billrquimby

A cousin of one of my friends claims his brother-in-law's mother overheard someone at a grocery store say she had it on good authority that the wolf at the Grand Canyon arrived there in a Prius. Incidentally, a few feral camels left over from a failed experiment to use them as pack animals were mostly history by the turn of the 20th century. (I used to have a copy of Arizona's game laws from that era, and feral camels were listed as protected animals.) It's a good thing they didn't survive here. The hundreds of thousands of feral camels in Australia's outback are a huge problem. Bill Quimby

Alpinebullwinkle: Didn't know there were elk in Chile. An introduced European red deer, maybe? Bill Quimby

That was a great eulogy for your uncle, Lark. I'm truly sorry for your loss. My mentor also was an uncle. He was a genuine ol' time cowboy born on 11/11/1911 in Mammoth. He grew up along the San Pedro and fell off his horse dead from a heart attack on a roundup near Chivas Falls in his sixties, which was way too young. I still miss him. I'm 79 now, and I look around and find myself the oldest surviving member of all of my known relatives, and my list of friends still breathing keeps shrinking. Bill Quimby

"I can usually get a decent call signal with Verizon on the road to River Reservoir, between Tunnel and Bunch. Was hoping AT&T would have service there as well. I'm not really concerned with great data service. Just like to call and check in at home once a day." I suspect you've a better phone than I do. Mine is a cheap flip-top that's at least ten years old. I'll have to try it near the lakes. It's closer than driving all the way to the junction. Thanks for the tip. Bill Quimby

Above Cutter, east of Globe, more than fifty years ago when AZGFD still managed wildlife on the reservations and I still was in middle school, is the farthest south I've actually seen elk. They had a "extermination" hunt and my father shot a 5x5 bull. In the mid-1960s, a small herd of cow elk was killed by a train south of Willcox, surprising everyone who heard about the incident. More recently, a friend who has orchards north of Willcox told me elk occasionally are seen in the Sulphur Springs Valley. Bill Quimby

No bugles yet from the herd that hangs out in the canyon above our cabin. I did see a ragged-horn bull with three cows Thursday near Nutrioso. Bill Quimby

AT&T does not serve Greer. We have the choice of Frontier or Frontier for our land lines here. My cell phone is served by Verizon. There has been talk about the company erecting towers at the fire station and in the village but, as of now, we drive to the 260/373 junction to receive or send cell calls. Bill Quimby

Wow! A limit and a double! Congratulations to the boys and the father. Bill Quimby

Does anyone here know of someone who appraises undeveloped land in Santa Cruz County? We own a few acres in Yerba Buena Canyon overlooking Kino Springs Golf Course near Nogales, and we'd like to have our land appraised. If anyone here is interested in a hunting property down there, our land usually has a Coues deer or two and small herd of javelina on it most days. We've leased it to a small cattle company and the switch to agricultural status has significantly reduced the property taxes. Bill Quimby

muledeerarea33: If they would consider Nogales "closer to Tucson," send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you a map you can use to find the site on Google. Keep in mind that while the property is in a canyon behind a locked gate (not mine) and is as isolated as it gets, the stores in Nogales are NOT 20 miles away. Problem is, we still will need an appraisal. We have absolutely no idea what it is worth. Bill Quimby

Mountains are something international trophy hunters have been using to display their mountain game for years. One such mountain in Georgia takes up most of three 50x100-foot steel buildings that are connected end-to-end. The owner had taken no fewer than 16 Marco Polo argalis when I ghostwrote his book ten years ago, and he still is hunting them! However, the most spectacular mountain I've seen is on a ranch about two hours from Mexico City. This mountain even has a running creek with a waterfall, with a lifesize mount for every mountain game animal category in the SCI record books. (When SCI creates a new category, the guy gets on a plane and flys off to collect the animal.) His mountain completely fills a room that is 40x80 feet with 30-foot ceilings, and is complete with trees and brush. It can be viewed from floor level, and from above when the cloud-painted "sky's" door is opened in a guest bedroom. The owner has two more such rooms in his 33,000 sq.ft. home -- one is filled only African game, the other for antlered game. The wide hallways in his 14-bedroom home are filled with lifesize mounts of other game from everywhere in the world. There are lots of photos of the trophy rooms in "Wind In My Face," the book I wrote for Hubert Thummler. Safari Press has a "trade" edition on sale now. Bill Quimby

Johnnie Blaze: It's a long way from Rio Rico. We own 67.5 acres just east (not north) of Nogales overlooking the Kino Springs golf course. To reach it, drive out of Nogales toward Patagonia and turn right just before the highway crosses the river. One mile or so down the road, a Kino Springs pond is on the left. On the right there is a tall white entrance structure for a development that was never developed. This is Yuerba Buena Canyon. Our "L" shaped property stretches from one side of the canyon to the top of the other. If you had a home there, you could drive a golf cart to the first tee in about five minutes. The views from the high ridge are spectacular. ' Bill Quimby

Does anyone here know of someone who appraises undeveloped land in Santa Cruz County. We own a few acres in Yerba Buena Canyon overlooking Kino Springs Golf Course near Nogales that I'd like to have appraised. If anyone here is interested in a hunting property down there, ours usually has a Coues deer or two and herd of javelina on it. Bill Quimby

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Minute of angle is good enough for hunting anything that walks anywhere in the world at reasonable distances. Minute of deer (or elk or javelina or whatever) is what you need to be concerned about. Be happy if your .06 gives you one-inch groups at 100 yards. If the truth were known there are rifles that will never be that accurate, no matter what you do short of swapping barrels. Bill Quimby

Sounds to me you legally can't take the head if the bull was killed by a vehicle (train). Bill Quimby

Make certain they are successful very early in their hunting and fishing careers, and that everyone around them praises them for it. Bill Quimby

Oneshot: Longrifles give me a thrill everytime I hold one, and I wonder what stories each could tell. I find them surprisingly easy to carry, and great fun to shoot. I've not hunted with an original, but I did build and hunt with three replicas that were as close to original as I could make them. I just wish they hadn't been stolen. I had wanted to leave them to my daughter and two grandkids. Incidentally, there is at least one great book on the subject called "Thoughts On The Golden Age Of The Kentucky Rifle" by Joe Kindig. It has black and white photos of a couple hundred such rifles. It was my "Bible" when I was building mine. Bill Quimby

Mine are heavy, 35-year-old black rubber-coated 10x50s that look as if they were in two wars and five or six John Wayne movies. The protective rubber cups around the eyepieces exist only in my memory. Does Swarovski provide an estimate before they do the work, or do you just wait until they send a bill and pay whatever it costs? Bill Quimby

Jim: Neat photos, especially the one of your grandfather with his "musket." Are you certain the barrel wasn't rifled? I can't tell from the photo if it's flintlock or percussion, but its silhouette looks like a typical Pennsyvania-style longrifle from the very late 1700s to the early- to mid-1800s. Such rifles almost always had curly maple stocks. Muskets would be from earlier times, smoothbore and not rifled, and usually were "chunkier" (not as slim) and could have maple (usually with less figure) or walnut stocks. Whatever it is, I surely would like to have one just like it. Bill Quimby

I used to carry ten extra rounds for my rifle in a fancy goatskin "cartridge wallet" from Spain that I wore on my belt. (It was much like the one firstcoueswas80 uses). I lost it in the Canelo Hills one day when I stopped behind a bush and didn't notice that it had slipped off my belt when I got up to leave. Since then I've simply put two or three extra rounds in my jacket's pocket. I'm glad to know they sell similar things at Sportsman's. Bill Quimby

Heck, Lark. What kind of hunter doesn't carry a frying pan? You'd think he'd learn just by hanging around with the best shot in the world. Bill Quimby

Prdatr: Don't tell Lark, but I used a .270. Bill Quimby

First liar doesn't have a chance, Lark. I knew a guy who knew a guy who was the champion long-distance shooter of Gila Bend. That guy would shoot deer so far away that he had to run like heck to get to the carcass before it rotted. (The salt in his one bullet simply wasn't enough.) He usually left his rifle behind and carried only a knife, fork and some pepper, salt, and hot sauce in those little packages from Taco Bell plus a little rock to suck on if he got thirsty when he ran to his buck. His deer always were too far away to pack even half a backstrap out, so he ate them where they dropped. Bill Quimby

Lark: Back when I hunted the Hill Country every year, and before I switched to muzzleloading, I shot a lot of those little Texas whitetails (the limit was four per hunter and there was no trouble filling all our tags) with a Ruger "varmint rifle" in .22/250. I was shooting in a siluetas metalicas league in Sonora back then, and its heavy barrel allowed me to kill deer offhand out to 200 yards without even thinking of trying to look for a rest. We didn't do much walking over there, so weight wasn't a factor. Some of today's rifles are too light in my view, though, unless the hunter is in terrain and cover that gives him plenty of time to find a rest to shoot. Lord help him or her hit the inside of an airplane hanger with a super-lightweight rifle if only an stand-up, shoot-offhand shot presents itself. Even in terrain that is ideal for glass-and-shoot hunting, there are days when deer stay in cover and don't move, and you must kick them out of the pockets and shoot fast if you want to eat venison that year. Bill Quimby

There was a similar thread here not long ago. I was around when lobbyists for the blaze orange manufacturers were going from state-to-state to try to get laws and regulations enacted to force hunters to wear their products. Fortunately, a game commissioner with common sense asked for data on firearms accidents in Arizona. The only fatalities proponents could find happened from careless gun handling at or near a hunting vehicle, and the lobbyists moved on. Bill Quimby