Mr. Jonathan

Mountain trolls!

Couldn't have worked out better or for a nicer guy. Randy is an awesome guy to hit the hills with!

This is what we found him sitting on.

At least they'll eat the lions too.

Nope, its the lions. They ate all the dinosaurs, buffalo, and now the deer. We are next.

They smell.

Great response!

Aside from whatever is going on at a personal level in this post, the original point is still valid I think. The attitude that a good lion is a dead lion is prolific among hunters. Having trouble finding game? Clearly too many lions. Buck to doe ratio off? Darn lions. I learned how to multiply as a kid in deer camp. It went like this: 1 deer per lion per week, times 52 weeks a year, equals 500 deer per lion per year. Clearly these are generalizations and exaggerated, so try hard to not read too deeply into them. The mountain lion is a convenient scapegoat for what really comes down to awful land management over the last several decades. And I do have a lion skull sitting here in my living room, from one that I arrowed in a tree. Been on a few other hunts, probably be on a few more. Might even have my own hounds some day. Both of the quotes below are from Jack O'Conner, in articles penned for Outdoor life: "The outlook for the [Mule] deer is, alas, not so good. In both Arizona and Sonora he is receiving pressure from every side. In Arizona most of his range is either leased from the state for peanuts by cattle ranchers or is Bureau of Land Management land leased from the federal government. The ranching interests are very powerful in Arizona -- so powerful that they have fought off any attempt to regulate the use of state-owned land. As a consequence, most state land in Arizona is fantastically overgrazed and overbrowsed and the desert deer must compete with cattle. In Sonora the story is about the same. Most of the land is public domain; some of it is privately owned. All is overgrazed and overbrowsed. Most Southwestern ranches, whether in Arizona or Sonora, do not sell beef; they simply sell ambulatory carcasses that can be fattened and made into beef. Desert land is fragile. Growth is slow. Though the annual rainfall is only from one to nine inches a year, rains are often torrential and topsoil that has been laid bare by overgrazing is washed away. The desert was never intended to be cattle country."1 In another article by O'Conner, this one about the Coues deer, he writes thus about the role of lions (and predators in general): "The main enemy of the [Coues] deer is the mountain lion, and until hunters get more skillful and are allowed to shoot does as well as bucks, predation by lions is necessary for healthy whitetail herds. In areas where lions are kept killed down, the deer become too plentiful, destroy their own browse, and die off from disease. The best Mexican deer ranges have a lot of lions -- and a lot of deer..."2 1 The Desert Mule Deer, Jack O'Conner, Originally Published in Outdoor Life Magazine, December 1970. Outdoor Life/Harper & Row, New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London. Copyright 1974. 2 The Arizona Coues Deer, Jack O'Conner, Originally Published in Outdoor Life under the title Our Smartest Game Animal, February 1958. Outdoor Life/Harper & Row, New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London. Copyright 1974.

+1 Todd is a great guy, did a brake on my 7mag and very happy with the price/workmanship.

That's about the best description I've heard! If it wasn't so much stinking fun to chase them with a bow I would write off spot and stalk Coues hunting as an exercise in futility. But it is fun, and you will see more and bigger bucks than you might've imagined!

That chunk of antler drooping off the base is really cool! Hard to find another one with that kind of character! Congratulations on a great bucka

I've been waiting for this post since you first mentioned you were going after ibex . Fantastic! I hope there is a story to follow. Great photos and great animals! Thanks for sharing!

Glad to hear a response like this; it's a breath of fresh air. Thank you Audsley!

I really loved reading this story, thanks for sharing and the great pics too!

Ellsworth and baseline, uncle bears is walking distance so I'll be there!