catclaw

Well- you never gave us a follow-up. Where did you camp? Fish? Dennis

I did one there 10 years ago and had 40 boys. I rode a horse for the first 25 of that one for logistic reasons. After the first 25. most of them wanted to call it good. Only 5 of them wanted to finish up. I took those 5 and hiked into the Blue from the highway! All I can say is DON'T do a 25 mile hike in cowboy boots! I should have taken the horse again! I won't be forgetting either of them myself!

I have been using 3 different ones. In the photo it is a bogen aluminum tripod (I can't remember the number) and the head is the take-off from my Velbon El Carmange. I have used my Bogen ball head and the Bogen 701HDV. The only way to go is with the 701; it has a much better plate system and in my mind, makes the whole system. I think the little flimsy tripods like the Bogen 190 are too light duty for a rifle rest. With a good tripod, the 701 head and setting it up low- prone height- I can feel as steady as a prone Harris bi-pod but can pan so much easier. It is amazing how much of the recoil it takes out too!

It is going to depend on what powder you can get. Most in the good burning ranges for 30-06 are in short supply. I have had great luck using Ramshot Hunter and Ramshot Big game in 30-06. Two other great powders are H414 and H4350. You will be able to find 414 but I doubt you will find 4350. If you already have those, all the better. The 150 Accubond is a good bullet as is the 150 Partition if you want to stay in those ranges. If you like the 165s and I do, I can recommend the 165 Hornady flat base spitzer as a do-it-all bullet. I have killed elk, deer and coyotes with this bullet and got great accuracy. The Accubond has an edge in shots longer than 400 yds but closer in than that, it's just sexy looking and costs a lot more. If you can decide on a powder, I can give you some combinations that have worked well for me.

I got back from a week with the scouts and told my son to go pull the card on the camera. He came running in and said it was full. We had only been gone a week. I told him there was no way it could be full. He handed me the card and it was a 32 meg card How did that get in there?? I told him to look at the photos and then throw it away!!! I got one lousy coyote and the rest were birds. Sure easy to fill up one of those old, tiny cards! Anyone ever done that?

This is the first cat that I have captured a photo of in my back yard. Mostly I get coyotes and pigs. Maybe there is a new king on the block!

Yep- found a couple of chalks. Also found a really nice horn from a cow. We were too tired to carry any of them out. Didn't get off the trails much in most areas due to time constraints. A couple of the boys took all the photos and made DVD slide show and a few movie clips yesterday. They brought my copy over and we watched it last night. It was awesome. I think there are going to be some shocked parents when they see it.

We started Monday about noon and finished Friday about 11 am. We stayed Friday night so we could do the fun stuff that afternoon and Saturday morning. When we started shooting the gong, an antelope ran out of the draw behind the target berm- I am sure we ruined his nap! We had two really tough days due to dismal trail conditions and the rest was not too difficult. I took saws and we cleared trails where feasible. We obviously couldn't tackle the big ones but anything under about 9" was fair game to the saws. This is a really good experience for boys- especially city boys. They learned you can start a fire using just natural stuff- in about two minutes, you can find water along the way and make it safe to drink, that bears are usually more scared of us that we should be of them and that you can actually survive without your cell phones, Ipods and gameboys! Here is a typical trail

I visited a friend on Friday and he showed me a mare of his that was attacked by a lion the week before. She was clawed up pretty good but nothing that required any sewing. Not sure if she kicked the lion off or someone spooked it. While looking at what she had gotten into, this guy found a dead wolf on his place! The injuries on the horse were NOT from a wolf. Horse probably will have bad dreams or nightmares for a while (pun intended)

Sorry, I have been camping all week with my scouts- This occurred in Eagar, right alone 260 near the rodeo grounds.

A couple of more photos

Has anyone seen the fee increases that are supposed to be levied on us next year? $3200 for an elk tag (non-resident), $150 for a deer tag, $30 for a javelina tag. On top of that, increases for all professional licenses- a guide's license is $500. I didn't think that the cap voted on by the legislature was anywhere near this high! I don't have the paper in front of me so I don't know all the fees, but they all went up A BUNCH. Elk res- $350 Antelope- $90 Bear- $30 Pig- $30 Turkey- $25 Lion- $19 Sheep- $335/ $3000 App fee- $10 A new structure for deer and elk with "A" tags and "B" tags- whatever these are. This is the list sent out on G&F letterhead. Sounds like the legislature approved it. I don't have the letter in front of me so I can read it verbatim. Let's see what shakes out this coming week.

I have had 15 bull tags since 1983. I didn't use my tag in 2007 and 2008. I passed bulls in 07 and a LOT of bulls in 08. It's all about the hunt. I don't really have a place to put anymore horns so my goal last year was a very SMALL 5x5 that wasn't broken or a 380 class bull. I saw NO 5x5s that weren't broken or big and I missed my one shot at a 380 bull. Not a single complaint from me. I even took a couple of days off from my unit 10 hunt and helped a guy kill a bull in 9. Elk are a lot of work when they hit the ground, I am not so inclined to kill one just to kill one any more. I have killed all my bulls during Nov rifle hunts. If you draw the right unit, they can be fantastic hunts. In 1994 I guided two guys from Mesa. We glassed up 55 bulls opening day that were 5x5s or better. Both killed 6x6s the first day and were tickled to death. Horses and mules got a good work-out. It is really fun seeing all those bulls together. Not the same as calling them in, but very gratifying to me to find a big ole bull in his brushy lair and snake him out. A November rifle hunt would be a lot tougher to pass anything up! Have fun

I agree with you on the NR- status. As it stands now, the NR have a very minimal impact on the residents draw success. The dollars are welcome. The animals are mostly on Federal public lands. There has to be some give and take. Many of us hunt in other states too- it would be very short-sighted to look at this any other way.

There are quite a few, some are more user friendly than others. I used Art Pejsa software for quite a while and I now use Exbal. Using something like Exbal or Patagonia is more accurate for the real long shots that any table you can print. With these mentioned, you can take your Palm Pilot with you. Once your quarry is spotted, you can range it, and then input the distance, azimuth, cosine angle, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature and wind speed/direction. You should have it previously set up for your bullet and velocity but can you modified in the field. It makes first shot hits possible out to 1200 yds! Fun stuff.

I just spoke to a buddy last night and he picked up the Kowas with the ED glass. He is waiting for his 50X eyepieces to come in. He said he could see some astronaut taking a leak on the moon! I told him that they should be illegal! Man, I would like a set of those.

The letters are Dated May 5, 2009. The legislature sets the caps for the fees. The commission approves the fee increases within the cap set by law. The current guide's license fee is $300. The letter doesn't answer any questions- basically it just says that they passed a new law that lets them revoke the guides that file their reports late- which many, many guides do as the dates required aren't realistic. They just have to re-take the stupid test each year. Now they will probably hold their feet to the fire with this new law. The rest is just a generic update of all the changes with no explanations accompanying. I don't know what the A and B tier are other than the A tags cannot exceed 5% of the B tags?? Non-resident elk for a B tag goes up to $775. Buffalo was NOT addressed at all so I assume it remains unchanged.

I have seen a live on at the last house (a mile away) twice, but this is the first I have of this one. I have found his scat in my raspberry bushes but until now, has been elusive!

I had the ML bug for a while and had a White systems muzzleloader. I found that I couldn't use more than ONE pellet with the standard #11 percussion cap doing the ignition. My velocities were all over the place with 2 pellets. I could easily run 120 grains of Pyrodex RS and had best accuracy with the Barnes Sabot bullets. I bought a little gizmo from Barnes that was supposed to seat the bullets straight- it did and my groups shrank. I could get 1" groups at 75 yds I had peep sights so I sighted it in at 75. I killed a pig with it at 9 yards and NEVER could draw a ML deer or elk tag so I sold it last year. I was able to shoot about 12 shots through it before I had to clean it. I used it a lot with the boy scouts and we would go through 2 cans a day! We would shoot until we couldn't get a bullet started! I don't know about all this new fangled powder but some of it is downright scary expensive! Doesn't anyone use BLACKPOWDER any more??

I can't imagine packing a varmint rifle in 308 after coues deer. If you want a heavier contour get the Sendero like Doug suggests. The 308 is a fine caliber but where you aren't limited buy Gov't specs or other limitations, I would think a little flatter shooting rifle would be better considering that you don't mind the extra weight. Get a sendero in 300 WSM or something similar and don't look back. I wouldn't plunk down anything for a Christianson Arms- I have talked to two people with bad experiences for everyone with good!

A few years ago my son shot a nice 6x6 and it turns out that another hunter had also shot it (with a 25-06). I tracked it down and both boys followed me. When I found it the bull was still very much alive. I got it to stand up and both boys shot it again- probably twice each. I called a cease-fire and the bull finally fell over for good. The question becomes, "who killed it"? My buddy on the spotting scope said that he saw blood on the bull's flank when it was standing in a saddle just before my son shot it (I watched it shudder and almost fall over at his shot). We discussed it and let the other hunter tag it but we didn't help him with the dressing chores, but went right back to our glassing spot and found another 6x6. He stalked and shot this one and didn't have to share it with anyone else. I think he was very gratified about his decision to let the other hunter have the first bull. I have seen many elk shot by two hunters at near the same time and the bull runs of and dies with two potentially fatal holes in it. I don't think the intent of the law is to distinguish between close shots, but rather to keep folks from putting a tag on something they didn't shoot. I never had a similar situation with deer though. I think if she wanted it that bad and had in fact hit it before, you made a good call. I don't think they are worth fighting over.

If you believe the capture was unintentional, then you are really gullible. I don't believe that they violated any federal laws, but I think there was some sneaky stuff going on and probably some permits that needed to be secured first. I believe that in the end you will find that there were people making false statements in an official capacity and they will lose their jobs. I think it has already been substantiated that their "volunteers" obtained jaguar urine and feces which were no doubt used to lure a jaguar. It is very unfortunate that this happened and it will remain a big black eye in wildlife biology in AZ for years to come. This ranks right up there with the G&F dept killing that crow they took away from the kid in Apache Junction a number of years ago. It takes a whole lot of good things and attaboys to make up for one dumb thing like this!

That would be my guess too- the photos are real, but as usual, the legend changes with time! Can you imagine having to put up with that all the time! What if they start rutting? My buddy has had elk eat all his trees in his yard. I told him he needs an electric fence- his elk mostly come and night and do a hit &run so you don't get to enjoy them!

Neck sizing is not as simple as it sounds. If you buy a regular neck size die from RCBS, Forster, Redding or whomever, I can almost guarantee you that you will have more runnout on your loaded ammo than if it use a properly adjusted full-length die. You should adjust your die so that it just touches your should and does not set it back. If you have a good chamber, you can get many reloads out of a piece of brass this way. If you want to maximize your brass life, you should anneal the necks every 3rd or 4th time you resize them. If you don't have a dial indicator set up to check bullet runnout, you will never know how good your reloading process is. Most all the main manufacturers make one of these. I use a Sinclair tool and have use the RCBS with good luck. If you really want to neck size, then get a bushing die and find the bushing that allows you to resize withOUT using the expander ball. This expander ball is your enemy when it comes to bullet runnout. 300 Winchester chambers are notorious for being oversized and will work brass to death in short order (many of them but not all). I have 300 WBY brass which was fired in a custom chamber, annealed regularly and sized with bushing dies until it became sticky that have been reloaded more than 20 times. I have seen 220 Russian cases with 50 reloads through them. It is easy to get 3 or 4 loads but 10 is much harder. If you are using cheap brass it is not much of a consideration, but some brass is more than $1 a piece; you want those to last as long as possible! IF you neck size, it is imperative that you cycle each and every loaded round through your rifle BEFORE you leave your reloading facility. You want to find the problem there, not in the field. I can remember an elk hunt where I grabbed a box of loaded ammo (165 grain X bullets) and didn't check them first. They were about .005 too long for my magazine. I had to set a few of them on a board and tap the bullets deeper with a rock (sic) That was a good lesson that, so far, I haven't forgotten. I did get an elk and the ammo worked out fine. If the brass had been oversized, I could not have fixed it with a rock!

Those are cool vids- keep it up Scott! Dennis