.270

whoever told you wild turkey doesn't cook up good, ain't gotta clue. they are so much better than a butterball that it ain't funny. but you hafta pluck em. if you skin one, they ain't all that good. there are ways to fix a skunt one, but they ain't as good. the trick is to pluck it as soon as you kill it. feathers come out quite easy. if you pack it back to show it off, the feathers sieze up and are real hard to pluck. and when i say as soon as you kill it, that's what i mean. take a couple photos and go to town. when you cook it, stuff it just like you would one from walmart and cook it up. they are better than excellent. taste a lot like quail. another way we have found that is excellent is to bone it out and cut the meat up into finger size strips, bread it and fry it just like a chicken. you'll fight over it. no, don't put one in a bucket o' peanut oil. fry it like a chicken. it is topshelf. turkeys are just like everything else. well, 'cept'n javelinas. if you take care of em right, they are excellent. if you do skin one (this works real good on honkers too, even if ya pluck em) get a a couple big fat whole chickens and pull the skin off, fat and all, and stretch it over the turkey. cover it up good, then stuff it and bake it. like i said, it works real good on canada honkers too. Lark.

when bullwodgeon gets drunk he'll crash anywhere. Lark.

i saw one in new mexico this year that stayed right in the same place. after i shot him anyway and until we loaded him up. the only way muleys stay put is when they're dead. they move around a bunch. Lark.

Power's garden trail. Lark.

It wasn't too many years ago that lions wiped out the deer on the strip. It is very well documented. There were no deer tags for quite awhile. I saw a trail camera photo from this fall that had 8 lions in it. On a stock tank on the strip. 8 lions at one time on one tank. If you want to shoot a lion, head north. There are a lotta lions and hunters aint ever gonna make a big dent in em. Lark.

it's kinda hard to understand how they can set the permit numbers for next year when the hunts from this aren't done and they dang sure ain't tallied the success numbers from the late rifle bull hunts yet. but what do i know? Lark.

only thing bad about a .270 is that you can only go down from there. Lark.

there are a lotta jags. just not here. from all the old timers i know, there never have been. it's just too far north from where they thrive. the jungles and swamps are their kinda country. both of my grandads saw them. my great uncle killed one when he was a gov't trapper. i know one other guy that killed one. a guy that is alive anyway. and they are way cool. i remember seeing one at the Az/sonora museum. huge critters. they look like through you. Lark.

i'm a recovering lion hunter. and besides, we have all been told that using dogs is unsportsmanlike. unless you're quail hunting. but, i think everyone should buy a lion tag every year and if they see a lion, any lion, they should shoot it, if they want to. lions are one animal that ain't never had a dent put in their population by hunters. too sneaky. if folks knew how close they have been to a lion, and didn't know it, they would be surprised. if someone wants to turn a treed lion lose, that's fine with me too. it's a free country. but if someone wants to shoot a young one, that's absolutely fine too. no sense in any hunter trying to put any kind o' limits on any other hunter legally taking an animal. same with deer or elk or anything. i think everyone should shoot every coyote, lion, fox, bobcat, badger, bear whatever, as long as it's legal. we've never made much of a dent in predators by just hunting. and we ain't ever gonna put a big dent in the lion population. you might do it in a small mountain range if a guy with some good dogs really concentrates on an area. but i don't see that happening. lions are big game and anyone with a tag should be able to shoot any legal one they see, if they want to. if a guy has hounds, he can have the opportunity to be a little more selective. but joe hunters is lucky to ever see one, much less shoot it. as far as night hunting and stuff, i wonder if they azgfd is trying to make up for taking 25% of the lion season away for no good reason? maybe it backfired and the lion population is getting a little too high? i can think of a couple other reasons too. someone mentioned getters and 1080. i've seen lions get 1080'd. they seem to have a real sensitive stomach and puke it up and run away. it can kill em, but it never was a very good way. all i ever saw it do was make dogs sick after they licked up the puke. they killed lotsa bears, coyotes and wolves with it, but it was never real effective on lions. @#$%%^@! stupid jerk anyway. and i don't see where a getter would be very good way either. they ain't too likely too look around for a little peice o' bait like a getter uses. they work real good on coyotes. but a #6 on a lion kill now, you can flat catch a lion that way. Lark.

todd who? he must be tho only coach in the country that never heard o' lisa love. they said they didn't hire june jones because he didn't have a good record. this guy's ain't much better and he took over a lot better teams. oh well, lets go todd whateveryourlastnameis. kill the wildcats! but, they've also said they had a coach hired a buncha times so far and it didn't pan out. Lark.

Ya can't have too much good news. Lark.

If you hit a coyote with a load of buckshot he don't know what choke you used or if the shot is deformed. Most of the time they are real close. It might just scare em to death. Lark.

Bill, only mistake you made was diggin' it up. Lark.

Az has no law concerning loaded guns or bows or guns that aren't in a case. if someone got cited because their gun or bow wasn't in a case i hope they fought it because that's BS. a guy i know and his wife were on a quad during an elk hunt and she had her rifle slung across her back. a gw got a little zealous and cited em for road hunting. i think his @$$ still hurts over it too. he actually came to their house to try and get the ticket back. having a loaded gun in your vehicle does not mean you're road hunting. doesn't even mean you're hunting. you don't even need a hunting license. i just went to town and had a gun in my pocket the whole time. this is Arizona. it's almost against the law to not carry a gun. Lark.

i've seen em rutting hard in the desert well into february. it's like old people diapers. depends. as far as calling, all i've called in were does. bucks don't seem to interested. i like the hunting shows where the guy uses a grunt call on a buck and it walks right past him to the cornpile. i don't think i've ever seen one come to a call on a phonied up hunting show. Lark.

it seems to me that you find more lion kiils that are bucks than you do does. but i've been told, and i believe it, that a buck will turn and try to fight a lion where a doe will just run off if they get the chance. trying to fight a lion is playing right into it's paws. but most of the time a lion is all about stealth and the animal is in the process of being killed before it knows it. most of the elk i've seen that lions killed were of the antleress variety tho. i've heard they can kill a big bull, but i've never seen it. seen where they killed a lotta calves and yearlings. as far as a lion doing any selective predation? no way. if they did they wouldn't kill so many porkypines. most every lion you catch has porkypine stickers in him. they kill a bunch of em because they are easy and happen to be there when they are hungry. a lion will kill a fawn, a doe, a buck, a skunk, a javelina, young bears, elk, cattle, you name it. they'll kill it. they ain't trophy hunters. it's just food to them. i've seen where they have killed other lions and eaten them. and foxes too. a smart old lion will sometimes find a trapline and figure out which way it runs and run it for you. seen that happen several times. they'll eat everything in your traps. don't know if they are just in the area and happen upon some of the traps or if they actually figure out there is some method to it or what, but i've seen em run a trapline before. sure pisses off the trapper too. but he can usually take care of the problem with a #6 newhouse. Lark.

i forgot to mention that some people are no longer relevant either. here, i'll save you the trouble of a superintellingent witty remark. "yeah, like you Lark, you're no longer relevant either". there, is that witty enough for ya? kill the wolves. Lark. L-a-r-k.

good job on the badger. good night that is a big nasty rattler! big enough for cowboy boots. i wouldn't o' let him live. them things scare me sometimes. Lark.

i've killed em with 8 shot and a 20 guage. but i wasn't calling. when i call and use a shotgun i just use 00. it always works and anymore i don't care what kinda hole they make. i would think anything 4 shot or bigger oughta work ok. depends on the range. only time i use a shotgun a lot is on a windy day in a brushy place. i have a remington 1100 special field. 21 1/2 inch full choke barrel with a 2 3/4 chamber. killed a lotta quail and coyotes with it. Lark.

the best advice is to just don't shoot one. get a tag, go huntin'. just don't shoot one. shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuddddddddder. i just can't gag it down. i'm glad folks can, but not me. if i do make a mistake and shoot one, i find some poor taste challenged feller to give it to. Lark.

shooting predators is always recomended. where i hunted deer this year i only saw a couple of fawns. saw about 25 deer, whiteys and muleys. saw 6 bucks i think. one coues spike. coues weren't legal either. seems like the biologists shoot for 20 or 30 percent buck to doe ratio. it's been a long time since college, but it seems like that is a healthy ratio. if you are seeing a lot of does it is a good thing. bucks are harder to find. because of a lotta reasons. in some states shooting does is a good idea. i think they still have a jr doe hunt in 12a don't they? most of Az just doesn't have a lot of deer. if you start shooting a lot of does, we'll have less. my kid hunted in nebraska this year. in fact we're toying with the idea of going back for the muzzleloader hunt this month. they could shoot 2 bucks and 2 does on the rifle hunt. you can also do the same thing on the archery and muzzleloader hunts. even if you hunted all the hunts. they have a lotta deer. years ago if you made the trip to kaibab you had to shoot a doe and check it in before you could shoot a buck. then you could shoot another doe too. but that was a loooooooooog time ago. Lark.

A very wise warden that I truly admired told me that the definition of hunt to him was when you actually shot at the animal. He explained that it was contrary to what one would think but explained that it was how the dept used it to keep confusion down and explanations simple. Said if someone was going down the road with a firearm you could say they were road hunting, when they weren't. They are making an effort to reduce abuse but there have been a lot of cases of overzealousness. (I hope I spelled that right). If you are in the back of a truck with a gun in your hands you may be in violation. The main thing we all to take away from this is the fact that we use tools to hunt with that can cause real tragedy and need to keep it in mind at all times. Go back to the very basic rules you learned hunters safety and remember them. Lark

del, that's just what i see as a reality. not that i think it is a good thing at all. they've been hanging by a thread for 50 years and the only way they have made it this long is because of a tremendous amount of human intervention. not all of which is poorly directed either. i just don't see where they are going to make it. the country they need has changed too much. i think it's sad too. same with wolves and grizzlies. but they are gone. extinct. yeah tony, vital. whenever i spell the word vital, i spell it v-i-t-a-l. like vital zone, vital area, vital organs, "hit it in the vitals". it's a fairly common word. is there another way to spell it? please use this superintelligence you have and enlighten me. are you kidding me or is this another one of your smarmy attempts to be cute and smart? i'm really interested in that one. even this mythical 12 year old neighbor you mention knows it. there is an old addage that says it's better to let people think you're stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. maybe you oughta cut and paste that one and put it where you can read it often. one thing about it. you are the absolute king of cut and paste. you even had to cut and paste your response. tell me, have you ever had a thought of your own or do you cut and paste them too? yeah, just an other smarmy response from a talentless, plagerizing jerk that thinks just because he says something, it makes it so, and if anyone questions you then you just cut and paste another smarmy remark. yeah, smarmy. it's a real word. it has your picture by it in the dictionary. it's a few pages before vital. that's v-i-t-a-l. you have literally become a joke. and i'm always sober. i think you are the one that should think about getting a house a little farther from the liquor store. Lark. that's L-a-r-k.

Az just doesn't have many deer to start with. This is the desert. Lark.

forkhorn, i appreciate your comments, but i have a little different take. the biggest problem with the condors is that they are practically a dinosaur that requires millions and millions of unfettered acres in order to survive. acres that don't exist anymore. they've been hurt by pesticides, urban sprawl, vast acres of farmland, powerlines, you name it, it is bad for them. and now they are trying to get them established in a place that is visited by thousands of people every day. they are trying to get them established in a place that is as unwild as los angeles. sure there is a big canyon there and they can soar around, but look at everything else that is there. none of which is good for condors. it's sad to say, but their time has run it's course. no way you're going to reverse all that has to be reversed in order for a few birds to exist. they have been declining for about 150 years ago. and i feel the main reason there is so much conversation by the condor people is for money. period. they want more money to employ themselves and keep their program going. and they need a bad guy to blame things on and the bad guy they are using right now is hunters with lead bullets. a guy has to ask himself how much he is willing to suffer in order for a few birds that are never going to recover? the farmland can't go fallow. cars and houses and all the infrastructre isn't going to go away. the condor isn't going to recover. it's too bad, but that's the way it is. so decide, how much are you willing to suffer, and when i say you, i mean everyone, in order for a few birds that are never going to recover and are never going to be a serious contributor to the habitat. if they take the bullets out, they will find another bad guy. and after they eliminate that bad guy, they'll find another one. it's the way it works. a good crisis is worth a lotta money and power to a lotta people. the condor's roll in the environment has been replaced by other animals and they are no longer a serious part of it. the same goes for these so called wolves and the sonoran grizzlies and many other animals. there isn't any wilderness anymore. none. at least not in the lower 48. there are little patches of ground we call wilderness, but true wilderness no longer exists. and the roll of the animals that haven't been able to adapt don't really exist anymore either. so everyone needs to ask themselves how much they are willing to suffer. because that is where we are at in this debate. that's the only place that is left for this debate to go. because the way things truly are, a lot of animals are no longer truly relevant. Lark.