audsley

Question: Where are you seeing the Commissioners' positions?

I once read a collection of Corbett's stories (the Rudaprayag Leopard, etc.), and while Corbett was a great storyteller, I had serious reservations about his veracity. What caused me to doubt him is that all of his stories ended with dramatic confrontations in which he was almost killed but managed to get off a killing shot just before his quarry pounced on him. Most or all of these stories followed the same pattern: the British colonial government has sought Corbett's services to track down and eliminate a tiger or leopard that has gone on a killing spree eating dozens or hundreds of unarmed Indian/Pakistani peasants, all of whom are now looking to the great white hunter to end the terror reign. Corbett follows spoor and sits over bait sites with no luck until the mankiller finally surprises him and Corbett barely lifts his rifle in time to drill the beast before it's on him. I would think most of these adventures should have ended with the cat simply being shot over bait in fairly mundane fashion, but Corbett didn't seem to have any stories that ended that way. I suppose one could argue that he might have had such stories but simply didn't bother to write about them because they aren't exciting enough. But how many tigers and leopards would one need to shoot in order to kill 8 or 10 in mid-lunge so they fall dead at your feet? I believe that in Corbett's time, and for a long time after that, it was accepted practice among outdoor and adventure writers to never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Maybe it still is today. I recall a few years back one of the major outdoor magazines reprinted a story by Zane Grey recounting his Mexican hunting adventure in which he and a partner were treed by a savage band of peccaries that snapped their deadly canine teeth and wouldn't leave until a clever guide set fire to the forest, thus driving away the beasts with the smoke. And who believes Ernest Hemingway deliberately shot a hawk through the wing on in order to keep it as a pet for several months, nursed it back to health and eventually released it back into nature?

I found this very interesting, Couessniper, because I clean guns about the same way you do. I'm fairly quick about it. I have a bottle of Hoppes BenchRest copper solvent. This stuff is strictly for copper, and I've taken guns that seemed to be clean and run this stuff through only to get deep blue on the patch. I asked someone about the need for special copper solvent and was told it's not necessary as long as you're using something like Sweets or Barnes CR-10 that also attacks copper. But I'm thinking I'll keep using the Hoppes copper solvent just to check myself. If I'm still finding blue with the copper solvent, that probably means I'm leaving power residue as well. The only shooting task I dislike more than trimming cases is cleaning bores, but it's important to do it well.

Bill, If you've never heard of Mexican Reds, then my theory will be that this concept was very short-lived and got squashed by Game & Fish before it spread very far. I've not heard the term "Mexican Reds" for about 20 years now. Larry

Just came across this thread and was surprised that nowhere is the term "Mexican Red" mentioned. Back in the 80s I saw a large whitetail weighing over 100 lbs brought in for butchering. It's 3x3 rack was undersized for its body, and the antler points tapered sharply and got real skinny the last couple inches. Someone observed that it was a "Mexican Red," and that these deer are somewhat larger than the ordinary Arizona Coues. Indeed, its coat had a faint reddish cast in places, and not just around the tail and rump. It came from the Chiricahuas. Later I asked an older hunter about Mexican Reds. This man had hunted whitetails along the border since the late 1950s. "You don't really want one of those," he told me. "Their antlers tend to be small for their bodies." And in fact that did describe the purported "Mexican Red" I had seen. The comparison is similar to the large-bodied Roosevelt elk to the smaller-bodied, larger antlered Rocky Mountain elk. I have since been sternly admonished by biology professionals not to subscribe to the theory of the Mexican Red, and I believe the basis for their skepticism is sound. Local variations in color, size and other attributes may simply reflect the lack of need to travel far to find mates, which eventually leads to less genetic diversity and clusters of certain characteristics. Most of my Coues hunting has been in two units, 33 and 36B. I've noticed a tendency toward more reddish coats in the 36B whitetails while the Unit 33 Coues are more solidly battleship gray. I suspect this is due to the same dynamics that cause certain villages in Ireland and Scotland to have high numbers of redheads and others to have lots of blonds. But nowadays biologists have a practical reason for discouraging careless splitting. The environmental activist community is always on the prowl for a new "species" they can get classified as endangered and thereby force restrictions on land uses and other activities. Here in Arizona they have been working on the "desert" bald eagle, a couple of purported mule deer subspecies in southern California and western Arizona, and the Yuma Puma (which lion expert Harley Shaw says doesn't exist and probably never did.) I've often thought it might be fun to come up with a new "species" for the Center for Biological Diversity to chase after. (Did anyone see the South Park episode where Cartman dreamed up the endangered Mexican Staring Frog? Never mind.) But that could backfire. They might send out their own "biologists" who in turn might find "evidence" that indeed the Mexican Jumping Quail or whatever we might come up with does indeed exist as such, and convince a judge to stop quail hunts while the species is surveyed. This is dangerous area to try to have fun.

Yes, Joe Reid at Lawson's in Tucson really knows his stuff. But I don't know how often he's there these days. Also you might try Frank Wells at Second Amendment Sports (the old Jensen's.) He also knows his stuff.

Agree with Redneck that it's good you're back. Your knowledge and writing skills were missed.

I don't like to encourage the blaming of large groups on the hardware, but that might be appropriate in this case. I don't recall there ever being a Model 74 Sportmaster. However, Remington made a Model 74 Sportsman in 30.06 only. I'm guessing that's what you have. It's a semi-auto that was made for the budget-conscious sportsman, and I wouldn't expect great accuracy from it. Although semi-autos are capable of very good accuracy, rifle manufacturers haven't usually taken the pains to delivery superior accuracy in semis simply because semi-auto buyers aren't making accuracy their priority. Instead they're looking for fast follow-up shots. (In other words, they plan to miss some of the time, which is why they they're focusing on follow-up shots.) The semi-auto is most suitable for hunting in cover where game has to be flushed and shot on the run. That doesn't describe Arizona. If you're getting 2-inch groups from a Model 74 Remington, I'd say you have one of the good ones. They had hardwood (not walnut) stocks and were just about the cheapest Remington centerfire rifles that could be found at that time. Also, Model 74s were made 1985-87, which is a little before machining technology brought barrel quality up a couple of notches. If you need to stay budget conscious but want to think about long range shooting, look around for used Savage 110s, Vanguards (by Howa) or Tikkas that aren't much over 10 years old. Not the most beautiful guns, but all punch above their weight classes when it comes to accuracy at a great price.

If you have a hunting license and are hunting, not just camping along with other people who have a tag for that time and place, I believe you can also camp without any special permit. But if you're just tagging along on someone else's hunt, that might be another story. This isn't official. Just my belief about how it woris.

I have this same wildcat caliber in a 1917 Remington that was re-barreled and re-stocked by Harry Lawson. Obviously my gun is not as good as yours, but I like it anyway. Great elk rifle. the .30-.338 was a Fred Huntington wildcat, and RCBS supports it with dies. It didn't hammer my shoulder as much as I expected. But I do find it more expensive to reload as the .338 brass is a little pricier than .270 or 6.55x55 or 7mm SAUM, the other calibers I reload for, and each cartridge eats up a lot of powder, like 70 grains, compared to maybe 46 for the Swede.

Don't know if he's building custom guns again, but Frank Wells is back to work as a gunsmith at 2nd Amendment Sports (the old Jensen's east side.) Mr. Wells was a legendary custom gun buiilder in the 1960s and 70s. Since returning to work (I think he moved out of state for a while), he's done 3 trigger jobs for me, and he's as good as you'll find and quite reasonable on prices.

Did anyone here attend last night's meeting in Hayden on Unit 32 access problems? I had a conflict and couldn't attend. I did hear there were 50 or 60 people. I was unable to learn anything else.

An access gate will usually be situated near a house. That does 2 things. It causes people to slow down for the stop so they aren't racing past the house raising a lot of dust and running over people or dogs, and it allows the occupants of the house to get a look at who's coming and going. That's the perfect place to put a sign-in/sign-out box. I understand there isn't always someone home to watch and see that everyone has signed in, but those of us coming through the gate don't know when you're there and when you're not. It would be pretty stupid to go through the gate without signing in. Game & Fish patrols these areas during hunts. If they write down a license number and later check it against the sign-in sheet, they can catch someone failing to sign in. Also, I believe most private property situations require tags to be hung from a truck mirror. Failure to sign in and get a tag when crossing private property is a trespassing violation subject to a fine levied by a judge. The Commission may also revoke your license, but I don't know whether that has ever actually been done for trespassing. Public lands ranchers are often chided by anti-grazing activists for paying less per Animal-Unit-Month than is charged on nearby private lands. There are many reasons why public lands grazing does and should cost less, but one of the reasons is that the public lands lessee has to share the land with other users. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I sympathize with some of the problems public lands ranchers are having, but some of this goes with the territory. Game & Fish and many sportsmen are trying to work with you on these problems. I suggest you be receptive to our efforts instead of just locking us out or shaking us down for cash.

Azhunterswhocare is exactly right. The ranchers in Altar Valley seldom have such problems, and when they do, sportsmen and Game & Fish have been there to help remediate the damage. I know of cases where Safari Club Intl's Tucson chapter has quickly written checks to ranchers whe there has been damage that does not appear to have been caused by illegals but rather recreational users. Although I don't have any research to prove it, common sense would suggest that a sign-in/sign-0ut box at the gate, installed by G&F at no cost to the landowner, should function as a deterrent to misbehavior. After someone hs written down their hunting license number, truck license, time and date they came in and went out, it's likely they'll get the idea that someone is keeping track of them. Up to now, the simplest solution for a rancher is to lock a gate and deny access to the public even though members of the public have an equal right to access public lands once they've paid for any required permits. This is too easy, and it's wrong.

I just spent Sunday evening through Tuesday evening at Big Lake, Reservation Lake, Drift Fence and North Fork of the White River near Hawley. The bulls were starting to bugle at 2 in the afternoon and it just got stronger as the afternoon wore on. Both nights I had to get up in the middle of the night (the curse of middle age) and heard them carrying on all around me. The rut was ON. Timing is everything.

Yes, rulings can turn out to apply to only one person if the case isn't assembled on behalf of all sportsmen. So Hooked on Coues, are you ready to get together with other sportsmen? I can put you on a distribution list for email updates, petitions and letter writing campaigns. Right now Unit 32 is being looked at very hard.

I'm surprised everyone isn't familiar with the Arizona Hunters Who Care program that Safari Club Intl and Lance Altherr in particular have been doing about twice a year the last several years in the Altar Valley. It's not been unusual to draw 300 hunters and their families to pick up literally tons of backpacks, drinking containers and clothing discarded by illegal aliens. Hunters didn't put the trash there, but we're helping to clean it up, and the private landowners and public land agencies greatly appreciate it. This is hunters' way of saying thanks for continuing to allow access. I'm aware of similar cleanups in Unit 10 and elsewhere. Noel Arnold has "most of us are the ones paying the state taxes. So in some way we actually own some of the rights to public land." Yep. That's correct. That was the intention when the public lands were set aside and dedicated for public use. Bird Dog says "So, why can we as sportsmen get some legislative support to start roads/access around the private property and then later have the heavy equiptment come in to finalize the access." We can. A few of us are working on that. If you have an access problem that involves the state land dept., contact your state legislator(s) and your county board of supervisors. But it takes persistence and efforts of a few angry people to get anything done. When the road into Charoleau Gap in Unit 33 was closed because the residents of the new Saddlebrooke subdivision didn't want hunters driving through, the governor's office was deluged with about 100 letters. Before long there was money to build an alternate access route. That's what a bunch of determined hunters can do when they decide to do something besides complain to each other.

The answer is yes, ranchers do lease continguous and adjacent public lands for grazing rights. And yes, that could be done. The State Land Dept. could do this if they chose to, but instead they seem more inclined to discourage public access to state trust lands. With enough support in the legislature, Arizona could pass a law requiring them to do that as a condition of the lease. But for BLM and Forest Service lands, our legislature would be powerless because the state doesn't manage Federal lands. Earlier I said the Forest Service was one of the good guys on access, but they could be much better. I believe the Forest Service and BLM could also make public access a condition of the lease, but I've never heard of them doing that anywhere. If they did, I would expect the Arizona Cattlegrowers Association, Farm Bureau and other rancher support organizations to start making trouble for the land agency in various ways, starting with the press and eventually their Congressmen who in turn would turn up the heat on the agency. It would probably lead to all-out war by ranchers on the agencies. And who would stand should-to-shoulder alongside the agencies that were fighting for their access? Hunters, hikers, birdwatchers and prospectors? I doubt it. The public would likely stand idly by while the land agency takes a pounding, and the land agencies know that, so why bother? If the public won't fight for its own access, why should they? But if the public ever started fighting on its own, I believe the agencies would help.

Noel Arnold, It is NOT the fault of Game & Fish or the Forest Service for "letting" private landowners lock up their land. Game & Fish has no legal authority whatsoever to condemn land or force a landowner to unlock a gate on private land. In fact, Game & Fish can't even cross private land to get to public land without a landowner's permission. You're slightly closer to the truth with the Forest Service because that agency at least has the legal authority to condemn private land. But condemnation amounts to more than just making a landowner unlock a gate. If the Forest Service wants to force unlocking of the gate, it will need to condemn the property on and under the road bed and take adverse possession, which means they will have to compensate the landowner for his loss. This becomes a cumbersome process as it leaves Dept. of Agriculture and is taken over by the Justice Dept and then anything can happen. Generally speaking, the Forest Service doesn't want to go around condemning and taking possession of property because (1)it would cause an uprising, and (2)every landowner who could lock a gate would probably do so immediately just to sell the property. (If you can't control it, why not sell it?) And what is a strip of road and the land underneath on ranch property worth? Not much, in my opinion, but the landowner may feel otherwise, especially if losing it deprives him of the "right" to control access to public lands and possibly make a little money from that. Game & Fish and the Forest Service are among the good guys in this battle.

So do you want to do something about it? You can. You can petition the Pinal County Board of Supervisors to open the road. It will help if you live in Pinal County, but it's not necessary. Let me know if you're interested and I'll help. I'll do the same for anyone else who wants to take on this battle in southern Arizona. If you decide this battle is worth fighting, you do have some allies in government. Game & Fish is a strong advocate for hunter access and has excellent expertise on this issue. Coronado National Forest is also on your side because the forest service believes in multiple use and does not want to see large parts of the forest drift into single use because other users were denied access. I haven't tried working with BLM. You'll also have vigorous opponents, starting with the State Land Dept. which is backed up by the governor's office. State Land and the governor's administration have a preservationist mindset and seem to have never met a locked gate they didn't like. I believe State Land may be encouraging this behavior among landowners. In some counties, county supervisors and county attorneys will be on your side. But in other counties you'll encounter officials who own ranches, or have relatives who do, and they're locking gates and themselves. And in rural counties, local hunters can often get through a locked gate because they know the landowner, and local voters may feel that locking out hunters from the city isn't necessarily a bad thing. The local politician who supports locking gates might actually win votes. I've been dealing with issue rather intensively, and the biggest obstacle has been getting hunters and the rest of the public off their backsides and into the fray. When it comes to government, most hunters would rather let others doing their fighting. But in a democracy, where numbers matter, that doesn't work well. The path of least resistance is to simply find somewhere else to hunt. But that's only going to work for a while, until the few remaining places we can access are packed with hunters. Then it won't be fun anymore. Like I said, contact me if you're interested in actually doing something. The Unit 32 case is more promising than some others.

Unless something is done, the problem you're seeing in Unit 32 is going to snowball until we're all left hunting just a few patches of public land that still have access. I'm going to ask everyone's indulgence with the following very long excerpt from an article I wrote for this fall's Arizona Wildlife News, a publication of Az Wildlife Federation. This is what we're up against. Whose Public Land Is It? This is the first of a two-part series on public lands access in Arizona. Imagine driving to your national forest for a day of hiking, hunting or bird watching and finding a sign on the road that reads: Cowboy Bob’s National Forest Entrance Daily rates Hunters $50 Hikers and Birdwatchers $25 Campers $100 Ladies half price on Tuesdays Sound farfetched? Well, the sign is fictitious, but the practice of private individuals charging fees for public land access is not. Landowners all over the West have been doing it, and it appears to be a growing industry. Meanwhile, other landowners are choosing to simply lock out the public altogether and enjoy exclusive access to public lands. The problem is especially acute in southern Arizona where most roads leading to national forest and BLM lands cross private lands before reaching a National Forest or BLM boundary. Vast areas of Federal lands, including some entire mountain ranges, lack legal vehicular access. Many even lack reasonable hiking access. Coronado National Forest consists of several “sky island” ranges surrounded by state trust land, BLM land and private property. Of the approximately 300 entry points to the Forest, fewer than 100 have legal access. Access to lower elevation ranges managed by BLM isn’t much better. Currently the Santa Teresa and Winchester mountain ranges are effectively off-limits to anyone without specific landowner permission to cross private stretches of road. Most of the Mule, Swisshelm, Mustang, Pedragosa, Peloncillo (north, and most of the south section) and Doz Cabezas ranges are also inaccessible. Significant portions of the Chiricahuas, Galiuros, Whetstones and Dragoons are blocked off, as are parts of the Santa Ritas and Huachucas. Many of the roads that are now closed had been open to the public for many years, in some cases decades. Many had even been maintained over the years by county taxpayers. The current situation is bad enough, but it has the potential to become even worse. Many of the major rural roads in southern Arizona cross stretches of private land that theoretically could be locked off should landowners decide to exercise that prerogative. Examples include the Ruby Road east of Pena Blanca Lake, Rucker Canyon Road circling around the southern end of the Chiricahuas, Happy Valley Road east of the Rincons, and High Creek Road between Bonita and the Galiuro Wilderness. Virtually anyone needing to cross private property needs the landowner’s permission. This includes officials from the US Forest Service, BLM and Game & Fish seeking to perform their duties, as well as any type of recreational user. It’s an obstacle for hikers, campers, hunters, bird watchers, climbers, rockhounds, 4WD clubs, herpetologists and equestrians. In Skeleton Canyon in southeast Arizona, a concrete monument marks the site of Geronimo’s final surrender to General Crook. But you may not visit it without permission of nearby landowners even though the site is on Coronado National Forest land. To reach the surrender site just off a numbered forest service road, travelers would need to trespass for six or seven miles before reaching the forest boundary. A locked gate about ten miles from the surrender site drives home the point. Why Lock Out the Public? Landowners include ranchers, mine operators, land speculators and developers. Their reasons for blocking access to public lands are as varied as the landowners themselves. Landowners of all types typically cite litter and damage to natural resources as reasons for locking gates. Ranchers and mine owners worry about vandalism to infrastructure. And in southern Arizona’s troubled border environment, many believe unlocked gates serve to invite more smuggling traffic. Sometimes gates are locked for the safety and peace of mind of homeowners living next to the road. For example, the gate to Peck Canyon in the Tumacacori Mountains stayed open for decades until the owner, whose ranch house is only a few yards from the gate, finally had enough of living with a national forest access point located close to the border. Night traffic had increased dramatically, and his gate was being opened at all hours, often by people he’d rather weren’t anywhere near his home. Rival smugglers were killing each other and leading law enforcement on high-speed chases punctuated by gunfire within minutes of the house. When he finally put a padlock on the gate, no one protested. The Peck Canyon case is not especially unusual. There are others like it all along the border. In that case, Game & Fish was eventually able to purchase right-of-way for alternate route into Peck Canyon, but in many other cases that isn't possible due to the terrain, right-of-way land not being available or roadless/wilderness designations making it illegal to connect an old road to a new one. But other landowners are motivated by very different forces. Depending on one’s point of view, some of these other forces can be characterized either as good business sense or just plain selfishness and greed. In many areas, national forest and BLM lands are effectively controlled and exploited much like private property by contiguous landowners. With the public locked out, these areas become the private playgrounds and hunting preserves for landowners’ families, friends, business associates or those with whom they would like to curry favor. (The sheriff of one southern Arizona county is known to hunt on a ranch that is locally notorious for keeping hunters off its BLM allotment at gunpoint. Despite complaints of property and hunting rifles being taken by force, the allotment owners are not prosecuted.) Some landowners partner with outfitters to sell guided hunts offering clients exclusive access to Federal lands. Previous owners of the Cross F Ranch in the Santa Teresa range advertised “old west-style buffalo hunts” on their ranch, which was mainly comprised of state trust and BLM lands with only a small percentage of privately deeded land. In the Skeleton Canyon area, private landowners are effectively managing the public’s deer herds by managing the deer hunts. Game & Fish might decide how many tags to issue for a given Hunt Unit, but private landowners get to decide how many people will hunt on the Federal lands where they control the access. Some hunters have climbed over locked gates and trudged miles up a forest service road believing they would be rewarded with less hunting pressure and a deer population where most of the bucks die of old age. Instead they find sprawling encampments of trailers housing a landowner’s guests, clients and guides who have been hunting there every year as if it was their own private land, which it isn't. Real estate values are another factor. The ability to control access to adjacent BLM and national forest lands increases the value of a property. Sales brochures and websites entice buyers with the prospect of exclusive access to adjacent state and Federal lands. More than 50 per cent of current cases involve ranchers with grazing leases on adjacent state and Federal lands, but a growing number involves mine owners and subdivisions. When developers subdivide ranches that have roads leading onto Federal lands, they can offer gated communities with private access to government lands, free from intrusion by non-residents. Another reason gates become locked has to do with landowner relations with government agencies. Gates are sometimes locked in retaliation or to show a government agency who’s boss. In Cochise County not long ago, a gate was locked after Game & Fish cited a ranch employee for killing a bear and leaving the meat to rot. Another ranch has been closed ever since a family member was convicted for participating in a poaching ring. In a recent Graham County case, a landowner closed a road providing sole access to a portion of the Galiuros because she was mad at the sheriff and wanted to call attention to a perceived injustice having nothing whatsoever to do with the road. (The Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society took her to court and the road was eventually re-opened, but this case illustrates the use of road closures as weapons in personal or political disputes.) Obviously there are many reasons why landowners choose to lock gates. Some road closures are defensive. Others reflect recognition of opportunity and a decision to cash in on it. Some represent power struggles between landowners and government. There are even a few cases involving wealthy landowners who simply choose not to share the public’s land with the public if they don't have to. But all closures have one thing in common: landowners lock gates leading to public lands because they can. And how did that situation come to be?

I have to be in Phoenix Saturday, but I'm planning to go somewhere Friday. Has anyone checked to see if there's a quail somewhere near Willow Springs this year? I'd heard that area was expected to be dismal. I was thinking of looking farther east this year.

I agree that skins have gotten a bit thin. If somebody wants to call me a pompous know-it-all, go for it. I'll get over it. It's a risk I take with some of my posts, and I'm aware of it.

Rookie, The Buenos Aires is not a forest. It's mesquite grassland and mostly mule deer country. There are whitetail in the hills on the eastern edge. AG&F's hunting unit report for 36B describes a hunter access point into the San Luis Mtns from Arivaca Rd. Don't expect to see tons of deer, but you could find a big one. Southeast of the refuge it used to be fairly good in the Fresnal Dam - Lopez Well area, but I haven't been there in years and got a discouraging report a while back. Also, I believe Homeland Security has dug in around Fresnal Dam and you probably can't get too close to there anyway. Warsaw Canyon has superior numbers of deer but also quite a bit of hunting pressure. Same with California Gulch. There used to be good numbers of deer up behind Pena Blanca Lake, but I haven't been there in several years. In fact, there used to be lots of deer popping their heads up all along Ruby Rd at dawn and dusk, but like someone said, there just isn't the deer in that unit that we had 15 years ago. I don't know why 36B would crash and 33 would continue to hold its numbers, but that's what's happened. I can't believe the illegals would have that much impact. After all, one of the highest Coues densities anywhere used to be along the road up Madera Canyon which is overun with people. The serious headhunters tend to hunt the more northerly parts of the unit. I'm trying to steer you more toward the higher country in the south. Ramanote and Peck (if you can get in there under current road conditions) Canyons have a lot of deer. But the advice Bobbyo and others gave you is what you should concentrate on. Get good glass and a tripod, explore the unit and glass slowly and intensively. There are deer almost everywhere. The trick is finding them when they're in front of you.

In cases like these, I'm really tempted to send a rookie off to some place I haven't hunted in years and ask him to report back on how it's doing these days. Like the AG&F website hunting report for this unit says, there are deer all over the unit. Some areas have more than others, but the areas with fewer deer may have more big bucks because fewer deer keeps hunters away. As a general rule, high deer density leads to high hunter density which in turn leads to lopsided buck-to-doe ratios. One place I used to go was the extreme southern end of the Summit Motorway which begins 3.8 miles west of the pavement end near Pena Blanca and is marked with a sign. The road goes all the way to the border. Used to be if you took the 4WD trail just before the border going west and went all the way to the roadless area boundary (Manzanita Mtn, Goodding Research, Sycamore Canyon)you'd have deer constantly running past your camp. The buck-doe ratio was about 20 to 1, but you'd see 30-40 deer a day. On occasion a real toad would step out, usually 500 yds away or more. It's pretty country with lots of open hillsides and good ridges to glass from, and also a great place to practice your Spanish, especially stuff like "Hey! Come back here with that!" or "No problem, senor, I/m not seeing a thing. And it's none of my business what you have in that backpack!" One of the reasons I quit going there is there were too many hunters on account of there being so many deer. That was up until about the mid-1990s. Today there probably aren't so many hunters, but that doesn't mean you'll be alone. So why don't you run down and spend a couple days scouting and then tell us how many deer you saw? If you make it back from that one, I've got some others. OK, seriously, when's your hunt? Maybe I can do a little better for you than I have so far.