bowsniper

A good way to prevent ID theft is to keep your SSN out of your wallet. Both the state and game and fish will give you an alternative ID number for you drivers and hunting license if you ask. Also cut the ssn out of you health insurance card. Just make sure that your ssn in nowhere in you wallet, purse, or vehicle. Also, shred or burn any old documents with your ssn or account numbers. One night, I saw a guy digging through the trash bins at the post office looking in discarded mail for info. A lot of people, myself included, pick up mail at their PO box, and throw stuff out at the post office trash bins. A couple of years ago, I knew a guy who went out to his truck one morning to go quail hunting, and his truck was gone. After, calling the cops, they took his buddy's truck and still went hunting. As they were driving down I10 towards Tucson, they saw his truck parked on the side of the interstate. They stopped, and there was a mexican national (on his way to mexico) sleeping in the cab. They called DPS and had him arrested, but not until they "discussed" the situation with the guy for quite sometime. bowsniper

Actually, I was being sarcastic. Bowsniper

I'm shocked! I can't believe that you boys are agreeing with them tree huggers! Bowsniper

I'll be there, hope to meet some of you guys there! Bowsniper

Any rookie (like me) can get a coues from a treestand, but I was wondering how many of you guys have actually arrowed a coues with a spot and stalk? How long have you been trying, and how successful have you been? What tactics did you use? I can't take a step in the forest without waking the dead, so any tips would be appreciated. Bowsniper

TREESTANDMAN, Remind me never to piss you off! Bowsniper

A buddy of mine, David Myrick, got this nice buck spot and stalk two weeks ago.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I don't think there has been a case of a human dieing from CWD yet, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, I think that if someone actually did die from it, it would be a significant event and get a lot of attention. Bowsniper

Newbee, The .243 will give you a little less drop than the .308, about 1.5 inches at 300 yards. But the .308 will give a lot more energy. I would go with the .308, then you could also use it for elk with a heavier bullet. It would also give you a better chance on a marginal coues hit. Bowsniper

Lark, are you sure you know all the details or do you just dislike game wardens? I think that scum bag got off easy with manslaughter after executing them by shooting them in the head after he already wounded them. He ought to rot in jail for life. Bowsniper

Try Mike's unit 23, there are lots more over there, bigger too! Bowsniper

I own a PSE, and it was noisy until I put on leeches and stabilizer/damper, and now it's very quiet. Ask at any archery shop and they will tell you that the PSE customer service is very good, I had a limb crack and PSE replaced it no questions asked. That being said, I read a lot of archery forums, and A LOT of guys say "try a Mathews and you'll never go back". Try them all, and go for the one that feels the best to you. Bowsniper

I have the Remington 300 mag in the PSS model, (police sniper model), 26" bbl, HS precision stock. It will shoot 3/4 to 1 MOA (about an inch group at 100 yards) I killed my only carp with it at 565 yards a few years ago. It is a pig to carry, but great for the long shoots. Remington, along with Ruger and most major MFGs use hammer forged barrels that aren't that great, but accuracy also depends a lot on the ammo, the trigger, and the action. Use a good ammunition, and spend $100 -$150 for a good smith to tune the action and trigger, and you should have a pretty accurate rifle. Bowsniper

Thanks guys for the great stories and stalking tips. GMM, I'm glad to hear that someone else couldn't get their bow back when they were excited. When it happened to me, I thought that dang bow was broke. It took me 10 or so seconds to figure out that it was ME that was broke. Dan H, I've only had my scentlock suit for 6 months, but I'm completely sold on it. It works, and it makes getting ready for the hunt a whole lot easier. Instead of washing a set of camos for each day in the special soap, along with socks and underwear, and then hanging them on a clothes line to dry so the dryer don't sink'em up with crap the wife uses in the dryer, and then putting them in plastic bags and yadiyadiya....just wash and dry (in the dryer) your scent lock suit and you are good for 5 or 6 days of hunting. And it works great. This last hunt, over about 5 days, I had over 20 does and three bucks under and around me, in various wind conditions, and as far as I know I didn't get scented out once. Being in a treestand probably did help some too. Bowsniper

My use of adjectives may have been a little harsh, but I stand by what I have posted. Public lands ranching is a government welfare program that costs much, dergrades wildlife habitat, only benefits a few with our hard earned tax dollars, and contributes almost nothing to the T-bone supply at Safeway. As far as the range needing cattle because there aren't any range fires anymore, that's crazy. Don't take my word for it, spend some time in some non-cattle grazed range and decide for yourself. Or, have a look at the pitures below. Take a look at the "drastic decline". Anyway, I think that most of us managed to agree that cattle grazing does impact wildlife habitat, and that's our common interest as hunters. Now, with this "Ranching for wildlife" B.S. being rammed down our throats by the ranchers, maybe we should take a new look at how ranching and ranchers effect us as hunters. Bowsniper These pictures are from Pinto Creek, on the Tonto National Forest, just upstream of the steel bridge on FR287. The one on the left was taken in 1992, and the one on the right was taken in 2000, after the cattle had been removed.

Tonto, if that's true, how did the range ever evolve and survive before cows? Bowsniper

I tried this year without success. I was listening to a Primos "How to Rattle" tape, and that good old boy Wil Primos said, "ifin them bucks don't come in after rattlin a while, you'all better move cus thar ain't any of them bucks round". Bowsniper

Don't worry, the beef supply is secure without public lands ranching. Less than 2% of our beef comes from cattle grazed on public lands. The other 98% comes from feed lots and private grazing lands. The farming issue is another animal. This thread and my gripe was about cattle grazing on public lands, that degrades wildlife habitat, costs a lot of taxpayer money, and benefits no one, except the public lands rancher who gets to graze his cattle for $1.30 a month, while the free market value is over $9.00 a month. Bowsniper

That's complete hogwash. The typical private land in-holding is only 2 or 3% of the entire public land grazing permit. Even if it were sold off and developed, which may or may not happen, the 2 or 3% loss of land would be far offset by the drastic improvement of the range quality by removing the cattle. All wildlife would benefit by removing the cattle, especially the elk, which directly compete for forage with cattle. If there is one thing that ranchers really hate, it is having to share their grazing lease with elk. They even try to claim financial reparations when the elk eat public land forage on "their" allotment. One thing that the original post neglected to mention was the cost of the BLM and Forest Service to administer the public land grazing allotments. The G.A.O. (Government Accounting Office) put the cost of administration at over $10 per AUM (animal unit month). Compare that to the ranchers that are only charged $1.30 per AUM. That means that while the grazing fees generate about $6.9 million a year as stated in the original post, the government spends $53 million a year to run the program. That's a welfare program for ranchers with our tax dollars. Buying out these public land parasites would not only benefit wildlife habitat, but would also save money in the long run. Bowsniper

They already did this to 24A by adding an early muzzle loader hunt last year. Bowsniper

So why is this a bad thing? At least it will free up some hunting tags from the land owner tags. If this happened in AZ we wouldn't have to worry about this "Ranching for wildlife" crap. Bowsniper

I found fresh scat yesterday in 24A. Bowsniper

I'm wondering about: "all does that have not been bred go into a second cycle but it only lasts for a couple of hours." I've never heard that the second cycle only last a few hours. What do the rest of you guys think? Bowsniper

I thought that is was ANY deer that wasn't a coues!!

I haven't had any luck with rattling, but I did bring in one forkie with a doe in estrus scent. Bowsniper