Yuma Outdoorsman

Weekend update... Extremely hot and too much hunting pressure. With the weather being so warm, I did not hunt as hard as I usually would opening weekend. Surprisingly, a lot of areas I thought got rain are extremely dead with not much greenery. Sometimes those dead spots hold big deer though so not giving up completely but dang, what a let down. Game warden told some friends that the deer have felt the snowbird pressure and in the last 3 weeks, they have moved into the hills. Next weekend, I will be hunting a little harder and hitting some stuff that I didn’t want to hike into with it being 90°+...not only does it suck to pack out in heat but worrying about meat going bad is a whole other issue I didn’t want to deal with. The reports from everyone I’ve talked to is not many deer were shot in the desert opening weekend and not many deer glassed up. Heat waves picked up around 8:30am so that makes glassing tough if you aren’t on the deer right away. We still have 7 days left to hunt, me personally 3 maybe 4 days. I’ll let you know how it goes once I’m back out there.

Man this heat is no joke today...what a terrible way to start a hunt. 91° In November 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ Just does and fawns for me. I had friends glass up 8 bucks but I haven’t heard back from them after they said they were going after them.

One more day, hope it all plays out for you. Good luck!

Well you still have time and with this warmer weather they gotta come drink. Hopefully one slips up. What a tough break on this weather overall. Looking like 89, 90, 87 for us over the weekend. The dang quail opener was better weather than this. I'm with you in hoping one slips up headed to water. Super new moon starts Nov. 4. I have no idea what that means but it sounds good for hunting friday morning on the 5th! hahaha

When does your hunt end?

Heck ya man! Congrats on a nice buck. Let's Go Brandon!!!!

I forgot your season started. Good luck and hopefully a big one comes in. That tall 4x4 watered at 6:30 last Thursday. I will be glassing from a hill opening morning where I can watch the drinker but also some open flats all at the same time.

4 groups of does for me today but saw 8 healthy fawns within those herds....cool velvet/stripped before and after of a tall 4x4. Friday is going to take forever to get here.

Congrats on sticking with it and tagging out. Hope your wife is doing well.

Congrats! Awesome to follow along.

That drop antler is huge. I hope you find that buck. Good luck. Sounds like if you find him, you have a great chance to get a shot if you are accurate out to 600 yards. Good luck, Can't wait to see how your hunt goes.

Live threads with detailed reports like this almost make us at home feel like we are there. I love it.

Starts in 2 weeks. With my luck, this buck won’t move in day light at all 😂😂..

I can't ever get a photo of this buck head on, he's always got his head sideways. It's by far the widest and tallest. I'm guessing it is pushing 25-26" wide. This photo was from September 3 so he's grown quite a bit since then. I don't have hardly any photos of him in focus. Everything is blurred or I've got half a rack with nothing to judge against. I know that he will look great in my scope though.

Now that the snowbirds are back moving in my area, they have the deer moving. Some of the roads where my tracks were the only ones since August are beat to crap. The washes have ran so much this monsoon that the wash bottom in some washes is hard and even when my fat behind is walking down them, I barely make any tracks. I have friends hunting in D12 in southern California and they said their deer are in the flats and not towards the hills like years past. The hard part about flats where I'm at is if the deer are in them, they could be 4-5 miles from the closest hill. That makes it hard to find them, especially with how thick and green the desert it. I am sure you are having similar issues. Stick with it though, you will turn them up eventually.

Bummer man. It’s been warm in Yuma. 2 of my biggest bucks on camera went MIA Since September. I’m hoping the warmer weather brought them back in....the snowbirds are back in the desert and I think their added pressure driving all over the desert is starting to scatter the deer I’ve been looking for. That’s why my dad quit scouting years ago. He said it’s a waste of time and the line he lived by now days is “they are where you find them, the day you find them”...that’s boring though 😂

You were out yesterday...did you find your buck?

I've talked to several people who went all directions from Yuma and the most birds anybody shot was 4. I was out most of the day scouting deer Saturday and didn't see one bird. I've had cameras on 3 waterholes since August and I do not have any quail on camera either. Very odd. The only place anybody saw quail was around the farmland in 41 out by Texas Hill. All the desert hunters didn't see anything. We had a ton of birds last year, I even limited out by 10am one morning. I almost feel bad now for shooting so many last year. The rain did not come early enough this year it seems.

Last weekend, they were up and feeding still at 9am.

Nice one! All I found this weekend was a bobcat skull.

I got a golden eagle on a different waterhole...it likes to go hop into the water and take a bath and then sit on the cement and dry off.

Hard horned is 2019 and the velvet photo is back in early September. Not much growth but has gained mass.

I’m not a good enough hunter to target a certain buck so he will most likely live another couple years 😂😂😂 But they are fun to look at on camera.

Well I went and checked a camera and sadly, two of our bigger bucks haven’t watered at this drinker since I changed the batteries last. I did get a new buck on camera though that got my attention. Not the best photos because I just snapped a shot of my computer screen but you get the idea. Solid 4x4 with a small point on one side that isn’t big enough to count as a kicker.

Nice bucks! They should be stripping soon. I’ve got photos from last year that had hard horned bucks on Oct 12....I haven’t checked my camera in 3 weeks. It’s killing me.