ROB C. 11/24: JEFF M. - BENELLI M2 20 GA 11/25: NICK K. - RUGER RXM 9MM 11/26: CHARLES M. - TIKA T3X LITE 6.5 PRC 11/27: MICHAEL K. - 45 QT BIG FRIG COOLER 11/28: CHRISTOPHER L. - STOEGER P3000 11/29: WAYNE K. - BROWNING BUCK MARK CAMPER 22LR 11/30: DAVID M. - CVA SCOUT 243 WIN 12/1: JOHN J. - CABELAS 15X56 BINOCULARS

Finally drew a 13a strip tag. I had 16 resident points- 14 +hunter safety & loyalty. I’ve been to 13a & 13b a few times shed hunting 15+ years ago and hunted the kaibab (12AW) early and late with my son and friends a couple times over the last 10-11 years but have never hunted the area for myself. I’m beyond excited and anxious. I ordered a flatline map, a few quadrangle maps (7.5’) and have done an insane amount of e-scouting for others hunts, places to camp, hunt and azgfd spots to check out. I purchased 6 extra fuel cans (total of 11 now) and have 4 extra tires mounted on wheels/rims. I will have plenty of gear and backups just in case. I am 100% a DIY hunter and this hunt will be no different even though I know I will not draw this tag again. I do want to make the most of this hunt but I won’t hire a guide and seriously doubt I would even buy a scouting package. I come from a hunting family and have hunted CA, NM, MT, UT, CO, WY and my home state AZ for deer, elk and antelope since 1985ish. I am 52, in good shape and have been on lots of 2 week+ long hunts so I think this is very doable physically and mentally. I’m planning on 2-3 scouting trips, more if possible, (it’s around 7-8 hours one way from Queen Creek) and showing up around a week early before the 10 day hunt. I will be sleeping/cooking in my 16x16 wall tent (along with my cousin) and driving a 4x4 crew cab RAM diesel truck w/ shell pulling my 20’ enclosed trailer to lock up my supplies/gear and perhaps bring my SxS in. If anyone has any tips, ideas, info, banter or has the same hunt I would love to hear from you. Thanks in advance and happy hunting ! -Sig

There are 6 arrows in the box. If you buy them in the store they are about $140.

Congrats to all of you and thanks for sharing.

Those are ads for ed meds. Not sure what your algorithm is pushing your way, but that’s not coming up on my end?

Those JR RCBS presses are awesome for making loads while out developing loads at the range.

Good job and thanks for sharing!

That's awesome man way to get it done!

Congratulations on a great hunt and story

Great job!!!!

Heck yea! Congrats!

Good job. Congrats!

A few more ready to go home!

Evening hunt update: We put some miles on the boots tonight—ended up doing about a 5-mile loop through a mix of thick pines and open pockets. Afternoon action started pretty early when we glassed a group of cows with a spike and a little raghorn hanging back. It was nice to get eyes on some elk, even if it wasn’t quite what we were looks for. We pushed deeper in and ended up bumping another group of cows. They caught our wind right as we crested a bench and slipped out before we could get a solid look at what was with them. The wind was terrible tonight, it was constantly swirling so we really couldn’t even work with it to get into any one specific area. Near the end of the loop we saw our last group of the night. Two cows traveling with roughly six spikes. We’ve got an unspoken opening-day rule: no punching a tag on a spike. So no tag filled yet, but the way the elk were moving tonight was good. And it was nice to lay some eyes on. If we can’t find anything over the next few days I know where we’ll be on our last day out. It’ll be another early morning tomorrow back after it. Elk are around—we’ve just got to get our eyes on the right one. I’ll keep you all updated!

Opening morning started off about 4:15. Had to load up on the coffee before heading out into the woods. My one year old son is fighting off a cold and some pretty bad congestion so he was up a few times throughout the night. Between checking on him and thinking about the opening morning sunrise, sleep was a bit hard to come by. We left about 4:45 so we could hike and get into place about well before sunrise. We did the hike with our headlights on dim and got right into the spot we wanted. About 30 minutes before sunrise it was light enough to start glassing the ridges. We still had a rough time seeing well but we ended up seeing headlights making their way through the dark about 1000 yards away. Darn. Public land hunting. We just hoped they would stay a couple ridges over and thankfully it looked like they settled in a good distance from us. I glassed a ridge to the north about 900 yards away and spotted a big tan patch. It was still a little hard to make out but as soon as the patch moved I knew—bull elk. He was walking slowly so I made a note of where he was and figured I would find him once the ridge was a little more lit from sunrise. And usually where there is one there are more, so I started getting excited. I went back and told my buddy and brother I saw one. Unfortunately it wasn’t looking like the bachelor group we’ve often seen in this canyon was around. We glassed three ridges and no sign of elk on any of them. So I started looking for the lone bull on the far side of the canyon. One pass through the binos: nothing. A second pass, nothing. A third, also nothing. Same result for my buddy and brother. I was confused. I knew the bull was walking but I figured he was slowly grazing. My brother went up ahead and came back with some bad news. Another group of hunters was posted up opposite that ridge. They must have come in right at daylight and pushed them out. Double darn. Well with two other groups in there and being two hours after sunrise, we decided to head out and check out a new area just to kill some time before lunch. The newer area seemed nice but we did more driving than hiking since the road was bad getting in there so wasn’t a whole lot of hunting for us at that spot. Overall, a nice first morning and as always just happy to be out in God’s creation. We’ll see what the afternoon/evening hunt turns up!

Buffalo tomahawk steak, over charcoal and applewood, whatever dry rub seasoning we had laying around. One of the best steaks I’ve ever had.