billrquimby

... and many more, Scotty! Sorry we didn't get to talk at the SCI show in Las Vegas. Bill Quimby

If they are in a thicket and you can hear them, sit where you can watch the escape routes. One will eventually show itself. You also could try getting above the thicket and tossing a few SMALL rocks into it to try to get them moving. If you're impatient, try using a mouth-blown varmint call. Call continuously and shrilly. If you see one or two, don't stop calling until you feel you have time to grab your rifle and shoot it. Sometimes a herd's first reaction to a call is to bolt in the opposite direction, but if you keep calling, the herd usually will stop, turn around and head back to you. Another tip: If you miss a shot at an animal that is on its feeding ground, don't move. The herd may run off, but it often will return to the same spot 15 to 30 minutes later. Good luck. Bill Quimby

Thanks. As I said, I learn something every day. Bill Quimby

Where was this, Coach? Javelinas in a pine forest in February? Amazing. Until seeing your photos I would have bet that it would be too cold for them in winter at that elevation. I learn something every day. Bill Quimby

That's awful. Hope you called police and filed a report. My grandson had a guitar and other things stolen more than a year ago in Tucson. Police found the guitar in a pawn shop. Bill Quimby

AZhuntnut: Guess I was too close to SCI in the past, but the humor about its imaginary weighing system actually escaped me. I suppose you used SCI in your joke because the club has a unwarranted reputation for having members who use only measuring tapes to judge the quality of their hunts and trophies. . I am not trying to be "too serious." Honest. You are entitled to weigh animals with or without their guts, or even sopping wet if that's what you want to do. I apologize if you took my comments any other way. That's a fine javelina that Lance shot, no matter how it was weighed, and he is to be congratulated. Bill Quimby

"Happy B-day AZ, indeed!!! Out of curiosity, who is a native of the state. I am! Proud to say that I'm the native son of an AZ copper miner! (Born and raised in Kearny!) Any other natives out there? S." Stanley: I used to hunt quail with my father-in-law where Kearny is now. He lived in Hayden Junction, when there still was such a place. We also caught bass in a little lake in the town of Ray, which also is long gone. I remember when Tiger, Christmas, Twin Buttes, Mohawk, Aguila and Tacna were inhabited. Where Green Valley is now, we used to shoot doves and quail, and hunt javelinas and mule deer. My birth certificate says I was born in 1936 in Pima County, three miles east of Tucson. That event took place on my grandfather's ranch on Speedway near Alvernon. Campbell marked Tucson's city limits on the east in those days. Grant Road was its northern limit. I know I'm old but, in my mind, I'm a 16-year-old trapped in an aging body. Bill Quimby

Congratulations. That's a great-looking bull. Bill Quimby

The early 1900s were not all that they were cracked up to be. For example, medicine still had a long way to go in 1912. I would have not have survived the blood poisoning I got from a dog bite in the 1970s or from the heart attack that struck ten years ago. My wife, daughter and granddaughter still are with us, too, only because of medicine and treatments that did not exist 100 years ago. Bill Quimby

It's been a long time since I edited the SCI record books, but we ranked javelina entries by skull size. The only weights we recorded back then were elephant tusks. What are the SCI weighing rules now? Bill Quimby

"Bill - I am a Native of Tucson and Phoenix transplant. I was wondering if you knew Pete Cowgill? I met Pete when I was in high school and did some hikes up Pusch ridge with him. Yes, I know Pete. He and Tom Foust were the outdoor writers for the morning paper. I worked for the afternoon paper. The three of us had lunch three or four years ago, but I've not seen either of them since. Bill Quimby

Congratulations on taking a huge animal. I'm not disputing the weight, but your photo does not do justice to a javelina that weighs that much after field dressing. Bill Quimby

7 mm Remington Magnum with my handloads, 175-grain Nosler Partitions. Bill Quimby

Thanks. Bill Quimby

Supreme accuracy is not needed to kill a deer or an elk or anything else. You only need the ability to put a bullet into a kill zone the size of a paper plate at whatever distance your skill allows. When shooting offhand or using hasty rests in the field, few hunters can shoot as accurately as any rifle right out of the box is capable of shooting. Throw in the wind factor and an animal that is moving (even just feeding), and it's a wonder that there aren't more misses. To answer the question dealing with just one single improvement to a factory bolt-action rifle one should make, I'd have to say it would be to adjust or change the trigger. It's been a long time since I played with a brand new rifle, but they used to have stiff, sluggish 4-5 pound triggers. I suspect nothing has changed. A better trigger actually won't make the rifle shoot tighter groups as a properly bedded action, a good, free-floating barrel and ammo tailored for that particular rifle will, but it should allow you to put those holes closer together on a target. There is no conflict with that statement. A "bad" trigger can cause the shooter to be inconsistent. It usually is not the rifle or ammo. Bill Quimby

Any chance of any of the units in the White Mountains opening for night-time lion hunting? Bill Quimby

Elkhunter1: Don't know how you got fixated on department stores. Inserting (put any figure you will accept here) millions of dollars into an economy creates jobs in every sector, just as removing dollars (as happened recently with the construction and real estate industries) eventually will negatively affect in some manner every business in that economy. As for my "new numbers," you need to re-read the entire paragraph. At someone's suggestion, I reduced Rosemont's estimate of 400 direct jobs and 2,100 peripheral jobs by 20%. Please note that I said nothing about the average hourly rate for all jobs across Arizona, except that it was 44% lower than for mining jobs. The $60,000 figure is the average wage paid for Arizona's mining jobs, according to a report found on Google. I have no reason to believe it is not accurate. I've wasted enough effort and time on this. Believe what you want. I don't care. Bill Quimby

You obviously were not an executive getting the big bucks for making the important decisions. Bill Quimby

"realy don't think this mine will bring aditional stores from Macys, JCP or Sears. You might argue it could bring Walmart, Target or K-Mart all of which pay managers 32,000 to 38,000. I was the assistant field manager working hourly with my manager on salary and I made more than he did, due to overtime. I also made more than the site manager in charge of a crew of 60 with four field managers under him. The region he controlled was southern Arizona, Yuma to Portal and all south. We could argue this all day, the point still remains these numbers are all fictitious until they are set in stone that is all they are " 1) Don't remember my saying that the mine's opening would result in the opening of a department store anywhere. 2) I don't consider Walmart a source of living wages, and 3) I doubt that a regional manager at Walmart actually was responsible for setting budgets or making important administrative decisions. Such things, I am guessing, would be done at a much higher level by people making much more money than you've quoted. I happen to know something about department stores. After leaving the advertising agency, and before I went to work for the Tucson Citizen in 1967, I was earning $37,500 a year as assistant sales promotion and advertising manager for Levy's, a Tucson-based department store. That was 45 years ago, and the dollar went considerably farther then. I have no idea what my boss made, but I suppose it was about $50,000. His boss, the store's "manager" (his title actually was president and CEO) would have made at least twice that and probably a lot more. That same year I moved to the newspaper, I turned down an offer of $50,000 year to move to Los Angeles to be the advertising manager of a large department store. I have never regretted making the career change, even though I took a pay cut to do it. Although I had to work from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily at two jobs in journalism and publishing simultaneously for more than 18 years to do it, I made a comfortable living at jobs that allowed me to hunt all over the world before and after I retired. But I digress. Check Google for wages paid in Arizona's mining industry. The site I found said the average wage in mining in this state was $60,000. Again, averages include those who make less and those who make more. Bill Quimby

"you will never hear anyone on their deathbed wish they had spent more time at work" Depends upon the guy's occupation. A big part of my income before I retired came directly or indirectly from hunting. Like Lark, I regret not doing more before I woke up after a heart attack and realized I had grown old overnight and my health suddenly had gone south. Bill Quimby

Agreed. Bill Quimby

Two of my good friends are dying of prostate cancer. One has reached the stage where he cannot walk without assistance. The other still is as mobile as ever, but the chemo has taken every hair on his body. Both know they will be dead within weeks or, at most, months. Both are in good spirits -- at least outwardly. I hope that when it is my time that I can go with the dignity and class they have. Bill Quimby

Lark, don't tell anyone but I'll give you a deal on that head: $25,000.00 payable over five years with an annual interest rate of 17.5% on the unpaid balance. Bill Quimby

Yes, I did miss those complaints about blowing dust from the tailings at Green Valley. So far, I haven't heard about it being declared a serious health hazard, though. I grew up in Yuma when blowing dust was a way of life for everyone who lived there. It wasn't tailings dust, to be sure, but most of the folks I went to school with are still with us. A department store manager's salary depends upon the department store. The managers of Macy's, Dillards, Sears, JCPenney and similar large stores responsible for 75-100 employees and annual gross sales of $8 million or more are making a heck of a lot more than $47,000. Some have five-figure salaries. I admit I plucked $47,000 out of the sky, but I may have been too conservative. According to a report on Google, mining jobs in Arizona on average paid $60,000 per year in 2007, which was 44% higher than the average annual wage here that year. Note that those are AVERAGES. Some mining jobs pay less, some pay more. High paying jobs in mining are nothing new. I remember when I learned in 1958 that miners working at the then-three-year-old San Manuel Mine were being paid $50 a day ($13,000 year). I was shocked. I had spent four years at the UA earning a Bachelor's degree in marketing and had recently been hired by an advertising and PR agency that paid me the grand sum of $10,000 year. It was a very good starting salary when you consider that my new Chevy station wagon cost $2,300 and our 2,500 sq. ft. home on an acre in the foothills overlooking Tucson cost $21,500 in 1958, but it was less than what those miners were making. They were working only eight hours a day, five days a week and got paid extra for overtime. I soon was spending ten hours a day, sometimes six or seven days a week when we "pitched" potential new clients, with no overtime pay. As for what job you should train for, any administrator responsible for a large budget and 25-50 employees in almost every field will be paid at least $60,000 to $100,000. If you want to earn more than that, consider a doctorate in law or medicine. Bill Quimby

The naysayers may not agree, but the mine will have a major and positive economic impact on southern Arizona if it is approved. Take 20% off Rosemont's estimate of 2,100 jobs as Elkhunter1 suggests, and that leaves 1,680 jobs directly and indirectly attributable to the proposed mine. With an average family size of 3.4 persons, that many jobs would support a town of about 6,000 residents. According to Wikipedia, that's larger than Benson (pop. 4,934) and only slightly smaller than Willcox (pop. 3,769), Patagonia (pop. 913) and Tombstone (pop. 1,562) combined. As for environmental concerns, I'm glad the mine will have to operate under the rules and standards of the EPA and other agencies. We own a townhouse in Green Valley, and it is comforting to know that our tenants and Green Valley's nearly 17,000 other residents have experienced no problems from living almost on the tailings of a huge open pit mine that has operated under those rules and standards for a very long time. Bill Quimby