billrquimby

I've skinned a few coyotes, and their meat was dark colored and not very appealing. Cat meat is white and clean-looking. I've eaten bobcat, mountain lion, African lion and caracal, and would do it again. All had a distinctive but good taste IMO. Bill Qumby

If you are giving cameras away, PM me for my address. I'll pay the mailing costs. Bill Quimby

I published an article in Safari magazine years ago from an SCI member who lived on one of the Pacific islands. I don't remember which island it was now, but it may have been Fiji or Java. At any rate, possession of any firearm was banned there. The article told about how the author and his friends hunted 400-pound sambar, 150-pound rusa deer and 1,200-pound banteng (a wild oxen) with powerful air rifles that they'd built themselves. Bill Quimby

"The way we have progressed into "Trophy hunters" has hurt all this too." Exactly. Bill Quimby

As they say in certain circles, you done broke da code. But don't blame a wildlife agency for "surveying lands we can't hunt." Hunters need to work for more access, even if it means finding sources of funds to pay landowners to open their gates. Bill Quimby

Sun Devil: Last I heard, this huge state we call Arizona has only 40,000 plus/minus firearms deer hunters and they are not in the field at the same time. Red Rabbit is correct. If you want crowds, try Colorado ... or Pennsylvania or Michigan, or anywhere else where there are many hundreds of thousands of deer hunters. When people have trouble finding a campsite, it's not always because there are too many hunters. It often means that the primitive roads that used to distribute people in that unit were closed by a land management agency or gates were locked by a land owner, forcing everyone to concentrate along the only roads still open. Bill Quimby

Ok, but I stand by what I said. :) Bill Quimby

I didn't mention that survey because I know it is a sore point on this forum, but its results did not surprise me because I believe they were accurate. The vast majority of hunters do not join groups or post in hunting forums, nor do they hunt for "trophies." To them, "quality" means the ability to go out every year with friends or family, and they are happy with taking a forked-horned yearling every couple of years. These are the people we need if hunting is to survive, and we are losing more of them every year. You are correct about hunting in mid-week to avoid crowds. Bill Quimby

Darren: Sorry, but crowded conditions would rank near the bottom of a list of the reasons why hunting in America is declining. Costs of licenses and equipment, inability to draw permits, complicated regulations, locked gates, a lack of mentors, too many other things to do, and lots other reasons would rank higher. In Arizona, we have gone from more than 100,000 deer hunters in 1970 to much fewer than half that number. If PETA or HSUS were to blame for this, we would be screaming bloody murder, but the reason has more to do with conservative wildlife management, loss of access to hunting areas, and "trophy" hunters who resist changes that allow more people to participate. Please don't blame our state's increase in human population or increased development for the decline, although it is a factor in many other states. Only 19% of Arizona is privately owned, and it is this land that is being developed and populated. The remaining 81% of the state is owned by state, federal and tribal governments, and much of it is open to hunting. Even more of it would be hunted if we could get locks off gates. Unfortunately, bureaucracies -- including wildlife agencies -- will do anything to survive, including abandoning their historic constituencies if that is what it takes. If the number of hunters continues to drop across this country, which I believe it will, sooner or later game departments will seek out other groups for revenue and support. It won't happen in the time I have left, but I predict whether or not hunting continues eventually will be a ballot issue. Hunters many not lose everything in the first few rounds, but eventually we will. Although this may not happen in the next twenty to thirty years or so, the days of hunting as you know it are numbered. A thread on 24hourcampfire.com provides a hint of what we may see here as agency costs rise and hunters' dollars continue to decline. Our national ads probably will be for recruiting more javelina hunters, and not elk, though. AZGFD already has radio ads to promote small game hunting. http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/4941886/all/Colorado_puts_out_the_call_for Bill Quimby

Hunting in America has been declining as a "whole" since about 1970. In recent years, the decline has become exponentially more rapid. Bill Quimby

Youngbuck: We use round steak ... after the butcher has run it through his meat tenderizing machine three times. It's not as tasty as venison, but it's close. Bill Quimby

Amanda: That pretty much is how I cook backstraps, except that I "butterfly" them so the pieces are larger. Don't know if that is the proper term, but it involves cutting almost all the way through the first slice, then all the way through the next, then folding out the two connected "butterfly wings" before pounding them flat. There is no better eating, as far as I am concerned. Bill Quimby

Beautiful steenbuck and impala! Congratulations. guys. And kudos (and maybe a kudu or two, too) to whomever had your rifles fitted with muzzle brakes so that your early shooting experiences would be enjoyable. Bill Quimby

Happy birthday. One of us owes the other a lunch before I head for the mountain in April. Bill Quimby

Rembrandt: What you describe is known as Bergmann's Law -- individuals of the same species will be larger the farther north they are found. It applies to whitetails, of course, but with a notable exception. The Columbia whitetail of Washington and Oregon is not much larger than our Coues deer and it is found at the same latitude as the largest of all whitetails, some of which can weigh up to four times more than it. There's also what is known as Cope's Rule -- species tend to grow larger over time -- and Foster's (or "The Island") Rule --on islands, large species (such as deer) tend to be smaller while small species (such as mice and rats) will be larger. Exceptions can be found, and not every expert agrees with every so-called "law" or "rule." Bergmann was correct in that the various subspecies/ecotypes/races of white-tailed deer typically do get smaller on average as their range approaches the Equator, but whitetails then grow larger the farther south one goes into South America. There is a zone on both sides of the Equator where deer have no established seasons for breeding or antler growing. Females can come into estrus and give birth at any time of year, and bucks can be found with or without antlers in every month. Also, the whitetails, elk, moose, red deer and other deer from the northern hemisphere that were introduced to New Zealand and Australia in the 19th and early 20th centuries immediately changed their breeding and antler-growing seasons to follow the reversed seasons of the southern hemisphere. For example, elk and red deer that had rutted/roared in autumn (September-October) on this side of the equator, suddenly were doing it in the fall (April-May) down under. They didn't need any time at all to acclimate themselves to their new homes. Bill Quimby

Lark, you're pulling my chain again! Aaaaaaaargh! Bill Quimby

There are several problems with your observations, Mr. BenBrown. 1, The so-called fantails that Cooesfan, I and others have killed were NOT immature animals, but they definitely were noticeably smaller -- about half the size of most Coues whitetails of the same age. The teeth on my little buck were inspected by University of Arizona wildlife management students at a game department check station on the off ramp at St. Mary's Road and the Interstate in Tucson in about 1975 or so, and (as I remember it) I was told that my deer was 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old. 2. There has been no mention of color phases, although the cape on the mount of my little buck is a much lighter gray than the coat of the buck in Coosefan's photos. Most of us realize that there is a wide variation in the color of whitetails in Arizona, even during the same seasons in the same mountain ranges. 3, That rust-covered wash on the dorsal side of the tails of some Coues deer is also found on mature individuals of several "ecotypes." A 200-pound western whitetail I shot in central Wyoming, for example, also had it, as did about half of the Coues deer I've killed. 4. The Chisos Mountains and the Sierra del Carmens are what most taxonomists who do recognize the existence of subspecies consider to be the range of the Carmen Mountain whitetail. Texas and that region of northern Mexico have never been listed as having Coues whitetail in any reference I have seen. 5. No matter how much we might like to do it, we cannot create a subspecies. They are created over eons when members of a species are isolated from others of their kind. 6. It is my uneducated opinion -- based soley on my ignorance of what else these miniature Coues deer might be -- that Arizona's so-called fantails are indeed rare genetic variants: dwarfs. Your entire response and your use of "ecotype," a recent synonym for "subspecies," indicate you are a lumper (and not a splitter) and do not recognize that there are taxonomic differences between a 350- to 400-pound northern whitetail from Michigan or Pennyslvania and Oregon's and Washington's Columbia whitetails that are about one-fourth that size. That's fine if that is what keeps the propellor on your little green beanie going around and around, but please allow the rest of us to have our fun. It has nothing to do with checking boxes on lists of animals that died because of our egos, at least not in my case. This entire website is based on our belief that the unique ecotype/subspecies we call the Coues white-tailed deer actually does exist and deserves to be celebrated. Bill Quimby

Coosefan: Your buck has a great set of antlers for its size. Those on the "fantail" I shot in the Sierritas were about the size of my hands. I remember packing that little deer off the mountain by folding its four legs together and carrying it like a suitcase. As small as it is, your deer seems larger than I remember mine being. Incidentally, if it were me, I'd be doing all my hunting higher up on that ranch. One "fantail" is worth a dozen regular Coues deer in my mind. Bill Quimby

You are correct that there is a trend among scientists to reduce the number of subspecies, especially when the differences are based on outward appearances. Haven't heard of Florida deer being called fantails, but I wouldn't be surprised. Florida has several subspecies of whitetails and there is a great difference in their average body size. "Naturalists" in the late 1800s and early 1900s raced all over the place, trying to be the first to identify "new species." Some of them were outright frauds and some were downright ignorant. Arizona had two species of bears in those days -- the grizzly and the black -- but there were people who wanted a new species declared for every color and size bear they encountered. Interesting (to me, at least) was the fact that the Boone & Crockett Club got caught up in all this. Because our Coues deer's range in the USA was widely separated from other whitetails, it believed that our deer were not the same species as the whitetails found everywhere else. That's why that club historically has had two categories of records for whitetails all these years. It lumped all the other subspecies into one category and listed our deer separately. In the beginning, SCI did this in its record books, too. Then, at Craig Boddington's suggestion when he was its North American committee chairman, SCI added additional whitetail categories based loosely on the range of the various subspecies but mostly on geographical differences in average antler size. This method makes more sense to me. Bill Quimby

Nice lion. 138 1/2 pounds is my guess. Bill Quimby

Once again, there is no such thing as a subspecies of a subspecies. The Coues white-tailed deer is one of about 40 subspecies of Odocoileus virginianus, the Virginia whitetail, that occur naturally from Canada to Venezuela. I repeat, the Coues deer is NOT a separate species. It is one of the many subspecies of the whitetail, a species found on both continents of the New World. Also, if there were a still-to-be identified "fantail" subspecies (and I doubt that there is), it could not exist for long among the larger numbers of the Coues subspecies because interbreeding would soon erase whatever differences the so-called fantail might possess. To me, this says that the mature, miniature whitetails that are seen from time to time in Arizona and elsewhere in the range of the Coues deer can only be dwarfs, which are as rare as albinos or melanistic individuals. Bill Quimby

What is the law on this? Would it be legal to cut the antlers off that carcass and take them home? If not, at what stage can the head of a dead elk or deer be collected legally? Bill Quimby

I've shot feral hogs in California, but I was with the guy who owned or leased the land both times. I'd hate to shoot someone's prize-winning hogs, just because I didn't realize he was running pigs with his cattle. Virtually everywhere in this state except for residential property, wildlife refuges and National Park Service land is someone's ranch. Bill Quimby

Never been on that particular hunt, but she should have no problem finding elk. If she doesn't have her packet yet, she needs to call the Game and Fish office in Pinetop immediately. Don't know if they're still doing it, but when I left the mountain in October, it was closed on Fridays. Bill Quimby

A muzzle brake is good advice, but I suspect you won't take it. Just remember that the .308's recoil is close to a .30-06's from a comparable weight rifle, and for an elk load, don't go above 150 grains. This will kill the biggest bull nicely if he puts it where it should go. With a 7 1/2-pound .308 rifle, the difference in recoil energy from a 150-grain bullet at 2,800 fps and a 165-grain bullet at 2,700 fps is nearly 3 foot pounds of recoil energy, and that is about what a .222 or .223 generates! Jump up to a 180-grain bullet at 2,600 fps from that same 7 1/2-pound .308, and you've added a substantial 6.1 foot pounds of recoil to what a 150-grain bullet generates. If you reload, load up some reduced loads for his first session on the range. Or get a friend to load for you, and work up to his elk loads. The .308 is a great caliber, but there definitely are others that are more user-friendly for small-framed young shooters. Bill Quimby