billrquimby

"you of all people should know the media always spins a story for the gold bill." ..... I think this was a case of an ignorant reporter relying on faulty information from a source who, although he may do some hunting, is even more ignorant than he is. Unfortunately, there are more than a few of them among us. ==== Bill Quimby

Edge, You need to read the article you posted again. It was wrong on so many counts that "fishy" does not begin to describe it. Not only did the author create the World Safari Club and its Salt Lake City convention, he greatly overstated the value of a deer head, even one as huge as this one. The reason the B&C score was lower than SCI's is because SCI does not deduct points for non-symmetry. It's a beautiful deer and I'm certain Mr. Johnson is a great person. However, the author of the article deserves to be scolded. The publication that ran his article needs to publish a correction. --- Bill Quimby

Whoops. I couldn't post the article, either. === Bill Quimby

Here's the article. Something smells fishy, though. If there is such a thing as the World Safari Club, I've never heard of it. Safari Club International (SCI) has always held its conventions in Nevada, and never in Utah. Mr. Johnson drastically reduced the value of the head by submitting it for record entry. The really big money comes from selling heads to deep-pocket jerks who are so obsessed with record books and trophy measurements that they buy big heads and enter them themselves. As for Cabelas or any other store sending monthly checks to record holders, just ask Barbara Stockwell how many checks she's received for Eddie's No. 1 Coues deer. ---- Bill Quimby

The late Ollie Barney who killed a great many lions in Arizona in his time, told me his dogs had caught four lions in four weeks off the same dead horse. Until then, I had always thought lions ate only their own kills and only while the meat still was fresh. A month-old dead horse certainly wouldn't be fresh. ---- Bill Quimby

Here is how ownership in Arizona breaks down: 42.1% Federal lands, 27.6% Tribal lands, 12.7% State Trust lands, and 16.6% Private lands. Arizona's federal lands are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. --- Bill Quimby

Here is how ownership in Arizona breaks down: 42.1% Federal lands 27.6% Tribal lands 12.7% State Trust lands 16.6% Private lands Arizona's federal lands are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Bill Quimby

PM to buckmaster21. Bill Quimby

Yep. Not an elk left in unit 1. Bowhunters killed the last one in 2013. Try; unit 27 or 3, Bill Quimby

Here's what I take when hunting, in order of importance: License and tag, rifle and ammo, knife, pocket knife, binoculars, water, Moses stick, matches and toilet paper, candy bars, orange, credit cards/cash (for gas, motel and food). Unlike most of you, I grew up in an era where we had lockers at school and nobody owned a backpack. I tried wearing one of those darned things on only one hunt, and gave it away. If it doesn't fit in my pockets, it stays at home. Bill Quimby

",,, I'm hoping for 800 yard shot ." Why would you want to back away from from an animal that is so easy to approach within spitting distance? I can't think of any javelina I've killed with rifle, bow, muzzleloader or handgun that was farther than 75 yards. The closest was just two long steps. Bill Quimby

See the other thread about using a .300 Win Mag on javelinas. Bullet quality and placement is more important than caliber. I've shot javelinas with just about every caliber from .22 rimfire magnum to .458 Win Mag, as well as with round balls from .45, .50 and .54 caliber muzzleloaders. If the bullet expands easily and hits major bone it will do major damage. As for head shots, a javelina's brain is small and far back on its skull. Shooting a javelina in the center of its head from the side will break its nose and/or jaw, but won't always kill it. Bill Quimby

A .300 Winchester Magnum is only a .30-06 pushing its bullet faster, and lots of javelinas are killed every year with .30-06s. If there is excessive meat damage it is because the bullet is too frangible. In 1983, I bought a .458 Win Mag to use for buffalo on my first trip to Africa and shot a jackrabbit and used it for my javelina hunt that year to try it out. Both shots were under 50 yards and neither animal was "blown to pieces." As I remember it, there apparently was very little -- if any -- expansion because the entrance and exit holes of the 500-grain bullets were about the same. Bill Quimby

Something you might want to consider, especially if you will be flying in a small bushplane to your camp (you said you're planning a trip "north"), is to leave the foam in your gun case at home. Put your rifle in a soft case inside the hard case and fill the space around it with hunting clothes, binocular, knife, etc. You can leave the hard case with your outfitter and fly to camp with the rifle in the soft case. I started doing that over 20 years ago and never had a problem, even on trips to Asia and Africa. Bill Quimby

I cannot view videos on my dial-up modem here, but if this was the episode that supposedly showed a jaguar wandering into the U.S. from Mexico and being pursued by a rancher with hounds, it was filmed near Reddington Pass east of Tucson. The houndsman was the late Ollie Barney. The film crew worked from a script and released the jaguar and two mountain lions from cages. Barney's dogs killed one of the lions. The jaguar was bayed several times before it was darted and put back in his cage. Bill Quimby

I saw a coati in unit 2B's juniper country near the Springerville electrical-generating plant about ten years ago. Friends in Greer's Crosby Acres say they have seen coatis a couple of times near their cabin. They also photographed a marten, a creature I've never seen in the wild, at their cabin.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the San Cayetanos were my "secret" deer hunting spot. I shot several good whitetail bucks and couple of small mule deer on its north end. There used to be large herds of javelinas in the broken hills on its eastern slope. Bill Quimby

It's a western thing, and not just for Coues whitetails and Arizona ... and it's not new. I was born in Arizona five years before Pearl Harbor and grew up thinking that people "back east" (any state east of New Mexico) were nuts, probably because they didn't have real mountains. Why would they want to count every bump they could hang a ring on? It's easier to look at the best side of a buck's antlers and count only the three to five genuine tines that grow there. If a buck had 3x4 antlers (not counting eyeguards), it was a four-pointer. Simple as that. Bill Quimby

Glassing is a great way to hunt deer, but there are lots of places where there is no place to glass from. Virtually flat country with thick mesquite and palo verde "forests" around the Papago Reservation and the long, brush-filled washes near Florence and the flat greasewood country north of the Santa Rita Experimental Range come to mind. Many such places are where big bucks hang out. and the only way to hunt them is to walk slowly, stop often, and study every shadow, every bush, and every thing that "doesn't belong" there. Bill Quimby

When I still was dumb enough to smoke, I used a cigarette to keep track of where my scent was going. I quit smoking a dozen years ago after a heart attack, but have considered using something I saw in Zimbabwe. The PH had a gauze bag filled with ashes that he shook when he wanted to know how to approach the buffalo I shot. Bill Quimby

"In AZ you can't be charged with trespassing while hunting if the property isn't properly posted." --------- You not only can't be charged with trespassing, but you also are not trespassing if private land is not posted, As Martha Stewart would say, it's a good thing. Less than 19% of Arizona is privately owned. The rest of our state is in some form of state or federal ownership. Not all of it is open to hunting, but most of it is. Bill Quimby

In Sonora, they look for fresh deer tracks in long, sandy washes and follow them until they come upon a buck watching them or in its bed. I've never hunted that way, but I do know several hunters who have taken big mule deer in Sonora and in the flats between Florence and Oracle Junction that way. There aren't many places to glass from there. Bill Quimby

Check for scat and scratches in the saddles of high ridges. If you look closely, you sometimes also can find some hair in the bark of trees where they've rubbed themselves. Bill Quimby

If you really want to save money, you might consider building your own cooler. Many years ago, I made a 2x4x4-ft. cooler out of 3/4-inch particle board and lined the top, bottom and sides with 2-inch thick insulating foam. It only took about an hour to nail and glue it up, and paint it white inside and out, and it allowed me to bring home all the meat from a buffalo I'd shot near Colorado Springs. The thing was heavy and took up half of my pickup's bed, but it worked. I filled it with frozen packages of buffalo meat topped with a layer of dry ice, then used duct tape to close up the tarp I'd placed inside earlier to create a sealed package for all those chunks of meat. We spent a couple of days in Albuquerque and Santa Fe on the way back, but every package still was frozen when we reached Tucson three days later. I gave the thing to my son-in-law after that, and he and a friend used it for years before it began to fall apart. Bill Quimby

Thank you all. It's nice to know I have have friends out there. I've been busy rebuilding our pump house this summer. The old one was flattened by 50-foot ponderosa that fell on it last winter Bill Q;u;imby