catclaw

I could get into the main website but when I clicked on the forums it was not found and I got a server error.

Mike, I swear you are a retard sometimes. I was making the point that the WM are good guys for the most part but that their hands are tied by the stupid laws. You have obviously never read title 17 and have no grasp of criminal law in Arizona-especially when it comes to culpability. Like I said, I don't trust the current commission one bit.

The commission we have now would suspend you for leaving a candy bar wrapper on the ground by your stand- I wouldn't trust them with something that significant. If the animals is still alive that long after the shot, you don't deserve to tag it. Our game and fish laws by and large are quite archaic. Many of them allow NO discretion whatsoever to the wildlife managers. They state that if....such and such happens and it comes to the attention of a WM and he/she does not arrest you, then THEY are guilty! With laws like that on the books, I wouldn't dream of finishing one off the day after. I would still pack my pistol, but wouldn't shoot it unless it charged me.

My friend found an I-phone while hiking this weekend in the Globe area. If any of you know who this might belong to, contact me via PM. Dennis

Yeh- but nobody has no pictures this time!!!

He charged the phone up but it has a password on the screen saver so he can't get the numbers. Aren't all I phones A T &T? I guess he can try and go to the service provider and turn it in. I have never found one that I couldn't dial out on.

It snowed twice, once, my buddy had an inch on him while sitting in a tree stand waiting for the 370 from the night before. The wind was bad and he wasn't boogered so we figured to set up on him the next night. No dice! There was an inch on the road at Hannagan Meadows and a little less than that in our camp (9200') It was 36 inside the trailer when I got up on the morning of the 23rd. Strange 2 weeks. When they are rutting hard, they are screaming their heads off, smaller bulls are cutting in, bulls are running after cows to keep them in line. I saw this last year but not a trace of it this year. Sure, they are rutting, but it never became the frantic scramble that makes this hunt so enjoyable! A rifle would have resulted in an early kill in our case, but would not have made the hunt any more enjoyable!

I don't have the answer but I agree it was tough. I spent 9-8 though 9-23 in unit 27 and it was cold and rainy most of the hunt- we got snow twice! The rut NEVER did pick up; it was worse on Thursday the 24th than it was the week before. I have never had to hunt so hard to find bulls. They were nocturnal in spite of almost NO moon. I watched a 370 class bull breed a cow about midway through the hunt and there were no satellite bulls to be found. Very, very strange hunt. There was plenty of water in 27 and it made no difference. Bulls wallowed at night and shut up during the day. There were bears and turkeys everywhere. We saw two lions to boot. The dates are not changing- the second Friday is going to shift with each calendar but it returns in a cycle. I don't think the rifle/muzzleloader guys are going to fare much better unless the moon phase changes things.

WOW- how is that for memories!!

I looked through most of them and liked the Leica the best but couldn't get over the spaceship look it had. I ended up with the Pentax 80mm ED. It is a great scope but BIG. If I bought another new one today, it would be the new Leica ($4000) or the Vortex Razor HD. The Kowa 88mm is superb as well. All of these I like better than the Zeiss and Swaro.

That was pretty good! Love those steep hill jobs. I once had to tie a boar to a tree to dress and skin him in a prickly pear patch. He just kept sliding down the hilll!

They are not worth $800 unless they are NIB.

Buddy shot his elk last day with a Vortex- perfect performance. Rage is not the "rage" that it has been cracked up to be! I had two pro-shop guys tell me that they would never use them for spot & stalk because of the issues with them opening up in the qwiver and when stalking!!!

I don't think you can blame the department for Macho b- that was obviously an over-zealous researcher who was deceitful and selfish. I think they just made it worse by defending the guy. They can "help" this guy all they want, he has lots of relatives and he is eating my deer!!

I had a camera out on a wallow during the elk hunt in 27 and pulled it Weds morning. I didn't look at the dark pictures until I got home tonight. This was about a mile from our camp. Boy, was I surprised!! The date on my camera is wrong because I took the batteries out and forgot to reset it- this is at 9000' so obviously NOT a January photo!

He won't net 350 but he might gross 360ish.

We had fits this year tuning arrows to shoot. If you have an ultra-fast bow (X-force, Monster etc) you will need mechanicals or short broadheads like Montecs, Wac-ems et al. One of the guys we were hunting with this year had a hunter shoot a bull broadside with a Rage and the arrow went in and hit a rib and came back out!!! The same client shot another bull with the same set up and got complete pass-through because he didn't hit a rib. This is the second guy that told me a similar personal story. We tried Slick tricks but the blades would break off in the "block" when practicing! The Rage broadheads are a nightmare in the qwiver, always opening up and rattling and then you have to put them back together before trying to shoot them. I would not use a Rage on an elk period and would not use one for stalking but limit them to shooting from blinds or treestands at deer. I would not use Slick tricks on elk either-they are not strong enough. I would use Slick tricks on deer in a heart beat. I killed my deer with an 85 grain Thunderhead this year and last. They shoot great from my bow (270fps) and have killed great. They are cheap and work well- I don't see the need to change. The popular broadheads are all at least $10 a piece, spend $12 on an arrow, $10 on a Lumenok and you are shooting $30++ down range with each shot! For a coveted elk tag that might be OK but for pigs and such- it's a little much!

Contrary to some opinions posted, eye-dominance is a big factor; that said, you can overcome it if you want. Let him shoot both ways and see which HE prefers. You can shoot with glasses on and put a patch on the eye you don't want to use. The one thing that won't work is to look through the opposite eye from the side you shoot. I am left eye dominant but right handed. I normally shoot right handed. I can shoot my son's left handed bow about as good as I can right handed but I have trained a lot with both eyes. Some eyes are overpowering in their dominance, in this case, you will have a hard time shooting otherwise. Often, the dominant eye is only mildly so and doesn't present a huge problem.

I found a nice water source in 27 the day before the archery elk hunt opened. We jumped a HUGE bull off it so I built a blind and set a camera. We sat it the next day and turkeys came in - then it rain and rained and rained! I left the camera up and found this spot was pounded with bears. I had three different bears come in one day. I didn't have my laptop with me so I think I deleted all the pics off the card to re-install but I will double check. I saw bears and bear sign every day. I have bear boxes on my cams but the bears always seem to mess with them!!

I have one in .222 and use it for predator calling. It has a been a good rifle. There are some deficiencies that Remington has fixed with the 700 and the 7. They have an ugly, protruding floorplate that does not open (an ADL is much cleaner). They have a huge ugly guard screw that is no longer manufactured so you have to make your own if you need a different one (I did). There is no way to depress the bolt stop other than to stick a small screwdriver in along the bolt. The triggers are a rubic's cube in assembly terms- don't take one apart unless you are really gun-savvy. Other than that, they are good rifles. Mine shoots quite decent and I recently bought a new barrel for it- a 600 take-off in .222 that was far better than my original. It screwed on and headspaced fine although the stamping is not on top. I paid $250 for mine with a 4X El Paso Weaver on it. I wouldn't give more than $400 for a cherry one though. Dennis

Wow- that's one-in-a-million, being a full-draw when it showed up!!!

I have refused to buy big Leica glass and Zeiss as it should come with an adapter for that kind of money! Who makes a 15x binocular and expects someone to use it withOUT a tripod. Kudos to Swarovski in that dept. I think the lesser powered Geovid is more practical. I haven't seen the Outdoorsman adapter so I can't comment there, but if anyone has one, it will be them.

I returned home last night from Alaska- I didn't get in until about 1:00 am. The logistics of the whole thing are somewhat daunting. Details to follow: Day 1 I drove to Phoenix and had my daughter meet us at the airport so she could drive my truck back to Prescott. We hopped on an Alaskan Air flight to Seattle. Check-in was a snap. Luckily, I checked my knives this time Arrived in Seattle where we met my Brother-in-law, Gerald and my nephew , Kaden (9). * We then got on the same flight to Ketchikan. The airport is on an island and the runway is carved out of a rock. There is one gate! We then had to take a Ferry across the channel to town- all of 400 yds. * We walked to our hotel. The brochure said it was right across the street from the ferry- it was, just not the airport ferry. We had to walk about a mile. The sun was out and the weather was anything but typical of Ketchikan. Once we checked in, we walked around and did some quick shopping. We then headed downtown to Annabel's for dinner. * DAY 2 We had all day Sunday as the ferry to Prince of Wales (POW) didn't leave until 3:30. We headed back downtown to show the boys Ketchikan. We stopped and watched float planes take off and land with the flight seeing groups. We watched bald eagles flying around like we have ravens here! Stopped in at Tongass trading to get some fishing knives and jerky. The stuff that is brought in is expensive! * They had a great supply of ammunition in stock! Much different story than home. They had most handgun calibers as well as rifle calibers such as 458 Winchester, 375 Ruger, 300 Wby and everything in between. * We went to the harbor and looked at the cruise ships and then to where Ketchikan creek runs into the harbor. The pink salmon "humpies" were jumping like crazy. They come out of the water and then land sideways with a splat! It is believed to have something to do with getting the eggs ready for the spawn. Kids were fishing off the bridge. I don't know what they were doing with the humpies but they aren't the best eating! Here is a view of the harbor with the bridge. My son Levi is taking it all in! * We finally got on the ferry to Hollis (POW) and watched a barge unload ocean containers. They had boats, trucks and motorhomes just piled on top! It was quite the sight. I have never seen bigger forklifts in my life- the tare weight on them was 80,000 #! * We left for Hollis. The ferry ride takes about 2 hours. It is a nice ride and we take it sometimes instead of the float planes. It's a long walk up the ramp to the docks but our ride was waiting for the 25 mile ride across the island * Just before we got to the lodge, this little guy walked across the road. We intended to turn in but the boys ran down to the dock and started fishing off it! They caught a half-dozen before bed time. There were some strange creatures hanging around as they throw the fish right off the dock after fileting them. * TO BE CONTINUED...

My buddy has one ( I think it's that model) it was their best one before they came out with the Razor HD, anyway the one he has is pretty impressive- especially considering the price. I have been so impressed with Vortex that I recently consulted on a purchase with a client that ordered 5 Razor HDs and 25 Viper 8.5x50s, almost $25K in optics. Dennis

last time I checked, 6, 23S, 22S, 19A, 27 and 24A and B were CLOSED. 23N was still open.