Don Martin

I've been reading all these posts about bow fishing for carp on Lake Pleasant and Roosevelt. You guys need to come to South Cove on Lake Mead. Been bass fishing the last few days and the carp and big Gizzard shad are going nuts in the backs coves and on some big flats across from the South Cove Landing. This is all during the day! I have seen some BRUTES that just lazily swim by and/or under the boat. I haven't done this( bow fish) in over 25 years, last time was at Cottonwood Cove on Lake Mohave, my brother and I waded in the flooded trees and whacked over a hundred carp! I was shooting fingers at the time with my WING compound and my fingers were RAW! Can you guys tell me where to get some of this new bow fishing stuff at? I think I may try it again! (sold all of my archery equipment years ago). I have NEVER seen anyone out of South Cove shooting carp, you would have it to yourself! May have to start doing bow fishing trips for guys that don't want to drag their boats up here! Capt Don Martin Striper Hunters

Man those are CHUNKS! No shortage of food for those guys! Good job Don Martin

Looking to upgrade. Want a Polaris Crew (6 seater). Don Martin

Yep, not doing too bad. Also won 5 car oil changes and 3 diesel oil changes. Plus got the RMEF knife, so not too bad. Don Martin

Yep that's him! Have to this day not seen a better buck that him...though my brothers buck was CLOSE, just didn't have all that awesome length! Thanks guys! Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters P.S. No antelope tags for me or my sweetie! But she drew an early rifle bull tag, and I got a cow tag, so life is good here!

Ken: You are right, it was your son Paul. What a day to remember! I wish you guys would put that buck on the book. What a GIANT! I am getting older, but when it comes to my statement that Paul said "I was aiming behind the shoulder!" that was exactly what he said. He looked like he was in shock and I was surprised to see where he had hit him. That's why I asked him where he was aiming. But you know, that part didn't and doesn't matter. Fact of the matter is Paul got what I still believe is the best antelope taken in AZ with a muzzleloader! And I was pleased to at least having been there to watch the events unfold. Ken I appreciate your kind words about the story, but it was and will always be the right thing to do! Today in many cases, unfortunately it is about "who gets the biggest" and ethics be damned. That is a shame. In my opinion and I tell Brenda this every time when I visit her home (She and her man Paul are really good friends of mine!) , "You may not have that record book buck on your wall, but you have something you can always be proud of, you have the fact of knowing that you did the right thing!" Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

OMG, here it goes!

I can take as many as 5 on the boat at one time, though I generally prefer to keep it at 4 anglers. I think that in this day and time that we as parents and grandparents need to make sure we spend quality time in the outdoors with our kids, and these fishing trips don't generally disappoint! If the child likes to fish, then it is all the better. Perfect trips for husband/wives too. Amazing just how competitive the ladies are when they get out there and start reeling them in! I like it! This year going to try and do a lot of video on these trips too. I will also be able to give our anglers a CD of the trip.. Gonna be a great fishing season, going to the lake tomorrow to do some daytime fishing for largemouth bass and stripers. Capt. Don Martin Striper Hunters

Fellow anglers: The striper fishing this summer on Lake Mead is going to be awesome! The water is high and there are a lot of fish on the lake. I want to see more kids and their parents out there filling up ice chests with stripers. Here is what I'll do. IF you bring at least one young person with you, I'll knock off a couple of hundred dollars off a trip. Normally we book these trips for $450, but bring along a young person under 18 and I'll do it for $250. Look at the photos below and you'll see these are really good trips with us catching from 75 to over a 100 stripers a night! Be glad to give you references to check out. I've got a "system" that really works! In one "Honey Hole" last summer we took over 2,000 stripers plus 100 or so cats out of it. People tell me that fishermen are liars, but these photos pretty much tell the story. This is the real deal! There has been two articles written on our fishing business by the outdoor writer for the Las Vegas Review Journal, Doug Nielsen. One last year was about a trip with the Lee family from Las Vegas where we caught 133 fish in just four hours last July! Capt. Don Martin Striper Hunters Meadview AZ 928-303-9481

Someone asked me to explain exactly what our trip entails. The special I am offering is to encourage parents/guardians bring young anglers out and share some quality time with them. The $250 special is for two people. One has to be a young angler under 18 years old. Normally I get $100 for the next two anglers, but if they are kids, I'll do it for $50 each. Here is how a typical trip goes. You arrive in Meadview (which is about 10 miles from South Cove) about 5 p.m. and we will go to dinner at a local restaurant. (not included in the trip package). Then we go back to my house and hook up the boat and load all the gear. I do furnish bottled water, soda pop, Powerade, and light snacks. Depending on the weather (wind) we go out between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. We fish all night and head back in about 6 a.m. (stripers quit biting as soon as it gets light!) We come back to my house, ice down all the fish ( I have a commercial ice machine so you won't need ice), take everything out of the boat, and then go inside and sleep for about 4 hours. I have a 3 bedroom place up there, plenty of room, with two complete bathrooms. We get up about 11 a.m. go out and put the fish on the board and take our "Grin N Gin" photos. Power wash the boat and then we start fileting the catch. When done, they will ready for you to take home. You get ALL the fish caught on the trip. There is NO LIMIT on stripers under 20 inches long, and a limit of 20 fish for stripers 20 inches or longer. When we are done with all this, you pack up and you are ready to go! Ends up it is a two-day deal, but a heck of a lot of fun. I furnish all the bait and chum, and the special jig heads we use. I do have some (3) loaner rods/reels or you can bring your own. Spinning gear works well, with 8, 10 or 12 lb FRESH line! You just need your personal gear, a change of clothes and at least one ice chest to put the fillets in. Anytime in the summer is the best. We start catching a lot of fish starting in May, and the bite goes through the first week of August. Seems that the dark of the moon is usually good, but we've caught 'em in all moon phases. I do trips all days of the week. Weekends as you might imagine, book up fast (all weekends in June are completely booked!) but I like the weekdays as it is quiet on the lake, no boat traffic at all. It is a heck of a lot of fun. As you can see from the photos kids of all ages (and adults too) do well on these trips. For many kids, they catch more fish in one night than they have ever caught in their lifetime! The key is being able to stay awake! But if the fishing is wide open, most kids do fine! Anyway, if you're interested, let me know and I can give some dates that are still open. I'm going to start fishing for stripers in April, and if you send me your e-mail address, I'll be glad to give you a "running report" (we are going to do a newsletter this year!) on how the fishing is. If you have questions, just let me know. Good luck and good fishing! Capt. Don Martin Striper Hunters Here are some more photos of happy anglers!

Adam. Nope we don't catch big cats and its because we are fishing fairly deep (60-80 feet). We have a big fish of the year contest and in 2011 the catfish jackpot was won with a cat that weighed just under 5 lbs. Last year the "Big Cat" was won with a channel cat that weighed just 2 lbs 1 oz! Still good enough for the $130 pot though. Same with the striper jackpot. In 2011 our big fish was just over 5 lbs. Last year the big fish winner was that young man holding a striper that weighed 4.85 lbs. That too was worth $130! The other part of our contest is the team that catches the heaviest 40 fish wins a free trip for following year! Still a ton of fun and knock the heck out of the stripers. If you have any questions, give me a call. Capt. Don Martin Striper Hunters Meadview AZ 928-303-9481

I'm looking for a USED Browning, not a new one! Same for the Rock River AR. I'll take a used one....don't expect a new one.. Don Martin

What unit was that great buck taken? Don Martin

I got one of these, what did this one sell for? Might sell mine! Don Martin AWO

Let me modify this offer. I'll take a Browning O/U 20 ga with the Invector chokes for this gun! Don Martin

Seldom Drawn: How about some details on your son's magnificent buck? Don Martin AWO

Tony: Thanks for the info on Corky's buck! I read your story you wrote on the hunt, awesome! Here is my best muzzleloader story about a giant buck. A number of years ago, while hunting a lady hunter named Brenda Cagle in Unit 18A on a muzzleloader hunt, I found the tallest buck I have ever seen in Arizona. We made an ardous 1.5 hour stalk on him, crawling and :duck walking" through cactus and low grass and we eventually got to with 150 yards of him and his group of 12 does. I got Brenda set up with my 50 caliber Knight rifle on a Harris bi-pod. As I glassed around one last timeI spotted a muzzle sticking out from a Spanish Dagger about 50 yards slightly in front and to the right of us. I told her we couldn't shoot, that it was obvious another hunter had somehow got to the spot first. it was his shot to take! She was crushed as she could have smoked that buck easily at that range. However ethics and fair play are the rules and I told her she had to wait. Maybe the other hunter might miss! Well he didn't and the buck was 19 inches tall with great mass. Seems like he had 7 inch bases. When we walked up to the young hunter, who had no idea what he had just accomplished, I stuck out my hand and said, "Congratulations on taking the largest antelope ever taken in Arizona with a muzzleloader!" The young man was shocked at the statment and he didn't have a camera, so I took a few photos of him and the buck. He said he thought "it might be 16 inches tall!" As Brenda walked away, now crying, I asked the young man to do me a favor. Would he sign a 8 X 10 photo of the buck that I would send to him and would he write a note on it? I sent him the photo, and he sent the photo to her. He signed it and it read, "Brenda, thanks for being an ethical hunter!" She has the picture to this day in her Mesa home. To me it is as good as having the buck there. She did the right thing. I've often wondered how many others would have waited, knowing they were looking at a true giant of an antelope? I've looked but can't find the orginal photos I took. Can't even remember the young man's name.... Anyway I told him to get it scored, that I was sure it would be the state record for a muzzleloader buck, but don't know if he ever did. I do remember he was using a borrowed open sighted 58 caliber caplock rifle. He told me he was about 90 yards away. He said he aimed behind the shoulder. He hit it right behind the left black cheek patch... Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

Just curious, what did he score? Don Martin What an incredible antleope!

Well i sure had to wait a long time, and thought we had blanked, but the Good Lord smiled on us after all. I probably drew a "coveted" antlerless elk tag in Unit 6A, while my sweetie, Page McDonald finally hit the big time drawing an early bull rifle tag, probably in Unit 10. This is her FIRST and LAST bull tag, win loose tie or draw! After this year she is applying for antlerless only! Lots of friends got lucky too. A pair of twin brothers who are good friends of mine applied SEPARATELY for Unit 23N early bull first choice (20 tags) and Unit 10 late muzzleloader (25 tags) and BOTH drew. Got to believe they have the Unit 10 ML tags... Then a husband/wife from Las Vegas who are also good friends both applied SEPARATELY for early rifle in Unit 10 (75 tags) and for Unit 6A October rifle bull hunt (225 tags) They both DREW! Probably 6A??? Another couple here in Kingman applied SEPARATELY for general rifle bull tags in Unit 6A (825 tags) and 5B (611 tags) and they BOTH DREW! Another friend of mine here in Kingman applied with his daughter for archery elk tags and they DREW. They applied SEPARATELY for archery/muzzleloader antelope tags and SHE drew! One of my NR hunters got either an 15A-15B-18A archery bull tag (25 tags) or a 6A archery (775 tags). True to my word, I said after my 2010 muzzleloader elk hunt I wasn't applying for bull tags anymore, and I don't! I'll leave that up to all of you! Another friend of mine here in KIngman drew an archery 18A tag in 2011 and smoked a 387 8 X 7 bull. Last year he had the multi unit rifle tag up here and got a 360 bull on opening day. This year he has drawn another elk (yep his third on a row!) tag, either the 15A-15B-18A archery tag or that late multi unit tag again! Talk about LUCKY! I'm sure more tags are gonna pop up in the days to come when my clients find out what they've drawn and I can't wait to go hunting elk this fall! Good luck to everyone! Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

Having just spent two weeks up in Unit 18B on the HAM hunts with friends and a client, I came away with the shocking revelation that the pig numbers From Goodwin Mesa and south to Highway 93 are WAY DOWN. Same for herds on Bozarth Mesa. Wondering what you other hunters in the unit found? This year we had 12 hunters in our annual Big Pig contest for the HAM hunt. Only 5 of those in the contest bagged a pig. Two others missed two shots. Normally we would have nine or ten hunters fill out. However what was alarming to us was the size of the herds that we found. Normally we see herds from 8-12 animals with some young ones (redds) and half growns (footballs we call 'em) in the herds. This year the average herd had just five animals, and we never saw any young ones! We found two single pigs, one group of three and about five groups with four or five animals. We found two herds with six, and only one herd with eight animals. I spoke with Erin Butler, the Region III Game Specialist and she noted that in the Decemeber surveys, the average was 8.3 animals, and that plenty of young animals were seen in the herds. She also said that the "trigger" for reducing tags was six animals. Well 80% of the herds we saw had less than six animals. So those of you that hunted the HAM hunt there I would like to know what you saw? This weekends rifle hunt could really hurt those small herds. We've got about eight hunters coming in and I'm really concerned. I know I sure won't recommend to our hunters that they shoot a pig out of a group of less than five. I don't know why the drop in numbers, is it over hunting, disease, lack of reproduction, predators (we saw a lot of coyotes on Goodwin Mesa). So if you were there, please share your information. Unit 18B is a great place to hunt pigs, sure don't want to see it ruined... Here are a couple of photos of pigs that were taken by successful hunters. The first one is of the third place pig while the bottom photo is of the current second place pig. Oh in our Big Pig contest, right now the top pig weighed in at 40 lbs 6 oz. Second is 36 lbs 11 oz and third is 35 lbs 10 oz. Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

Here is a story I wrote for our local newspaper about our sheep hunts this year! Our first hunt was in Game Management Unit 15B West. This unit’s boundaries are west from the Temple Bar road, and north and east off of Highway 93. The unit goes up to Hoover Dam and then swings east along Lake Mead to Temple Bar. It is a big unit, and in the past has produced some of the largest rams in Mohave County. But in the past 10 years, the unit’s sheep population has taken a big dip, and the quality of the rams there has really dropped. Drought and predators are suspected as being the reason for the decline in the sheep population. But for two Arizona sportsmen who beat some tremendous odds in drawing the tags this year in the unit, it would be the opportunity to go on an once-in-a-lifetime hunt. I was going to hunt with Frank Suriano, a 75-year-old sportsman from Scottsdale who was in the best shape for a man his age that I’ve ever hunted with. Assisting on the hunt would be long time friends Gene Chambers (who is 77-years-old) and my friend Jay Chan. Due to the fact I was on that late Westside Kaibab deer hunt that ended Dec. 2, we decided that we would start Suriano’s hunt as soon as I could get back home, take a few days off to recuperate from the back-to-back deer hunts I’d been on, and then head out. As it turned out we started the hunt about a week after the month long season had opened. I thought that maybe the other hunter in the unit Bret Moran, would be done, but I learned that Bret was a very committed bowhunter, and that he hadn’t had much luck. The first few days of our hunt didn’t produce many sightings. The largest ram we did see was wearing a radio collar. Suriano and I agreed that no matter how big or old he was, we were not going to take him and here is why. It costs the department a lot of money to capture and put a radio collar on a sheep, and the data these sheep provide is important to the management of the herd. Though collared sheep are legal to take, we just decided that we would not do it. The third day of the hunt we got a break. A small ram band of four rams actually crossed a wash in front of Chambers and Saki Kogianes, who had came up to help glass. We got some great looks at the rams, and I took a number of photographs of them. There were three mature rams in the group. The best ram had an ear tag that had the number 9 on it. This wide flaring ram looked to be over six years old but he seemed to have small bases. Another ram in the group had ear tag 64.This ram seemed as old as number 9, but he didn’t carry the mass in his horns. Remember this is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so you need to be certain before the trigger is pulled or an arrow is released! The third ram in the group was probably a year or two older than the rest, but he had broomed off his horns so short, as to make it easy for us to decide to pass on him. After about 30 minutes I told Suriano that we were going to pass on number 9, that we had a lot more of the unit to look in and I hoped to find an older and hopefully larger ram. But then Mother Nature stepped in. It started to rain, sleet and even snow on the highest peaks in the unit, and the wind- a curse to sheep hunters who depend on being able to glass long distances for sheep, started blowing from 20-30 mph. For three long days we didn’t see even one sheep! It is often said that sheep hunting is a young man’s game, but here on a cold wind swept ridge sat three dedicated sportsmen who ages totaled 214 years! Finally the weather cleared and the sheep started to show back up. Chan was now on board with us and so was another friend of mine from Las Vegas, Kensen Lee who came up for a day to help glass. I decided to split up our team and to try and find the ram band that number 9 was leading. Our searching through the unit had not produced another ram as good as he was, and we decided that number 9 would be a good ram to take, IF we could relocate him. Gunnar Erickson is the wildlife manager for the unit and he told me that the best sheep in the unit would score in the high 140’s to low 150’s. I felt number 9 would be in that range. Lee and I headed up a drainage towards a long finger ridge, while Chan and Suriano went to the west of us and checked out another set of long fingers ridges. Chambers would stay with the truck in the bottom of a wash and would pick us up when the day was done. As it turned out, about noon Lee and I found the ram band. Only this time there were seven rams in it. Number 9 was still leading the group. While initially we spooked them when we walked over a ridge, they ran less than 400 yards and bedded down in a canyon. Now Lee and I had a long 3 ½ hour wait until Chan and Suriano made it over to where the rams were at. Problem was they were several miles away and the hike was going to be a tough one. I took a lot of photos through my spotting scope of the sheep while we waited for our hunter and my friend to get into position. We waited on a cold, windswept ridge before Chan and Suriano finally got into position. However things didn’t go quite as planned. They were only 75 yards away from the ram band and getting ready to shoot when old number 9 spotted a little movement, and off they ran! They ran for over a mile, but Lady Luck and some great binoculars resulted in me being able to relocate them again. It was late afternoon and now Chan and Suriano had another stalk that was over a mile they to go on. Despite being exhausted, things came together right before dark when Chan spotted the rams feeding on the side of a deep draw. Chan got Suriano to within 100 yards of the rams, but Suriano’s shot was too far back and the ram turned and ran down the hill. He stopped at 112 yards and the low light and nerves got the best of Frank as he missed on his second shot. The ram ran a short distance over a ridge and bedded down but fortunately Chan quickly found him. Suriano’s last shot was on the money and his hunt of a lifetime was over. We were worn out so I made a couple of calls for help to get the ram off the mountain. The next morning one of my guides Golden Valley resident Dan Reed showed up, as did my brother Gary and friend Brian Gunnoe. With their help we got old number 9 off the mountain early the next day. Turns out number 9 was a great choice for Suriano to take. At the Region III office of the Arizona Game & Fish Dept. number 9 was aged at 7 years old and scored an impressive 153 1/8 points. G&F records indicate that this is the third largest ram taken in this unit in the last seven years, so he truly was a great trophy!

You know I remember reading something about that. Did they ever catch the thieves? Don Martin AWO

Definitely the tallest one that Mr.Nelson has taken, He also hunted with us on a muzzleloader antelope hunt in Unit 18A and took a heavy B&C buck there! Man those were the days.... Shame these two units have turned into "Nestervilles" and the antelope for the most part have been lost! Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

Here is another one that my friend and client Dan Nelson got about two miles from my brother bagged the one above. Another nice buck! This unit used to hold some really nice bucks! Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

I found this buck a few years in eastern AZ and my brother smacked him with a muzzleloader! I have about 3 hours of video of this buck, who we named "Lonesome" due to the fact he never stayed with any other antelope for very long. Just before he got him, two poachers shot at him with a 22-250 and knocked off the tip of one of his horns! We found a 22 caliber bullet hole through the top of the prong and through the top of the horn where the bullet had knocked off about 1.5 inches of the tip! Still was a great buck! Don Martin Arizona Wildlife Outfitters