hunter4life

Walmart sells them. Sporting goods stores and hardware stores often sell licenses as well.

Funny that you talk about peer reviewed science and then quote wikipedia as your source of information. Peer review might be the best we have for attempting to ensure quality of research, but there is plenty of crap that still gets through this process. The climate on the earth has had drastic changes over the last tens of thousands of years before humans ever started burning fossil fuels for energy. Nobody can ever really prove that the current human caused greenhouse gas emissions are what is causing our current climate change because all we have are theories about what caused the change in the past and the most popular THEORY for the current changes happens to be that they are due to human caused greenhouse gas emissions. Currently we can't even reliably predict the weather a week from now and yet people think that scientists can "prove" global warming. We can prove that humans are releasing CO2 that was trapped in fossil fuels, we have good evidence that Tyson mentioned about CO2 levles in the past and that currently there is a high level of CO2, but all we have are theories about what the longer term effects of this are going to be.

I have always just left the factory Air-Active footbeds in the Meindl boots and have found that these are comfortable for me. Some of the models have a poron heel insert as well. I think that the "Fit IQ foam" is a newer addition to this footbed and I don't have any boots with this in them.

Another Meindl fan here. I have gotten all of mine from Cabelas except for one pair that I bought from ScottyBoy. I have used the ibex hunter, canada hunter, Perfekt, denali, and my dad and brother have both used and liked the Alaska hunter. I have liked all of these boots, however some models take a little more break-in time than others. For a fairly light boot that still provides decent support I like the Ibex hunter. This boot is way better than trail runners for hiking and hunting, and I can still run in them in those situations when speed is called for. I don't understand how some people use tennis shoes or trail runners for hunting/hiking because I have tried it and you can feel the rocks poking your feet, the shoes fill up with pebbles and sticks (if not using gaiters), you can't walk right over cactus without getting stabbed, and in loose rocky terrain the rocks will tear up your ankles.

Congratulations on a successful hunt!! My grandfather had that same hunt and went hunting with my dad and brother. He got a 34"er on Saturday afternoon.

SunDevil, Yes, NM does have lots of public land that is surrounded by private land and is not legally accessible except by permission from the landowner or chartering a helicopter and then waiting the requisite time before being allowed to hunt after the flight. I don't think that the Open Gate program will ever pay landowners a comparable amount to what they make from selling tags under the current system. If the Open Gate program did pay that much then that money has to come from somewhere and it would most likely come from all of us who buy hunting licenses in NM. Then we would all be paying more to still have very low drawing odds for an antelope tag and when we drew that tag we would be stuck on the legally accessible public land crowded with all of the other resident hunters. I think that the current system is the best compromise and I don't think it should be changed. The vast amount of inaccessible public land "islands" is one of the main reasons that I think the current system is better than going to resident tags being good on all public lands and not assigned to ranches. I believe that the current system is responsible for the excellent antelope hunting we have in this state because the landowners currently have a good incentive ($$$ from LO tags) to manage their land for antelope as well as livestock.

I agree, it looks like they shortchanged a few of those tines. I think that much of it is dependent on the individual scorer, because the SCI measurer that I have had measure some of my stuff has always been fair IMO. On my coues my total score ended up within 1/4 inch of what he got and I like to think that I know what I am doing. I have actually had more trouble with official B&C scorers making mistakes. One time a scorer added up the totals wrong and another time the scorer didn't know that whitetails get all of their circumference measurements even if the last one (or more) does not fall between two tines and has to be taken 1/2 way between the tip of the main beam and the last tine.

Unfortunately I missed the Abq. meeting. In the PDF's on your site and on the G&F site I could not find where they state that if you hold a general hunting or fishing license that you are exempt from needing a GAIN permit. If this were true I would be for it, especially if there were no fee for children under age 12 and a reduced fee for Juniors aged 12-17. This would put the regulations in line with the fishing regulations regarding juniors and children. It is time to make all these other users have to put up some money and not make the hunters carry the whole load.

Awesome pictures!!

I believe the way it works is that if fewer residents apply than there are tags available, then the remaining tags will go to nonresidents even if they are already at the 10% cap. You might want to make sure if this is what happened before complaining to the commissioner. What hunt unit/code in particular were you looking at?

Awesome story!! Hunting gives one the opportunity to have some unique and amazing experiences, that is why I love it so much.

I have only looked through the Minox on one occassion and I was not very impressed. Sorry I can't give you more info, but like someone else said a birdwatching forum would probably be a better place to get the specifics that you asked for. As for the Leica vs. Swarovski debate, they are both excellent and I don't think anyone can make a strong argument for one being superior to the other. I think that Swarovski has had better marketing and sells more due to that reason. I have heard that Swarovski gives a big discount to guides on one item per year and thus they have gained a loyal group of supporters that are exposed to a lot of hunters that are potential customers. I have the leica trinovid 8x42's and have yet to look through an 8 or 10 power swarovski binocular that I thought was any better.

jnoble, What I do with the meat all depends on the temperature and how cold it gets at night. Once you get an animal down, taking care of the meat is the first priority. I immediately skin and quarter the animal and then hang it in the shade or place it on rocks in the shade if there are no trees big enough to hang it from. At this point the meat cools from evaporation. If it is getting cold at night (30-40F) you can find a good shady place and hang the meat in gamebags. It seems to be okay for two days or so even if it is getting up into the 80's during the day. If it is hotter than this, I just let the meat cool by evaporation for a bit and then pack it out to the truck and a waiting ice chest. Coues deer are pretty easy because they can be carried out in one trip including camp and everything else.

That is true that you can't take a camera on the range, so if you had to quarter it you would only get pictures of the head and cape. I can't remember for sure, but it seems like they even asked about cell phone cameras last time I was there. We made sure to leave any cellphone cameras at home just so we wouldn't run into any hassles.

From what I have seen on the on-range hunts, many times you can drive to the downed oryx to retrieve it. If not, I personally would prefer to just quarter it on the spot and take it out on a pack frame. They are nothing compared to a bull elk if you have ever carried one of those out on a pack frame. I have never used a game hauler before, but I think it would be more of a pain to wheel it out on one of those than to just carry it out.

Looking at Tony's list it appears that the deer you were seeing were probably one of the many subspecies of whitetail deer. Likely one of the Venado deer subspecies from that list (Odocoileus virginianus cariacou : Venado Deer, French Guiana and North Brazil (Boddaert 1784) .). Here is a webpage I found that tells a bit about the 8 South American subspecies. It gives a weight of 50kg for a buck in Venezuela, which would be fairly consistent with the size of a coues deer. http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0750E/t0750e0n.htm The SCI record book had a few pictures and scores of South American whitetails. You can see them from this link. http://www.scifirstforhunters.org/members/....cfm?specID=L01

Here is one of my favorite photos from last year. It is myself sitting on top of a ridge on Kodiak island during a sitka blacktail hunt with my dad.

Congratulations Josh on an awesome buck!! Sharing a good hunt with a good friend is what it is all about. A similar thing happened to my brother and I a few years back. We were scouting and found what looked to be a huge 115-120" buck. Later that year my dad was lucky enough to shoot this buck and he turned out to have a little tiny body and head and he ended up scoring 105". It was still a great hunt and an awesome deer. It really drives home the point that field judging is just guessing and one can be way off in their guess.

Good topic Younghunter. I like to backpack hunt and I also do quite a bit of backpacking in the summer. I do not have a breakdown of the weight of each piece of gear I take, but I can tell you that my full pack weight is usually between 35-50 pounds (not including the weight of my gun, because I carry that in my hands). The range is due to what type of weather I expect (cold, rain vs. hot, dry), whether I bring a stove or not, and whether I bring a tripod and spotting scope. I like to keep my pack at this weight because I want to be able to carry out all of my stuff plus a deer in a single trip. If you are packed in very far it is much nicer to make one trip than to have to make two trips. I weighed the last two coues deer I shot and after boning out the front shoulders, but leaving the bones in the hindquarters I came out with 40 pounds of meat. The cape and head probably weigh another 10 pounds (I forgot to weigh them). I like to hike in and set up a base camp near water (so I don't have to carry gallons of water) and then hunt from there. This usually means that you need a good daypack in addition to your large backpack. Some prior posts had good lists of gear. Here are a few things that I like: LED headlamp, plastic insulated mug and titanium spork (The only things I carry to eat/drink from/with for breakfast and dinner. There is no need for a seperate plate, bowl, cup and utensils.), 2or3 Liter platypus or nalgene collapsible water bladders (The clear ones don't impart the plastic taste to your water like the MSR dromedary bags seem to. I leave these at camp and their main purpose is so I don't have to pump water so often through the filter.) I would also recommend looking into REI gear as their stuff is fairly reasonably priced and it is good gear that holds up well. Here is a picture of my pack from this year loaded with all my gear plus the meat, cape, and head of my coues deer. I did carry a tripod and spotting scope on this trip because I enjoy digiscoping pictures through it.

The rifle hunts in NM are done on a different system than hunts for other species. You apply for a group of units that are in one general area of the state, such as the NE, SE or SW. If you draw a tag you are then assigned to a particular ranch and can hunt anywhere on that ranch including public and private land. You have to stay on that ranch and cannot hunt on public or private land elsewhere in the same unit. The quality of bucks on the ranch you get assigned to can vary quite a bit, but most all ranches will give you the opportunity to have a good hunt. The bow hunts are run differently. You apply for a unit or group of units and can then hunt any accessible public land in that unit. You must get permission if you want to hunt private land.

I have been living in Albuquerque for the past 4 years. It makes for quite a long drive to get into coues country.

Congrats on getting a nice buck!! It might take a replacement cape, but a good taxidermist should be able to fix it right up. My advice is to just pick a buck that you like, shoot it, and be happy that you had the chance to get out and hunt and shoot a buck that you liked. You can try and guess scores, but telling the difference between a 93" and a 98" buck is incredibly hard and I doubt that anyone on here could consistently judge scores to within +/- 5 inches. I guessed my buck this year within 1/4 of an inch, but have been off by as much as 15 inches on other bucks. There are a lot of things that can trick you like variations in the size of the deer, the width of the ears, etc. When did you graduate from high school? My wife and brother in law went to school at Flowing Wells and graduated in 2000 and '02.

Here is a picture of my dog Kona. She is a jagdterrier and was about 7mos. old in this picture.

Congrats to your dad on tagging out on an awesome ram!!

Thanks for sharing the pictures with us!! My favorite is the warthog, they are really cool critters.