Yuma Outdoorsman

Is it standard to tip your taxidermist or what's the proper etiquette? Assuming all is well and you are happy with the work they do. Thanks.

The guy's name is Noel Vandiver. He is in Holtville, Ca. The name of his company is Ironwood Taxidermy. He does excellent work and the turn around is the best I've ever heard of. I took another buck to him mid December and had it back by March 17. The attached photos are my buck from this year.

These are just average for the farm....1st and last photo are the same buck, different angles. I don’t hunt the farm but I work in Agriculture so I am around farmland all day. Couldn’t help but snap some photos.

haha ya same here. Pretty interesting to see how farm hunters struggle when they make it to the actual desert and have to find deer. The RZR caravans are legit the worst part of hunting where I do. 99% of the time they are honestly nice people and are just enjoying the desert but I've run into some that will dang near run you over. One of my favorite areas legit looks like a checkerboard right now due to new trails being made. Just have to adapt to the changing scenarios each year.

I have 2 waterholes in my unit that are a little over 5 miles apart and will get the same bucks on camera from both waterholes from time to time...I know a lot of "farm land" hunters in Yuma that think you can pattern desert mule deer. I think they are just used to hunting the farm where deer come and go like clock work morning/night. I have not hunted much outside of the desert but the deer we hunt are pretty nomadic in their habits. We usually have the general vicinity the deer are but we get a lot of snowbird pressure on rangers/razr's and it pushes the deer around quite a bit. Seems like the snowbird traffic is growing more and more each year. They also like to create their own trails and roads in places I like to hunt which really sucks.

Is that late for that unit? In the desert, I believe peak rut is February and sometimes goes into March.

Thank for the responses. I tipped my guy because I took the deer to him in December and he had it back to me by March and only charged $475. I felt wrong not to tip him. This was the buck. I have another buck there this year and didn't know if I should be tipping or not. Thanks for the reply.

Got a cool photo of this buck last week. I was 100 yards from him and he had me pinned. Zoom in and you can see he’s pretty unique. He was solo. Hopefully he’s with some does this weekend and is dumber than he was last week. 🙏🏻

Anybody see this?

Looks like arrow weed too. I would doubt that it would grow in the desert though.

No sexy time behavior at all...

He was pretty covered up in greasewoods man. I took the shot with my camera instead.

Thanks man. It was taken with a Nikon P1000. Check them out. Really cool cameras.

If you think the road hunting in the pines was bad, just wait until you see what’s out in Dateland 😂 my suggestion for you is learn the Kofa’s. If you are willing to walk a few miles, you will not see anyone else but will most likely see deer.

I’m hoping this rain hits this whole state and gives these animals some much needed water! 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Also, I hope the cooler weather that comes from this front helps the rut!

The rut doesn’t get “hot” until the last 10-14 days of January. To be honest, February is probably the peak rut for most desert units in my opinion.

Anybody hunting? Got on 3 groups of does Friday but none had bucks. Did see one buck solo but he saw me before I saw him so that ended quickly.

It’s on YouTube, anybody can see it...I figured I would share it on here to help some of the Az guys out. I assumed most people on this site are from AZ. Maybe not?

Sounds like peak rut in the high country.

Congrats to your friend! Cool video.

Like a 6x6?

I don’t think the video worked in my previous post. IMG_2873.MP4

Seen a decent buck with 7 does this morning in 44B. First group I’ve seen with a buck. He had the strut going but the does weren’t hot enough to keep him around very long. He did a quick sniff on them and then left them. It’s going to be picking up soon I think. These are 3 of the does that were with him. She walked in from about 90 yards out and go within 60. Love this time of year. IMG_2873.MP4

Going to keep this going...seeing some lip curling and a few noses sniffing behind some does this weekend but still multiple bucks in herds. Hopefully the full moon this week gets things rolling in my area.

Seems that the Roman nose is always an attention getter. I got this video of this buck in September and plenty of photos of him since and I can’t get over how crazy his nose is. Let’s see what some of you guys have seen over the years as far as Roman noses go. Thanks 👍🏻... FYI, we could use some rain in the desert... FullSizeRender.mov