yotebuster

I may be mistaken but bison are not considered wildlife in the state of Arizona. They are livestock owned by whatever entity owns the ground they are standing on. Hence the reason you can sell bison meat from a buffalo killed on the kaibab or Raymond ranch, also the reason you can legally shoot one on bait in the Raymond ranch.

That top bag sugar beets?

Yeah I heard that. They had 10” on the 25th of aug but it was mostly melted by the time we got there. There were a lot of sheep up in there. Didn’t study them much but I think mostly ewes and young rams. I think that’s in the OTC area but I’m guessing it’s not as easy as it looks since they haven’t killed one in there in the last couple years.

So I’ve been off CWT since they switched the format and figured I better get back on here and update everyone on the hunt. It was an absolute grind, and I’m glad it’s over, but it was a really great time!!! I ended up buying a proof research 28 nosler and topping it with a 2.5-25x52 March. It was under 8# all put together. This thing is scary accurate with 195 eol Berger’s sitting on 86.5 gr RL 33. Anyhow, onto the hunt! I was lucky enough to have my 3 brothers along for it as well as my wife and my sister in law. To say I couldn’t have done it without them is an understatement! We picked out and area on google earth that I found based on the biologists suggestion. Her exact words were “it’s reallt hard to get to but you’ll find a lot of goats in there”. We all met for breakfast the day before the hunt opened and headed to the trailhead around 10:00am. The hike in to base was only 5 miles so I was thinking we’d be in easily by mid day. Boy was I wrong. Ran into another tag holder on the way in and he said “you’re going in there? You realize there’s no trail and it’s solid blow downs right?” On the plus side he did say they glassed some goats “way the heck back there” this summer!! We trudged on climbing about 2000 vertical feet in the first two miles. We followed the spine for a mile or so and then it dumped into the basin we picked out. I guess I have to say that I was a little underprepared for it!! On google earth I could see some blow downs, but I didn’t expect this! Literally every 30’ for the entire next 2 miles was a blowdown! We plodded on, finally making camp about 4:00 pm. We got a little glassing in that night and were pumped to find plenty of goats!! We glassed up a lone billy above camp a mile or so. We planned on getting a closer look at him in the am. We had to do all the bear stuff, hanging food, no chapstick etc. I had never dealt with that and it’s sort of a pain but I guess considering there was grizzly crap everywhere we needed to do it! The next morning we awoke to high 20’s and clear sky’s. We hiked up to the billy we had glassed. We found him not far from where we left him the night before. One of the many drawbacks of the blow downs is there was literally no cover to approach the goats with. While he was still way above us, I wasn’t sure how much activity they would put up with. Most of the goats I’ve run into on other hunts have been fairly stupid and just watch you from above within easy rifle distance. Realizing we didn’t have any choice, we just headed at him. At about 1000 yards he just got up and hopped over the ridge out of our lives. This made us realize this might be a little tougher then we expected. I wasn’t too bummed as I had gotten a pretty good look at him and he was the type of billy I knew I probably shouldn’t pass but also wasn’t a giant so I was a little optimistic that we would find a better one. It didn’t take long glassing and my brother glassed up a big group of nannies and kids. I had made a decision that I was only going to shoot a billy so we kept looking. About an hour later my other brother picked up some goats that we had somehow missed. It was two mature animals together. It didn’t take long looking to realize they were both mature billies. One had a Snow White coat and the other a kinda piss yellow one. The yellow one may have been a 1/2” bigger but the white one was much prettier. We decided whichever offered a shot would do. This time we were smarter and found a ridge to hide our approach. We picked a spot that we figured would get us to 500 yards and looped around to it. When we got there we peeked over and ranged them and it was 770 yards. I am capable of the shot with a decent wind read or a calm day, but the wind was literally blowing 3 different directions including straight up!! We pushed on and found a new location that got us what I thought would only be 100 yards on them. When we got there my brother ranged them and said 435!! Bingo. That’ll work! We slid into position, the only visible one was the Snow White billy. He was bedded with his left leg hanging off a cliff looking down on us. The obvious chest shot was actually blocked by his nose as he looked down so I decided to slip a bullet right past it and into his shoulder, hopefully catching some back lung and liver and breaking his close shoulder. With my brothers all locked on him I sent one up. He jumped up at the shot carrying his leg. I assumed it was a lethal shot but slammed another in his opposite shoulder as fast as I could. He dropped at this shot, anchored on the ledge he was bedded on!! Billy down! High fives all around! We didn’t realize that we were just getting to the hard part! It took us around 2 hours of rock climbing to get to him, and these billies were in some of the easier to get to stuff in there!! I was blown away with how gorgeous he was when we got to him. I had a lot of people tell me to wait for later season for better hair, but I’m in love with the dense look of his hair. It’s probably 3” long and dense. My first shot broke his close shoulder but wasn’t lethal due to the steep angle. I was very lucky to get a second one in him. His horns were awesome. I really didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t worried about an inch of horn either way but was really excited to see he was a mature billy. The biologist later measured him at 9” long, 5 1/2” bases and 7.5 years old. A really good billy for this part of Montana. We were able to get some pics on the shelf he was on but had to lower him with paracord to get him somewhere safe to butcher. With packs loaded with meat and a life size cape we slowly picked our way down the mountain and back to spike camp. The next morning we got up and loaded our packs and headed out. We had between 40-60# packs going in with our food and gear for 5 days. There’s a surprising amount of meat on a mtn goat and that combined with the cape (which weighed 40#) we all ended up with 50-70# packs on the way out. It took us 5 hours to go the 5 miles out. I can’t explain how demoralizing those blow downs are!!! I’ve never been so happy to see my truck!! We were all wiped out so we stayed in Cooke city that night. A giant ribeye and a half dozen Coors lights never taste so good!! I’m really lucky to have drawn the tag while I was still fairly young and somewhat fit. When we got home we butchered the meat, which looked and smelled excellent. I had heard so many horror stories about goat meat but I don’t believe what I hear as I’ve heard people say antelope, Sandhill crane, and sharptail grouse are all gross as well and they couldn’t be more wrong. My wife cooked up some tenderloin and backstrap that night and I have to say it was incredible. Similar flavor to antelope but maybe a little tougher. I was really thinking I would have to grind it all I to chorizo or jerky but we instead did all roasts and steaks with it. We got back to ND and turned and burned to the Missouri breaks for an archery elk hunt. Saw 25-30 bulls and had some close calls but no arrows in the air. I had to go back to work for 2 days to make sure the place didn’t burn down and now I’m off to Utah for an elk hunt! I love this time of year!

Lotsa bucks. Lotsa hunters too. Pic an area a long way from a major town and that will help. 700 is a huge unit and I think there are 9000 tags. It can kind of concentrate hunters for sure, but it also leaves lots of area untouched.

What MT Unit? We got turned down this year for the first time in 3 years. Gonna miss antelope meat this year! Ive had 6 antelope tags in the last 2 years and none this year!

If its a rifle antelope hunt you should have all of your legwork done before opening day. If I had a 4 day antelope hunt and could only take 4 days off of work Id take the three days prior to the season and opening day and that would be it. Find a big one when they arent being bothered. It also helps to not have a rifle with you the first day or two so you look a bunch over before shooting. AZ antelope tags are the best in the world with NM coming in a somewhat distant second. Your tag is on the worst side of Az for big bucks but near the best side of NM! Unless youre in your 30s its probably the last rifle antelope tag youll ever get. Enjoy it and kill a big one!

Financing vehicles is about the worst thing that's ever happened to the American consumer. $60k+ for trucks.... give me a break! They really don't even make that much money on the vehicles anymore, most of the money is made through the financing. Finance it new, then it gets traded in, financed again, then traded & financed again.... etc. I had a pretty nice jeep commander that had been paid off since the second year I owned it. Planned on driving that thing til it died, but unfortunately it was murdered sooner than anticipated. Had some lady in the next lane over make a u-turn right in front of me and t-bone me. Totaled out the vehicle, and of course she has no insurance. Ended up going down and buying a new truck, and was told if I paid cash I do not qualify for factory rebates. The OTD price of the vehicle would be about $5000 higher than financing. So I financed it, and then paid it off on the third month. Saved about $11k compared to paying the loan for 5 years. Most people have no idea how compounding interest works. Bottom line, if you keep paying interest instead of investing, you probably will work til you die. If you saved $11k on a 5 year note then you must have bought a $110,000 pickup. Id like to see a pic of that thing! You wont ever pay compound interest on a vehicle unless your payment is under the total amount of monthly interest, which it wont be. Most vehicle finance companies have extremely good rates. My current F150 is at 3.2% through ford credit. I could write a check to pay it off tomorrow if needed but that makes no sense financially when I have that money elsewhere making considerably more interest. Having properly managing debt is not a bad thing if done correctly. If prime goes back up to 10%+ a person needs to be ready to move money to pay it off but at current rates one can leverage money and make more of it while having debt.

The A400 extreme is the 3.5. I think they make an a400 3 as well called a technys or something. Ive got 3 a400 extreme and like them for waterfowl but never run 3.5 shells as I think they are a scam and a waste of money personally. An a391 urika 2 will be prettier and point better then an extreme.

A 391 Urika 2 is what you want. Should be able to find a nice used one somewhere. Ive had 16 beretta autos and loved every one of them.

Difference between and emu and Barbary is that they arent native to North America.

The one guarantee in this world is that we will all need one of those someday.

I dont think you can hunt on there. Thats its own tag if they have a hunt.

I thought these had the 26 barrel? Am I missreading the gun bible? Is this one cut?

Well I didnt get a phone call. Does that mean I didnt draw?

I heard the last one was hit by a Buick in 1966

No 😞. Not in AZ

I live up here now. So the only time I get down there anymore is when I draw a tag!!!

Id be buying this if I wasnt in ND!!!

When I read deprivation hunt I figured this was another thread about naturebobs love life!! Sweet bull!!! I have a pipe dream to kill a velvet bull someday.

You always have the coolest stuff. I need this like I need a hole in my head but I want it for some reason.

Im guessing these guys are Huntin fool members that were sitting on like 8-12 deer points?

Good top mass but not enough bottom mass to be 91.

Put up some pics!! Id like to see pics of the 91 goat as well!!

Trade for $1700?