billrquimby

Mike Yes, I believe our deer resource could stand 100,000 or even more hunters. My family and I hunted here when we had that many, and deer were not exterminated, hunters were not on every rock, and the sky did not fall. We can have that many again if you will accept a lower hunt success and a different hunting structure, and also demand access to all our deer hunting areas. The highest deer kill comes on an opening weekend. Under the present system we have three or four opening weekends in many units, more if you count the archery, muzzleloader, youth season, first season, second season, and the late season to say nothing about another archery season. Talk about pressure. Our permit system in its conception was an ugly political scandal that should have resulted in the firing of the game department director and the ousting from office of a too powerful Arizona senator. The director got his pay raise and we got a 30% cut in hunting opportunities the first year. More cuts followed, and more will come. I have always known that the Game and Fish Commission and Department do not make decisions regarding wildlife based on money, and I?ve never said they did.. If our system is the best model of resource management in the West, how come our hunting opportunities keep shrinking? I've watched Arizona deer hunter numbers go from 105,000 to 70,000, to 60,000, to 50,000 to 40,000. What will it take for you and other hunters to get angry, too? Just 30,000 of us allowed to hunt deer in this huge state? 20,000? 10,000? 5,000? 1,000? Bill

Buckhorn: As far as I know, management of wildlife was always the sole domain of the states (except in national parks and wildlife refuges) until passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty, which put certain bird species under federal control. The U.S. Endangered Species Acts of the late 1960s and 1970s took more control from the states. In the mid-1970s, states lost their traditional control of wildlife on Indian reservations through court rulings. Arizona?s elk, bison, pronghorn, and desert bighorn hunting have always been permit-only since legal hunting of these species began in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Permit-only deer hunting began in 1970; permit-only javelina hunting followed soon after. It has only been within the past 30 years or so that the National Forest Service has had wildlife biologists/managers in each forest. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has exclusively managed its wildlife refuges in all of my memory. In my opinion, federal wildlife management would be a disaster. Would you travel to D.C. to testify on a deer-hunting proposal? How long do you think we?d have bighorn, mountain lion, and bear seasons if the feds were setting seasons? Do you think residents would have preference on permits? Bill Q

"Bill, You hit the nail on the head " Thanks. I get angry whenever I think about what we have lost, and how it all began with an AGFD director who wanted the Legislature to give him a pay raise and just one misguided but powerful politician. Incidentally, what species will you apply for licenses for in 36 states? I can't think of 36 states that have permit-only hunting. Bill Q

Ooooops! I speaketh too soon. I got the captions mixed up. Sorry. Bill Q

Beautiful pics. A great spot. Nice lion and bears. But am I the only one to notice the spikes on that "lonely doe?" Bill Q

Can't say I agree entirely with you, Bill. Habitat hasn't improved that much. It is about the same as it was when I shot my first deer on Lynx Creek near Walker at age 12 in 1948. Overgrazing has been reduced somewhat, but this is due to the land management agencies, not Game and Fish. As for loss of habitat to civilization's advance, I will not buy that untrue bromide. Sure we have more people, more houses, more roads, etc., but we still have 82% of our state protected by some sort of public ownership. Only 18% is privately owned, and only a small portion of this has been or ever will be gobbled up by "civilization." You have a point about wildlife. In my humble opinion, we have more deer, elk, bighorn, bear, javelina, turkey, etc. (everything except antelope) than any other time in my 70 years in this state. Whether this is due to Game and Fish or not can be debated, but I'll grant you this one. As for hunting opportunities, I beg to strongly disagree with you. Arizona's commission/ department system began sometime in the 1920s and developed over time into what it is today. "Wildlife managers" instead of "game wardens" came along about the time of WWII. In 1970, Arizona became the first western state to initiate permit-only deer hunting -- not because of a lack of deer, but because of a political "deal" in the Arizona Senate involving a pay raise for the AGFD director. We had slightly more than 105,000 deer hunters in 1969, and hunter success averaged 18-20% or so. Today hunter success is higher, mostly, but fewer than 40,000 of us are allowed to go deer hunting. We have LOST -- not gained -- more than 65,000 deer hunting opportunities under the AGFD's direction. I believe the people who work for Game and Fish .... from the janitor to the director, and the commissioners themselves ... are honest, intelligent, well-educated, hard-working, and well-intentioned people, some of whom are underpaid. Most of them are nice people, too. I just feel they need to look with unbiased and creative eyes at ways to increase our hunting opportuniities. If Defenders of Wildlife or PETA had reduced Arizona's deer-hunter numbers from 105,000 to 40,000 we would be up in arms! Instead we hunters quibble about everything except the fact that our hunting opportunities are eroding. Bill Q

If that .40 is a muzzleloader, take it and enjoy. God made javelinas for our short-range, single shot tools. Bill Q

PETA and ALF are crazy like foxes. Like the terrorists they are, they know their outrageous acts get tv time and print space where they can spout their whacko beliefs. If only a tiny portion of their audiences believe what they say their efforts have succeeded. The best ways to fight these groups are to ignore them or have the public ridicule them. Unfortunately, media in the interest of "fairness" give them credibililty instead of treating them as the loonies they are. Bill Quimby

Ernesto. I understand that the people elect presidents, but are the candidates who will represent PAN and PRI selected in elections or are they simply appointed by the parties? If you do shake hands with him, please say hello for me. Tell him I was the tall, fat guy traveling with David Hanlin and jaguar hunter Tony Rivera. He will interested to know that doctors confirmed that Hanlin had a minor heart attack and a small stroke while he was in Caborca. He spent a week in hospital in Tucson, where they opened three clogged arteries with stents. They were blocked 80% to 90%. Ruben was grilling meat for us at Hanlin's ranch when Hanlin had the stroke. Hanlin's speech is improving, but is not back to normal yet. Please tell him I wish him luck if he does run in the next election. Thanks, Bill Quimby

I think Ruben could surprise a lot of people, too, if they give him enough TV time. As I said earlier he is personable and highly intelligent. Didn't Fox just withstand a challenge from the mayor of Mexico City? When I was in D.F. last year the newspapers and TV were flooded with the mayor's charges against Fox and Fox's charges against the mayor. I know nothing about Mexico's election procedure. Are candidates chosen by the party, or are there primaries such as up here? Bill

Ernesto: I remember hearing about the assassination of Colosio. Do you know which party Salcido will run on? Does he stand a chance? It would be interesting if he were to win because I then could say I have met three of Mexico's presidents. I shook hands with Echeverria (sp?) many years ago at the Flying Sportsman's Lodge in Loreto, in what still was the territory of Baja California Sur. He flew there to promote his plans to build the road down the peninsula. Then, last year, I met Vicente Fox briefly in San Miguel del Allente, at a reception where he gave an award to Hubert Thummler, whose biography I just finished writing. Bill

Is anyone a licensed and bonded building contractor who does major remodeling in the White Mountains? I want to extend the living room in my cabin in Greer, add a fireplace and ceiling to floor glass, and put a shed roof over my a-frame-like loft. I've had a half dozen people say they'll come over from Pinetop/Lakeside/Show Low to give me an estimate, and only one actually showed. His quote was so exorbitant he obviously didn't want the job. Bill Quimby

Scott: I salute you for your hunting skills. Even if you don't find the buck you want you have had a fantastic hunt. My hat is off for you. Bill Quimby

"Here's my boy doing the dirty work" I'm interested in the Moses stick with the curved end that he's carrying. Did it come from a sotol? Bill Quimby

He's an intelligent, personable, photogenic young man who should do well in politics. I met him for the first time last week when he accompanied us to my U.S. friend's ranch in the Sierra Viejos. He took us to his family home in downtown Caborca and it was like visiting a museum. The furniture and fixtures dated back to the 1880s. It would be interesting if Mexico elected a president from a border state. Has it ever happened before? Bill

That is one beautiful antelope buck!

Rub?n Dario Salcido

Just in case you're interested .... When I was in Caborca last week I was told that a paved road from Sasabe to Caborca is supposed to be built in 2006. The highway from Santa Anna to San Luis del Rio Colorado also is supposed to be expanded to a divided highway next year. The fellow who told me this is one of Caborca's movers and shakers and should know what he's talking about. This could result in Sasabe becoming another major port of entry. At the very least, it will shorten trips to Altar, Caborca, Disemboque, Puerto Lobos, and Puerto Penasco from Tucson. Bill Q

"Bill,You really advize me to soak this bayonet in stuff you mentioned to get the blade out of the sheath?" Josh: It was someone other than me who suggested that you soak your knife in some type of solution. However, I read recently that plain ol' muriatic acid, such as we use in our swimming pools, will eat up rust. I'd try some sort of test before soaking your bayonet in anything, though. Incidentally, army surplus stores were all over the place like dollar stores today after World War II and the Korean War. You could buy bayonets from a dozen countries, and every other kind of military gear you can imagine at dirt cheap prices. I suspect yours is from that era. Bill

Josh: We have Coues deer in the Hall, Rosie and Bennie creek drainages at Greer. I don't remember seeing aspens where we see these deer, but I have lots of aspens outside my cabin doors a couple of miles away so it may be possible to photograph a Coues deer eating on an aspen there. As for Amanda's cards, that definitely is a muley. Bill

Hi Amanda. Sorry it took so long to respond, but I've been in Mexico the past few days. I personally know of only a few Spanish artifacts being found in Southern Arizona. One was an arrasta (don't know if that is spelled correctly) my friends and I used to see where we hunted deer in the Cerro Colorado Mountains back in the 1950s. It was a huge rock about six feet in diameter and about two feet thick with a large hole in the middle. It was used to crush gold and silver ore when a burro or ox pulled and rotated it around a stake. I don't know how they did it, but someone hauled that huge, heavy thing out of there. It was in rough country and a long way from a road Another "find" may have solved the mystery of the Lost Treasure of Tumacacori. Supposedly the priests at Tumacacori Mission when they knew they would be attacked by Apaches took their sacred items, some of them made of gold and silver, and buried them somewhere nearby. In the 1970s, before the Forest Service stopped him, a guy took a Bobcat and dug up half of the hillside just across the road from the old mission. The treasure, if there ever was one, may have wound up a lot farther away because in about 1965, a family I knew claimed they found a cave on the border at California Gulch where they found silver and gold items, coins and some Spanish armor. I never saw any of it though. While I was in Caborca this week I asked a local guy if he knew about the Papago legend of a Spanish galleon rotting in the desert a long way from the Sea of Cortez. The legend is based on some facts. 1. Spain tried to send provisions to Coronado the explorer in ships up the Colorado River and one of the ships was lost. 2. The sea wall near Puerto Lobos broke and the large flat area east of the Sierra Viejo Mountains was flooded (I found sea shells there yesterday.) a long time ago. If (big question) the flooding happened during Coronado's time, and IF the captain had mistaken the flooded area as an estuary, it's possible that a ship could have gone aground miles and miles from the present gulf. At any rate, my Caborca friend knew nothing about the legend but he said another rancher had ancient wood parts that could have been the ribs of a ship. He's going to track iit down. Bill

I got back from Caborca, Sonora, yesterday (Thursday). (We drove down there Tuesday.) We had to stop for tourist permits, but no car permit was needed coming or going. We were told the permit-required area starts a few miles below Guaymas. A friend from PA has a high-fenced 2,000-acre ranch in the Sierra Viejos where he wants to start a mule deer hunting operation, but the lions and coyotes are eating his "livestock." Bill

Jim: Was the leg skeletonized or more recent? I hadn't thought about finding dead humans, but that would be a good thread to start, too. When I was 12 or 13 and growing up in Yuma a buddy and I found what a law guy said was a Mexican national (in those days we called them "mojados" but that's politicallly incorrect now) hanging in a tree on the California side of the river. Two more scared kids you never saw. The smell was gosh-awful. Just thinking about it brings back every detail ... and that was more than a half century ago. The sheriff would not give us or our parents any info either. I also found a guy on Biscuit Peak in the Mustangs who had died of a heart attack. His friend had come to us for help when the guy didn't come back to camp. I found him with my spotting scope and we climbed up to him. He had simply laid back on a rock and died. His rifle still was in his lap. He looked totally at peace. I've always thought that is the way I'd like to go -- out hunting, up high, looking over a vast valley, with a rifle in my lap. Bill

Amanda: Here are the cards I'm sending this year. Hope they come through. I used the browse box below this message area to find a jpeg I had done, then clicked the "add this attachment button." Bill

I've found all types of things, including rusting but complete cars and trucks out of the 1920s/1930s (these later were hauled in by collectors), plates and saucers with blue patterns out of the 1880s, etc., etc., but my two best finds were: 1. A saddle hanging in an oak tree near Buzzards' Roost in the Sierra Anchas. The leather was old and cracking, and the rope that was holding it up was so rotted that it gave way when I pulled on it. I figured some cowboy had a wreck there, lost his horse, hung his saddle in the tree and walked back to his camp or ranch house. The question is, why didn't he go back for it? 2. A knife on the Kaibab near Jolly Sink. It had a bone handle and a Jim Bowie shape with a wide hand protector between the grip and the blade, and was 8-9 inches long. The bone was split, chalky, and nearly gone. It was so rusted that there were holes along what been the thin, sharp edge. How I found that knife is the real story, though. I was gutting a buck I'd just shot when I laid my knife down to pull out the stomach/lungs, etc. When I reached back for my knife I picked up that old one. It put shivers up my spine to think that another hunter many years earlier had killed a deer and gutted it in exactly the same spot I had. This was in about 1954-1955, and the knife had been there a long, long time. I've never seen another like it. I like to think it was left there by Zane Grey or Teddy Roosevelt. Bill