AZ RANGER

Congrats

Happy B-day. I hope you have a good one.

Great read, those are some lucky kids.

was your L.E. vehicle parked in the driveway?

I really enjoyed that. great hunt

congrats to the young man. Very cool

That is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Are most of them from one general area or spread all over coues country? What a collection. You should start a Coues deer museum or something.

Nice Bull I agree with on Unit 1 being the best. Way to stick with it.

123 1/8 awesome buck

Amanda, In my mind all the elements of a great hunt and a great time are there. The harvest is only icing on the cake. I would love to be able to spend two weeks in the woods every September with or with out killing an elk. Great story and pics. Thanks for sharing

I hunted at about 8500' in unit 1. The rut seemed very strong to me. Maybe I was in one of those pockets but every morning until about 0830 and every afternoon from about 3:00pm on through the night the bugles were everywhere. They did not seem to be fighting and I did not see any broken tines until the second weekend of the hunt though. They were bugling throughout the night as well. We were awaken by them nearly every night around 1 am when they would come through camp. With the moon so bright you could see them clearly at night, my dad had a bull and his herd walk right by his tent screamin the whole way. Everyday I would go out wondering if I wasn't going to find them screaming but I always managed to get right in the middle of them. In the 14 days I spent there the only day I did not have a ton of screaming elk all around me was the day I shot my bull. It was unusually quiet to the point that I was leaving to try another spot, and then they started. They were just as strong as every other afternoon they just stated later this time. I stayed in the same 2 mile radius for the whole hunt. I don't know what the rest of the unit was like but it was good where I was.

I also missed this post, congrats on a excellent pronghorn. I can't wait until I draw a tag, looks like a blast.

I was lucky enough to draw a unit 1 bull tag this year, and what an expierience it was. I arrived at camp on the Tuesday before the hunt started, and just got home today. I had a good friend come up and help me for the first 6 days. We were tangled up with a lot of bulls everyday. We called in several small bulls over the first couple of days but the herd bulls would not leave thier cows. On Sunday we were calling a bull and I started rakeing brush to get him going. I pulled a branch off of a snag laying on the ground and aparrently that was the front door to a hornet's nest and I was not invited to come in. I got stung about a dozen times as I ran away swatingand yelling. That bull was curious about all the noise and he still came up to investigate but he was not the one I was after. Finally I got got a shot at a good bull on Monday but I shot over him at 45 yards. Tuesday I had the same bull in range again but it got too dark before I got a clean shot. My buddy left on Wednesday so I had to change my strategy to trying to stalk in on them after I located them. My five year old son came up on the second weekend and together we snuck in on several herds of elk I got another shot with him by myside as we snuck in on a 350 bull. We cut him off as he was trying to catch up with his cows. I did not have time to range him cause he had us pegged and I misjudged the range and shot over his back too. My boy says "he was huge dad". I wanted so bad to get one with him there but it did'nt work out. After I miised we did get to see that bull fighting with another big bull, really cool stuff, but it was to dark to try and move in for another shot. I went to bed Sunday night with a feeling that Monday was going to be the day for me. I got into them good in the morning but they went to bed before I could get in position. That afternoon they were slow getting started and I was feeling discouraged. I was heading back to my bike to change areas when a bugle lets out. I quickly cut the distance and find myself 40 yards from his cows. I am just below the ridge with him on top. I hear him start running around and screaming then I see a satelite bull that he ran off. The herd bull is on top still but this satelite bull is now 40 yards from me and walking right to me. He walks up to about 5 yards of me and looks right at me. I decide I am going to try and take him. I know if I draw my bow at this point he is going to run, but I figure he will stop within range and look back. So I draw and he bolts away and then stops at what I guessed was 40 yards. I let it fly and it goes in a little high of where I aim but still hits him good. He goes about 20 yards and hits the dirt, then he gets up and runs another 40 yards and piles up for good. He is not the big one I was looking for but I was starting to feel as if I was going to go home empty handed and I could not let that happen. He is my first Bull and I could not be happier. I was lucky that he died about 20 yards from a road and a couple of other hunter helped me load him up, but i was still up untill 1 am getting him skinned and quartered. It is a heck of job by yourself. I had the time of my life on this elk hunt and I am so happy I was sucessfull.

GREAT BULL enjoy your mission,

Sounds like a great hunt. Congrats on your first archery bull.

Hey Cade that buck is a freak way to make it happen.

Heading to Alpine on Tuesday. Anybody else on here have Unit 1? I can't wait..

All right man! That's awesome

no problem.

Amanda, I know a Paul from BTA I don't know if there is more than one Paul there. Is he the volunteer program coordinator? Just wondering. That's him!! How do you know him? Amanda I work for Az State Parks and he came and stayed in our campground last week. I talked to him on the phone and Email but did not get to meet him while he was here. Small World huh

I have the Minox they are really good, but they are heavy as mentioned before. I have not really spent any time behind the others except for the pentax. They were OK but I like the Minox.

Amanda, I know a Paul from BTA I don't know if there is more than one Paul there. Is he the volunteer program coordinator? Just wondering.

I hit a buck today at 12:20. He was quartering towards me and my shot hit him pretty far back. He spun around and ran off. I was not sure about the shot so I waited a little over an hour be tracking him. I found my arrow about 15 yards from the spot I hit him. I had blood all the way to the fletchings but it also had some guts on it. I looked around for a blood trail and could not find any. I circled around and ended up jumping him up about 40yards from where I found the arrow. I did not have time for another shot and he dissapeared into the brush. I did not want to push him furthur so I backed out hopeing he would lay down again. There was a football sized pool of blood where he layed. I am thinking of heading back this evening to look again but am afraid that he may still not be expired. I can go in the morning but I have to be at work at 0900. Also figure a coyote or lion might get him tonight. what do you guys think. How long can should it take. I fell terrible BTW that he his sitting out suffering.

Found this in the road. Someone else already killed him and took the rattle. I can't figure out what kind it is. Most of the Az Blacks I have seen pics of do not have the diamonds on the back that are as pronounced as his. What do you think?

Well I got out again this morning for the third time to try and locate him. I hiked up to the spring and circled back around the the ridge above where I shot him. I glassed for about an hour looking for any movement from coyotes or buzzards. I found some buzzards perched up on the opposite ridge. I watched them for close to an hour and they never moved. I also saw a hawk fly into some brush down below me so I decided to investigate that, but there was nothing there. I decided I would give it one last shot at circling around the area near where I shot him, but I did not turn anything up. It was only a spike so it does not hurt as bad as if I had lost a toad but that did not make me want to find him any less. Now I am trying to decide if I should consider myself done for the year since he is likely dead somewhere.I did have a good buck come in before I shot the spike that i would have love to take but he did not quite give me a shot. My unit 1 archery bull hunt is coming up so I have that to look forward to. I guess I will have to learn from this mistake. Here is a shot of the buzzards. And here is shot of the other buck. This pic was taken on opening day at 2:51pm I left my blind at 1:00. He came in again 1 hour before I shot the spike but he never gave me a shot. He looked like he had some more tine length this week also. He gave me the fever for a good while.