Redbeard

Hey Recurveman, That is funny. I was thinking about putting my wife on the waterhole your buddy was sitting but got there a few minutes behind him. I saw him chaining his ATV to a tree about 30 feet from a drinker and less than 100 feet from a dirt tank so I figured he was just parking there. I went over to ask him if he wouldn't mind parking somewhere else but he said he was hunting there. I suggested he might want to park his ATV out of sight of the waterhole but he said something like, "How many times have you seen deer tracks around your truck when you get back." I said, "Almost never, but suit yourself if that's how you hunt." Then went on my way shaking my head. I wondered if maybe he was really trying to keep deer out of there and was sitting a different water. We saw his ATV there again the next morning in the same spot. I guess he did us a favor. We went on to set up camp and put her on a different waterhole. His brother came by while we were trying to load her deer whole into the truck so we wouldn't leave guts etc. to spoil the waterhole for somebody else. He was sitting that waterhole the next day so I'm glad we didn't gut it there and sure was grateful for his help getting the deer in the truck.

On my Oct. hunt there were tons of hunters in the general area but not one hiked in more than 2 miles except me and Andy. We saw lots of deer there. If you are wanting to get away from other hunters 2 miles ought to do it but sometimes you are going to walk right by deer to get away from people.

I have been a guide for over ten years but mostly quit about 4 years ago. I have been in the position to help a lot of people paying or not and it is always very satisfying. I used to be very secretive about everything. I hunted and scouted alone and kept info between just a couple of close friends. I realized some time ago that I don't need to keep so many secrets and it is just more fun to camp and share hunts with other folks. I still have some honey holes and little secrets but I sure don't mind sending good folks in the right direction and giving away a tip or two. I do it all the time and I guess this was just Karma coming around to help us out. If you knew my luck in hunting you'd realize I am way overdue for some of the good kind. Like I said before I'll be happy with my wife being lucky as close enough anyday. I've really enjoyed helping guys like Andy get started and seeing him take it and run so well but some of the most exciting and fulfilling hunts have been seeing my wife succeed. I know when my girls are old enough I'll get the same feelings again.

Remember most people do thing like this out of ignorance not disrespect. THey usually aren't aware they are messing up your hunt. I try to give them plenty of room. If they are being really stupid and/or unsafe I leave or go talk to them in a friendly non confrontational way and hint that mybe they could be a little more considerate. I've just learned that in some places and times we are going to be stepping on eachother's toes no matter how careful and respectful we all are. With less careful people out there it just gets worse but it is their land too... The best thing to do is not let it get to you but I know sometimes it is hard. I get more bent about the illegals since they are breaking the law already and make me feel less secure leaving my camp or truck unattended.

az huntsman, I hope you can get your wife to share in the fun and I'm honored if my story helped. My wife is a serious outdoorsperson but wasn't really into hunting. She really appreciates that we get healty meat and she likes the antlers too. I'm pretty lucky to have landed her. My little girls love hunting too so I'm loking forward to years of family hunting trips. Most of the hunting action was on top but I didn't want to camp up there because it is much colder for the kids. There were some resident deer down low but they have not really moved off the top yet. She had the E tag.

Well said. Amen!

the kids

another shot

Only you Josh would think that! It does look a bit supicious though.

This has been a weird hunting season for me. First off I've had a rough few months with my Dad and two other friends having passed away. Secondly, I never like to hunt other people's spots or info. I love scouting and having one tied up by opening day. With all the stuff going on and gas prices being so high I never went scouting for this hunt. Fortunately my good buddy and hunting partner Andy K. was on 'em like a looter in a New Orleans Wal Mart. I was leaving it all up to him and I was determined that this hunt would be fun and stress free. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Thanks for being there to make it that way Andy. Our big plans to kill one of the bucks he has trail cam pics of went out the window immediately since there were 36 trucks with God who knows how many hunters in his "secret" spot by sunup Friday. Somebody must have seen something and told everybody they knew and then some. We went for it anyway and were hiking in by 4:15 am Friday figuring we'd get ahead of everybody and let them run the deer past us. We sat in the dark for over an hour watching satellites and shooting stars cross the sky above and flashlights cross the desert below. I've never seen anything like it. Our plan worked as nobody hiked in as far as we did and we saw a ton of deer, probably 15 bucks but none of the big ones we had hoped to. I just hope some of the bucks survived all of the shooting. It sounded like opening weekend of dove season. Poor Andy and Devin have put so much scouting into that area. Hopefully it won't be so bad for archery season. We saw the biggest buck of the day while crossing a canyon to get on another ridge to glass. I stopped to take a whiz at the bottom and just about halfway through the process Andy starts shouting in a whisper, "Buck! buck! hey there's a buck!" The dang thing must have been watching and waiting for me to drop drawers because he was only about 50 yards away when he busted. Somehow I shut off the flow and grabbed the rifle in time to get a look at him as he headed up the other side of the canyon. Looked to be about 85-90" buck but I never had a good shot. I never would have thought it possible but I managed not to pee all over myself during the excitement. We hunted a different area Sat. am with the same 4 am start time. More lying on our backs in the dark satellite spotting and we only saw 8 hunters. Unfortunately only 3 bucks too. Sat. afternoon we checked out another spot where we had wanted to go earlier but thought there would have been a ton of hunters. We were so wrong on the first place we figured this couldn't be any worse. Guess what? Nobody was there. The area looked so good we both just knew we would be leaving with a buck. I had decided the next mature buck I saw was good enough. We hiked to the top of a mountain and crept up to the edge of a canyon on the other side and there was this buck standing under a tree below us looking like he was about to head out. I could see he was a good one so immediately told Andy I was going to take him. I didn't bother to count points or worry about score. I honestly didn't care. This was the perfect place and time to shoot a deer. As quick as I could I put the bipod up, ranged him at 184 yds, stuffed my ear plugs in, and as soon as the cross hairs were behind his shoulder I squeezed one off. Andy watched the bullet hit him and saw the buck drop immediately. That quickly it was over. It was 2 pm on a beautiful day so we took our time talking taking pictures and boning out the meat. We had hiked and hunted hard to get away from the crowds all day Friday and Sat. am and then there we were 20 minutes and less than half a mile from our quads and all by ourselves with nice buck. Andy is a great friend and I couldn't ask for a better hunting partner. He's always up for busting butt and hunting all day. He totally pulls his weight (except this time he forgot food and water!) I've never hunted with somebody who is so much on the same program as me. He knows how to eat lousy food, sleep in the dirt, bake in the sun, freeze in the dark, pound the crap out of gear like he stole it and love every minute of it. You shoould see what he does to boots in a few months. He had his duct taped together for this hunt. Even though we got shut down in his spot we just had a great time checking out new spots and giving eachother crap. I think Andy should start an outfitting business, "Slam Dunk Outfitters" I think his motto will be, "We're all 'buck' at Slam Dunk" Inside joke... We laughed all weekend about being "...all buck and s@%t." Hope the picture link works. http://img349.imageshack.us/img349/3323/unit33buckac6fb.jpg

I never gut an animal just do the no gut method. When I was guiding it was the only way I'd do an elk and will never go back to gutting. I was surprised to find out that not many of my clients had ever seen it done that way before. It makes doing an elk far from the roads managable. I can't believe how many people will still drag a gutted whole deer out. A boned coues deer will fit entirely in a 2200 cubic inch pack. I put some of my small gear in stuff sacks so I can tie it to the outside of the pack when I fill the pack with meat. I use heavy duty trash compactor bags to line my pack. I debone bigger animals but usualy quarter coues deer since there isn't much weight in the bones and it makes handling and butchering easier to have the bone in. I have a separate bag for all of the loose meat too. The $0.99 panchos you can buy at the checkout stand at Wal-Mart make super lightweight tarps for laying your meat on while boning. They aren't much good for rain but will help for that. When you are done just wad it up and throw it away when you get home.

Absolutely beautiful deer. Congrats Seth. BTW, Not that it matters but it looks to be closer to 95" than 85" to me.

Hey Becker, We'll meet up in Jan. if not sooner. Looking forward to it.

poor guy! Good Luck.

I love those wide bucks! Good work Darren.

Hey Griz, when is the next BIA meeting? I haven't heard a thing in a while. I got rid of my weekend job so I should be in better shape to get some stuff done but I'm still trying to catch up on all the stuff I put off in the last year.

Hey guys (and gal), I appreciate your sympathy. I sure wasn't looking for any but I know there is a good bunch here so I'm not surprised. Thanks really. I wrote the story up because it was such a fun hunt. Even considering the way we got shut down at Andy's spot. We hunted hard, had fun, and didn't get too discouraged or worked up when things didn't go as planned. It was good because I went into it with a good attitude that I was going to have fun and not worry about it the way I sometimes used to. It is so easy to get carried away (for me anyhow) with trophy hunting and secret spots etc. that sometimes the hunt itself becomes secondary to the end. I've not been too excited about hunting for awhile but the recent events in my life reminded me of what hunting used to be about for me so I decided to go back to the basics- just hunt hard and have fun then if I see a buck I want to shoot -- shoot it. Chris

Josh, That's the one I was telling you about. What was that guy's name that found the sheds of the buck Kenny Ball killed? Do you have a picture of the sheds? See any similarities? Chris

Just keep advertizing it!

If we are imagining here I'll go back to the past and say Dec. 1993 unit 8 and a certain nontypical I never had a chance to shoot but I have his sheds. Otherwise next January 31 in unit 33.

Well said Amanda. I disagree that the AGFD can't afford to do quality surveys. There are 6000 people applying for strip tags every year. That's $30,000 in application fees alone. What they need to do is rethink how they are spending money and remember where it comes from.

As far as guys with muzzleloaders not being able to kill them all... They killed about 50 million bison in about 5 years! The indians wiped out (extinct) 39 genera (100's of species) of large mammals after the last ice age in North America and they used spears. When you can hunt anyway you want 365 days a year it doesn't take long to wipe them out. The early settlers took care of a lot of things that the indians hadn't wiped out yet. We sport hunters have rescued many species from possible extinction. As Ted Nugent says if you want to have lots of some animal make a sport hunting season for it and hunters will protect it and be sure they don't go extinct. Spotted owl for dinner?

It still amazes me that even after doing a survey to determine there are 75% fewer deer than their previous estimates they still double tags and issue doe tags. Tell me they are managing for deer not dollars. About the ADA I admit that I never considered joining and here's why. A good friend who a couple years ago tried very hard to get involved with the Mule Deer Association or maybe it was the ADA by then. He was treated like an outsider to some elite group of self appointed leaders. In spite of all offers to participate in a meaningful way he was basically run off. I have had the same experience with the ABA and some other hunter organizations in AZ. It seems like sometimes they become these exclusive clubs of a bunch of buddies. Now before you go off on me let me say that I'm not saying that's the way all organizations are and it sounds like the ADA has come around and is doing good things for the right reasons and reaching out to hunters so keep up the good work. I may come to a meeting or project to help out and maybe get more involved myself. I just have a lot of irons in the fire and really don't want to spread myself too thin unless I feel like my time is making a difference and is appreciated. I am very grateful for all of the people who sacrifice their time and money to do these sorts of things. It is a thankless job sometimes and very frustrating too. I sometimes can make it to AGFD meetings and am involved in other conservation organizations too so I do my small part. You are right that the deer need more help than elk and hopefully the good work of you guys in the ADA will pay off for everybody. I thank you for your efforts. Chris Dunn

Hey guys, Haven't been here for awhile but I just got off the phone with Josh and he told me to check out this flame fest. Nice work. So get onto some constructive work and back on topic. Although I think a big part of the problem is a general degradation in the quality of land and wildlife managers with or without degrees. I have made the same kind of posts about managing the deer herd a long time ago and still nothing has changed. Like why in the heck AGFD wants to limit the number of bowhunters when they are giving out rifle doe tags and over a thousand rifle buck tags. Where the heck is the logic in that. They need to explain this. Josh is right. We need to put pressure on AGFD to actually manage the deer herd that is there now not what was there in the 60's or in the section they flew right next to the park boundary. There are a million excuses but they usually run like this. We did a survey, (a bad one that is statistically indefensible) It is the drought, We have to provide hunter opportunity, the winter range is in bad shape, we don't have enough money to do a good survey, and so on. We need to stand up and demand that they do the right thing (reduce harvest) until they can show why they want to increase tags and wipe out the remaining few deer. How can WE do anything? Well groups like the ADA need to play hardball and start exposing the failures of AGFD and the total lack of evidence by complaining to the press, magazines, state representatives, whoever will listen. They hate being criticized in public. I used to work there myself I've seen them squirm. There are great people in AGFD but the ones who seem to garner the power are the ones that like being bureaucrats. It is the same in most government organizations. Of course the USO approach might work too. Sue the AGFD for ruining hunter opportunity in AZ. Make it a class action suit and go for all of the application fees they have collected with no intention of increasing opportunity. How about the fact that my 14 bonus points for bison are now worthless for the only fair chase hunt in AZ. (house rock) There are a bunch of things we can do to put them on the run and force them to at least do some real science. By the way CHD I have a bunch of degrees and am a professional biologist. I don't think you should be so thin skinned about what Josh says. He wasn't after you but made a somewhat valid generalization about many of the so called educated people who are making wildlife management decisions. Some of the dumbest people I know have Ph.D.s. Having a degree doesn't make a person smart. Sounds like you know from experience that some of the government workers have no clue about what really happens on the ground. Furthermore government agencies are adopting the basic phiosophy that people are bad and the wildlands and wild life need to be protected from us. I call those types Urban Environmentalists. The old guard is retiring from the forest service and game departments and new college educated (liberal brainwashed usually) recreation majors are getting their jobs. They think contraception is a much more politically correct and non violent way to manage wildlife. Seriously! I teach some of these kids. So lets stop bashing and getting off topic and go after results. Just my $.02

Becker, Like I said before you earned the buck and deserve credit for hunting hard and holding off on the trigger. Congrats to you! I'm not trashing you just letting you know that big bucks aren't just everywhere so no matter how good a hunter you are if you aren't hunting in the right spot you are not going to get one. Andy told me about all your mule deer hunting experience and what a nice guy you are and that he trusted you wouldn't be taking other folks in there. Andy put you in the right spot because of all of his hard work and time scouting. He could have kept that to himself and bowhunted there every year without worry about people screwing him up but it shared it with you. You may not appreciate how rare spots like that are but you will see. You may have said thanks to him in person but this is a public forum where everybody sees what you say. When you post a picture and title "unit 33 monster" that sounds like bragging but heck I'd post my picture too if I shot that buck. When I told the story I'd be sure to mention than my good buddy Andy put me on that area and helped glassing and I am so grateful to him. That's all the props I'm talking about. I don't mean to take away from your high on this one so sorry if it sounds that way.