SilentButDeadly

good dog Julie, good dog.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Zeiss binoculars are awesome, Zeiss customer service sucks. It took 5 emails, and 10 phone calls to limp my order along. The first quote for my 15x60s was $2600.00, I could have bought another pair for much less... I negotiated the cost to just the fix on what I broke. They wanted to change out all the glass. The kicker was that their American service rep was so bad she forgot to tell the Germans not to replace the prism system (which was going to be over 1500 of the repair), so I got that for free! 7 months later my beloved glass was back in my hands.

My dog is with me everyday, even during deer season (I leave him at home for elk). Pros: Dog is a good companion, hears more than I do which helps me find more deer, can sniff out things I'd never know were there, ran a blood trail in 1 minute that would have taken us an hour. Cons: Dog is a pain in the butt the other 95% of the time, and if he ever gets bit by a snake it is going to cost me a fortune and an earful from my wife. Briggs is a Vizsla

I'm on my last day of a two week trip to the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez mountains of northern New Mexico. This is the second year of my research up here on forest fire history. The Caldera is closed to the public, and does not allow shed collecting, but I've been busy snapping photos... I've got my whole crew searching for fire scarred trees and secondarily elk antlers, a few of them have picked up the shed-hunting bug. We've found on average 4-5 sheds a day, with 10 sheds and a skull w/ antlers being our best day. I didn't take pictures of all of them since I was slinging a chainsaw most days, but I made sure we got photos of the best. Here are the highlights. First shed, one hour into the first day. couple of little browns a nice 5x6 set I found laying side by side next to an aspen log that had been chewed like corn-on-the-cob an awesome lion kill 5x6 the biggest shed I found on the trip a 7x with a sticker (almost 8x), amazingly the same side from last year was laying about 50 yards away; I searched the whole meadow the next night (even planned an un-scheduled fire-scar sampling afternoon a week later around the same meadow and couldn't turn up either of the opposite sides. Interestingly, I think I filmed this bull out in the Valles Grande last September two days before my bow hunt. Really humbling to find a couple sheds from him. and for anyone left wondering, my research involves looking at historical (mostly dead, either logged or died of natural causes) trees and their fire scars to determine what the fire regimes of these mountains and their grasslands were before European settlement. a couple of photos of dropping snags with fire scars, and what our raw samples look like before we sand them up in the lab and BTW, I was wearing Grong Orange every day (see my helmet, saw, and chaps)!

Seen um in the Rincons

awesome!

My wife and I took a trip up to red rock country this weekend, got out for a morning of shed hunting, and my Viszla finally found his first antler (without my help). I'm still waiting for him to bring me a Coue's shed unannounced... Pictures:

I sent Amanda an email with photos of my Coues shed collection to post in the Photo section, so I don't want to spoil the surprise -- i've already posted pretty much all of the bigguns on the forum previously anywho. Anyway, here is a pic of the pile; I'm so proud -- my wife is probably ashamed... Ha! ~45 bones in 3 years. Walked through 3 pairs of Merrells, 2 pairs of New Balance, and 2 pairs of Asics. Tyson

Mutants? Shoot them!!

Brrr! Too bad its 85 degrees outside right now (at 10pm) at my house...

thats awesome. It seemed like when I was working in the Rincons, the bear scat was full of manzanita berries this time of year. Are you guys looking at their diets, etc? Were you trapping in the Pinalenos last week? I heard there is a problem bear up at Riggs Lake...

Word! bone is bone! It definitely came home with us.. I've found too many in National Parks and Preserves that I've left laying to leave a sweet National Forest find... Briggs is a good looking dog -- I wish I hadn't been so hasty in snipping him, poor feller... It was a brownie, and only 50 yards from a quad road, it was laying behind a juniper so the riders missed it! Just Brigg's luck!

Yucca/Agave/Whatever-you-wanna-call-um are the only way to go, light weight, super strong, and readily available on a trail near you! a couple minutes with a leatherman saw will get you set up nicely. Maybe bring a leather strap to make a grip or wrist loop... T

glass everywhere, all the time, they wouldn't be Coue's if you could predict where they are going to be...

Not in 21, but.... I've got a tag for 8 archery, saw this bull two years ago on my cow hunt there -- I'm praying he is still alive, I've got a set of his sheds that we found a day after taking this video. here is the set, with some Coue's sheds from elsewhere... video: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...VideoID=8942618

glad you could find a shed wearing that CW shirt -- I'm thinking of putting mine in the closet -- haven't had any luck in the field while wearing it yet, maybe need to try the GRONG orange... ugh...

I had a snake 3 inches from my boot for about 15 minutes while I sat on a seat-sized rock glassing last fall; never knew he was there till I picked up my tripod and the rock by my foot moved (it was the rock). I let um live, after seriously contemplating beating it to death with my tripod -- my reason for not killing it was that it had left my soft pink ankle alone and I should show the same courtesy. Maybe he/she'll breed and those 'do not strike giant exposed ankle' genes will get passed on... Only ever seen one twin-spot, caught it when I was 14 in the Chiricahuas, about the size of an earthworm (just a hatchling)... Coosefan -- yikes! I guess I can quit envying you for those 'road sheds' you found this spring and those jaguars you keep glassing -- you've paid your dues...

wowzas!

awesome! I'm totally jealous!

Fortunately the kids in Reserve are safe, the 'animals' can't get um inside their 'Animal' Proof Box! from: http://westinstenv.org/wildpeop/2008/03/24...xico-community/ more: http://wolfcrossing.org/2007/05/25/wolves-...-catron-county/

yikes! smokin!

crazy! super cool find - keep looking for that other side! It'll be easier to find if there is a skeleton attached. Must be near by (ha! I've spent months looking for matching sides and not found them -- or found them a stones throw away from the first one months later -- or really really far away in a random spot I'd never expect ) its out there somewhere... Imagine, you're one antler away from a rack of a lifetime -- and you already know where to look. You're gonna wake up every morning thinking about it! T

less than 6 months... smokin fast! looks good...

http://www.dot.pima.gov/gis/maps/az/mapguide/ Click on Arizona MapGuide Map, accept the terms, and start playing! This is mainly a viewer, but pretty cool all the same, Must have Java plug-in installed it looks like. T