AZ_Chris

Very cool.. even looks pretty symetrical in the photos too.

Thanks. It seems like kind of a small unit sometimes. There's the really popular area around the airport that everyone heads too but I've only seen lots and lots of does up in the hills there and one buck from a few miles away. Then you have Washington Camp too where quite a few deer seem to flock to but also tons and tons of hunters. I've never seen any deer in the hills with all the juniper trees just south of Sonoita but I haven't spent much time in that area. However the southeast portion seems pretty unexplored. There mostly just seems like a lot of quad trails down there and large hills only accessable by foot. Found a pretty good stash of empty burlap sacks up a trail down there once too The trail had obviously been used for awhile to bring loads up from Mexico. Last year I got really lucky on my first day down there, shot a 96 1/8" deer right at the end of the day we spotted from the road. Set out on foot before dawn and spent all morning humping over hills and *bam* saw one from the comfy truck with the heater on and radio playing about 30 minutes before sundown. It was more luck than anything I think and I'm not expecting to see much tomorrow. I've just been too busy with work to spend anytime down there scouting except for one trip I made in October.

If you can find the frequency that they are on, you can talk to them... Illigally, but you can. There is no "encryption code" this is the real world, not a movie. Get a ham that you can open up or find one that is M.A.R.S. enabled and it will talk. Their comms aren't anything like you can pick up on a police scanner (I scan TPD's radio's with an app on my iPhone). The BP is on a digital Motorola system that is encrypted. They upgraded to this a couple years ago.

That was nice of ya

The doe in the second pic kinda looks like a dog that wants to play

Last week I was too busy with family and work obligations to hunt so I think I'll be able to get a few hours in on Thursday to hunt 35B which is the last day of my tag. Can't get down there at sunrise and can't stick around till sundown because of work obligations but I'll be there in the afternoon. I was successful in the southeast portion of the unit last year and there's a few unexplored roads and trails in the same area that I'd like to check out this year. Oh well a bad day hunting is always better than a good day at work.

There's a few civilians that've been issued BP radio's like a few ranchers but like what's already been said you'll never reach them on a two-way radio. HAMM works great down there tho. Never played with a satellite phone tho.

Beautiful deer. 590 yards is one heck of a shot. What caliber was he using?

I didn't hunt there this weekend but I did stay overnight with a friend and did some scouting. Found quite a few burlap bundle sacks on our hike on Saturday but they were atleast a year old and were bleached/decaying. As expected for that area lots of PA's driving around and one even dropped into our camp around 0100. He was just checking on us because the spot we picked is a known staging area for dope loads (which is why we camped there, I like excitement ). According to him the last load that went out was about 2 weeks ago. Smugglers don't like any unwanted attention and they know when its hunting season so I think its relatively safe down there and the PA concurred so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Be on the watch tho like the the Agent said "keep your pistols cocked"

You'll be fine. Just stay aware of your surroundings and always carry a sidearm.

When I dropped my mount off this year one of the taxidermists suggested a Mckenzie mount for my buck- http://www.mckenziesp.com/Catalog35/full.asp?page=66 He said they were more of a "contemporary" style mount because there's a little more shoulder exposed than a traditional mount and you can get the forms in a couple different stages of "alertness". The necks on them appeared thinner and more elongated too which suits the smaller Coues deer. There were a few whitetails at the shop that had a McKenzie mounts and I thought they looked great. They looked more dynamic than the standard shop-made forms that looked a little more static to me. Has anyone here gotten a deer done using a McKenzie form?

Thanks for the info. We did cut the cape really long. There should be plenty of hide to work with.

Sounds good to me.

I paid $85 to get my whitetail processed in Tucson this year. It took the butcher about 5 days to process the meat. If your guy is cheaper than that I will definitely go there next year.

What's interesting is that the number of illegals the BP is catching is going down but the amount of dope they're seizing is at an all-time high. I think this is a combination of the economy being lousy so less people are coming across and the BP is getting better and better at their job every year. There's a good chance some aliens are finally deciding not to take the risk of coming across. However once the economy gets better who knows what'll happen.

Illegal alien activity tends to slow down in the cooler months... around the end of December and into January its gets very slow.. A lot of it has to do with the holidays (they like to go home for the holidays too surprisingly) and most of the migrant work they seek doesn't exist in the winter. Also its too cold at night.. in the summer they can sleep during the day and travel at night. In the winter because they can't have fires at night its just too cold. I think maybe the hunting season might even keep some of them away (more eyeballs with cellphones out in the desert). The traffickers are still basically still doing their thing but the normal illegal alien "walker" stuff tends to slow down around this time of year LUCKILY for us.

What unit were you guys in?

I'd suggest trying a Snipepod on that rifle too. They seem a little more versatile compared to the Harris bipods I've tried. I have a Snipepod on my .30-06 and I really like it.