Hyperwrx

Brother, friend, and I headed up to the North end of unit 22 for late October whitetail hunt. Had some great looking bucks on the trail cameras the previous months so we knew they were around. Brother shot his the evening of opening day at about 30 yards. We dressed it out and had to in the ice chest by 7pm. Throughout Friday I heard 10 rifle shots and had seen some ATVs moving around some of the 2 tracks so I knew the bucks would be pushed back up into the thicker Juniper brush and trees along the lower mountain fingers. Saturday morning had me creeping across the mountainside at day break watching for any movement as I crested each rise. Was hunting for a location where I could sit and glass over a few fingers running up the mountainside but the terrain never provided me with more than about 100 yards of distance, hardly worth getting my binos out. Finally after an hour of hiking up and down I found a nice point overlooking 2 draws to the mountain behind me. I could see out a few hundred yards and more importantly, there were several clearings as varying distances. Settled in and began scouring the terrain. After about 7 minutes after taking a seat I see the gray back of a deer climbing the crest of a finger 85 yards directly in front of me on the hillside. As it quietly moved along the trail I got my 6.5 Creedmoor shouldered and figured out an opening it would pass through. As it stepped out of the brush making its way through a 10 yards clearing I could see it was a healthy 2 by 2. Deciding I was going to pass on him, I was surprised to see a second buck step into the clearing as the first buck vanished into the vegetation. Following the exact same path as the first, I settled my cross hairs on him. Another 2 by 2 that looked like an exact copy of the first. Still looking through the scope following the 2nd buck, movement caught my eye to the left and another buck was pushing through the brush and into the clearing. Same 10 x 10 clearing but a slightly different path. As I adjusted my rifle slightly to get a good look at him I saw he was slightly bigger and was at least a 3 by 3. I didn't have much time to make a decision and decided I was going to take him, grunted, and he stopped, giving me a perfect broadside shot. The 143g Hornady Precision Hunter bullet cracked and he jumped, sprinting forward into the tangled brush. The 2 smaller bucks ahead of him doubled back running back down through the clearing and down the draw. A 4th buck, very close in size to the one I had shot, was the last in line and had not made it to the clearing. I saw a good rack on him as he vanished back down the hillside. I sat there for another 10 minutes, radioed my brother and friend to bring me the skinning bag as we had another deer to clean. The whitetail I had shot went about 30 yards and expired due to a double lung shot that left a silver dollar sized exit hole. I easily tracked him from where he was shot right to where he dropped due to the wide blood trail left. No visible entry on the hide. We skinned him out in a short time and packed the meat out. That weekend we saw a total of 7 bucks, and 26 deer total but only those 2 bucks of any size. Once January comes around I'll get an OTC archery tag and see if anything is left up there. 5500' in Unit 22.

Bob Small at Briarpatchcages.com might have some left. He's in Carefree. Website has cell number.

I tried taking a picture of the articles. It's the best I could do. The bobcat stuff is nothing many of you don't already know. It's just doing all the right stuff in and around bobcats and you'l call them in. Knowing the typical habitat is key, as is being patient and putting in the time on stand. That previous season I called 12 and shot 10. Never beat that record. Steve's article gives a glimpse of his vast knowledge. Steve is famous for telling predator hunters who think they know-it-all that they need to be schooled. "You don't even know... that you don't know." I can't tell you how many times I have heard that and some times even been at the receiving end of it. Great guy.

You're about the most consistent predator caller around. If you were down here in the lower deserts with our cat/fox numbers you'd wear that 870 out.

75% of the lions I have called in came all the way in to the e-caller. A few of them were in Juniper covered hills and came walking in at a slow gate, pausing, and continued all the way in. 1 was 33 yards then it stopped and looked straight at me. At the time I thought it was the biggest bobcat I had ever seen. When it came out from under a shady area I saw it was a lion. The caller was about 10 yards in front of me up an incline thick with juniper bushes. I had chosen a path about 5 yards wide to try and get foxes to walk through or up it. Next thing I knew a lion was standing there looking at me. I raised my .17 Fireball and centered the crosshairs between his eyes and gave him the worst headache he had probably had to date. Another was up on the rim. Thick juniper, calling foxes again, never saw the lion until he stepped out from the underbrush and put his face down to the caller as it played gray fox distress at full volume. Distance was probably 30 feet. It was a few days before lion season opened. He turned around after 5-7 seconds and I never saw him again. Another was down by Tucson and after 30 seconds of calling on the first stand of the morning a female lion came walking in to a bird distress sound. Grass was about 2-2.5 feet tall and all you could see was her head/shoulders as she came in. 12 yards away she took #4 buck to her midsection right behind her front leg. Instantly went down and tail began flipping. Another one in same area came into the call at dusk. Thick cover and I lost her along a pathway at about 75 yards. It was too dark to see well and I chickened out and went back to the truck looking over my shoulder the whole way. Had a few more look at me from a distance 150+ yards and never commit. They loose interest over time and wander off. I've went with Mark Healey a few times just to see how he does his lion calling. Last I heard he was at 27 lions called in. Never called one in with him but I learned a lot. Steve Craig is the best lion caller in the SouthWest. Lives up around Camp Verde. Guided for many years. He is the authority on lion calling amongst the guys who do it regularly. He's a WT fan and swears by those e-callers and sounds. Last count I heard from him was 110 lions called in and an 80% success rate with clients. No dog chasing, straight up calling. He had like 10 spots across AZ he went to. Just those 10. He has stopped guiding but still gives seminars once in a blue moon and has had a few articles written about him. Last article was in Outdoor Life Feb of 2011. I know that because that magazine/issue featured an article about me and bobcat hunting. I should take a picture of the article on Steve Craig in that magazine and post it here. Interesting stuff. I once got him in town and bought him a nice steak dinner just to pick his brain on lion calling while he ate. Best $20 I ever spent. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, jump on it. It will shave decades off your learning curve with lions.

Yeah, it's a simple lethal way to dispatch a skunk without having them spray. Kit fox is not much bigger and ASU wanted them with no broken bones. Choking out a K9 is next to impossible due to the jugular veins being buried deep in the next muscle.

If you put in time on stand chances are eventually you'll see one, granted you're calling in lion inhabited areas. Most of my lions have came in while calling for fox in typical fox terrain. In many units where fox are high in number the lions use them as a food source. Had half a dozen come to the call, closed the deal on a few. Called in a bear and a lion 1 day apart in Patagonia. For $17 you'd be a fool to pass up getting one each year.

Those are nice sized kit fox. If you were able to call them in at 2PM I bet you were right on top of their den when you began calling. Hope you skinned them out.

Well done.

He moved to South Carolina and restarted back up a trucking company he had in years past. Not sure if he is making rifles any more.

It's not a singe manufacturer. Carey Custom Rifles made the 6.8 SPC upper. I think the barrel is a Stag Arms LLC. Lower receiver is a polymer Calvary Arms with a Rock River 2 stage trigger. It saves about a pound off a standard mil-spec lower. Calvary Arms was a local manufacturer from Gilbert AZ. ATF raided them a ways back and they've since stop manufacturing the lowers. Another company bought the molds and is making them. Not sure who. Google Composite polymer lower AR-15 and they'll come up I'm sure.

Recreational predator hunting or a hunter who wants to keep a few coyote or fox pelts a year, what difference does caliber it make? So you get a spinner or one that runs off? Big whoop. No real loss. Successfully consistent tournament coyote callers are going to use a caliber/bullet that has the highest success rate if there is money on the line. Or a hunter whose fur is a real portion of their yearly income. In those cases, a coyote running off after getting shot equates to a real problem. Few tournament coyote winners are shooting anything smaller than a .223 or 22-250. A good number of serious tournament guys consider the .223 to not deliver enough Kinetic bullet energy to be a consistent coyote dropper. With coyotes tournaments, the problem comes with choosing either a caliber that delivers good kinetic energy or one that shoots flat out a considerable distance. Some guys go one direction or the other. Other hunters try to balance both out and get something in the middle. The terrain you call in plays into it of course. I typically don't hunt locations where I can see 400 yards so I have in my later years leaned toward the bullet that packs a substantial kinetic punch. 6.8 Remington SPC / 110g Hornady bullets. I drop coyotes with less than perfect shots. The energy delivered to a 30 pound coyote is incredible.

.223 for bobcats? Ya wanna keep the fur? Yeah.. right. Hope you know how to sew. Most of the time you're gonna be sewing. Bullet needs to be smaller and need to go substantially faster if you want CONSISTENT no exits shooting a bobcat, even more so, a gray fox. Look at the dedicated bobcat/fox fur hunters to use something in the .17 class. 3900+ fps and 25g bullets make a slushie out of the insides. Pretty on the outside, grizzly on the inside. I shot a coyote last Saturday just off the 87 with my .17 Remington. 150 yards. 1 bullet center mass sent it spinning and yelping. Took 2 more shots to get it down. Ridiculous. It's not a consistent coyote gun and I ought not to have taken it out of the truck. 22-250 or better gets the job done right the first time. Shot some fox with my .223 out by Lake Pleasant. Yeah, fur friendly caliber. Lol.

Cave Creek is unit 27M. M meaning metro and you can't legally trap it.

You'll find them in the desert flats. Maricopa, Marana, Stanfield, Casa Grande, Florence..... they are all over. I've trapped lot of them in case traps and even a few footholds. Had a few get chomped on my coyotes in my footholds out near Gila Bend. Called in several in my life but always on the first stand of the morning. They live in holes in the ground on the flats and will come into standard grey fox distress or cottontail distress. Pelts are quite nice and soft but the market is next to nothing. Most I ever got was $12. Had a few graduate students out of ASU who paid me $20 for a whole carcass if there were no bones broken. I delivered them five or six. Acetone injection.