CouesWhitetail

Rancho Durangueño is located on 55,000 acres of private land in the state of Durango in Mexico. Durango is south of Sonora and can be seen as the highlighted state in the map below. You can fly to the airport in the city of Durango and staff from Rancho Durangueño will meet you there and drive you to the ranch. The ranch has a stunning ranch house decorated with beautiful tile throughout. All bedrooms have a private bathroom and the staff at the ranch serves excellent multi-course meals. They have a nice bar where you can spend the evening after the hunt. I had the privilege of going to the ranch in Jan 2006 to hunt and help evaluate the ranch as a place to hunt Coues. Although I didn't harvest a buck, it was a great experience and we saw some nice deer. One of the difficulties of this ranch is that much of the land is very thick and hard to glass and rifle hunt. It wasn't until late in my hunt when the guides showed me a part of the ranch that was much more suitable to glassing. So there are indeed some areas that can work well for a rifle hunter. However, I think this ranch is excellent for an archery hunter that wants to sit a blind or tree stand. There is virtually no hunting pressure on these bucks, so there are some large bucks throughout the ranch. The guides can set you up in a blind in some great spots. Rancho Durangueño has only been guiding Coues deer hunters for three years, so they are still learning how to best hunt the ranch. But some big bucks have been taken. here are a few photos: a 118 buck from 2006: a 90 inch buck and a 112 buck from last season: another big buck (108): Rancho Durangueño started its hunting business 6 years ago by providing Gould's turkey hunts. In the short time since, they have become known for world class turkey hunts. Visit their website to see some amazing turkey video. Many of the turkey records in the NWTF recordbook come from Rancho Durangueño. Some ranch house photos: Rancho Durangueño can provide guns, ammo, lodging, transportation, blinds, calls, decoys, beverages, food, etc. Plus one-on-one guiding. Because this ranch has barely been hunted for Coues, this is a great opportunity to harvest a great buck and enjoy the amazing hospitality provided by the staff. They really provide service equivalent to a 5-star hotel. Many of their hunters return year after year because they have such an excellent experience there. Rancho Durangueño guides 30-40 turkey hunters a year and about 10 coues hunters. Success rates for Coues deer are about 90% with rifle; 60% bow and arrow. For Goulds turkey: 100% with shotgun; 75% with bow and arrow. Visit their website for more information and photos: http://www.ranchodurango.com/eng/main.html

Have you contacted Snapshot already? He is just south of Tucson and made that pedestal for the contest. He will be at the get-together this weekend, so you can talk to him about it there if you go. He will be leading the ATV ride around noon, so might have to arrange to meet up with him sooner than that. Amanda

Awesome pics Doug! Glad you had a great time and met some CW.com'ers. Amanda

see my response to your same questions in the Coues biology forum..... Amanda

You might want to read through all the info on the main CouesWhitetail.com website which has information on hunting strategies and biology among lots of other stuff. If you go to www.coueswhitetail.com and look on the lefthand side menu, you will see Coues Deer Biology choice in the menu. With that option you get several submenus that will get you to the info you need. here is a link to the life stages page which describes breeding timing and other related biology info. http://www.coueswhitetail.com/coues_biology/life_stages.htm January is usually peak breeding. Yes rattling/grunting can work, but deer density is lower than somewhere out East, so you have to be in the right place for it to work. Yes setting up on water can work. Coues may water during morning, mid-day or evening (or at night too). Mid-day can be very productive at a water hole, so don't discount that. Perhaps glass the morning, sit water in mid-day and glass the evening. Amanda

Sounds like a great day indeed!! Twelve bucks is an amazing group! Amanda

Very Nice!! Who wouldn't love to find a shed like that? Amanda

LOL! Good idea...... Amanda

Any word on your book, Bill? I am still waiting for my copy that I paid for almost a year ago! I wonder what the hold-up is? Amanda

Thanks for letting us know. Glad she is doing better. Amanda

Interesting read. Thanks for posting. Amanda

Happy 4th!! Globe had some excellent fireworks! Amanda

Good one!

I like these two pics that show a rock squirrel carrying what I assume is nesting material to its nest. A very nice elk: smaller bull passing a cow in the wash: Interesting buck pic: doe rabbit with some kind of growths on ears...thought they might be ticks, but I think they are more like little tumors. different rabbit and a pretty bird, called a spotted towhee

Wow, you guys certainly have been busy while i was out enjoying the smell of the woods after an afternoon monsoon! Geez, glad I was there and not here.... Ok, so hopefully you are just about done with this thread. It's actually not nearly as bad as it could have been and I think that is partly because of the way Nathan responded to this attack. Thanks much Nathan for your reasoned responses. And thanks to the many of you who helped keep this from getting too ugly. It is a useful topic for discussion if it can be done without driving people away from the forum. Personally I have appreciated the always humble way in which Nathan talked about this buck and his hunt. I haven't ever gotten the feeling that he was overly bragging or going around saying how great a coues hunter he is. From the first moment he contacted me he has always been positive and pleasant. I hope you stick around in the forum Nathan and congratulations on your amazing buck. That being said, I can see how somehow might not be too happy about a magazine artilce that gave details on the location. Personally I don't share hunting spots that I learned about from someone else, unless they specifically give me permission to do so. I would hope that would be the case with most people. So, how about those monsoons? Sure is great hear the roll of thunder and patter of rain while in your tent.... Amanda

Wow, those are amazing arrowheads! Looks like they were just made yesterday! Nice petroglyphs...thanks for posting. Amanda

+1 and you might want to take your "caps lock" off on your computer. It always looks like you are SHOUTING!!! Amanda

Yeah, I thought that buck pose was pretty neat. I had put the cam on a mini tripod in a bunch of rocks on a steep slope so that I could try and get pics of the raptor that was making all kinds of whitewash under that large dead juniper branch. I figured it was a great horned owl and I thought it would be cool to try and get one on trail cam. I didn't realize that the deer and elk have a little path up through those rocks down to the creek. I thought they just would walk by down in the drainage, not up the crazy steep area. Guess I was wrong. So the buck pic I got by accident. I am having fun trying to get unusual trail cam pics and sometimes it just happens by accident. here is a pic of how close the elk walked by my cam on the "trail" that I didn't think was there. You can see that snag branch over his back. Eventually I think they knocked my cam over.

Snapshot said he would lead an ATV tour starting about noon. I think last year they went up into the mtns for a few hours and had a great time. So anyone that wants to do an ATV ride you can show up a little before noon and meet with Brent (Snapshot). You can PM him too if you need more info on that. Amanda

Looks really good!! Amanda

Nicely looking animal there!! Amanda

I called the Arizona Sate Museum and they are going to try and take a look at whatever the sheriffs took out of there to try and id it. Hopefully we will learn something new. It won't happen until after july 5th though. Amanda

Height off the ground of course depends on the site and your target critters. I like the Covert 1 cams because you can just set them on the ground by a trail or water. They have enough wide angle lens to capture critters well. But sometimes I put them up in a tree angled down. Usually not more than 5 feet up. As far as direction, I don't really worry about it like everyone else seems to. Obviously the sun is more of a concern if you are in a wide open area, but if it's thick forest or brush, it's doesn't really matter as much. I worry more about how the animal is going to approach the area and I try to set it up so I get a good view of the animal and allow it more time in front of the camera. If you can angle it so it's not just perpendicular to a trail, but at more of a 45 degree angle, then you give the animal more time in the camera view area as it approaches the camera. For photos I use a 3 shot photo burst with a delay of about 20 seconds between triggers. With a 2 GB card you don't really have to worry about space and I like the ability to get as many pics of the animal as possible. Now if there are cows in the area, I would set the delay much longer, but I try and avoid areas with cows anyway. For video, I like 20 second or so for the clips and again maybe 20 seconds delay. I used to set it for longer video (1 min), but if you get a skunk or rabbit or something hopping through then you get 5 secs of action and then 55 seconds nothing. You could do 10 sec videos too, it really depends on how long you think the animal is going to be there and what you want to see. If you have salt or feed or something then the animal might be in the view longer and you can judge the buck better by giving him time to turn his head or lower it or whatever during your video. Another thing to think about with video is if your target animal runs in herds or not. If you use a short video sequence (10 sec) and a longer delay (1 min or more) you might miss animals that are in that group but not in the lead. Javelina would be a good example for that. I use some scent eliminator wipes to wipe my hands and the camera. Not sure it helps, but perhaps keeps bears from grabbing the cam. Amanda

Great looking cat!! It's exciting getting bobcats and lions on cam. Amanda

For you guys who know you are going for sure, please post how many people are in your group that is attending. I would like to be able to give Jim a headcount so he can know how much food to get. If you are coming, please bring your own beverages and also bring a side dish of some kind if you can. Potatoe salad, pasta salad, green salad, chips, whatever you enjoy. Jim will do some hotdogs and burgers and we may have that brisket too (althought TexasHunter just remembered his sister's wedding is that day!!!). I am thinking a good time would be to show up around 3 pm and maybe have food around 5 pm. Sound good to you guys? For those that can't make it at that time, feel free to go early, Jim says he will be there all day. I may go down the night before, not sure yet. I will post directions when I get the mileages from Jim. Amanda