Leaderboard

If you aren't going to eat it then don't kill them. You can stalk them but use your camera or don't hunt them at all.

We were able to get out for 4 days and had some bad luck with stalks. Either the wind shifted or there was no wind at all to conceal noises. On the 4th day we had some luck and pops was able to harvest this sow at 15 yards. 21 consecutive years for this fella with the stick and string.

Haven't posted in a while but thought id share my pig. Found a herd 1st day out on 1/4/25 hope everyone had a good holiday season and A good new year! Good luck to everyone with tags! Its dry and hard to stalk. If you can find water glass all the country around water and the pigs are probably somewhere near!

I stuck a 105 on Tuesday that was full rut. Definitely has started up high.

Yahoo!!!!! See yah - Not!

A bit late but here was the result of my hunt. I did 6 or so quick early morning glassing sessions throughout the summer and found 4 decent bucks and saw 3 of them multiple times in the same general areas. Tall with weak forks; short but thicker and curvy; wide; and this unknown one too far away. Day before season we started closer to this buck to get better eyes on him and found him with a few does. They went up and bedded in a good spot to shoot. After not seeing any more antelope driving and glassing the unit the rest of that day we set up in the same spot to find this buck opening morning. He started in about the same spot but this time he and the does went 1.5 miles away from us and into an area with no roads and out of sight. The hill he disappeared on had one tree that they could have used for bedding, otherwise they might have slipped down further away. I decided to get up on the knob above them. Made the 2 mile trek in 100+ degree heat. Got up above them and peered over and thought I saw them but realized it was a small forky mule deer and a doe/fawn bedded in the other tree on the hillside. I kept creeping over and saw the top of the tree that I could see on the map and sure enough the buck and 2 does were bedded under it. I set up for the shot and when he stood up I dropped him in the only shade on the sunny hillside at 160 yards. The neat thing was that I had run into the game and fish guy for the unit the day before so I was able to share that he was down and he shared pictures of the archery tag's buck as well as the other rifle tag's buck the next day when he killed. The meat has been as good or better than any of the best deer or elk I've ever had. Even cuts that aren't usually very tender on deer/elk have been tender on the antelope. Probably because it had been slow cooked in the sun all summer long. 😉 7 or 8 days of being out there an not one rattler for me. My eyes were on the lookout in all that heat but none shown themselves. The odds ended up being pretty crazy to draw the tag. 603 people put in for the 2 tags but the 1 tag went in the bonus round to the other rifle hunter with 27 points. So it was me against 602 people for the remaining tag.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around we had put in around 12 days of scouting trying to locate mature rams. During November our friends had ramped up their efforts too. We invested several days in the northern part of the unit looking in areas that we’d seen sheep before without much luck.It was weird, places we knew sheep should be just didn’t have them. We turned up quite a few coues deer, and even got some of them to know by name and habits. Coming into the week leading up to the hunt we had shifted further south and started looking in some of the rougher country. One day my oldest son Hunter and I slipped into a spot where we saw some rams years ago to see if we could turn anything up. We found two rams, and one of them looked pretty good from 1.5 miles away. They were remote and in the steepest stuff, but at least we’d found a decent ram. And he was with ewes. So we had hope he might stay put for a while. The day before Thanksgiving Nash had morning practice and then we went out looking at box canyon. It didn’t take long for us to find a ram that Sheldon had found a week earlier. The big chip ram was definitely the most mature we had seen. He was fun to watch, and pretty easy to find. We found another ram high on the mountain that day, and just before dark, one single full curl ram all alone on top of a distant cliff. We had heard reports that a big ram had been seen in that country and we were hoping this was him. We were able to relocate him the next day with the other sheep. He was a beautiful full curl with perfect horns, but probably only 6 years old. We liked him, but were hoping we could turn up something on that next level. Nash and I stayed the night on Wednesday and put in a half day of scouting some of the roughest country I’ve ever seen before Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. Moving around in those mountains is miserable. Roads take huge winding loops and everything is rocky and nasty. We don’t turn up another sheep that day and went back to whip together some turkey and potatoes so Momma didn’t give us heck. On Friday I decided to go check some country we hadn’t been into yet where we used to see sheep. Lots of miles, on foot and in the side by side didn’t produce anything except a forky mule deer and a lot of sheep cactus (barrel cactus that were eaten down to their core, we had actually watched sheep circle around cactus and eat and eat until cactus were just a stub off the ground). On the way home I got a text from a guy who had been helping us out and he let me know that a rancher in the unit had seen 5 rams dogging a ewe back near where we had seen the chip ram. Unfortunately, our current #1 and #2 rams were on the move, the good news was we at least knew what direction they headed. Saturday morning, the day before the hunt started, the crew started rolling in. Gary (Wish2hunt), my buddy Mike, myself all headed out in the AM to find a target for December 1. Mike headed back where we had seen the ram with ewes weeks before. Gary started up Box canyon and I went down to look where the rancher had seen the 5 rams. It wasn’t long before I was calling Gary on the radio to let him know I’d found the rams and could use his help sizing them up. Soon, my neighbor showed up with some of his army buddies and they had another ram located, way up high. Mid-morning the radio crackled and Mike let me know he had a big ram on the other side of the river. He climbed a big peak to get signal and sent a pic of a ram we started calling candy cane. He was a young, thin horned ram with his lamb tips that had to be close to 40” long on one side. It looked like a giant dall sheep. Mike kept an eye on him for the rest of the day while Gary, Jake and the army boys kept track of the other rams. I spent a total of 9.5 hrs watching the group of rams and evaluating each of them. There were two rams that were definitely better than the others. But I have to say that sheep are one of the hardest animals to judge you can imagine. I did my best to figure out what was what and knew that intimately Nash was going to have to make the call. Nash had practice Saturday afternoon so I wasn’t able to pick him up until after dark the night before his season opened. He joined up with Mike, Gary and the army boys in camp and everyone was eager to start comparing rams. Soon Trphyhntr rolled into camp and we had to get some ear muffs for Nash 😆. (Not really, everyone was super cool and treated Nash like a rockstar). We all shared our pictures and talked it over with Nash. By the time we were done we had it narrowed down from 7 rams down to 2 or 3. Opening morning we had more eyes and moral support rolling in. Brandon (Denogean) and his family met up with us and one of our neighbors ditched church to come get in on the action. With 12 sets of glass and expectations maxed out we came up with a plan for the morning. Rich and Gary did a quick run up the canyon to check for any new rams that may have shown up, while the rest of the crew posted up on a couple of ridges where we could get eyes on the high ram and the group of 5 (which was down to 4 at this point). As the sun broke the radios crackled and the callouts started. The group hadn’t moved an inch all night but the high ram was down off the peak into a cliff band. If those sheep worked down through those cliffs they would become very accessible and we would probably need a better look. Meanwhile the other rams were happily munching cactus and lounging in the sun. The world was our oyster. Soon Rich and Gary were back with nothing to report but a couple of ewes. The high ram was moving back up out of the cliffs toward the peak again, which left us with the group from the day before. We were able to identify one of the group as the chip ram that Sheldon had located a few weeks before. He was definitely the biggest body and was starting to get our attention. A plan was put in place to close within 300 yards and put this ram down within sight of our full viewing audience. Mike joined Nash and I while we worked to close the distance. However as we moved in, we heard on the radio that the rams were once again on the move. They started moving to the south and the sitters could only get occasional glimpses of them. We climbed the hill above them and worked down the ridge line glassing the base of the hill below. A mind blowing game of cat and mouse ensued, the spotters were pulling their hair out, telling us the tan was RIGHT below us, within archery distance, but we couldn’t find them. Three different times Nash set up on the edge of the bluffs while we tried to look directly below us, without any luck. We caught a glimpse of sheep moving out from the hill 200 yds down the ridge. One ram dropped into a wash and another moved out into the open. Nash got lined up while Mike and I looked him over. It was a 4 yr old ram, definitely not the chip ram we wanted to shoot. We whisper yell at Nash not to shoot and kept working down the ridge. At this point Trphyhntr has had enough. He grabs his tripod and runs a solid mile around the base of the hill to relocate the rams and help us out. On my way! to find out. The two big rams turned and and had headed back up the hill and were now just 70 yards from us. In an instant, it all came apart. I saw the ram, he saw me and it was off to the races. There was no chance to get Nash set up before the rams were barreling down hill and across the canyon. I felt like throwing up. I was disgusted that we had blown it. Nash just stared. Mike was tracking the sheep in his binos and as they started up the other side says they are 475. The reality of his statement snaps me back into the moment and I get started helping Nash set up. We try the tripod, it’s not working out, so Nash throws out the legs on his bipod and lays down. He has a perfect shelf and I am amazed as he calmly tracks the rams in his scope. There are three of them together and they have slowed to a walk now. I get a range, it’s 542, and dial the scope while smash stays locked in. The first shot connects, but they run and now we are trying to make sure we are on the right ram as the three all change position and move across the hillside. They move about forty yards and I click the scope an extra 1/4” MOA to compensate and tell Nash to send it. It’s just over his back. Bad adjustment, they hadn’t moved as far as I thought. I range again, correct my error and Nash calmly tracks in the scope. The rams stop and he confirms, “the one on the right”, Mike affirms and I calmly say “kill him”. The sound of the bullet connecting with muscle is unmistakable but we can’t see the hit. The chip ram goes 40 yds and falls, struggles to stand and finds his final resting place under a Palo verde tree on a beautiful bench overlooking his domain. It’s not how we planned it, none of our helpers heard it (suppressed rifle) let alone saw it. And it was over before we could even tell them what was happening. But soon, they start showing up on the hill. Each taking his own personal time with the old sheep, and the young boy. We tell the story, laugh, hug and when no one is looking I cry a little as I appreciate the magnitude of the moment. All these good men, here in this place, helping show a boy how to be a man. We hike out together. It’s long enough to make us appreciate it, but we are at camp by dark. We celebrate and meet up with the others. They join us for root beer. Nash calls his mom and his grandpa, and we went home.

Thanks Everyone Single one of You for the support and prayers. It really means a lot to Me. I just got to the hospital and Dad is Doing much better. He is being moved from ICU into his own room. They are going to get him up to walk today. He's not looking forward to it 😩... Sure was nice to be there when He woke up. And get a Smile from Him. Enough said... Forgiven🙏

Me. If you don't obviously know, then you are ignoring the facts. I'll tell you my selfish reason for not wanting crossbows in the archery season... the quotas. F&G said that if you exclude crossbow kills in the August/September season... every single unit would have been open for the December hunt. Before the quotas I didn't care one bit about crossbows in the archery seasons. This is F&G's screw up for allowing them in the first place. I personally know of three able guys who abused the crossbow process... and shot forkys in August. One of them recently shot a javalina with a recurve. All 3 are just lazy and want easy. Ed F

Just wanted to give a shout out to Mark and his Crew. Great customer service, in fact the best I've had in a very long time. Seems like Customer Service these days have gone down hill, finding good employees is tough. Thanks again!

😘

I believe itll be full draw soon. Just like javelina. Who’d of thought archery pig would go to a draw ? I know several guys who swing for the fence on their rifle deer apps knowing that they can still deer hunt during archery season as they wait to pull a great tag. Once it happens, they’ll be rethinking it, probably putting in for less desirable hunts to be able to go hunt. Once it happens , it’ll be interesting to see how the dynamics of bonus pts changes. JMO.

There's the Boarman we all know!

Im addicted to the internet, what do you want from me. I’m either here, instagram, or swiping right on every bitch on tinder.

They’re having an inauguration watch party at my local bar and the parking lot is overflowing. Love to see it

coulda read the azgfd unit spots and saved a lot of money

That’s what I think about people that apply for 22 late rifle

I don't hunt javalina or dove, because I won't eat them.

Giving hunters a bad name.

Just to add on, Boarman is also one of the first to step up to help others, including me. Good dude, strong opinions, no different than lots of other guys on here. Thanks, levers, cool of you to give it away to someone.

I know a guy who needs a TV. I know people that need things and if I can help them I do. I know people who have good kids but finances are tight, so when I see stuff I know they will use, I pick it up for them. So I have some freedom with time. I'm old. That's better than sitting on the couch waiting for the Grim Reaper to show up! Going to another friend's funeral on Saturday. Just a year older. They are starting to drop like flies. I don't know why everyone is dying to get into a cemetery. I'll lose that race. Last place doesn't look that bad to me when it comes to that! But I also buy things on here. And when I can, I try to help.🤣

Technically no one was in the "wrong". Officer is correct that he can walk around a campsite but looking in the tent would be off limits. Camper is also correct that he doesn't have to talk to them if he doesn't want to. Where I felt things went wrong was as soon as the guy told them he didn't want to talk to them and to leave him alone they should have left. (At some point it would become harassment since they have no real reason to be bothering the guy) Cops generally don't like hearing no though and you get what you saw here with them trying to show the camper they can do as they please and that they aren't leaving. You should still have some type of expectation of privacy even while camping and the police should respect that.

The attorney sounds like a horses arse looking for a reason to get chitty. My two cents.

Unlike my elk tags, I take my women how I can get them. Basically got an OTC tag coming over tonight.

Exactly . I’ve been advocating for breathalyzer for this forum for yeara