billrquimby

Josh, I'll look for you this summer. Lunch at the China Garden, the Sapphire or Booga Red's is on me == your choice. BillQ

If your NWT hunt is for central Canada barren ground caribou at Little Martin Lake in September you will be amazed at how many bulls you'll see. Take your time and get a couple of good ones. Look for a monument near the camp. It honors my guide who got drunk, fell out of the boat, and drowned when I hunted there years ago. BillQ <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bill that is exactly the hunt I'm going on. It will be my Father, Uncle, a good friend and myself at Little Martin Lake for six days. I am fired up to say the least! I'll look for that monument while I'm there. Hope my guide is a little better <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Deerslam: Say hello to Bill Tate, owner of Raven Outitters, and tip your hat at Charlie's memorial for me.. Hope you find the area covered with as many bull caribou as I did. We saw very few cows and literally hundreds of bulls. Good luck. BillQ

If your NWT hunt is for central Canada barren ground caribou at Little Martin Lake in September you will be amazed at how many bulls you'll see. Take your time and get a couple of good ones. Look for a monument near the camp. It honors my guide who got drunk, fell out of the boat, and drowned when I hunted there years ago. BillQ <{POST_SNAPBACK}> [/quote Dang the bad luck How about the whole story to that trip I'am all ears. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Here's a brief account: I flew to Yellowknife, spent the night in a hotel and then flew on to Little Martin Lake with a fellow from California and a planeload of gear and supplies. We landed on the lake in a light rain, and the Californian and I helped the cook (she already was there) put the stuff into a tent. By the time we were finished another float plane landed and four people got out -- a Frenchman and his wife, and two Indian guides. I knew we were in trouble when I learned the last guy out was our guide. Charley had sat in the back of the plane drinking booze all the way from Yellowknife and darned near fell into the lake before he got ashore. The first thing he did was announce that he had seen some caribou as the plane was landing and he was going hunting. I never argue with a drunk, but I reminded him that he not only was supposed to be our guide, but there also is a law that forbids hunting on the same day you have been in the air. Charley wouldn't listen. He loaded his rifle (a frightening experience for the rest of us in that camp) and took off in one of the camp's three plywood boats. It was about 7:30 p.m., and it didn't get dark that far north until 11 or so. The rest of us gathered in the dininng tent, ate dinner and went to bed. When Charley hadn't returned for breakfast, the French couple and their guide went caribou hunting. The Californian and I went hunting for our guide. I climbed an esker with my binoculars and found the boat on a sand spit across the half-mile wide lake, and the Californian and I took the remaining boat and went across. We found Charley's baseball cap and one of his gloves in the water before we reached the boat, which was on its side and half full of water where it had washed ashore. There were grizzly bear and caribou tracks on the little beach, but we found no sign of Charley after making a sweep on shore lookling for his tracks. We had the cook radio Yellowknife to let the outfitter know Charley was missing, and the Californian and I went out and shot our first caribou (we were allowed two) and packed them to the lake where we could retrieve them the next morning with a boat. A wolverine had urinated on and eaten part of my bull during the night, and although the Californian and I declared war there were no casualties and it got away. We had the two caribou in our boat as a SuperCub with floats landed at our camp. The first thing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police guys did was to put the Californian and I in separate tents and play "good cop, bad cop." I got the feeling they thought we had killed our guide. Everything worked out, though, and the Mounties joined us for suppper. They wouldn't allow us to hunt without a guide, though, so the Californian and I fished while we waited for the outfitter to send us another guide. He arrived the next day, and the Californian and I got picky. I must have passed up 30 or 40 shootable bull caribou that day. When we returned to camp, the French couple was there and the woman was excited: "The Indians are coming, the Indians are coming," she said. Sure enough, all the radio traffic had not gone unnoticed by the people at Charlie's village and at least 40 of his friends and neighbors had come 100 miles downriver, portaging a couple dozen boats of every size and shape from lake to lake. They set up their camp across the inlet from us, and drank, sang and talked loudly all night. The next morning they started shooting every caribou in sight. Meanwhile the Mounties were using our spare boat to drag the lake with a grappling hook, aided by a Hummingbird Fish Finder. They found nothing. To shorten this tale, the Californian and I each shot our second bulls and returned to Yellowknife. The outfitter called me the next spring to tell me that the first fishermen he sent to Little Martin had found Charlie washed up in one of the rapids. The fish and birds had been nibbling on him. He also said Charlie's buddies had erected a monument at the lake to commemorate Charlie's bad luck. BillQ

Shiras: Let's hope your friend doesn't really believe "that's bowhunting." Unfortunately, everyone who hunts long enough will wound and lose an animal. It is natural for an ethical hunter to feel awful about it. BillQ

Josh: Are you the guy who buys antlers in the vacant lot across from the Circle K in Springerville every summer? If so, I'll stop by and say hello. BillQ

If your NWT hunt is for central Canada barren ground caribou at Little Martin Lake in September you will be amazed at how many bulls you'll see. Take your time and get a couple of good ones. Look for a monument near the camp. It honors my guide who got drunk, fell out of the boat, and drowned when I hunted there years ago. BillQ

Hi Ernesto: What I said was I can't tell the difference in taste between a Coues deer and a mule deer taken from the same area. The key is "same area." That's just me, of course. Others may be able to tell the difference. The best venison I've eaten, as I said earlier, came from a Texas ranch where the deer had very few natural foods and grew fat on processed pellets for cattle. Second to venison pot roast, I like to butterfly the backstraps 1/2-inch-thick, rinse them in a beaten egg, dip them in flour and pepper, and fry quickly in hot oil. Mmmnmmmm good! BillQ

scoutiiboy I think many on this thread are confused about what constitutes a "species". How about explaining the difference between species and subspecies, and why minor differences in antler shape, color and size do not necessarily mean deer from nearby but different areas are different subspecies or species? I could try, but this apparently is your specialty. BillQ

Well said!

I doubt that anyone can tell a difference in taste between a mule deer and a whitetail taken from the same area. There is a big difference in taste between deer from different areas, depending on what the animals have been eating. The whitetails I used to shoot in Texas came from an overgrazed ranch where they stood in line to eat supplemental food set out for cattle, and they were "absolutely delicious." They tasted nothing at all like an Arizona whitetail, which are only "very good." In 2004 I shot a mule deer that had been feeding regularly in a maize field and it tasted much better than any other mule deer I've taken anywhere. Age of the animal is supposed to be a factor, too, but I've not found that to be true, at least as far as the taste goes. Skin your deer so it will cool quickly, clean the meat (I wash the carcass with a garden hose) thoroughly, get it chilled as soon as possible, and it will be good. Some say you should let the meat hang for so many days as is done with beef, but I disagree. The fat on a deer does not age well, so I discard it when I butcher my deer, which I do as soon as I get home with it. I cook deer meat as I do any other meat.... with only salt, pepper and garlic as spices. I'm getting hungry thinking about a pot roast of deer haunch, with potatoe halves, chunks of onion and whole carrots (tossed in thirty minutes before serving) served under thickened brown venison gravy. Incidentally, you may be interested in knowing that everywhere in Africa "venison" refers to the meat of any wild animal, including elephant, rhino, buffalo, antelope, warthog, or even a lion or leopard. BillQ

Let me say up at the top that I feel hunting lions and bears with hounds is the purest form of hunting. It can be more physically demanding, sporting and exciting than any other way of hunting these animals. I loved chasing hounds when I still was capable of doing so. Also, I see nothing wrong with sitting on a waterhole, waiting for game to show up. I've just never had the patience to do it. If you do, that's fine with me. Now that I've said this, I'm tossing into this thread the fact that both practices are considered repugnant, morally irresponsible and highly unethical by the majority of "sportsmen" who live in Africa. A controversy has been raging in southern Africa for the past six or seven years after a few guys started hunting leopards with hounds in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The houndsmen and those who have hunted with them say it not only is exciting but it also can be dangerous. There's at least one video out there showing a bayed leopard attacking the hunter. Their critics don't care. They want hunting with hounds to be outlawed. A few even have been saying that hunting birds with dogs also is unethical. There is no controversy about shooting near water. Virtually everyone down there agrees it must never be done under any circumstances. But there are differences of opinion as to how far a hunter should be from that water before shooting an animal. I've seen things printed that say it is unsportsmanlike to hunt within a HALF MILE of water being used by wildlife! Sure, many professional hunters ignore this and their clients (especially bowhunters) are allowed to shoot at waterholes. They also allow their clients to shoot from vehicles. All of the various professional hunting associations, though, have adopted codes of ethics that include statements against shooting near water or vehicles. Bill

"And l agree a new species of deer is highly unlikely to found in the new world. But I bet if we came back in a couple of million years there would be at least one! " I'm not certain I want to come back in a million years. I suspect we humans will have made some evolutionary changes, too. Bill

Scoutiiboy and Amanda: Correct me where I'm wrong in the text below. I got no response when I started this thread, and I think that it is important that otherwise well-informed hunters know the differences between species and subspecies. I cringe when I hear someone talk about a ?new species? or the various ?species? of whitetails. WHAT IS A SPECIES? Exactly what makes a group of animals qualify as a ?species? is controversial and tough to simplify. Generally, animals that will interbreed and produce fertile offspring are a species. (There are exceptions, such as the occasional mule -- a hybrid -- that gives birth.) The creatures that make up a species do not have to be exactly alike in size, shape or color. Chihuahuas and Great Danes are a single species (dog). We humans also are a single species (Homo sapiens), even though Orientals, Anglos, Aborigines, Africans, Native Americans and other races have visible physical differences. The surest way for we amateurs to determine whether two similar animals are separate species is to look up their scientific names. Here are examples: Odocoileus virginianus couesi (Coues white-tailed deer). Odocoileus hemionus crooki (desert mule deer). The first name (Odocoileus) denotes the ?genus? of the animal -- deer. The second name (virginianus) denotes the species of the animal -- white-tailed deer. The third name (couesi) denotes the subspecies -- Coues white-tailed deer. WHAT ARE SUBSPECIES? You will not find a ?new? species of deer in North America. We have only 6 deer species on this continent: White-tailed, mule and brocket deer, elk, moose and caribou. With a couple of exceptions, all of the world?s 40 species of deer have antlers. There are many subspecies (races) of each type of deer, though. Differences between subspecies typically are caused by whole populations of animals adapting to differences in food, climate and habitat in their specific region. Some differences, such as the lengths of certain bones or the absence of certain glands would not be noticed by hunters, while differences that might seem significant to us (such as minor nuances in the shapes of antlers or the animal?s color and size) may or may not be considered valid differences to taxonomists, the people who classify animals. There are supposed to be 30 recognized white-tailed deer subspecies in North and Central America, and another eight subspecies in South America. The largest is the ?northern woodland? or ?northeastern? whitetail (O.v. borealis), with some exceptional individual bucks standing only slightly less than four feet tall at the shoulder and weighing as much as 400 pounds. The smallest in the United states is the Key deer of Florida at 50 pounds or so with an average shoulder height of just 22 inches. The Blackbeard Island whitetails, Hilton Head Island whitetails, Bull?s Island whitetails, Avery Island whitetails, Hunting Island whitetails, and Coiba Island whitetails -- all considered valid subspecies -- are ?medium? sized whitetails, more or less similar in size to the Coues whitetail, which averages 100-105 pounds and 34 inches at the shoulder. Subspecies in Central and South America typically grow smaller as their ranges approach the Equator. At least two are as small as Key deer. Whitetails on Antacosti Island in eastern Canada are considered ?large? whitetails. Incidentally, To be correct, the scientific names of animals are always supposed to be in italics or underlined. (I don?t know how to do either for this forum.) The first letter of the scientific name for genus is always capitalized; scientific names for species and subspecies are always shown in lower case. Also: ?species? is both singular and plural. ?Specie? is money. BillQ

Page 86 in "White-tailed Deer Ecology and Mangement" by the Wildlife Management Institute shows a photograph of a fawn suckling an antlered doe. The captions says: "A captive antlered whitetail doe and her fawn. The antler growth was eperimentally produced by injections of testosterone in the spring prior to her autumn conception." Elsewhere the text says: "Only rarely will a doe have antlers. These usually are short spikes covered with velvet. Such does generally are fertile and can carry and raise fawns. The antlers probably are grown in response to abnormally high levels of testosterone. BQ

Well said, Larry Audsley.

I can't say that Game and Fish did or didn't stock whitetails from other states in Arizona. I personally doubt it, though. A lot of dumb things were done early on, such as stocking carp (the wonder fish of the early 1900s) and setting aside dozens of 100-500 acre "game refuges" all over the place so deer and quail would have safe havens to escape hunters. I do know that they did move a few mule deer from northern Arizona to the Tucson Mountains, and probably elsewhere, too. Bill Q

Terry: Thank you very much. Sometimes I think I'm too opinionated on this site and should spend more time writing the books I get paid to do. There are many knowledgeable and hard-hunting hunters on this site (witness Josh's opus on his hunt in Unit 27), and I enjoy rubbing shoulders (over the 'net) with all of you. Incidentally, I wrote columns for the Tucson Citizen. It was Tom Faust and Pete Cowgill at the Star. Bill

Ah shucks, Kevin. Dont know what to say other than thank you so much. BillQ

Add some brow tines and get rid of those forks on the back tines and I'd bet money (maybe as much as $1.98) that this was a whitetail. BillQ

Thanks Dan. Yes I have glassbedded a couple of Mauser rifles that I stocked, as well as the barrel channels of the three period muzzleloaders I built from parts from Dixie Gun Works. I don't know if it's worth doing, but from all I've read it is supposed to improve accuracy. (I never shot the rifles before I bedded them so I have no idea how they shot before I worked on them.) I did it to cover up my sloppy inletting and to add strength to the tang area where recoil from larger calibers can split wood if poorly inletted. The toughest thing about glass bedding is to get the metal to release from the glass after it sets up. Use clay or Silly Putty to fill in any hole that might keep the action from being lifted out when the glass hardens. You may want to remove the trigger assembly for this reason. Also be sure that every little bit of the metal is covered with a release agent that keeps the metal from bonding with the glass. I used PAM spray, the stuff my wife uses in the kitchen, once on a muzzleloader barrel and it worked fine but I'm not going to recommend it. Follow the manufacturer's instructions to the letter. You may have to tap the barrel with a rubber mallet to get it to break free. If it is really stuck you also might try using your wife's hair dryer set as high as possible to heat the metal....or conversely put it in the freezer overnight. Either way the metal is supposed to expand or contract and break free. (I've never had to do either.) The Reminton action has fewer nooks and crannies than Mausers, so you shouldn't have a problem. Just follow the instructions, and call the manufacturer of the product -- and not me -- if you can't get it to break loose. Good luck, have fun. BillQ

I loved hunting them with a bow because I could get so close to them if I moved slowly and quietly, stayed downwind, and didn't move a whisker when they were looking my way with their poor eyes. God made javelinas to be hunted with a bow or a muzzleloader. I shot a few with flintlocks, too. Bill

"Hey Bill, That was my bronco you seen. Next time you or anyone sees me say hi or honk or flip me off or something " I'll honk. I drive a tan 2004 Chevrolet Silverado Z71 crew cab. It usually needs a bath. Wave if you see me. Bill

Dan. Have you tried grunting with your voice? Back when I still could pull a bow John Doyle and I killed two javelinas in the Tumacacoris that we had called in by grunting. When we spotted the herd about 100 yards out, both of us started making "Ugghhh! Ugghh! Ugghh!" sounds and all of them came straight to us. I shot mine at under five yards, then squatted down so John could shoot over me and kill his. His was almost close enough for me to touch when he shot. Every hog in that herd had its hackles up and was rattling its teeth. Two or three of them attacked my wounded hog and started biting it before it went down. I saw the same thing a couple of years later when a friend called a herd to me with an ordinary predator call and I dropped it in its tracks at about three or four long steps with the first arrow. After that we experimented and found that constant calling worked best. They moved toward us as long as we called. When we stopped they stopped. Again they came in acting as if they were mad as heck. This was before compound bows and bow sights. I didn't practice as much as I should have with my recurve, so I made it a point to not shoot at anything farther from me than the length of my truck. Wish I were physically able to hunt them with a bow again. BillQ

The African lion that appears with my posts was as big as they come, and may have weighed more than 500 pounds although we will never know. There were no scales within 100 miles of where we were in Zambia so we couldn't weigh it. We did measure it from tip of nose to tip of tail, though. It was 11 feet, 1 inch, or about a foot longer than most adult African lions. It took six of us to get it into the Land Cruiser. It was like trying to bodily pick up a big cow elk with a short, thick neck and legs. Its mount is in the SCI museum's McElroy Room in Tucson. It is 42 inches high at the shoulder. Incidently, Just before my lion walked up I watched a lioness stand on its rear legs and with seemingly no effort at all rip off the backstrip of a zebra I'd killed for bait. I couldn't belive how high the PH had hung that zebra. I'm 6-4, and could barely touch its back while on my tippy toes. At any rate a 10-foot mountain lion certainly would be a whopper. It must be the record for the species. BQ

Here are some weights of bears I copied from the SCI record book's text: Polar bear: 850-1,000 pounds Alaska (Kodiak) brown bear: 800-1,000 pounds Common grizzly bear: 500-750 pounds Barren ground grizzly bear: 500-750 pounds American black bear: 200-300 pounds "occasionally much more". The last grizzly bear in Arizona was killed in 1935 (one year before I was born) on Escudilla Peak in the White Mountains. BillQ