SunDevil

Nice buck! I'd guess around 105. Nice eyeguards! Gotta love those. When I first saw that pic I immediately thought of the Bob Campbell buck on the front of the site. This buck has much better eyeguards but doesn't appear to be as old as the Campbell buck (the neck is not as thick). Would like to hear a little more about this buck (state, year, score, etc). CB

hadnt posted in awhile so i thought i would throw this out for you all to see. pretty unique. CB

Just came across this one http://www.arizonaelksociety.org/Forms/Hun...color%20PDF.pdf

Just wanted to know if anyone was aware of any good raffles going on right now? There are so many, it is hard to keep track of who is raffling what, when the deadline is, when the drawing is, etc. Maybe we can get Amanda to break raffles into another forum category so that we would have one central resource for raffle info. At a minimum we would need the following info: 1) Organization 2) Prize 3) Cost 4) Deadline 5) Results 6) Contact Can anyone think of any other info we would need? So does anyone know of a good raffle going on right now? Thanks. CB

you know, snow shoes also work good for walking on top of shin digger cactus.

where were your snow shoes? looks like you might need to invest in a pair. CB

what a cutie!!!

Other than 100% pure politics, WHY did the NRA get involved in the approval of the Jennifer Martin appointment to the G & F Commission? I think the 11 organizations that Amanda listed on the other thread should be encouraged to educate their members (newsletter, website, meetings, etc) about what the NRA did. Hopefully these organizations have a lot of members who are also NRA members and hopefully they will feel inclined to contact the NRA and voice their displeasure over the NRA's actions/tactics. For those of you who are unaware, a 7 member senate committee was set to vote 6 - 1 to not approve the appointment. At the last minute (literally, the morning before the meeting), the NRA got involved and was successful in swinging 3 of the nays to yeas and the rest is history. There is nothing we can do about it now but hopefully we can make enough noise to prevent this type of thing from happening again or at least make organizations think twice before they consider doing this again in the future. As for me, I am going right to the horses mouth and am going to contact the 2 NRA field reps in AZ. In case anyone else is interested, their names are: H. Dean Hall (480) 664 - 9222 dhall@nrahq.org J. P. Nelson (480) 357 - 4057 jnelson@nrahq.org Sorry to bring this up again, it is just still really bothering me. I do not know what I will do if the G & F moves forward with their proposed changes. With all the difficult issues they have to deal with, they choose to focus on putting more people in the field during hunting season and reducing overall hunter success rates. It is about enough to make a person boycott the government all together. How much would a little ranch cost somewhere to get away from it all? CB

The one question I think they left off the survey was asking a questions going in the opposite direction. Would the serious sportsmen (excluding campers and road hunters) be in favor or reduced opportunity in return for increased success? I am always very discouraged in the Oct and Nov hunts with all the other people that are out there. It is almost impossible to get away from them. If all I wanted was a tag, I could put in for Oct 30B and get drawn every year. My chances of harvesting a buck are very slim and a really nice buck non-existant. Why don't they make the 1 deer per year go through Jan instead of be a calendar year thing. I would be more inticed to spend time in Jan with a bow (if I hadn't drawn a tag or was unsuccessful) if I wouldn't be done for the next year (if I was lucky enough to connect). Of course, reduced opportunity would mean less money and WE ALL KNOW THAT IS WHAT IT IS REALLY ABOUT!!! They can try and white wash it any way the want, but it really all comes down to money. It is the root of all evil. CB

I do it a couple of different ways that are both kind of mickey mouse but work fine for me. The first way is, if your gun has a bipod, extend the legs and put the gun on a flat surface (table or floor). Then pick out something that has a straight vertical line. I usually use the crack in my front door or the corner of a room. Line the veritcal cross hair up with that line and you are good to go. The other way is if you do not have a bipod. There usually is a flat spot on the underside of your stock (just in front of the hing plate). Rest this flat spot on the corner of a table and use a vertical line like above. Two best and easy ways for me. CB

I just spoke with a staffer at one of the Senator's office. She indicated that as of yesterday the appointment of Ms. Martin was probably not going to be confirmed but that today the legislators were receiving very heated calls from NRA board members. She said it would be hard to say, one way or the other, what the outcome would be. Another staffer at another Senator's office indicated "the pressure from the NRA for this confirmation is tremendous." It sounds like some of our attention should be turned to the NRA and their support of this appointment. CB

(post moved to Jennifer Martin thread)

I know a guy that has put 33 Oct as his second choice for the past 3 years and been skunked 3 years in a row. CB

I always put Dec first choice and Nov second choice. I will definetely switch to Dec first choice and OCT second choice if they make this change. CB

I am totally in line with you ThomC and had the exact same thoughts when I first heard about the potential proposals. The good thing about the Oct hunt is you get first crack at them. The bad thing is it is only 4 days. Only having 4 days is pretty risky. You may have bad weather. You may not be able to find your trophy right away. Other hunters might be in your spot with no time to move. etc. etc. The good thing about the Nov hunt is that is 10 days. The bad thing is that the deer have already been hunted and are in survival mode. Having 10 days gives you more time to find them and lets you get out during the middle of the week when most everyone else is back at work. Finding deer during this hunt will be harder because the deer may have been pushed into other areas or may have gone nocturnal. These changes will totally make the Oct hunt more valuable and the Nov hunt less valuable. If you are drawn for Oct you will get first crack at them and be able to hunt for 10 days. I do not understand the reasoning behind shortening the Dec hunt other than attempt to reduce success rates. Hopefully the survey is good and they will understand the answers. CB

Here is a relly nice pic I took a couple of weeks ago on my javelina camping trip. Hope you enjoy. CB

Congrats!!! That is great to hear that there are 2 less lions running around to eat the deer. No telling how many deer the two of them would have eaten in their lifetimes. Don't know what is wrong but the pics aren't coming up for me. I will have to check into from home. CB

That video was crazy!!! I think the towel heads in the first video have a Leica spotter set up on a tripod to the left. CB

of course http://www.arizonabiggamesuperraffle.com

Doug - the dutch oven isn't new. We've been using that thing and that recipe for years. DEERSLAM - are you carrying your ballistics in your pocket? If you are, you need to be real careful the tips are not getting dinged up. Those plastic tips are pretty sensitive and any knick or dent in them will throw there accuracy off. I have used these for several years now and really like them. You just have to be careful with them. KWP - that is the same pack I have. I will have to remember to never put a bow or rifle on the back of it. Thanks. CB

no rain in Tucson

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing the photos and the story. CB

One thing that didn't work was having Red Rabbit tag along for good luck!!! Just kidding. We did see a nice bear and a few does. Another thing that didn't work to good was putting in for big game in AZ. They need to give natives 5 extra bonus points. Either that or increase opportunities by reducing Dec tags and increasing Oct tags. Ha! Putting in for NM worked awesome. My new Nikon optics (rifle scope and spotting scope) worked awesome. I would highly recommend Nikon products to anyone. My new Cabelas pack worked okay. It is really big which leads to me putting to much stuff in it. The hip/waist strap does not fit me right and seems to be for people that are not as tall as I am. My new Canon S2 IS camera worked awesome. Trying to take pics with it through my binos or spotting scope did not work out. I will have to play around with that during my HAM hunt in Feb. Trying to take video of deer through my spotting scope worked out pretty good. I learned many things about this. One, of course, wind and heat make it difficult to get good footage. Two, the position of the sun is crucial. Forget about filming into the sun. Even filming with the sun to your side is hard. If possible, having the sun at your back will definetely produce the best footage. Finally, for my scope and camcorder, the animals need to be at least 600 yards out. To film through my spotter I have to leave the scope down at 25X and zoom the camcorder out to 12X. That gets up close and personal pretty quickly. I got some good footage of a couple bucks that I would guess were about 1000 yards away. Maybe for closer shots I will try using my camcorder through my binos. All for now. CB

That is truly AMAZING!!! To bad it is chewed up so much. I assume the 61" measurement is after adding back in the estimates for the missing chewed points. Thanks for posting. CB

It has been my experience that mule deer have a stronger flavor than whitetail. I helped a friend take a mule deer once in Oct and then I took a whitetail in Nov. We had a barbeque later on and afterwards the whitetail was gone and there was still quite a bit of mule deer. Both animals were taken care of exactly the same. Granted, this was a mule deer that lived out in the creosote flats but I would say in general, whitetail eat food that correlates into milder meat. Acorns vs creosote? This is not always the case but probably a good general rule. Also, why do antelope have a stronger flavor? Because they eat weeds. Nick Z - you don't want to hunt coues when you move out here. Switch over to mule deer. You will have much more enjoyable hunts. CB