mp_moody

Saw one in a southern unit the previous weekend, cried quietly to myself knowing that he wasn't in season for another few days.

Just got back from four days of scouting unit 29. We spent the entire time on the eastern side of the Chiricahuas, and plan to hunt one or two particular canyons. This scouting trip was more successful than my first coues hunt last year because we actually saw more than a spike buck. However, the bucks we spotted were found via spotlighting, and not glassing. In fact, we only saw a doe while glassing in the mornings/evenings. My theory is the bucks are staying in the higher elevations because of the heat and only coming down to ~5000 feet a few hours after sunset. Does this sound about right? Both bucks were in the same general area, but I really don't know where to begin in finding them on opening morning. Do I need to man up and be prepared to hike a lot higher up? The areas we glassed were anywhere from 5000 to 5500 feet in elevation. The only buck I saw taken in this area last year was in fact killed near the top of a mountain by a tough old man in better shape than me! The true success of the scouting trip was that I glassed a bear over a mile away yesterday afternoon. I could hardly contain my excitement as I frantically pointed him out to my hunting buddies. He wandered out of a ridiculously steep drainage and up into another. Unfortunately, I did have a tag but the season does not open until Friday. Both units 29 and 30A have a limit of 3 females, so I really do hope bear is still open on Oct 22! I assume there are at least three bears in this portion of the canyon, based on the size of tracks and distance between sign. The two big issues of this weekend: 1) This area got a lot of rain. The grass is tall and insects are plentiful. There were numerous kinds of grasshoppers, butterflies, dozens of tarantulas, and a plague of mosquitos. I have bites on parts of my body that were 100% covered by clothing. It looks like I'm going to have to invest in a citronella candle for camp, a lot more DEET, and maybe one of those Thermacell devices. 2) The Slik tripod coupled with Jim White binocular adapter is great, but doesn't allow you to pan up and down or tilt the binoculars. I learned this thirty seconds into the first glassing session and kicked myself for not realizing this sooner. I'm going to have to email Amanda about a panning tripod head that will work with my combo. Anyone have any general tips to finding bucks or maybe some gear suggestions? Thanks!

You mean you found one down there in the Paseo Park drainage? I'm about 1/2 mile from there, and very skeptical.

I hunted there for the very first time last year. Only saw one buck (a spike), but found a nice pickup head and saw one other hunter with an amazing buck. Plan on hiking up mountains, it seems that the good bucks won't come down because of the heat.

Between finishing college and starting a full time job, I haven't had much time to do any predator calling this year. Late Saturday night, my buddy and I headed up to the Mormon Lake area (I'm guessing 6A is where we were) to do some calling on Sunday. We woke up Sunday to nice weather but some gusty winds that we surely thought would ruin the day. Stand number two produced this guy, who charged in at fifty yards upwind: Stand number three brought two muley does in at a full run! That is a first for me. Nearly had to change my pants when I heard twigs snapping five yards behind me! And a question for you guys: how common is it for elk hunters to cut the antlers off and leave the skull/rest of the body? We found a few skeletons missing only antlers, but I didn't bother to take any pictures.

Someone should copy those pics over to this forum; I don't want to register to be able to see the photos.

Nice? What unit and how was the weather?

Do you guys think chaps would work for snakes also? I spent too much of the last year picking out jumping cactus spines from my legs. Snakes are of really no concern because I can just work around them. What about the extra heat? Having a pair of gaiters or chaps on top of heavy boots/wool socks/cotton pants is going to make it pretty soupy down there.

Hunt 1093, which I believe is a late October Unit 29 hunt.

Hunted Unit 29 last year and learned that hiking up and down those mountains twice a day to get back to camp was a pain. We ended up caching most of our gear in a decent glassing spot and coming back to it before sunrise/sunset. I would love to backpack hunt, but my only concern is setting up camp in a good coues area and scaring everything away. That and having to haul enough gear to sustain myself for a few days. Sounds exhausting!

I have it as well. I still need to do a little more load testing, but this year I am confident I will be able to make that five hundred yard shot (the one my buddy missed last year).

First two choices are the Kaibab hunts, next two are for unit 29, and the last is for 20B. While I wouldn't mind a nice Kaibab muley, I hunted coues for the first time last year and I'm hooked.

A buddy and I ended up getting leftover tags in 29 last year. We hunted hard for four days, ran into a mountain lion, missed a few shots on the only buck we saw, and chatted with several Border Patrol agents. There were plenty of other hunters down our canyon, and I have no problem going back this year (unless those Kaibab tags come through). It was a heck of a time. This year we will bring ARs and more people and hopefully we'll bag one of those monster coues.