kidso

Don't think Game and Fish would bat an eyelash over a javelina skull, as they are a dime a dozen. Was involved with a lion-killed bighorn sheep that we reported nearly 20 years ago. Game and Fish came to our home and took the skull pending an investigation, and then "it" disappeared off their log-books and there was not even a record of us contacting them nor any account of their officer coming out to take possession of the skull. The entire account was like an episode of "Without a Trace" as our skull and all information associated with it simply vanished. I have since forgiven the Fish and Game and have had great experiences checking in bears with them, but have not forgotten the sheep-gate fiasco they put me through. Thus, I agree with Heat, that you are safe if the skull has no flesh or hide attached to it. However, I would not lose any sleep over picking up a javelina skull with a little hair attached to it.

Wishful thinking, but not on a school teacher's salary. I play tetris in my attic and park zero cars in my garage.

TJ's house looks fantastic! I'm happy that I'm not the only CWT member who is a Christmas nut! Perhaps in a year or two when my twins get a little older, I can take a turn to host an official CWT Christmas gathering at our home on the east side as well. Man, I love this time of year!

Not at all. I was hoping someone would!

We live at 4904 W. Boston Street in Chandler just south of the Rural Road and Chandler Boulevard intersection. We do the "redneck" firepit on the weekends too, and typically have a crockpot of hot cocoa brewing and marshmellows ready to roast over the open fire while chatting with whomever stops by to view the display. But with with 1-year old twin girls on the loose,our hosting capabilities are quite unpredictable...just like bear hunting in Arizona! My lights are up and glaring away. Today is my last day of work and then I am off for Christmas Break. There is a good chance I will have the cocoa and fire pit burning away just about every night from tomorrow until Christmas, as long as it is not raining! Feel free to stop by if you would like to see our lights. Chances are strong that you would also be able to enjoy a cup of cocoa and some Christmas warmth in a family friendly environment. Santa will be out on Christmas Eve if your little ones could use a stuffed animal. Merry Christmas to all! Update: Santa will be out on the 23rd, not the 24th.

I am going to grow my beard for a year. Now that I want to see. I went 28 years without a haircut, so one year without a shave should be a walk in the park! I have not had cable tv for ten years, and I have never seen the program, but I don't like hearing about anyone being bullied for standing up for their beliefs in God, family, or guns. My shaver is going into serious black bear hibernation mode!

I am going to grow my beard for a year.

Great job TJ in your perseverance and success! Now for the question: What is that smeared across your face? 1)a tired guy's rushed application of camo for cover, 2)elk blood celebrating your harvest, or 3)a high altitude sunburn from splitting oak logs?

Nice. When did your son shoot it?

A 48-pound bear in Arizona would be a javelina.

That was Awesome! The day before we left the valley for my wife’s cow elk hunt, a good buddy called me up and told me that a group of hunters were camping in my intended spot and were planning on setting up a ladder stand near the trick tank where I already had set up a blind a week ago for my wife. Past posts on CWT dealing with the dilemmas of “public land hunting” racked my brain as I began thinking about a plan B for my wife’s hunt, which I had never previously considered. Fortunately, my buddy was the perfect ambassador and after a short conversation with the other party, they agreed to set up their stand elsewhere. A little before 4:00 am, I rolled out of my sleeping bag and cranked up the Buddy Heaters in our pop-up tent trailer to tame the encroaching cold that had slipped in around us during the night. I excitedly told my wife that it was time to get up and dress for her first hunt. She rolled over in bed, looked at her watch, and calmly responded that she had seven more minutes to sleep, based on the schedule I had planned for her the night before. After layering ourselves in multiple tops and bottoms that we previously washed in scent-killer laundry detergent, I grabbed a few extra blankets, a couple of folding chairs, and we headed out the door. After a short five minute drive, we exited our Jeep and began hiking through the woods towards our blind. Although the full moon was still up in the air, the tall trees blotted out its light and we walked quietly through the cold, dark foreboding shadows to our destination. We climbed into the blind at 5:00 am, right on schedule, and prepared for the seemingly endless wait for the legal shooting hour to arrive. The wind was gusting incessantly, which caused the branches on fallen snags to crack and break, thus increasing our heart rates and giving us false anticipation of approaching game. Finally, daylight came, and with it…nothing. My trail camera had shown cow elk in the area practically every day of the last week between 6:00 and 6:15 am. But, it was now 6:30 and I was growing impatient. I had wanted everything to work out perfectly, like clockwork for my wife’s first big game hunt. I wanted it to be picture perfect, so she would fall in love with hunting, just as I had. ---But, I should have known better.--- Shame on me. I did know better. Hunting is never picture-perfect. In fact, it is the unpredictability of the game, weather, and other factors that draw me back into the field year after year. If hunting wasn’t so difficult, I wouldn’t enjoy it so much. Nothing good was ever easy. At 7:00 am, I told my wife to open the blind and retrieve the radio outside so I could contact my buddy to see if he had found any elk and to touch base with him, which we had planned to do every hour starting at 7:00. She had unzipped the door, was leaning out of her chair, and was reaching out to grab my hunting bag, when I spotted a mature cow that had materialized from out of nowhere right in front of our blind. I grabbed my wife and pulled her back into her chair while whispering, “Big cow, you’re going to take this one.” I reached down, grabbed our camcorder, and turned it on. I told my wife to take the shot when she gets a chance. BOOM!!! I didn’t even get to lift the camcorder up to my face. I looked up and saw the elk breaking away into the forest. In three seconds, it was gone. My wife was completely beside herself and totally bummed out that she had missed the broadside cow at 30 yards. I told her that “buck fever” attacks every hunter the first time they put crosshairs on their quarry and not to worry about it, that she would have another chance in an hour or two after things calmed back down in the forest. I told her that we needed to check the area for blood; just to be sure that she had missed the cow. We left the blind and went to the spot where the cow was grazing. We could see her incoming tracks and what we thought were her exit tracks, but found no blood in the area. We disagreed on the exact exit route of the elk, so we followed multiple sets of tracks out of the area searching for any sign resulting from a ballistic impact on the elk, but found none. I radioed my buddy and he insisted that we should continue to search for blood and that sometimes a cow might go a hundred yards before blood eventually hits the ground. I knew he was giving us false hope, but it made my wife feel a little bit better. He joined our search which led us all over the surrounding area, but again to no avail. About two-and-a-half hours after the shot, our radio silence was shattered when TJ announced, “I got blood.” That sentence broke my concentration and I looked down at my radio and turned it up a notch and asked TJ to repeat what he had just said. Again, TJ stated, “I got blood.” I looked up and amazingly replied, “Well, I got elk.” “It’s right here, ten feet in front of me, staring right at me!” At that instant, the wounded elk jumped to its feet and took off like an Olympic runner sprinting through the trees. We gave her an hour, then started to track her from her last resting spot which contained two large puddles of blood-soaked grass that were the size of paper plates. We were very optimistic about recovering my wife’s cow for a couple of reasons. First of all, the cow had only gone about 50 yards from the original site of impact to where she had bedded down, which indicated that she must have been hit pretty good. Secondly, during the following two-and- a-half hours of searching for any blood sign, we had invariably come within 20 yards of her multiple times and she never got up and left, which also suggested that she was close to expiring. Thus, we carefully followed a clear blood trail through the woods stopping every few yards to glass ahead of us under the trees in hopes of spotting her carcass. After tracking her through a couple of tricky areas over a 200-yard exodus, I glassed the dying elk lying in the grass on the edge of a ravine. My wife put a final stalk on her cow and ended the pursuit with a five-yard head shot from her .40 caliber Glock. It was over! My wife had harvested her first big game animal on the opening day of her hunt, which would inevitably bring us back home to our twin girls that very same day. A special thanks to TJ, who shared in our short, but memorable hunt. It was great having you around to help in the skinning, butchering, and packing out of my wife’s elk. In addition, I wish to thank the forgotten hunters who backed out and let us hunt that spot opening morning without argument or discontentment. After packing out the elk, we stopped by to chat with the group and I invited them to freely use my blind. I left to up in the field and explained the elk patterns that I had documented on my trail camera to leave them with the best possible chance of successfully filling their tags as well. Do unto others…isn’t that what the good book says? Author’ Note: I kept badgering my wife all day long to find out if she enjoyed the hunt, if she liked hunting, and whether or not she would do it again. Her responses to my questions were very non-committal and ambiguous, which had me somewhat worried. Finally, about an hour into our drive home she blurted out, “That was awesome! That was the most amazing thing! Now, I understand what you go through in the field when you’re out hunting. I want to do this every year!”

More than likely a bear that big wont have a skull as big as the one you killed. Skinny old bears are the ones with the biggest skulls. IMO. You really think so? Those berry eating PA bears always weigh a lot, but it is true that their skulls are not necessarily linked to body weight. That bear probably does have a 20 inch skull though. I still would prefer a western bear of half the weight with a color phase coat. Color phases are rare east of the Mississippi.

Good Trade. Elk for coues information swap.

I am an old-school purist and use nothing but hand calls. It adds an extra element when calling predators to know that "you" called it in yourself --especially if it is a bear or lion-- without the use of an electronic device. Plus, the continued use of hand calls has saved me $500 bucks!!

Nice cat. Ever tried to call them in?

A 21 inch bear skull is like a 400 inch bull antler score. Welcome to the addiction! You will be chasing that score the rest of your life.

I see this like a panic on the stock market. I am sure many hunters responded to his letter and asked for their animal parts back, which reduced the work load he needs to complete. That was likely one goal of the letter -to decrease the number of active contracts he needs to finish. I think he now has less mounts to worry about and will thus be able to complete them in a timely manner. My vote is to ride it out and give him the benefit of a doubt.

Unfortunately, I can only covet such an amazingly colored coat, as I have never hunted south of the Catalinas in the northern end of unit 33. However, I gain a little courage with every sweet color-phase bear that is posted from locations south of Tucson. Someday, I hope to over come my "southern fears" and venture down there with some hand calls and a buddy or two for back-up to see what I can coax out of some of those canyons.

shot my deer in January and I was using my heater all the time. I keep my clothes in a scent log bag. Very sweet. I too store my clothes in a scent lock bag. Maybe I just had bad luck this year sitting in my ground blind for elk? I used the heater on day one, then shut it off, due to its odor, and froze the next four days without using it and still did not have any game animals appearing in an area that had been a regular mosh pit. I blamed the heater odor, but maybe it was another factor? Do I need to worry about propane heater usage in blinds?

Buddy Heaters are great for camping. But for hunting...? I think the propane odor saturates your hair, skin, and any clothing you might be wearing, which game animals will likely detect as a non-natural odor and bust you straight out of the gate. Even if you try to douse yourself with scent killer, I don't think you can dissipate a night's worth of propane exposure from your body.

Man that sow and cub are fattening up! She has a great coat on her, too!

22N. I bailed out Monday after last week's Friday/Saturday storm drove many elk south of the 260 in the area I was hunting in. Heard from a few other 22N archery bull hunters who left early as well. Too many tags for that hunt anyways this year.

Jealous! Wasted my late archery bull tag. Great job!

Just returned from my 22N archery elk hunt. Sat a salt lick and water hole combination site. It was extremely boring. If I were sitting water for bear, I could always leave to call for them, but no such tactics on late season elk. Friday morning, I left my blind around 11 am and stalked a rustling in the oak leaves below me. I moved into position, but could only see the back of the elk. I was at 10 yards for 20 minutes before I could finally see that it was a cow and not a bull. I scanned every tree and bush around the area and saw another smaller cow. I made my presence known just to be certain that there was not a bull lurking nearby. There was not. Only the two cows. They were the only elk I saw for four days. I sat in the blind from 5am to 10 am and then from about 2-6pm each evening. Had a trail cam up and no elk showed while I was out stalking around or at night. Perhaps the Friday-Saturday storm busted them out of the area? Rifle cow for me next year.