.270

since Jack O'connor died, i'm the world's greatest authority on .270's. i use 140's. for coues, my kids have started using 100's and 110's with some great results. shoot real fast and flat and have plenty of whammo for coues bucks. i'd worry about ruining meat as a secondary thing. main thing is to hit em to start with. use whatever gun you have confidence gun in. any reasonable centerfire is good for coues, as long as you hit em the chest. Lark.

that's hillarious. more dogooders doin' bad. hope they get felony convictions. Lark.

what's this check deal? i always put a couple hunnerd dollar bills in mine. that way ya always get drewd. put 5 of em in my bighorn ap this year. actually, i always send money orders. don't wanna take a chance on my checkin' account not havin' any money in it. i even did this when you could use plastic on the computer. Lark.

don't have a short mag but have several .300's and '06's. i've gone to nothing but 165's in everything .30 cal. the short mag is a little better than an '06 and a little less than a .300 win. in velocity. i've used the 165 hornady btsp's for decades without anything less than spectacular results. bullets hold together real well and do a fine job. one thing tho, a .300 or '06 or short mag will destroy a coues if you don't hit it right in the ribs with a crossways shot. hit heavy meat inside of about 250 yds and it's gonna hydraulic that poor little critter into next week. won't really matter what bullet you use. decide what you want to hunt with it and load accordingly. but the 165's have worked well for me on everything from jackrabbits to some really big bull elk. Lark.

so whatter ya sayin' there Az. guide? you been seein' lions lickin' their butt tryin' to get the taste outta there mouth? last time i ate at matta's i had to drink a kitty litter milkshake to sop up all the oil i swallerd. at least it tasted like valvoline. none o' that off brand stuff for them. but now that ya mention it, the biggest lion i ever shot was whilst huntin' the cula blanca in dec. killed a no foolin' 9 footer that went well over 180 lbs. he coulda been 200. he'da topped 220 easy in his younger days. he looked that ol' grampa lion that i useta see on the "snagglepuss" cartoon when i was a kid. later, Lark.

http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2005/06/...news/news02.txt

check this out. maybe some good news. http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2005/06/...news/news01.txt

tuesday mornin' about 0730 i was travellin' west on baseline. about central ave. i got behind 12 to 14 motorcycle cops. two by two all in one lane. looked to be training maybe. most of em were in street clothes. at least 2 were wimmin cops. cute wimmin too. all were on copasaki 1000's. the first couple guys were in uniform and several at the back were too. anyway, couldn't pass em fer fear o' gettin' a ticket. followed em until about 83 ave, out on the rez. until 2 of em ran into each other and caused about half of em to crash!!!!! looked like maybe about 6 of em layed their scooters down and a couple others ran over em. cops skiddin' all over the place. bloody elbows. sore butts. didn't appear that anybody got hurt too bad, except their egos. it was plum hillarious to see all these dudes jump up and try to act like nothin' happened. none o' the wimmin crashed. i was the first vehicle behind em and got a front row seat. the ones that didn't crash stopped traffic and guided folks around em. they had them bikes up and fired and were ready to head out again in about 30 seconds. i figger they wanted to leave before the news helicopters got their. wouldn't be good press to see so many cops all crashed in one place. dang it was funny. what ticks me off is that i was laughin' so hard that i for got i had my digital camera in my pocket and coulda videod the whole aftermath. it were funny fer sure. Lark.

the whole thing is stupid. what does lockin' a road down on araviapa have to do with baby rapin'? i don't see how she correlates the two. her kid got in trouble. so what? i don't care what caused it, why's she gotta lock the road? talking to the folks i know that know her, she's really an odd person. but folks could maybe make that arguement about me. i think what she's doing is about as stupid and phony as anything i've ever seen. but folks bein' ignernt back to her won't do anything but help re-inforce her cause in her mind. one or more sportsman groups need to file a suit and get it opened up. another thing that could happen is the next turd floater that gully washes aravaipa will demolish the road below her gate and there are a lot of other landowners there that will want the road fixed and the county ain't gonna do it as long as the gate is locked. she ain't the only land owner. there are several others below her that she gave a key to that are more or less going along with her. once their road gets washed out, they're gonna want the tax payers to fix it for em and i don't see that happening as long as that gate is locked. in fact, it's been locked long enough now that it has to be getting in bad shape. some of the crossings need a lot of attention all the time. most o' the time if you leave unreasonable people to their devices it comes back on em. if everyone just ignored her wierdness and came over the mountain when they want to hunt in there, she won't have anything to hold over anyone and instead of locking the public out, she'll be locking herself in. Lark.

the entire creek bottom for miles is private property. as soon as you hit the bottom from the cedar springs road, the creek bottom is private. every inch of it. for the most part, most of the ranchers have been pretty good at allowing access to the public land. they don't bother anyone and are a pretty good buncha folks. this gal is related to the Salazars. they've been living on the creek for nearly 200 years. they are a great buncha folks. the salt of the earth. i know em personally. where she has the road blocked is just below the old Salazar church. all this talk about dynamite and stuff is fun to talk about, but not realistic nor is it helpful. for quite a few years the DOW owned a buncha land and tried to lock everyone out of the galliuros. did a pretty good job of it. if i remember correctly, the nature conservancy has bought out the dow and now owns what they had. they are pretty good at allowing foot and horse access, but don't allow motors across their property. they own most of the land just above the araviapa box. let this thing run it's course. don't get the other ranchers down there pissed off or they'll lock it up where the cedar springs road hits the aravaipa road. if a guy wants into turkey creek bad enough he can always come over the mountain from lower aravaipa. dealing with an unreasonable person unreasonably just magnifies the problem. if any group sues her, she ain't got the funds to fight it. won't be much of a fight. but i'd sure hate to see where she shot somebody or somebody shot her over a stupid deal like this. patience opens gates. Lark.

i agree about the model 70 but anybody that thinks an '06 or a .300 "short" mag is better than a .270 is a @^%$# and a (*&@#$ and there mama is a *&^@#!. and i'm sure that azcooznonhunter would agree. sheesh, an '06 better than a .270?!?! where'd you go to school? gila bend? Lark.

dang azcousehunter, you kiss your mama with that mouth? i reserve that kinda language for when i'm ridin' a mule. and besides, i already told y'all the .270 is the best gun ever. Lark.

hey bullwidgeon, shoot me an email. i'll tell ya where to go too. Lark. ps. what is a widgeon? is like romanian for feces?

you ain't gonna build a road around her place for a reasonable amount. it's all private land everywhere on the creek and you'd have to go up and over some huge bluffs and stuff to get around it. she only controls a couple acres, but the road goes across it. i'm real dissapointed in the graham county supervisors and the county attorney and the blm. public money has maintained that road for decades. heck, go buy the land from her. my cousin's ex-husband is her cousin (does that make sense?). so i guess that makes us shirttail relatives. no wonder she's goofy. i gotta buncha goofy cousins. anyway, he said she's about as reasonable as a rattlesnake. his whole family avoids her like the plague. the way he explained it, she doesn't actually own the land. it belongs to her family in sort of a trust deal or somethin' and she has decided that the land where the road is, is her part. it's gonna be interesting to see what happens come deer season. she's got some prime country locked up. all them deer hunters will most likely be totin' shootin' irons o' there own too. Lark.

there are some huge bulls on the kaibab. last year there were several real thugs taken on the limited opportunity hunts in those units. not too many, but they are there. if i was interested in this hunt i'd plan on spending a lotta time in a plane before the season, especially for bison. it'd be an expensive deal, but man what an opportunity. deer, elk and bison all at the same time. i also think that a guy could really screw himself up tho and end up wasting a helluva deer tag chasing around elk and bison. Lark.

if that goofy woman keeps lower aravaipa creek locked up it's sure gonna mess up the u32 hunt. Lark.

can't you just buy a muzzleloader deer tag in new mex still? i've shot a buncha elk and deer with a muzzleloader. tons o' fun. but when i was a kid that's all we had. then they came out with them new fangled lever action deals and ruined things. Lark.

c'mon buranuts, ya gotta think positive. it only took me 26 years to get an Az. pronghorn permit and 30+ for sheep and still no tag, but every year i think this is the year. a friend said the other day that a guy told him (sound like a fishin' story?) that this year the azgfd was gonna clean out all the guys with max bonus points for elk. everyone of em will get their first or second choice. this is only for guys that have never been drawn since bonus points started and have the hunter's safety point. there are only like 30 of em. anyway, he called the azgfd and they confirmed that that was the plan. what a quandary. man, there are some good elk tags to be had. has anyone else heard this "rumor". wish they would do that for sheep. Lark.

i have a .270 that's older than about any 2 o' you guys. it ain't never let me down and besides, my ol' man says .270's are the best and i ain't about to argue with him about it. Lark.

personally, i am not a fan of plastic tipped bullets or "premium" or solid copper bullets. i am sorta interested in trying the hornady interbonds tho. i've had such good results with the regular old hornady btsp's that i see no reason to change. i've seen the plastic tipped ones blow up too many times to trust them and i can't see how a "premium" or all copper bullet can kill any better than what i use and they cost roughly 4x as much and the copper bullets have some real drawbacks for a handloader. i use the hornadys in my ol' .270, .300 mag and .243 and they work great. they are real hot reloads tho. but you can get the same bullet in federal ammo. they are more accurate than i am and they seldom shoot through anything. i always find em wadded up under the skin on the off side. that way i know all the energy is expended inside the animal. i don't see where 2 blood trails a couple feet apart is anymore beneficial than one bloodtrail. i've never had one come apart either. which to me, doesn't really matter, as long as it's going all the way through the vitals. i used sierras for years. almost all of them came apart. but they killed the heck outta everything i shot with em. as long as you use a good bullet, it will perform at least as well as you can shoot. marksmanship is the key. a gut shot is a gut shot, doesn't matter what you use, they're gonna run off. on something as light as a coues, plastic bullets are gonna splatter em and heavy jacketed or partitions are gonna shoot through and not do as much as a bullet that expands quick. if you're really concerned over meat loss, use a .243. anything bigger will pop a coues quite badly. the biggest problem most folks have killing coues is that they have such a small vital area. it's easy to hit em someplace that won't kill em efficiently. practice is the key. if i ever hunt coastal bears or something that can kill back, i'd use a real tough bullet, and a rifle with a hole in the barrel big enough to put my lunch in. but for anything Az. has, regular ol' good bullets are fine. Lark.

ok bill. i have a couple more questions. you've confused me. you say there weren't ever any merriams in Az. but also say that some probably survived and crossed with the yellowstones? maybe i've read too much and am all messed up here, but that's my take. i have to agree that some merriams could have survived and could have crossed with the introduced elk. sounds real reasonable to me. there could be pure merriams still living in there own little herds for all i know. there is some rough country on the rim. but why would some guy over 100 years ago conspire to fake out everybody into believing there were merriams when there weren't? i see why guys would salt bogus gold mines. i see why guys would put sawdust in a noisy rear axle so they could sell it to some poor joker. but why would there be a conspiracy about merriams? i don't understand it. especially when there is at least a lot of campfire legend to substantiate that they were here. my bunch has been in Az. since the 1860's. i have a good friend who owns a ranch in the gilas in new mex. his family has been there since the 1850's. there are stories i've heard from both groups about the old elk. why the heck would they make that up? i know for a fact that there were sonoran grizzlies and mexican wolves all over this country. show me a hide or a bone from one of them? i've seen a couple grizzly artifacts. actually saw a live wolf a few times. but show me a hide from one. ain't many around. but i've seen just as much merriams stuff too. i know a guy who has what has been substantiated as a merriams shed. i've held it in my hands. he lives in RV. maybe it ain't. but i like to think it is. and i'm real confident that there were merriams elk in Az., in the white mts. i guess we'll agree to disagree. there were merriams here and the azgfd needs to do something about whatever kinda elk it is we have now. they don't belong in the cedars or the desert. Lark.

ok, ok, i gotta chime in on this now. to say there were never merriams elk here is real irresponsible to me. there are folks that say we never made it to the moon either. and folks that say there are sasquatches too. ('course bullwidgeon looks like a pygmy sasquatch, so maybe there is such a thing). there is a museum here in the phx area that has a couple merriams racks. at least one of them was taken by an old timer from the round valley area. seems like it was an eagar or a crosby, but heck, everbody from RV is either an eagar or a crosby. but they have the racks there and they weren't taken by this guy of questionable repute. i've read the same old article multiple times about a guy that collected a couple merriams toward the end of the 19th century, and he hunted out of RV and wasn't down on the rez. and he was commissioned by someone to do it. maybe the smithsonian. i can't remember for sure. but he wasn't some ill-reputed con man. the merriams was here. too many stories about em to not be and the country is just too good o' elk country for it to not ever have elk. and indians didn't wipe out all the ice age animals. the weather had as much to do with it as anything. get it, ice age? no glaciers in nevada anymore. things change. sure, the natives got all they could, but i don't buy 5' tall guys with clovis points wipin' out mammoths, mastodons and cave bears. maybe the merriams was a victim of circumstances other than market hunting? maybe it was just their time. been a lot of species extinced just because. maybe there were a few merriams who made it and interbred with the yellowstones that were transplanted. sounds reasonable. you ever been in squirrell or chitty canyon or off in KP? there coulda been thousands of em in there and nobody see em. heck, they're trying to introduce wolf/dog crosses and pass em off as wolves right now. maybe we got some sorta super elk. sorta like a brangus. whatever we have, i'm glad we got em, but i wish they'd keep em in the high country. whether or not they were plains animals, they don't belong in the sonoran desert. leave if for the javelinas and desert muleys. and whitemen didn't wipe out the buffalo with muzzleloaders either. the vast majority of the big time bison killin' happened after the civil war and was done with big Sharp's breechloader rifles with metallic cartridges and by the new repeaters that were real common after the war. mainly the winchester '76 with .45/60 ammo. and they shot a bunch of em trains, with "hunting parties" on em. we can speculate all we want about what was. only thing that really matters now is what is. wildlife has to be managed. with interstates running everywhere and towns popping up faster than gopher holes and all the other development, everything in between has to be managed. no way to not do it and be successfull. if animals are left unchecked, only the strongest will survive. kaibab and the strip is seeing the effects of decades of poor management. no lion control, too many coyotes, elk infestation, bison encroachment, drought, too many doe permits, too many permits in general, etc. Ted Riggs predicted this 35 years ago. i heard him say it. if you don't know who Ted is, find out. i doubt he even graduated from high school, but he knew more about the country north o' the colorado than all schoolys combined ever will. same as my ol' uncle Earl. another legendary govt' trapper. these guys knew what was. i've seen Earl's predictions come to pass so many times it's scary. elk need to be kept in areas where they can do well and not be a big detriment to the other animals. the desert ain't that place. there are ways to do it, but they ain't PC. the azgfd has to bite the bullet, and soon, and do the right thing. Lark.

lemurs? ain't it lemmings?

a few pages in a magazine can't even make a scratch on the surface of this ol' mountaineer's life. he was one cool dude for sure. he had more stories that could make me cry with laughter. just BSin' with Lamell was better than any McManus book i ever read. i don't know why his cousin, Elro, never shot him, he pulled so many tricks on him. last time i saw him i could tell he was in the downhill slide. but he never complained. never whined. i guess he was maybe the toughest guy i ever knew. maybe even tougher than my dad. well, all the animals are safer now for sure. you climb that mountain a shoutin', Pard. Lark.

there are depredation deer tags available right now. call 1-800-DEERTAG for the info. some sorta special deal they have going. supposed to be some available for Kaibab even. Lark.