SunDevil

GOTTA LOVE IT!!!

nice job and great bulls!

That is why they play defense - because they can't catch the ball. I will post up some pics tomorrow. Now I am going to go to bed but I do not think I will be able to get to sleep. Tonight was crazy. Last year I went to one ua game. I took the 4 year old to the OR game = double OT. This year I went to one ua game. I took the now 5 year old to the ASU game = double OT. CRAZY but AWESOME!!!

NOW THATS FUNNY RIGHT THERE! I DON"T CARE IF YOU ARE A RAT FAN - THAT"S FUNNY!!!

good job and nice sticker!

That's a good one Coach! I'll give you 28 points with 2 to 1 odds? Care to put your money where your mouth is?

is your work calendar flexible? if so, keep an eye on the weather report. you might plan to take certain days off only to end up with rain and wind, and then you are stuck with no more time off. you run the same risk waiting until the last week of the hunt, you might get some crappy weather and then your hunt is over. personally, I would be out there opening weekend. maybe take the thursday before off as well. you might find one for the next day. some people are pretty religious about the moon phase but I think it is more important to understand how the moon phase effects the deer. I think people did better this year on the Oct hunts than the first Nov hunts and the Oct hunt had a full moon. typically with a full moon, the deer will bed earlier in the morning but will be up earlier in the afternoon. if you have good weather, deer should be active on and off during the day regardless of moon phase. IMO, due to the thanksgiving hunt, dec hunts are not what they use to be. good luck!

thats cool Ernesto. practicing up on your shooting before you head down to MX.

Phil - is that a smile I see sneaking through those antlers in that first picture? better not let word get out on that. that is a really nice buck! just imagine what he would have been like next year! Ha just kidding. so what gun are you taking to MX? it appears your model 7 is extremely lethal in AZ but prefers not to travel to MX. take care and good luck. chris.

that looks like some good eats right there. they say if you take the number of deer that die from being hit by cars in PA each year it equals the TOTAL number of deer that we have in the entire state of AZ.

some say it is better to be lucky than good. this hunt was a combination of the two. after an uneventful opening weekend (and two months of relatively uneventful scouting), to say I was discouraged would be putting it lightly. luckily we were now camped in an area with lots of potential that apparently had very little hunting pressure during the opening weekend. this combination had me optimistic and my hopes running high. shortly after first glassing light I glassed up a good buck. Larry got his spotter on it before me and his comment was 'that buck is a no brainer'. I confirmed we were looking at the same buck and took a very quick look at it before getting my stuff packed up to go after it. I hiked up to the next hill in front of us and checked in with Larry. He informed me the buck had moved around the ridge and into the next cut. Larry caught up to me and we relocated a couple of times before we found the best vantage point to continue searching for the buck. Fortunately Larry had got some good video of the buck before he moved out of sight. http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l302/sco...hursBuck040.mp4 fast forward to after Larry had taken his nice buck and I was back on the hill glassing for my buck. within a few minutes I had him. he was maybe 50 - 75 yards away from where we saw him earlier that morning. My pack was full of all of my gear and all of Larry's gear. I had to scramble to pull out all the essentials I would need to stalk and shoot this buck. Larry was not answering his radio and I knew I was going solo on this one. Earlier in the day we had ranged the hill above us and I knew the buck was about 800 yards away. I was going to have to cut that distance at least in half if not more. After twenty minutes the buck bedded and I knew this was my chance. I stashed my pack and took off. after sneaking around for awhile I was able to find a spot in the shade where I could get set up. The buck was still bedded and had a good vantage point to see down the hill towards where I was. He was 385 yards away. Getting closer was not going to be an option. I got set up and was sitting on a nice, big flat rock. My gun was resting on my tripod handle and my elbows were resting on my knees. All I could see was his head sticking up out of the tall yellow grass. Larry was still not answering his radio. The waiting game had begun. At one point I could hear Larry walking across the ridge down below me. I remember looking at my watch, seeing it was 4:45 and thinking I had about an hour left before it would be dark. When I looked back in my scope the buck was up. I took the gun off safety, fired and quickly relocated the buck in my scope, miss. I fired again and quickly relocated, Miss. I fired again and quickly relocated, MISSED AGAIN. I reloaded a couple more shells into my rifle, got back on the buck, fired and quickly relocated, ANOTHER MISS. What the heck? Fortunely he had not bolted during all this target practice. I told myself to hold a little higher this time and fired. This time when I relocated him I could see his back legs were down, then he fell over and did a couple death rolls down the hill. What a relief!!! Larry finally called me on the radio and asked if that was me doing all the shooting. I told him yes and that I had been trying to call him on the radio for the last hour and a half. He asked if I got him and I confirmed. I hiked up the hill to find another nice buck down for the afternoon. I dragged him down the hill, cleaned him out and we got him hung in a tree for the evening. It took us an hour and forty five minutes of bushwhacking in the dark to get back to camp (no moon this dark night). We returned in the morning to get some pics and haul him out. What a great couple of days!!! I am lucky/fortuante that: A) my two biggest bucks have been 4x4s, I have video of both of these bucks prior to harvesting them, C) I have such a great hunting partner and finally, D) I have such a great and understanding wife who puts up with my coues craziness. Gotta give thanks to all the people who talked to us about new places to go. Also gotta give thanks to Chris and Dave for going out with Larry on Sunday and to Lee for going out with me on Monday. Here are a couple of pictures from our Wednesday whitetails. Enjoy. Chris.

April will come sooner than you think. Quail between now and then. Hopefully next year we can draw a few more tags.

best use for a dead lion is fewer dead deer.

IMO - the best call for a beginner is a slate call. they are easy to use and you can make a lot of different sounds with them. mouth calls take a lot of practice and you are limited in the number of sounds you can use with a box call. get a locator call (peacock, coyote, owl, etc) and a gobble call. good luck. lots of birds in 27 but merriams are pretty smart birds.

in 2009 you would have needed 9 bogus points to be included in that pass but there were a lot more applicants with 9 points than there were tags allocated to that pass. bogus point numbers only get higher for 2010 and now 2011. one lucky person drew a tag last year with 0 bogus points.

nicely done. congrats!

so I wonder if that was a cactus buck or just a buck that died with its velvet on? pretty unique for sure.

next time I do not want people to hunt in an area that I hunt in I am going to post it here on CWT. opening morning I was across the road from piety hill and there was NO ONE else around. amazing. I did see a nice buck on piety thurs am (day before the opener) but then had some buddies tell me they saw a lion on piety fri pm.

FELIZ CUMPLEANOS JIM - hope you had a great day. looking forward to again seeing some birthday buck pictures.

As Doug would say, "End of story"

Good luck BirdDog. Always good to see people coming home.

That is great Casey - good luck!!! Just be careful. I assume he has been through hunter safety. I know two vehicles that have been shot by youth hunters. both times the gas tank was punctured. has your brother had much experience locating his target in a scope? this can be very frustrating for both an inexperienced hunter and the person helping them. what I try to tell people is to look at their target with their naked eye and then just move the scope into their field of view. during the heat of the day it is good practice to pick stuff out on the hill and have them find it in their scope. have a great hunt!

RUN FOREST RUN!!!

maybe you can have a bunch of flyers about your story printed out and stand at the entry way to the show passing them out. might keep you out of a bidding war.

Happy birthday Rick. Hope you were able to get someone else to cook for you today. have a good one. Chris.