NMTcoueshunter

I have hunted a lot of "carp deer", and I myself would never refer to a muley as a carp. I don't know what the deal with your mule deer over there in arizona is, but in New Mexico you can find mule deer anywhere from the flats to the highest peaks, this is in southwest NM also. From my experience the coues hang out in basically the same places as mule deer do. I have seen a fair number of big mulies while out hunting for deer and every good muley I have ever come up on has either blown out of the country or snuck off during a stalk. The coues on the other hand stay put. Once you spot your buck you can bet he'll be there after a couple hour long stalk. I hunt coues because I think I have a better chance at finding and killing a coues buck than I do at finding and killing a muley. The day I think I can reliably find and kill a booner muley is the day I will switch and start concentrating on mule deer instead of coues.

Thats right crazy. When Preperation meets Oppurtunity, that is luck. Scott, it looks like your doing the preperation part, now you just need to get the oppurtunity and you will be one lucky hunter. Good luck on finding that buck. He looks like a brute.

I got the adapter for the swaro scope from cabelas and a Nikon 990 coolpix digital camera and have been more than happy with the setup. You can get some dang good pictures through it. Nathan

I would say that muley is a definite 190-200 inch gross buck. Spread doesn't count for too much compared with big deep forks. He easy beats 170 gross.

Yeah, I will be down there for the rifle hunt. That was a heck of a sunset, and makes a darn nice backdrop on the computer. Nathan

That was an awesome sunset. Good picture of it Tommy. I wished I had had my digital camera handy when I saw that, glad to see you got a pic of it.

Here is Bruce at 6 months. Hes a hard working little dog with no quit in him. Nathan

Here are some photos I thought you might enjoy. The first pic is a matched set that scores 107" with estimated 13" spread. Next photo is of the larger side of that deer. Next photo is of a coues shed that scores 50". This photo is of that same 50" shed, but compared with a shed of the opposite side from a year earlier. This buck did a lot of growing between these years. This last photo is just of a small somewhat strange mainbeamed buck. It's main beam has a kind of cup on the inside right at the end.

Those are just various sheds that I have collected in the last couple of years. I have a bunch of other ones that my brothers and I have found but most are chalky white and rodent chewed. I havent gotten over to my coues areas yet this year to look for sheds, so none are from this season. Maybe with some luck I can collect a few nice ones later on this summer.

Thanks guys. That bird was killed over in the Gila. I have talked with you before Jason about those Jagdterriers. I need to get over there and check out his dogs sometime and meet you.

The second weekend treated me pretty good. Not a lot of action, but the one bird that answered came in at a run. He had a 8" beard and was a mature tom. My brother was nice and called him in for me to shoot. Hopefully I can repay the favor next weekend. Here is a pic.

I never heard elk reffered to as vermin before? I personally enjoy hunting them.

I personally applied for a mixture of coues and muley. Why limit yourself to just one species when you can mix and match? Coues or muley, doesn't matter to me.

Nice find. It is always awesome to find a matched set. I found a set earlier this year that were only about 3 feet apart. I scored them to be around 104" with an estimated 13" spread. I will get some photos of them and try and post them on here.

gnoto, No, they were not in the Rut. Sometimes they are hard to sneak in on, maybe even impossible, but I would say that at least 95% of the time you can sneak to within 250 yards. You can't always get a shot that close across a canyon, but there is always the option of sneaking onto the same hillside. I can't see a reason too shoot over 400 yards at anything. I am sure it can, has, and will be done, but I think the risk of wounding something is too great at anything farther than that. I don't see the difference between NM and AZ coues deer hunting. Terrain where I've seen them in Arizona is similar to where I have seen them in NM.

Fatfootdoc, pretty sure they were coues. Actually my buck is posted on the main page under things that are new. http://www.coueswhitetail.com/New_Mexico/new_mexico_3.htm There is the link. I personally just feel more comfortable with closer shots. The area I hunt them in is fairly thick with lots of canyons. Part of the reason for the close shots is that my brother and I hunted them with muzzleloaders this year, if we had had a rifle one of the shots probably would have been 250 yards. I have also seen several bucks missed within the 100 yard range, these were not little bucks either. I don't have a problem with you guys that shoot the 200-400 yard shots, but after that I think it is getting a little questionable to take a coues at anything above those distances. They are a small target and there are a lot of variables at that range. If you want to get close to coues though, they aren't too hard to sneak in on. NMT

I would say that the average shot distance that I have seen for coues is around 100 yards. I shot a coues at 118 yards this year, my brother killed one at 60 yards (snuck to within about 5 yards of it bedded before the coues busted out of the brush patch he was hold up in), and my other brother shot his at about 80 yards. I personally don't think they are too hard to stalk in on. They seem to hold pretty tight. It depends on terrain I guess to how close you can stalk in. A 300 is a fine gun for coues. It at least gives you the ability to make those longer shots if your presented with them.

Thanks GMM. I hope to get it out and try it again. I might have had the cam set too close to the trail and been missing things. I had the camera set perpendicular to the trail, so I will give your tips a try. Thanks for the advice.

I got a stealth cam for christmass and finally got it set out in some coues country about two weeks ago, so I am going to pick it up at the end of the week and see what I got. I'll let you know how it worked. It is my first time to try it out, so well see. NMTcoueshunter

In my experience I have found that coues tend to be more active during the day while in velvet. I dont know why, but they just seem to be out more.

That is a really nice buck gonhntn. NMTcoueshunter

Hi, I'm new here and have been hunting coues for just a few years now. I am from New Mexico. I have rifle hunted for the last three years and seen some nice bucks, but I never see that many on the rifle hunts. This year I tried muzzleloader hunting in late september. I saw a lot more deer this year then I have any other year. I missed a decent buck that was around 80". I also saw a deer that was around 100" but couldnt get a shot, always too far. I also saw one monster as well. Normally during the rifle hunts i only see one one or two does and one or two bucks. It seemed like there was a lot more activity during the muzzleloader season, and I was wondering if this is typical, or if anyone else has noticed this. Nathan