bowsniper

Yeah, don't bother. It's good to have a plan B if the rains hit. Mark

A few weeks ago in Tim’s crazy lion taxidermy thread, I posted that I have a coues mount that I wasn’t happy with. I did not post the name of the taxidermist, but I will now: Clay Goldman at Mogollon Taxidermy. Someone pointed out my post to Clay, and he knew it was a mount that he did for me four years ago. Clay wrote me a letter, said that he was sorry that I was not happy with his mount, and enclosed a check for a $600 refund! He had worked on my mount a second time, and he said that he would have completely remounted it, but four years was too long ago. So what’s going on here? First off, I feel like a jerk. Secondly, I am the only guy I ever met who did not like Clay’s work. Hundreds of guys like Clay’s work, so obviously the problem is with me, not Clay. So what’s my problem? I dunno, maybe I’m turning into a grouchy old fart like .270. I think that I looked at my first coues mount for so many years, that when Clay’s mount looked different, I couldn’t get used to it. They weren’t that different, just a slightly different look. Clay’s mount has spectacular details. Like I said, hundreds of satisfied customers can’t be wrong. Clay showed his true colors by sending me that refund check, so maybe I can feel a little less jerk like if I let everyone know about Clay’s business practices. Clay is an official sponsor of CWT, so I can post his website! www.mogollontaxidermy.com Here is a picture of the check. I have been looking at the mount for 4 years now, and I'm liking it better and better. There is no way I could ever cash the check, so I voided it. I’m not going to send it back to Clay, because I want to keep it around as a humbling reminder. Thanks Clay! You are a great Taxidermist, and an extraordinary business man. Mark

I have seen the "OK to pee off a tree argument" also. The other day on a long drive, my kid made me keep stopping so he could pee. I finally told him "no" and made him pee into a drink cup. That cup stunk so bad that I had to pull over to pour it out! I'll keep peeing into a bottle. Why take the chance? +1 on the sun and shade. Even at 7000 feet in August in AZ you can get fried and sweat. The scent from the sweat will not be helpful. Make sure that your stand is in the shade, or use a camo umbrella for shade. Mark

Lots of good info here. I could type for hours on treestand hunting, but I just don't have the bandwidth right now, so I'll just say a little about safety. Five years ago, I was severely injured when my "saftey" harness failed. I went through the whole lawsuit ordeal and eventually won. In the meantime I learned a lot about treestand safety. Here's a link: http://www.fallsafety.com/pdfs/tree_stands.pdf My Gorilla "safety harness" failed because it was poorly designed. During litigation we discovered that Gorilla had one "harness engineer" in the US. His job was to answerer emails. All of the design, testing and manufacturing was done in china by some Lee Phong chinaman who had no training in anything and probably was paid $10 a week. The lesson here is that just because the harness has a major manufacturer name stamped on it, don't assume that it is safe. Do some research and a sanity check of the harness yourself. Fixed and climbers both have pros and cons, but in the end, a fall from a climber is much more dangerous than a fall from a fixed. If you fall from a climber, it is much more difficult to climb back onto the stand than you might think. Set up test and try it for yourself. You only have a few minutes before you start to have circulation and breathing problems that will complicate your efforts to climb back onto the stand. With a fall from a fixed stand, you have a ladder or steps to take the harness pressure off of your body. You can either climb easily back into the stand, or cut the harness and go down the steps. Every year a lot of hunters are found dead dangling in their harness off of a climber. There are products on the market that allow you to lower yourself to the ground from a fall off the climber. I'd be happy to share more treestand hunting info with you about ranging, shot placement, stand placement, etc. Send me a PM and maybe we could link up on the phone. Good luck! Mark

Jim Hartsock, Owner of Southwest Wildlife is doing a full body on my archery lion. I stopped by his shop today and the form is looking perfect. Jim is going to put the skin on and bring it to my house next week (Scottsdale to Glendale) to make sure that the lion head and eye viewing angle are perfect. I have NEVER had customer service like this from anyone! I am stoked! Mark

Way too exciting for me! Thanks for the link! Mark

+1 I plan to keep my CCW current so I can carry in other states that have reciprocity agreements with AZ. Also, the training is very good. They don't teach you how to shoot, but they teach you the laws, legalities, and consequences of using lethal force in AZ. Mark

Go to the taxi's studio and study an example the animal you want done. Take pictures, then do the same at other taxi's. Compare, even post them on the forum and ask for opinions. When you decide, go back to the taxi and ask him if the same person who did the mount you like, will do yours. Let him know that you are a perfectionist. Then you will do fine. Years ago, I took my 95" velvet coues buck to a highly recommended taxi, a sponsor on this site. I liked his work on coues, so I picked him. When I got it back, it didn't look anything like his work. I never found out for sure, but I suspected that he sub-contracted it out to another taxi. Two taxis that I would recommend that you should look into are Mark Plunket, Wildlife Creations in Camp Verde, and Jim Hartsock, Southwest Wildlife, Scottsdale. Do your homework and you will get a mount that you like. Mark

Ernesto, That was an offer of a true gentleman. Mark

Scary stuff!! http://www.usdebtclock.org/

I'm in for $100. Here's the link: https://az.gov/app/keepazsafe/donation_information.xhtml Mark Arizona.pdf

What he said. You also lose some speed with a peep tube. Mark

Ditto. I have always used a winner choice string, and the tubeless peep. Your peep will not rotate for thousands of shots. When it starts. It's time for a new string. Also, FYI: If you are using a peep tube, make sure that you are wearing some sort of glasses. There was a guy on this site a few years back (maybe it was bowsite?) that had his tube break and snap into his eye. He lost his vision in the eye. Mark

Unbelievable! Disgusting! This is actually the same crap that all politicians are slinging, they are just not so blatant. Just look at the crap that bama is slinging today! Mark

Let's see.... Isn't General Petraeus the same guy that Hillary, moveon.org, and the rest of the socialist party renamed to "General Betray Us" a few years ago? If the socialists were correct, then pres bama named a traitor to lead our troops in Afghanistan! Good choice bama!! You don't get to be a General by being stupid and not being a sly politician. General McChrystal most definitely knew what he was saying would cost him his job. He just couldn't stomach bama's incompetency anymore. You will see him around again when the socialists lose control of the government. Mark

I just talked to a friend who is an E7 in Afghanistan. He said that every one he knows is glad to see McChrystal go because McChrystal would hardly let them engage the enemy for fear of collateral damage. He had 19 guys in his unit, and lost 10 of them wounded or KIA in the last two weeks. Please say a prayer for James in Afghanistan. Mark

I'll be driving through NM next weekend, (I-40 and I-25 going to Denver) and I want to show my deprived kids what a 4th of July celebration used to be like for the old man. I plan to blow a couple of hundred dollars at some roadside fireworks stand and head off into the desert and have a "blast" with my family. I've lived in AZ so long (no fireworks allowed) I just want to make sure that I'm not missing the boat about NM laws. Can I legally head to the desert and blow off whatever I buy at the roadside stand? What about local or specific fire restrictions? Any BLM or Forest Service restrictions? Thanks! Mark

So if the mountain is such a tender box, why didn't the forest service ban campfires? The forest service should take a major part of the blame for this one. Mark

Be extra careful with a climbing treestand. They do slip sometimes and you need to be anchored. If it does slip or you fall out of a climber, it is difficult to descend, and you will die if you hang there too long. With a climber, you should consider one of the descent systems out there. PM me if you want more info. Be safe. Mark

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/20/nava...ex.html?hpt=Mid What a scum bag! Disobedient brats no martyrs for freedom By Ruben Navarrette San Diego, California (CNN) -- When five students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, taunted Latino students by wearing T-shirts bearing the American flag on Cinco de Mayo, even though administrators had told students beforehand not to wear flag clothing that day, they caused a ruckus, divided a community and reignited the culture wars. And, it turns out, they were just getting warmed up. The ruckus ensued when Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez -- apparently fearing that the boys' fashion choices might provoke a violent response from Latino students who have developed an emotional attachment to the faux holiday as "their day" -- told the youths to either turn their T-shirts inside out or go home. The lads chose the latter, and were, for this act of defiance, magically transformed from bratty kids to defenders of individual freedom and innocent victims of the establishment. Why not? Everyone else in society plays the victim. Nothing is ever anyone's fault. Someone else is always to blame. And so why shouldn't these five young men get a chance to portray themselves as an oppressed minority? This part is even more bizarre: Conservatives are defending the rights of the students because the story fits into their paranoid narrative of cultural displacement -- where the Mexican flag is supplanting Old Glory, Spanish is drowning out English, the tortilla has bread on the run, and so on and on. This is outrageous, conservatives say, as they blast school administrators by accusing them of overstepping their bounds. Conservatives take this stance, but have spent the better part of the last three decades asserting -- in legal briefs and oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court -- the power of public school administrators to maintain order and prevent disruptive behavior even at the expense of curtailing students' First Amendment rights. In a classic and clumsy flip-flop, conservatives were against First Amendment rights for public school students on campus before they were in favor of them. You see, conservatives usually don't give a hoot about whether students have the right to express, on school campuses, their opinion about this or that -- especially if doing so threatens to upset the social order. Now, suddenly, because of the Morgan Hill case, they've found religion and they're ready to side with the American Civil Liberties Union in defense of free speech rights for students? Talk about strange bedfellows. I got a chance to see this hypocrisy up close last week when I appeared on CNN to discuss the Morgan Hill story with Kris Kobach, conservative legal analyst and law professor. Kobach defended the right of the five students to defy school administrators in exercise of their First Amendment rights to free expression. He cited case law that is almost as old as I am -- Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). In that case, which involved high school and junior high school students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended as a result, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and declared that students don't "shed their constitutional rights to free speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." But since Tinker, the justices have curtailed First Amendment rights of students, especially when the expression of those rights is disruptive, in three other cases: Bethel School District v Fraser (1986), where the Supreme Court held that a high school student's speech during an assembly -- filled as it was with sexual innuendo -- was not protected; Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier (1988), where the court held that schools can regulate the content of student newpapers; and Morse v Frederick (2007), where the court held that officials can restrict student speech at a school-supervised event even if it takes place off-campus. Interestingly, in the Morse case, the school administrators were represented by no less prominent a conservative than Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater Independent Counsel. The truth is that school administrators have a greater ability to restrict the speech of their students than the government does to restrict the speech of the general public. That's what the Supreme Court has said repeatedly in the last three decades, and that's the way it is.

Please pray for Sadie Anderson. Sadie is an 11 year old girl who is an amazing hunter. She has been diagnosed with Auto-Immune Hepatitis, and she is in desperate need of a liver transplant. Because of the illness, her family is also in desperate financial need, and could use immediate donations for Sadie’s care. Please pray that our Lord God’s healing hand touch Sadie, comfort her family, and provide for them during this crisis. Here is the thread about Sadie: http://forums.coueswhitetail.com/forums/in...c=18820&hl= FATHER GOD, I LIFT SADIE UP TO YOUR LOVING AND HEALING ARMS. I PRAY THAT SADIE AND HER FAMILY KNOW YOUR ENDLESS LOVE FOR THEM. I PRAY THAT YOU HEAL SADIE AND COMFORT HER FAMILY. PLEASE GUIDE THEM THROUGH THIS DIFFICULT TIME, AND USE IT FOR YOUR GLORY, SO ALL CAN KNOW ABOUT YOUR LOVE FOR US. IN JESUS' NAME, AMEN

Costco has them for $219 as will cabelas this weekend. I have done some research and there are lots of rumors that the 60 will be replaced with a new model. The new one is suppose to have the same screen size. The biggest difference is that it will have some kind of wireless function so you can send your way points to your buddies. Mark

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1012872 The federal government is considering a lawsuit against a law that the U.S. attorney general hasn't even read. Recent polls show solid public support for Arizona's new law aimed at cracking down on out-of-control illegal immigration in that state. Polls show more than 70 percent of Arizona residents support the new statute, and more than 60-percent support nationally. The law drew immediate protests from supporters of illegal immigration, even though it clearly prohibits "racial profiling" -- one of the major criticisms leveled by protestors. Based on the media coverage of the protests, the Obama administration has indicated it may file a federal lawsuit against Arizona to block the law. On Thursday, Congressman Ted Poe (R-Texas) of the House Judiciary Committee questioned U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about the administration's plans regarding the controversial law. Poe: "The law is supported by 70 percent of the people in Arizona, 60 percent of all Americans, and 50 percent of all Hispanics, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll done just this week. And I understand that you may file a lawsuit against the law. It seems to me the administration ought to be enforcing border security and immigration laws and not challenge them, and that the administration is on the wrong side of the American people. Have you read the Arizona law?" Holder: "I have not had a chance...I've glanced at it, I have not read it...." Poe: "It's ten pages. It's a lot shorter than the healthcare bill, which was 2,000 pages long. I'll give you my copy of it if you'd like to have a copy. Even though you haven't read the law, do you have an opinion as to whether it's constitutional?" Holder: "I've not been briefed yet. We, as I've said, have had under way a review of the law. I have not been briefed by the people who are responsible for that review." Poe: "When do you think you will have an opinion as to whether the law is constitutional?" Holder: "I've used this term a lot, but I think this is accurate: relatively soon. I think that we have to...there has been much discussion about this...." Poe: "It's hard for me to understand how you would have concerns about something being unconstitutional if you haven't even read the law. It seems like you wouldn't make a judgment about whether it violates civil rights statutes...if you haven't read the law. So can you help me out there a little bit, how you can make a judgment call on that but you haven't read the law and determined whether it's constitutional or not?" Holder: "What I've said is that I've not made up my mind. I've only made the comments that I've made on the basis of things that I've been able to glean by reading newspaper accounts...television...talking to people who are on the review team looking at the law. But I've not reached any conclusions yet...I've just expressed concerns on the basis of what I've heard about the law."

A class 1 misdemeanor with a firearm means this boy can no longer own a firearm. That ought to sting a little! Mark