GRONG

Good grief Dan that was freakin awesome!!! So far from my stand I've passed 3 small bucks, all of which I've gotten plenty of pics of this fall on my trail cameras. 1st buck I passed at 12 yards and the next two I passed at 38 yards cause I'm still waiting for a big one to come close enough. I did have a low to mid 90's buck come to about 55 yards and bed down for nearly 2 hours but he wouldn't come any closer. Haven't seen much rut activity yet but I did find 2 scrapes close by so I put 2 of my cameras over them so we'll see what's going on when I get up there. I was tempted to move my stand about 40 yards closer to their bedding area but I thought I just might mess all my hard work up if I did that. Who knows, I still might though. I'll just have to wait and see if they start rutting this week, this heat is just nuts!

Check out this link. Killer story. http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/index....showtopic=96861

Now Lark that is a whole other thread. Start one up!

Anyone with a thread of integrity wouldn't work for either organization. Thats why most of them are tree huggers.

I didn't even notice that you'd said that. Ok I'll let you off on that one!

OK OK OK, now where did you get a picture of a "coues" deer rubbing his antlers on an aspen tree? And in the snow mind you. Hmmmm, looks as if Den Mother is losing it, that looks like a muley to me.

Bill, Cool stories man! Last year a buddy of mine had an elk tag just out of town here and I told him a good place to go and glass from. He calls me about a week later and said he found a human skeleton right on the edge of the rim! He said it'd been there for a few years cause it was just bones scattered around. He said he spotted what he thought was a lion skull and when he reached down to grab it he realized what it was and kinda freaked. He hiked a couple of very out of shape Sherrif's Deputies up there, one barely made it, so they could do their investigation. I just cant believe I didn't find him first. I bet I walked with in mere yards of him before. Shows me how much stuff I actually miss out there. Up in a huge canyon here in 6A I found a few 30-40 Krag shells in an Indian ruin. I took them to the local fair at the Clemenceau School in Cottonwood a few years back and they said they were from the 1840's to the 1860's. I was stoked! Bill, You really advize me to soak this bayonet in stuff you mentioned to get the blade out of the sheath? Cool stories guys! Oh ya, Amanda, I don't know if it's true or not but I've heard of someone finding some old Spanish armor in Sycamore Canyon up above Clarkdale quite a while back. Maybe like 30 years ago. I'd LOVE to find something like that!!! Here is a petroglyph of a huge NT coues antler I found years ago. Ya right!

I've got the Vari X-III also but in 6.5-20X40. I love it!! I sent my scope off to Premier Reticle (premierreticle.com) and had them put mil-dots in my scope for every 100 yards of drop with a zero of 200 yards, out to 800. Not that I'd use the 800 but for the extra few bucks it's more of a novelty than anything I guess. I think it cost around $160 to have it done. I had to send them the info for what load I'm shooting and they did the deal. Works sweet!!! A hunter of mine killed a bull at 440 yards this past Friday with my gun. He put the 2nd dot down from the crosshairs and hit him where it counts. It was awesome!! I love it cause there's no more guessing. Just range the animal, put the appropriate dot on him and if it doesn't hit where it should it's probably a shooter error. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. Here's the bull and my gun. It's just an old Remington 700 30.06.

I've only found one rub and no scrapes yet at all. Good thing I'm getting the bucks on my game cams or I'd think there wasn't any there. Good luck everyone!

I've been in the woods A LOT during the Dec hunts and I can't remember a time when one screwed me up. Usually they're hunting carp in the flats, not our precious whiteys.

Here's a pic of a guy named Jeff Gagnon, he found this giant grizzly trap in 6B while he was looking for shed antlers, probably about 10 years ago. I think it was hanging in an old dead aligator juniper tree is what his Dad told me. AWESOME find!!!! That's a piece of Arizona history for sure!

Killer deer. You mind sending me that original picture you scanned or the file that your cousin sent you? I could probably crop it and get a much better picture of the original if you don't mind. I'd love to see that rack a little more up close. antlerboy@commspeed.net is my email.

Here's another in the same draw.

This is my wife Jennifer, back in '95, blocking the sun so I could get a better shot of the giant muley buck.

Here's a cropped version of that pic. Looks like he's wearing boots.

I couldn't find that picture of the Coues petryglyph but you can sorta see it from this pic. It's in the left part of the picture. Notice the others on the right too.

Think about it, suits the SOB just perfect!

Bill, No I've never seen any petros with elk in them. I'll find that Coues buck one, one of these days. In that same draw I took a pic of a mule deer petro that was ENORMOUS! You gotta wonder if it was exaggerated or if it was a close rendering of the animal. They are in Govt Canyon in unit 8 if anyone cares, I'll give more info if anyone is serious about checking them out. The Coues and muley are there in that draw. It's a long hike, maybe 125 yards off the road.

They're called Python Locks, look into them!! That hurts dude, seriously..... OUCH!!!

Dude that was awesome!! I thought I was doing good with the little fawn above the back. How long did it take you to notice you had 3 in the pic? Be honest!

SHEEEIEEESH!!! Freakin killer buck dude. Any chance you got those pics on a fairly large resolution on your camera? I know sometimes you have to shrink your picture in order to post them. I'm wondering if you'd mind emailing the originals to me at antlerboy@commspeed.net? Great buck man and good luck getting a chance at him this coming weekend!

Buckhorn, That name doesn't really ring a bell. Aaron's name does though. I can't see your face in your avatar picture well enough to see who you are though, what's your name? I'm sure we've met though haven't we? Welcome to the site by the way. Good grief you guys used to round up the horns!!! Those were the days for sure! I remember being able walk from I-17 to Woods and it was hard to carry all the antlers back to the truck. Now a days there's quad trails on every inch of it and I haven't been back for probably around 8 years. The good old days were awesome!! But in all the years I've shed hunted I've never picked up as many as you guys. My best year ever I found just over 120 sheds. Now I struggle to get over 40.

Amanda, I can't believe in all of your outings that is the first time you've ever seen them. Up here around northern AZ I see them nearly every time I go out. First thing I do is get a big sharp rock and write my signature across all of them! I hate those things. I'm totally kidding!!!!!! Here's one I found about a week ago of a mountain lion. It's the first one I've ever seen of a lion. I found one of a Coues deer before too, I'll see if I can find those pics.

RR, It's freakin crazy when you put it like that. Maybe you should bring that up in a commission meeting. Then again, they won't care either. They'll just humor you by listening and appearing to care. Last year I saw 2 guys, on the late elk hunt, center punch a buck mule deer with the undercarriage of their penis truck by the Hat Ranch. I pulled over and said, "How does it feel to have killed one of the last remaining bucks in unit 8?" They got a laugh out of it but I was dead serious. It's just sad. We truly are seeing the last of the deer as we know it. Get used to it I guess. Even if there weren't any deer left they'd still be issueing tags cause there'd be idiots who would still buy them and they know it.

I personally feel that we need the deer permits increased, especially doe tags! As I was driving thru unit 8 yesterday I saw a few doe out the window of my truck. A couple miles farther I saw a huge group of about 8 doe and 8 fawns. Well I tell ya those deer were eating like a group of recently freed POWs! There's no way the winter range handle all those deer! Now I see why they give out all the deer tags up in 12AW. Just imagine how many more deer there were back in the forest that I didn't see. You know, for the past several years it's been nice only seeing a couple of deer per year here in these northern units of AZ. The AZG&F sure has done a fantastic job of keeping the deer numbers down just in case we get a winter snow like they get up in Fargo North Dakota. I'd hate to see all those deer suffer from a severe winter die off. If anyone has a connection to the AZG&F Dept, please tell them that they need to increase the number of deer tags because there isn't enough cliffrose to eat. Sincerely, Joshua Eppinger