StickFlicker

pwrguy, I'm not certain that your history with your Cabela's card should provide you with that much comfort. All Cabela's credit cards were moved to a different company (due to the Bass Pro merger) a year or so ago. So, you're dealing with an entirely different credit card company now than you have during those years.

Jim Heffelfinger also wrote an article on mule deer x Coues deer cross breeding in the new Bowhunting in Arizona book (as well as two other excellent articles on deer biology regarding antler growth and trophy genetics). Bowhunting in Arizona 6th Edition

The "multiplier" you speak of is essentially the success rate. If that hunt has had 25% success in the past, obviously you would need to give out 4 times as many tags as the number of animals you want taken in order to accomplish that. They also didn't mention the "pie" method of distribution between weapon types. Basically, if 30% of the FIRST choice applicants for a species are for a particular weapon (e.g. archery), then they apportion enough of the tags for that species to that weapon type to be able to have 30% of the harvest be with that weapon. If you are the type of person that puts a different weapon for first and second choice, you are increasing the future number of permits that go to the weapon type of your first choice and decreasing that of your second choice.

Last time I hunted there, the Border Patrol came by my camp and made sure to tell me that I was camped in the middle of a major illegal migration corridor. That sure didn't help me sleep at night, constantly hearing things in the dark. I slept with my .357 on my chest at night.

Awesome bull! Were both the current bull and the older photos taken in the same unit?

Last year a woman hit a bear on the highway and asked me to help her put the injured bear on a tarp and drag it off the highway. I declined. I was bear hunting at the time, and thought about offering to dispatch it, but thought better of that as well as a crowd began forming. It started turning into a zoo and I left before someone either got mauled or hit by a car.

You can't drive a vehicle into the park to recover your bison, if you shoot it and it crosses back into the park. Since most of the bison are killed very close to the border, that's a very real possibility.

Great buck, congratulations! You need to enter it to the Arizona bowhunting record book. Bowhunting in Arizona

Congratulations Nate. That buck has nice mass.

Seeing scaled quail is certainly shocking. They do look like that's what they are, but the photo quality isn't very clear. Are you sure that's what they were? The G&F book on game birds of Arizona doesn't show a population of them within hundreds of miles, but there could have been a transplant at some point since the book was printed in 1989. Thanks again for sharing all the photos and ongoing story! I was lucky enough to archery hunt that unit two years ago, and turkey hunt it this spring, so I can picture many of the areas you're hunting. Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

Congratulations on a great buck. It was a great year to get lucky and draw the tag this year, great antler growth up there.

While it is a nice buck, the headline is a little misleading. Making the minimum for entry to the record book is a little different than the misleading "could break archery record". But, if you'll notice, the author is a female with the same last name as the hunter, so I'm guessing it's his wife, daughter or other relative. I agree though, it's great to have hunting including in a general circulation newspaper. That's rare these days.

I came home unexpectedly early one time, and the wife surprised me with a new coat! It was hung over a chair in the bedroom....it came with a wallet and some keys. I still haven't figured out what the keys fit... 😁

Grey curse is correct. A great many of the people that return tags give them to a non-profit organization. The recipient doesn't use any of their own points, so these primo tags are being used with no depletion of bonus points to the other hunters that are competing for those hard to draw tags like there would be if the tag were returned to G&F and resold to the next hunter that would have drawn.

Even for those that "abuse" it how many times can they really do it? Maybe once every 12 years. And it's the others on the tag that benifit not really the pointholder. Its not like they are gonna kill a monster 2 years in a row. There are several well known hunters that draw deer and elk tags in prime units every year or two because of this. Randy Ulmer has drawn 4 or 5 Unit 13B archery deer tags in the last 6 years. Others have done the same. This isn't always as rare as many of you seem to think.

Congratulations on your first....of many!

It was pretty obvious that was going to happen as they were putting it in place. Same thing happened when they allowed parents, grandparents, etc. to start signing over tags to kids. The number of applicants spiked as tons of people that had no plans to ever hunt started applying. Every plan they institute makes it harder for the average guy to draw a tag but raises more money for G&F through application fees, license sales, and reselling tags that have been turned-in. Why would they want to stop it?

Good luck, and thanks for sharing all the photos! I've never gone to that unit without spending a LOT of time at that Discount Tire in St. George!

Awesome buck! Congratulations.

Great job Brian. Awesome buck!

Congratulations to the both of you, and thanks for sharing all the details and photos!

Beautiful mount! Did you have Ed officially measure it while he had it?

Passing on smaller animals to eventually take a much bigger one has paid off for me many more times than it has bitten me. It's easy to pick out the rare time that it didn't work out and I ate the tag, but I know that's the cost going in. Although I could pick one or two I would take with 20/20 hindsight, overall, I wouldn't change a thing. I've never agreed with the "Don't pass anything on the first day you would take on the last day." If the most important thing to you is taking an animal, then you shouldn't pass anything. If you are trying to take a really nice animal, you will have to pass the small ones or you will have far less days in the field, and therefore far less opportunities to take a nice animal. It's all about what you will happy taking home. I don't think any animal's life deserves to be taken if you will have regrets that you shot it feeling you should have held out for a bigger one.

Jay Scott wrote a great article on field judging the scores of elk in the new Bowhunting in Arizona book, available for $25 at the link below or in most archery shops in the state: Bowhunting in Arizona

I really like the camera extension coming off the tripod base. Did you buy that or make it? If you bought it, what is it?