billrquimby

I'm slowly reducing my library of big game hunting books. The problem with setting a price for the Gilchrist book is that there are only nine others from this very special edition anywhere in the world, and not one of those nine is offered for sale anywhere that I can find. The regular deluxe edition sold for $150.00 each in 1989, I've learned. Hard telling what my book's price was, but I know it's worth at least what I'm asking, maybe more. Shipping included to CONUS. MONTANA LAND OF GIANT RAMS by Duncan Gilchrist. As new copy of the very rare and very collectible Outdoor Expeditions and Books’ 1989 Collectors’ Edition with deluxe covers and slipcase. 208 pages, 90 photos, 20 drawings. Limitation page is signed by the author and marked “CE 5 of 10.” $300.00 GREAT RAMS and Great Ram Hunters by Robert M. Anderson. Collectors Covey 1994. 248 pages. As new large format book with fine dust jacket. Lots of photos of record-class North American rams and their hunters. $125.00 SOLD PENDING FUNDS Bill Quimby

Don't know about the other books, but SCI and Rowland Ward have no rules against taking game while using radios, rangefinders or GPS. Bill Quimby

My guide on a caribou hunt in the Northwest Territories had the slickest way to pack out a heavy animal that I've seen anywhere. I was impressed that everything he needed to do it fit in his jacket pocket. He skinned the trunk part of the carcass and laid the skin flesh side up on the tundra, then used that skin to make a package of boned meat. He tied the package together with ornately decorated straps made from tanned caribou hide. Other straps went over his shoulders and connected to a tumpline on his head. That meat must have weighed 130-140 pounds but he carried it at least 1,000 yards to our boat without stopping. Bill Quimby

Redman: Check ballistic tables for the loads in your .300 WSM, and you won't need a 300-yard range to put your shots spot on at 300 yards. Bill Quimby

Lark: I don't think he considers himself an anti-hunter. After all, he told us early on that he has been hunting for all of nine years! Imagine that! He also said he had hunted birds with pointers that he had trained himself. He also claims to have killed a few bears without dogs, so he probably wants everyone to know how great a bear hunter he is. Problem is, he turns on his computer and arrogance and ignorance simply flow into his posts. As usual, Lark, your opinions and observations parallel mine: Big old boar bears are tough to put up a tree when hard-pushed by hounds and men on horseback. I've been in on a couple of long bear chases (while hunting lion) without a bear being caught. The bears would run, stop, swat the dogs around, and take off again, only to repeat the process two ridges away. We (hounds, men and horses) were exhausted each time it happened and eventually pulled the dogs off. I've killed two bears in Arizona. My first was with a handgun atop Doyle Peak above Flagstaff after following Jim Bedlion's hounds to the very top of that steep, 11,460-foot ridge -- a 3,000-foot-elevation gain on foot -- two weekends in a row. My other bear was spotted near the bottom of a canyon while I was hunting mule deer near Camp Verde. I made an easy downhill stalk and killed it from 150 yards away with a .270. We were able to drive to the spot, load the bear and drive away. I've also been with friends who saw bears while hunting deer and elk, and watched those friends move in and kill their bears. So if you were to ask me, judging strictly by my own experiences, bear hunting by the "spot and stalk" method is unsportsmanlike and probably should be banned. Those who do it on purpose are shooters and not hunters, and should stick to pursuing half-blind javelinas. They don't deserve their bears. Just kidding. I know better than that. Whatever floats his boat is OK with me. However, he shouldn't knock any legal way that others choose to hunt their bears or anything else. Bill Quimby

"But I just wouldn't respect anyone who used dogs other than their own trained dogs! If u need to hire dogs u should stick to hunting javalina bc u probably don't deserve a bear!" Mister, you know nothing about which you speak. Bill Quimby

I hope that you recover your things. Over the past 50 years, our cabin was burglarized twice and we had three vehicles stolen, so we know how you feel. If you haven't already done it, I suggest you meet with your insurance agent and discuss your coverage. The last time one of my trucks was stolen, I learned that my homeowner's insurance would not replace certain things in the vehicle, such as a handgun and a set of handheld radios. It did replace about $1,000 worth of cameras and lenses, a nearly new 10x50 Swarovski binocular, and some mechanics tools that went south into Mexico with the truck. We now have a rider to cover nearly everything we own that might be stolen, lost or damaged. To make our premiums affordable, though, we opted for a $1,500 minimum on any loss before the insurance kicks in. It doesn't take much to reach that amount, though. Bill Quimby

I saw the photo in question before it was pulled, and I thought nothing about it. It was a cow elk hung by its neck from a cable that ran over a tree limb to a Jeep's winch. I'd done the same thing several times when I had a Jeep with a winch years ago. I even published a photo of a spike bull hanging from a tree on one of my outdoor pages in the Tucson Citizen years ago without getting a single nasty letter. The photo that launched this thread did not show blood or the elk's tongue hanging out. What the fuss is all about in this hunting forum is beyond me. Incidentally, I am among those who hate the word "harvest" when applied to hunting big game, but then my newspaper training also makes me cringe when I hear anyone say someone "passed" or "passed away" or use any other euphemism for "died." Bill Quimby

I've never felt the need for one, but I try to keep my shots under 200 yards whenever possible. The cow elk I shot in August may have been 350 yards out, however, and I couldn't get closer. So I held at the top of its spine with my 7 RM. Bill Quimby

For deer, I carry a 50-year-old Case knife with two 4-inch blades. It stays sharp long enough to gut, skin and quarter any big mule deer. For elk, I use the same knife along with an old Buck knife and a full-size meat saw. With my old, hurting legs and lungs, I am incapable of getting too far from my truck, in which I carry cloth bags, a block and tackle, sharpening tools, lots of rope, and anything else I think I'll need. I've lucked out on my last two elk, though. My friends, Bill, Don, and Dave Mattausch, were along to keep me from getting into trouble and even gutted and loaded the carcasses for me! Bill Quimby

Nor do I. Our neighbors in Greer are a couple who happen to be medical doctors. He has some great war stories about the many different ways people are injured or killed that he saw during his internship in one of Baltimore's trauma centers, and so I was shocked when he said he and his wife (an infectious disease specialist) had suffered nightmares after merely driving past a hunter's camp near the Black River and seeing a black bear hanging from a tree. He also told about taking a surgeon friend fishing at Big Lake. It seems his friend had asked him to clean his fish because the guy was too squeamish to do it. Go figure. I could not purposely cut open another human, nor could I treat people with horrible knife and gunshot wounds without feeling their pain. Compared to that, seeing an elk or bear hanging from a tree should be nothing, but that obviously isn't so for people who have no experience with hunting or hunters. Bill Quimby

There are some deer along the Little Colorado River, all the way past the lake, but much of that river crosses private property and most of the prime areas are locked up. Last I heard, you can hunt in the state park. I may be wrong, but I think the game department's wildlife area, just out of Springerville, is closed to hunting along the river, too. I've spent some time in 2B during elk hunts and have seen very few deer. If I were to try to find a buck in that unit, I think I'd look at the juniper country a few miles north and east of St. Johns. There are access problems up there, too, so scouting definitely is needed. Don't know anything about 2A and C. Good luck. Bill Quimby

In my experience mule deer and whitetails pay little attention to cattle, but I've seldom seen elk feeding or associating much with cattle. When we're in Greer (from April to October), I drive around at first or last light about twice a week to look at elk. One of the places I check is the little hill with the microwave station near the Sunrise Lake junction because it has a resident herd of about 250-300 elk. The herd will be on the reservation side until the Tribe brings in cattle, and then I'll immediately start seeing it on the forest service side, sometimes with the sheep that are grazed there. The same is true around Green's Peak, Carnero Lake, Sheep's Crossing, Wahl Knoll, Mexican Hay Lake and Crescent Lake. All have big herds of elk -- until the cattle arrive. As Lark says, anecdotal evidence more often than not is wrong. But I am one who believes elk don't like to be around cattle. Bill Quimby

My lifelong friend and hunting partner Alex Jacome wrangled an invitation from George Proctor (then the Apache National Forest supervisor) for us to join his department's annual pack-in elk hunt in the canyon country southwest of Hanagan Meadow. They packed in big wall tents and all the gear, and furnished horses and mules for everyone. Ales and I only had to bring a jug of bacanora and our sleeping bags. Permits were easier to draw then, and Alex and I enjoyed what had to be one of my most memorable North American big game hunts. Slurred speech was not the only problem everyone had after an hour of swapping lies and sipping bacanora. Two guys tried to stand up and couldn't. Their legs were like wet noodles. and we all giggled until we discovered nearly everyone suffered the same malady. Among those in camp were Rolfe Hoyer (for whom the campground at Greer is named) and then-forest ranger Buck Buckner, who later became a honcho in the Boone & Crockett Club and the accepted authority on gunwriter Jack O'Connor. The hunting portion of my trip ended when I shot a cow elk the the first hour of the hunt -- and then watched a huge bull emerge from the bush and stand where the cow had stood when I shot her. Alex and I had any-elk tags, and all I could do is find the bull in my scope and say, "Bang! You're dead," and watch it walk off. Alex didn't shoot an elk, but he did take a black bear. This happened in about 1966 or so. I wrote about it in my "Sixty Years a Hunter." Bill Quimby

Oops. Apparently it no longer is an illegal moonshine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacanora Bill Quimby

Bacanora indeed is Mexican moonshine. The good stuff is clear and has a mild flavor. Speaking from a long-ago experience, only a small amount is required to turn a group of U.S. Forest Service rangers and a couple of civilians into blathering idiots when served liberally in a Coleman-lantern-lit tent at the old corrals in Salt House Canyon, several miles west of Strayhorse by horse and mule. Bill Quimby

We have squirrel feeders at our cabin in Greer and noticed a lot fewer squirrels this year, and nearly all were the smaller fox squirrels. We had only two Abert squirrels visit the feeders, and each time they were promptly run off by the more aggressive foxes. Bill Quimby

Actually a Red Hartebeest is an antelope! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartebeest Nearly all of Africa's indigenous cloven-hoofed mammals are antelopes. The exceptions include buffalo, giraffe, swine, ibex and the Barbary red deer. There may be a couple more I've forgotten, but I don't think so. When guys say they've hunted African plains game, they're almost always talking about antelope, zebra and warthog. Bill Quimby

I saw a coyote cross Ina Road in the middle of the day near I-10 in Tucson a few years back. It also was carrying a housecat in its mouth and it seemed quite proud of it. Bill Quimby

That bicyclist is lucky to still be wearing his head. Red hartebeest weigh more than 300 pounds! Bill Quimby

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposal scares me. I did the numbers based on my 2010 income and how he has described his plan, and found I would pay more in income taxes, to say nothing about his new national sales tax. Each new tax really hurts us retirees on fixed incomes. Even so, I will vote for him if he is Obama's opponent in 2012. Bill Quimby

Something is wrong here. Nosler's 165-grain Ballistic Tip loading data show maximums of 2700-2800 fps in a .30-06 with a 24-inch barrel. Factory loads that push them 400-500 fps faster than this simply do not make sense to this old geezer's muddled brain cells. It has been my experience that factories purposely "load down" because their ammo will be used in many different types of firearms, including some that border upon being unsafe. Granted, there is much to Lark's observation of longer bullets traveling slower than shorter bullets of the same weight because there is "more bullet in the lands," and this requires loads for the smaller-diameter bullet to be reduced to avoid dangerous pressures. However, this would apply only if the short and long bullets were fired from cases with identical powder capacity. In fact, although I've never measured them, a .30-06 case's capacity appears to be considerably less than a 7mm Rem. Mag's. I have never owned or used a chronograph, but I suspect OZ31P is correct in saying that results can vary widely, depending upon the operator. Bill Quimby

As I said earlier, Lark, it doesn't matter. The annual toilet bowl-cleaning playoffs between Eloy and Sells would be a much grander thing to watch than the so-called "sports" that involve hitting, tossing or chasing balls. Bill Quimby

To Lark and law enforcement officers of every stripe: That log wasn't alive when I carved my initials on it. Honest. Bill Quimby

Lark, as a UA alumnus, I would resent your comment if I had the slightest interest in running, jumping and throwing games. I don't, so it doesn't matter. Bill Quimby