mattys281

Happy birthday Amanda!

Congrats to her! What an awesome buck!

Hunting by definition is the pursuit of prey. I do that every chance I get. Hiking, glassing, trail cams, etc. Youve got all year to do that. When hunting season arrives the mission is to get close and get a shot, and I've employed different tactics to accomplish that with varying degrees of success. Regardless of the method I use to get the shot, the hunt was the entire process. Ive killed deer via spot and stalk and also via ambush. Believe it or not the clouds did not part showering me in sunlight with white doves fluttering down from heaven onto my shoulders when killing one by one method or the other. The only thing that usually happens is the deer falls down and I pack him out. Anybody that thinks any successful DIY hunter any where consistently scores without busting their butt is just trying to fluff their own ego. And most of the people like that that I've had the pleasure to know are most often just bashing others to soothe their own pride since they cant kill anything on their own.

Congrats to your young ladies! Thats a great weekend there!

I think it's very disrespectful and disturbing. I've never killed anything that didn't leave me with a feeling of sadness. They're beautiful animals, it's a sad thing to see them die. But that feeling fades and is replaced by the satisfaction that one gets from hard work and from being able to put food on the table the old fashioned way. Meat doesn't grow on trees and I don't feel guilty about acting out the role in which nature has cast me.

He makes some good points, but generally speaking I'll have to disagree: every hunter, and fisherman for that matter, I've ever met was honest as the rain, never ever prone to exaggerate or stretch the truth in the least. When it comes to the integrity of their word, they're second only to defense lawyers, car sales men, and dare I say (dare! dare!) politicians. Amanda, can you give this guy a time out for saying something so utterly absurd???

Id start with the 'where to hunt' section on the g&f site, move to fs maps and topo maps, then drive and then hike. Cant go wrong.l

Congrats! That looks like one helluva bull!

I like hunting javelina but theres nothing I like more than archery deer in january and dont like javelina to interfere with it. Theres plenty of areas where you can hunt both at the same time, but my favorite jan deer spot holds zero javelina so I've been putting in for the handgun-archery-muzzleloader (HAM) hunts the last couple years. They run in February after deer season has closed. Its a little harder to get tags for those hunts but if you fail to draw one there are several units that always have leftover tags for the archery season that you can fall back on. Its a good strategy to try to get yourself an extra two weeks of hunting in February.

Thats fantastic! Congrats to her.

Maybe just me but I dont see a problem with hiring a pro in either situation. Both will likely send you home knowing some new tricks! Hopefully you wont need a shot of penicillin after using the guides services though.... and if you do, post that story on a different forum please.

Good luck dave. Unit 27 is a great area. Plenty of turkey and great elk country.

Im much the same. I like the satisfaction/frustration of doing things 100% on my own. But..... as I get older, my income level has increased to allow me to afford much more than I used to be able to, but the trade off to that is a lack of time, as stated by others. I get that angle. My job takes about 50 hours per week, my small business gets me for another 20-40, im married, have a baby, a thirteen year old thats also busy and wants to go hunting to.... as much as the proud, stuborn, pigheaded twenty-something version of myself who cringe at the idea, the mid-thirties version of me sees the merit of hiring some help to get more productivity out of my very very limited time. I can see me giving it a try at some point in the years to come, although it will most likely be on an out of state hunt.

I was pretty old. 19 when I took my first javelina with a bow. Didn't kill anything else after that for about ten years, but I wasn't doing much hunting during that period of my life.

Ive considered hiring one in the past simply for the educational value. Cameron Hanes made a good point in his book that you can learn more about elk during one hunt with a professional guide then you can in years of bumbling around the woods on your own. So on that note, id still like to hunt on my own, but if theres a pro on here thats willing to take me scouting, I dont mind payson ng a reasonable fee for a good education. Specifically i wouldnt mind some help with muleys and elk. Coues deer are easy!

I think its probably a question more than one have thought about. I, personally, have no interest in ever hiring one, but how others spend their money is their own business. Id rather take responsibility for my own failures and keep all the glory to myself for my successes.

Here's a video clip I shot this year from a treestand. I love the experience of getting close in on animals that have no idea you're even there. You get to spend a lot of time watching & seeing how they act when relaxed. I had a coues doe over in 27 spend almost an hour less than 15 yards away from me, totally unaware I was even there. It is true that you will see fewer animals from ambushes than spotting and stalking, but you will get much closer and have much more time spent in close quarters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu4GMZBEDJM

It has big advantages. It's way easier to hide & let them come to you rather than try to sneak in on an animal who's life depends on their ability to detect cats and other predators sneaking up on them. I've killed deer both ways, and there's advantages to both, but killing a deer with a bow is 100x easier by sitting ambushes than it is spot & stalk. But, like others have mentioned, you have to be able to make the long sit. Generally speaking, I sit from about an hour before sun up until it's dark. That's 14-14.5 hours during the August hunt. It's long and can be boring, but it works. I also prefer a treestand to a ground blind if the terrain allows. There's another big advantage in being elevated above your prey. If anyone tells you deer don't look up in trees, they're wrong, but they don't seem to just automatically look up and check trees unless a noise or something draws their attention. Or unless they've been educated already. You also get a much greater field of view from a treestand and it's easier to spot deer behind you and turn to shoot them than it is in a ground blind. Disadvantage here is that even lightweight climbers are pretty heavy & bulky. Disclaimer: I'm talking about taking a legal deer. Trophy bucks are a topic someone better than I will have to address.

All my ambush spots for my late season ridge are in saddles or basins up on top of the ridge. I rarely go a day without having deer move by me, and on those days that I don't see them, I'm sure they're in the vicinity at some point but I don't spot them from my low ambush point. Saddles on ridges that run East/west are easy ones to figure out, as the north facing slope is often very thick which can make for some very pronounced trails where they come off the north face and into the saddle.

I can't think of anything I like more than hunting rutting coues deer. The weather is usually great, mountain views that go on just about forever, and they sure do move around a lot all day long when they're feeling randy. I think you're going to have one helluva time regardless of which unit you pick. I love packing in for the Jan hunts. I don't usually go to far, maybe 1-2 hours in from the road, but the area I hunt has no trails so it's all cross country hiking and I never see anybody on my ridge, unless they hiked in with me. And most of the guys that have hiked in with me are smart enough to not do it a second time. You won't have to put too many miles between you and your vehicle to find all the solitude that you want, but of course there's never been anything wrong with going deeper.

I'd give another nod to 24b. I've nailed a couple coues and a nice muley in there with my bow. There's plenty of deer in the Superstitions and plenty of good glassing country, not to mention some good areas to set-up ambushes for the evening. I mostly sit ambushes now, but used to mix it up with glassing in the morning, then holing up in a saddle for an ambush if I wasn't on to something by 2-3 in the afternoon.

What's the big deal, he just wanted to play! It's a little know fact, but rattlesnakes love a good game of fetch.

Nice looking buck and looks like some great work on the mount. Congrats!

The biggest buck I've ever glassed up was in 33 right down stream from an organized camp ground, very bottom of the drainage moving through thick brush smack dab in the middle of the day. Very wide massive 4x4 with nice eye gaurds. Picked him up at 12:30pm. Watched him cruise for about 30 minutes before I lost him. They can be any where any time.

I like it! I'd take him any day.