CatfishKev

Yeah I think it's easier for them to get the handouts. I've known of jobs where contractors had to hire rez folks over no rez and it sounded like a nightmare from the contractors perspective.

I've used "wild game processing" with good results awhile back.

I call those victory steaks. Nice job, hope to hear a story of you didn't already post one.

First off thanks to the good Lord for the time I got to spend with my boy, it was a heck of a time with plenty of ups and downs. Can't say enough how cool it is to watch your kids slowly become young men. Second thanks to @M@tt for coming down to help the first couple days. Great guy for sure. And of course @zackcarp for squeezing room in the walk in to hang the kids buck. This hunt started with high expectations, Kiki said he wants to hunt muley's, and so we did. Started off in an area I thought was a slam dunk. As usual (for me anyway) hunting mule deer made me humble. Spent the first couple days glassing up only forkies and does. Moved the camper closer to home, glassed up more forkies and does. Luck turned Sunday morning when we spotted a couple decent coues bucks and we went for it. As they do like ghosts they disappeared while on the stalk. Thought for sure they were heading for thick cover but in retrospect that phrase got me.. "coues are always where you last saw them". Looked up to see them high tailing it away from us. Next morning got off to a 15 minute late start, my fault but it could a made the difference. Got to the glassing point and immediately picked up a herd of muley's. Saw one that I knew right away was a stud. Bailed off the hill to give chase. No biggun where I thought he should be though. Had a doe and a spike walk right in front of us and that was it. I decided to pull out to not ruin a future chance. Came back that evening and no deer to be seen. Talked momma into coming the next morning, promised her we were close to sealing the deal. The next morning she was not as gung-ho when 330 rolled around, but she still came. Got breakfast at Denny's (part of the deal we made) and off we went. Got to the spot early and started glassing in the dark. No deer... Kept glassing... No deer.... Kept glassing... A couple does.... Oof. I told Caliche even if it's trash deer we should probably go for it since momma don't come out often. He agreed. Well once the sun was up I spotted one lone coues over a mile away verified he was a decent buck based on overall frame but we kept glassing for a closer opportunity. Suddenly like clockwork several white rump patches started appearing very close to the coues buck. We all converse quick and decide there is a chance the big one is nearby and if not we still got the coues. Bailed again off the hill, while in route momma said the big one is out there. We got to where I felt comfortable stalking and started to glass and could not find any muley but the WT buck was right in front of us under 200. The wind also started to shift. Momma said where the big muley was but due to the wind shift and not knowing the location of the rest of the muley herd we quickly decided let's kill this coues buck. Texted momma we are on the WT and getting ready to shoot. Well momma was so mesmerized by the muley she didn't keep eyes on the buck we were actually shooting and she didn't realize what I meant by WT. So we set up for the shot in a quick and quiet rush, Caliche looks at me and says "dude, this is so exciting!" and a minute later bang! I see the buck in my binos fly backwards and drop. Clearly we are full of adrenaline and I tell him he dropped, I texted momma "he dropped him". She responds I'm still looking at him??? I'm like no babe he shot the whitetail buck! So we rack another round and creep in just in case. we were in tall grass and sure enough the hit was a spine shot. Saw him up flailing and told him put one through his neck high and he did but for good measure had him put another in his head. Hence the bulging eyes. Once we really stopped and got to look him over I was pretty stoked at the buck he just killed. I assured him this buck was an old stud. Pretty gnarly horns and big body. Rack had some serious character and we had no regrets shooting this guy over the big muley. Called momma for the pickup while I showed Kiki how to quickly gut a deer. We earned ourselves some deer dragging sweat and met momma for some more pics. As per usual my new hunting partner Bucky the Boston terrier was there for the entire hunt, although not on the stalk he still put on the 12+ miles with us for the rest of it. Can't say as a dad how proud I am of Caliche.. out of all of my kids he's the one that seems to be bitten by the hunting bug the most. He was all in and fully immersed in this hunt. Even being the first one to pick up deer behind the glass a few times. This kid has grit and he sure makes me proud. He even caped his buck himself and measured him. He did dam good too on both fronts. Buck grossed 94" and netted like 88 and change. Can't wait to do it again. Got another youth tag this Friday and can't wait. It's my youngest boy Enoch. I don't think he's gonna embrace the suck though so probably forkies are on the menu, but if he's happy I'm happy. Thanks for reading. Ps. Not gonna lie, we had a hard time not laughing while taking the first few pics. Them crazy Steve Buscemi eyes

That is awesome man huge congrats on a great buck!

His is definitely wider. Here's a pic with a drafters ruler on inside spread. It's a 12" ruler with about a gap of 1/4 left between plastic and antler. The lines on the ruler actually start and end with about 5/15 on either side of when the marks start and stop. So I figure inside spread on mine to be almost 13" on the nose. So yeah a 16" spread is a big difference.

At the youth hunt they said usually cows get killed 4 to 1, this year was exact opposite. Kids were having a hard time on elk. When I spoke with Dave (member here) he said all the previous hunts had been tough and a lot of unfilled tags. I don't know how to hunt pines that aren't glass able. I feel lucky we got it done. Tough year for sure. Sitting water adjacent to cover might be the way to get it done this year.

I don't know anything about that hunt but Adam is a beast and if anyone can pull it off riding solo he is the guy. How'd your boys do as far as quality? Is this a trophy hunt so to speak or kill whatever you see?

How's it going up there?

For reference, this is my pb. Crappy pics but He went 96 7/8 net. I figure about 10" in deductions. Good mass and length but he is just within is ears. Yours looks outside of his ears which will make up for length and I think about same overall gross. I like these threads though. Keeps us on our toes

After seeing pics with you I might be the only one to downgrade my score. Mass does go a ways but overall length seeing you in the pic I'm gonna guess 106. Still a great buck and I would shoot him any day via bow or a rifle

Great song.

I was gonna say 112, so I'll go 113

I don't know Jack about what a truck should cost but this looks like a nice rig at a nice price. Free bump

You should do a daily live thread. We all love those.

Good luck man, enjoy the new adventure. Looking forward to your story

So it seems like I have bad vehicle luck half the time when heading to the mountains. Breaking exhaust on alpine, blew my intercooler on a bison hunt, destroyed a brake caliper on an elk hunt and so on... This trip was the bad half. We typically take 2 vehicles but right before the hunt a lifter went out on the suburban so it stayed home and 5 of us piled in the f250. Day 1 we got busted by a raghorn and took the cows with him, went down a brutal road for the evening and sat a beautiful tank all day until bugles started. Myself and Caliche gave chase while we left my youngest boy at the tank with Bucky the Boston terrier. Me and Kiki got on elk with at least 5 bulls yelling all around us. We just ran out of light and headed back to get Enoch. He had a cow come in for water but Bucky snorted and spooked her off Next am Enoch asked to sleep in so me and Kiki went out way early and started creeping in the dark. Kept following bugles to get close enough before they made the thick treeline. Got busted by one small group of cows but luckily the bull headed back to round up the rest of his gals. He came back in front of us and I blew a cow call and stopped the last girl in her tracks. Boom, cow down. Had a good Samaritan out of globe help us load her into the back of his ranger and we then slid her into my truck and headed back to camp. This is Kiki's 3rd elk. Rolling back to camp my truck was making a sound similar to a power steering pump low on fluid, literally as we are rolling into camp she dies. My fuel pump took a crap. Sunday am a dude from the ADA youth camp gives me a ride to Payson and we rented the only vehicle available in Payson. A four door Kia forte. The truck situation was not gonna change so I decided to go for an evening hunt on the Kia. Let's talk about zero ground clearance! Thank God this car had a nice steel plate underneath protecting the oil pan. So I set Kiki up on a knob overlooking 3 tanks, we came up with a orange hat wave to signal what he was seeing. We set up on the 3rd tank and I headed to the first one to see if anything would head in. Almost dark I see a cow coming in and I haul arse to Enoch waving my orange hat. We blow up the hill and I'm getting a side stich. We finally get to edge of hill and there is no cover. We start crawling into position both breathing hard. The herd bull knows something is up but doesn't know for sure. All the elk are on edge just standing in place trying to to figure out what is going on. Last light is fading fast. What seemed like an eternity Enoch has the elk in his cross hairs, now we are just trying to let him calm down and catch his breath. Finally boom and second cow down. We run and get Caliche while she expires and come up on a huge cow! This is Enochs first elk and second animal. She ends up being a huge cow. Now the work starts. The boys guided me in with lights so the Kia is shining right on her. 2.5 hours later we got an elk in the trunk of a Kia! So we load this elk into coolers and a plastic lines trunk space. Head back to camp to show momma our spoils then zip to jeber circle k for ice. Back to bed at one am. Next am I start changing the fuel pump, pump ends up being broken before installing. End up heading to snowflake to exchange for a new one that's not broken. Finally get the truck running and take the Kia to Young to pick up our 2 cow elk. So this is what 2 cows look like in a Kia trunk, lol. So now we are headed home. Get to the first fuel station and I'm leaking coolant like a siv. Sweet! My coolant reservoir burst a seem, stop at O'Reilly for a new one and swap out at the McDonald's while the fam is eating and we made it home with no more issues. We thanked God for the safe trip home and we are now ready to sleep in our own beds safe and sound. What a trip!

Nice job man! Is that a Marlin? My son has one gifted down a couple generations. Hope to see him fill his coues tag with it next month.

Also been using black ovis. But pillows cases also work just fine as mentioned above. No need to overspend for kuiu.

Kept it off one of the elk the boys got. Only had it once (beef tongue) momma's pappy said boil it, skin it, slice it and serve with mustard. This didn't exactly blow my tits off so looking for a recipe with a little bit of pizzazz. What do you guys like?

Nice job you guys. That looks like a really big cow!

Huh? Is that euphemism? I don't know what you mean by thick billed parrots.

Thank God for leather

I assume she means the two little slivers being a snake bite if you look real close and zoom in it looks like at the bottom of the one to the right is a little bit of dried liquid so I could see that being a bit of dried venom

Totally fine man everything worked out.