bullwidgeon

Thats awesome. I about an hour of elk, muley and bear video that I have collected over the last couple weeks. I need to figure out how to get it all on the internet still though. Been to busy scouting/hunting to figure it all out just yet. I am going to have to look into one of those doublers Bret M.

The coues that live there live in real abysses of canyons for the most part. As far as worse than AZ? Yes, heck yes, I can always go find a 65-80 inch deer in a relatively flat catclaw or ocotillo patch here in AZ. That crap does not happen in NM regularly. I am not embellishing on the amount of time it can take to cross one of those unit 23 canyons. I won't kill a deer unless I think that deer scores 100 or more, I hunt with real maniacs though. And, thats just me. If you are from back East I would hunt them up in the pines, and camp at Pueblo Park this year. You have as good as chance as any up there. Good luck.. Bret M.

They will not be rutted. You will see deer if you do not mind sacrificing body and time busting your hump into areas away from roads. The country is green right now, the water situation is fine and the horn growth looks good this year. 23 should be a good but rough hunt, I know I am going to try to make it there this year. That buck up there was like the 4th or 5th biggest deer we saw of the hunt but the only one we could connect on due to the topography and our poor shooting. I am not saying I am in great shape but the guys I hunt with are and the country is big enough that seeing good deer and connecting on good deer are two completley different things over there. You can never be in good enough shape to cross some of those canyons over there. There is a certain amount of questioning that goes on over there daily that sounds like "Well how bad do I want that 95 inch deer and should I commit a good 4-5 hours in crossing this canyon so I can shoot him tonight?" Also, "If I kill him tonight and hang him in a tree will he even be there tomorrow or will the lions, tigers, coyotes, alligators and bears drag him away in the night?" And "If I kill that buck at dark, how many times will I fall down and crack my head and bust all my gear up rolling down this cliff on the 4 hour hike back to the truck tonight?" There is country that would make a bighorn sheep cry over there. If you see a gold and brown Toyota Tacoma then turn around and go the other direction because wherever it is parked is a bad place to hunt. Bret M.

Nope not at all, it goes without saying that all of us choke down all the Marlboro Reds we can on the hike to and from our parking lot like hunting spots!!! Bret M.-------->up to 5 packs a day now and still climbing

The game department is weak, not necessarily the commission. Shroufe, and his two lawyers are so afraid of adverse action that this is incredible and has gotten so far out of hand that it is sickening. They knew they were going to lose at least 4 months prior to the ruling. What did they do to come up with a backup plan? Not a d@mn thing!!! If you take the money making portion out of tags (Non-commercial for all you folks from Rio Linda) then Taulman's case falls flat in every court in the nation and the SFW lawyer presented that last week to them. What do they do? Have more G-D@mned meetings, because they are still afraid to do anything that might piss USO off more!!!! These chumps also allowed 20% of our desert sheep tags to go to Non Residents this year by ACCIDENT they say. The sheep tags were never challenged or affected in any way by this lawsuit that caused all this crap in the first place. Somehow, someway the mental midgets at the Game and Fish decided to let 8 extra tags go to NR's this year for DESERT SHEEP. I don?t know about anyone else out there who reads this board, but I know way more than a few people with maximum bonus points waiting around in their early sixties to mid seventies applying and praying for desert sheep tags every year. If this was any other State job or Private industry job the A-Hole/A-holes who did not catch and correct this mistake before notification to the NR's occurred would have been fired. If I F'd up and failed to support my customers this bad I would have been fired and I work for a bank, one of the grand chingerers of all chingerers!!! What is the response within our G&F department about this GRANDE CHINGER that was put to the residents of AZ? Not a F-ing thing!!!! I have lost all faith in the Game department, it seems they have endless money, manpower, and willingness to work with the press to save Chiricahua leopard frogs, spotted owls, jaguars, Mexican wolves, gila chuns and blad eagles but when a little money and a mediocre sized pair of cojones is needed to support the backbone of our game department (the hunters) they bend over, get scared and cry like 2 year olds and screw up time and time again. With any sort of luck and a helluva lot of prayers our Commission may be able to get things turned around, but people in heck want ice water and I think that is the kind of uphill battle we are fighting here folks. It really is sad for all the people that spent a lot of years and money working for wildlife in this state and mistakenly assumed for the past umpteen years that the department was looking out for our/their best interests. I understand the low-level and mid-level employees (I.E. game wardens and species specific biologists) can not change anything or fix anything in a bureaucracy that is handicapped to the point of retardation, this is not directed at them. Someone (Shroufe and his cronies or whoever has decided that they do not need to be proactive anymore and can sit idly by and collect paychecks) needs to be held responsible for the disaster that has become the reality of OUR once proud and excellent Game and Fish department. I am done venting, all you sheep who think your AZG&FD are 100% on our side and are innocent victims in this go ahead and flame away. Bret Mattausch

I aint going back to work till Monday night and I can only get my email there. I have been up on the mountain videoing your bull, I am going back tomorrow to resume the scouting/videoing. Yours is a 5x4 raghorn right now, but he may go 300 by the time you draw out in 4 or 5 years . Send me a Personal Message here or over at MM.com if you want your email replied to today. I saw the Rainier beer bear story last night and almost died laughing. We are headed to unit 27 late next week and we are planning on taking an extra 30 pack for the bears. However, I have hunted with a few of the ladmos going with me before and I seriously wonder if there will be any beer left by the time we hit Bylas, much less Morenci , these guys are generally whitecan Budweiser guys and I hear bears only dig gourmet beer. I may have to break out one of their credit cards and spring for some of the gourmet beer ... Bret M.

After seeing more than a few piles of bear scat after they have been hitting the pears pretty hard, I am not sure my body could stand consuming prickly pear anything Bret M.

I did get the JVC gr-d33 model. I took it with me last week to the White Mountains when I went to scout and got some good video of elk, muleys and antelopes. So far I am happy with it. No big complaints other than the auto-focus seems to have problems when shooting through binos if the sun is anywhere in the same general direction as the binos are pointed. My uncles have problems with their Panasonic VHS-C models in this same situation as well and I think it would probably happen with almost all cameras. I did not get the doubler yet, but it takes great video through the bino lense if I do my part and hold the camera still enough and the sun is not blaring through messing up the focus. Let me know what you think about the doubler, when and if you get it. Thanks. Bret M.

Glassing is no good. Glassing is a waste of time, if it works for you then great. I must not know the secret glassing method, and you know what walking works just fine for me so keep your method. Generally, I just stumble around until I see one and if it has horns then I shoot it. This theory will work in 23 and any other coues unit around here so trust me just keep walking. Bret M.

For some reason there are a ton of deer in the higher end of the Sierritas. I am always astounded by the numbers in that little range of hills. It can be tough hunting but you will see some deer. You should have no problem finding a buck in the area you are planning on hunting. Listen to Arizonagriz as far as scouting is concerned, seems like alot of Tucson guys show up on opening day in that unit, just cruising around throwing down Budlights and glassing from the truck, for the old Muy Grande. If you have a deer found beforehand and are set up on or close to him on opening morning your chances should increase 10 fold. Good luck Bret M.

Lesson for the day, People should not try to shoot deer that other people found and had the courtesy to show you unless the finder is OK with that. If you go in and kill the finders deer after he had the courtesy of sharing such an awesome sight with you makes you a Wally. Wally's are not cool. Sometimes people who have killed alot of big deer are wally's because the drive to kill a big one consumes them and they forget that being a Wally is not cool. The general public usually does not forget that you are a Wally though. Try to be and stay Wally free Bret Mattausch

In the third picture in the original post the deers antler is partially blocked by something we always called mesquite trees. Maybe it is a funny looking juniper though Bret M.

Nice deer. I don't care if it was photoshoped. But you may want to tell your buddy to start looking for "elk" where there are no mesquite trees. He might eventually find some elk instead of coues deer. Bret M.

Nice picture! What speed film do you put in your trailcams? I just got one and hope to hang it up next week in my elk unit. Thanks.. Bret M.

I saw a coues deer on the North Side of Aravaipa canyon one time. You may want to look there. Bret M.

You see any elk in my unit? Did they have big horns on them? Bret M.

Once again I will add. Glassing is MEGA OVER-RATED, if you are from out of state then you need to keep waliking and busting ridges and low rises. Buenos Noches... Bret M.

Make sure you use lots of shoe leather and do no glassinng. Glassing is evil. Make sure you walk lots and keep walking at least 15 miles a day, don't listen to the chumplords who tell you to glass. Glassing is way overrated. Bret M.

After being shot several times on dove openers by clowns I now try to wear orange when dove hunting. I have even been peppered with orange on, I wish folks would lay off the low flying birds. I never gave any thought to it coues hunting until packing out bucks. I always try to put a bright colored t-shirt on when packing out deer. Honestly I don't think it could hurt, deer generally bust me in places where orange wouldn't hurt me i.e. out in the open or with the wind wrong or on the skyline. Bret M.

I would really like to know as well. I am in the market for one right now. I was thinking one of the Sony Digital 8's but I do not dig the black and white viewfinder. Then I considered the Canon ZR models but I heard they performed terrible in lowlight and most my video will be shot through bino lenses and that is all poor light territory, so now I am looking at the JVC gr-dXX models with a lens doubler that would bring optical zoom to 32x. I thought the Opturas only had 10x optical zoom so I did not look into them. Anyways, any input you guys have on digital videocams would be great. I know the expensive Canons (XL and I think GL models) with 3 chips probably rule but I am/will be very cash poor for the next year or 10. Bret M.

Alot like these guys you should shoot the carp and forget about the coues. There are no coues in 23. We killed the only one left last year. I hear 24,26 and 27 all have lots of coues though. You may want to check them out. Bret M.

My uncles client killed a 175.5 inch ram. I was helping them scout. I saw several rams alive while scouting including some really good high 160's to low 170's type sheep and one that I think was bigger than the one he killed. I was in the Silverbells yesterday and the bighorns are rutting all day. I had two rams yesterday fighting and chasing ewes all over the cliffs in the middle of the day. If you can stand the heat the sheep are really putting on a terrific show right now. Bret M.

There are some recent ones of me holding pickup racks in the pickup section. I think I have one in the NM rifle section with a buck my buddy killed last year as well, I am the one in the funny hat. The one in the AZ rifle section is from 10 years ago and I am alot better looking now Bret M.

I don't think they have any coues deer there. I spent a ton of time filming, glassing and following sheep around in unit 41 last year and came up with like 3 mule deer sightings and 2 sheds in 15 days out there. I would say things are probably going to be rough if it is anything like 41 and I was there during the rut . Hopefully there is more deer N of I-10 than south of I-10. Good luck. Bret M.

Deer were back in some of the burned areas in October in the Catalinas, we killed one 2 years ago in the Bullock burn. I think some burned areas in 22 should hold deer by December...