billrquimby

Lark: One good American deer hunter is worth AT LEAST five Chinese soldiers. Problem is, as I said earlier, they not only would vastly outnumber us, the Korean war showed their leaders also are willing to lose great numbers of their own troops to quell even minor resistance. Unlike us in our recent wars, they would have no moral problem in killing thousands of "non-combatants" to accomplish a minor mission. Also, do you really think sporting rifles, even so-called long-range rigs with superior marksmen such as you and I at the triggers, could win out against manned and unmanned aerial gunships, mortar rounds fired from miles away, satellites following our every movement, or whatever else they might want to throw at us, including limited nuclear strikes and biological weapons? I, for one, seriously doubt it. We can thank God that they have chosen to battle us economically --- for now. Bill Quimby

As usual, I yield to Lark's superior wisdom. I can only say that the threat against what we do is real and that you will face in your lifetime ballot issues that will decide if hunting continues. The outcome will depend upon what you do now to promote our tradition and get more people to go hunting. As I said in another thread, hunters now are only about 4.5% percent of the U.S. population. That percentage has fallen to nearly one half of what it was just a decade ago! Bill Quimby

The Chinese also have the ability to act instantly on things that would take us a decade to do. When I went there in the early 1990s, it was unusual to see an automobile. Everything moved on bicycles, and the roads were terrible. Almost overnight, there were superhighways and millions of vehicles,simply because the government had ordered that it happen. You are correct about their educational system. Even back then, every kid was being taught English, and not like we teach foreign languages. They were taught to speak it fluently I had seven and eight year olds speak in English when they learned that was my language. Bill Quimby

I had two full-time, high-stress jobs with drop-dead deadlines in those days. We still could smoke at our desks, and cigarettes weren't as expensive as they are now. I'd get up at 3:30 a.m., light my first cigarette and be at the newspaper at 4:30, work until 11:30, and be at my other job a bit after noon. I'd try to be home by 7:30-8:00 p.m. and be in bed by 10. I had a cigarette burning almost all my waking hours. Dumb! Bill Quimby

I have lived with heart-related diseases for nearly 45 years. I'm alive only because doctors were able to insert a stent in my 100% blocked "widowmaker" artery within five minutes of a massive heart attack at Tucson Heart Hospital in 2003. I had been a three-packs-a-day smoker until then, and although that attack scared me enough that I quit cold turkey, fifty years of abusing my lungs with cigarettes left me with COPD, CHF, and a bunch of other acronyms for some awful maladies. Atrial-fibrillation caused my heart to race erratically up to 300 beats per minute with the slightest stress or extra physical activity. This still occurs, but a pacemaker implanted in 2009 helps. More importantly, it keeps me from having to be cardioverted (shocked) every couple of weeks as I needed to have done before then. Sleep apnea (without realizing it, I wake up at least 80 times per hour, gasping for air because I've stopped breathing) means I never can get a good night's sleep and am constantly fatigued. Although I take pills that make me pee every 10-20 minutes, my body retains water and I've puffed up like the Pillsbury Doughboy. No matter how much I diet, I still weigh a lot more than I should. Because of peripheral artery disease and chronic heart failure, my heart has trouble pumping blood back from my lower extremities. This causes my lower legs to turn permanently purple and ache when I must stand in a line or walk more than 75-100 yards without stopping to get my weight off my legs. Nonetheless, I'm fortunate to not have to endure what a lot of people on this planet must endure. A guy I once worked with at the Tucson Citizen crashed his motorcycle into a tree and for the last 30 years has been in a wheelchair, unable to move his legs . A fraternity brother had polio as a boy and his 18-inch legs are useless. A friend -- a famous and very talented wildlife artist -- developed Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and now stares at walls and doesn't recognize his family. Another friend's wife has severe macular degeneration and soon will be blind. There are thousands of young people who lost multiple limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. I could go on but my point is, at 74, each day I wake up is a good one. And when I spend a few hours hunting something, it's a truly wonderful day. Bill Quimby

China has an estimated population of 1,341,321,000 (1 BILLION, 341 MILLION, 321 THOUSAND) people. Our recent census is expected to show we have a bit over 308,000,000 (308 MILLION) people. Do you really think China needs to worry about fewer than 14 million hunters armed with deer rifles? We might be able to delay and irritate them for a while with some disorganized guerilla warfare, but their superior numbers, the high-tech weapons we've shown them how to build, and their willingness to experience great loss of human life (just look at how they fought in Korea) would overwhelm us within a year of the invasion. Not to worry, though. China's leaders long ago decided armed warfare wasn't needed to conquer us, and they opted to wage an economic war instead. Guess what? They've already won without firing a shot. All China has to do is announce they will not buy any more of our debt, and dump what they already hold, and we will be in deep doo-doo within hours. Bill Quimby Incidentally, the number of hunters in America has been dropping as the U.S. population grows, which means that in just the past 10 years we have gone from about 8 percent of the total population to just 4.5 percent. The losses aren't just in the West where we are limited by restrictive permits. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas each used to sell more than 1 million hunting licenses each year. No more. We used to be able to say that about 10% of Americans hunted, another 10 percent were opposed to it, and the remaining 80 percent were in the middle. The percentages today are more like 4.5 percent hunters, 25 percent anti-hunters, and 70.5 percent in the middle. All of this means we're losing this battle, too.

It's been a long time since I hunted up there, but I doubt if the deer and the country have changed much. There is no way that every big buck has been seen by camera or human eyes. I also think you'll find that glassing with good optics will pay off. If I were you, I'd put in for a bonus point in 2011 and do your scouting during the Strip's deer hunt. Talk with hunters, drive around, check out the roads, and learn where deer are being taken and you'll know what you need to know for 2012. Bill Quimby

Bill your not alone Bud BIG PLUS +2 You and I make two. It's a lonely road we're following. I remember a time in the mid-1980s when I was in South Africa during a cricket tournament against the U.K. The games went on for a couple of days and were televised on both of the country's two networks and played on every radio station. Everywhere I went people would ask if I "knew the score." It's ironic, but most of the guys who are such boring fanatics about our Super Bowl, World Series, NBA championships, and such would be just as mistified as I was over the way the South Africans were following that dumb cricket tournament. Years later, in 2007, a friend who is a honcho on the country's rugby governing board took me to two rugby games in a couple of small towns near his farm. The locals there were just as enthusiastic about rugby as Texans are about their Cowboys. I couldn't understand the rugby rules, of course, but what really leaves me wondering is how people can get so enthusiastic about watching other people running, jumping and throwing. I still don't get it. It's like watching other people catch bass or shoot turkeys on TV. Bill Quimby

As I nearly always do, I yield to Lark's superior wisdom. Bill Quimby

Quickly skimming this thread makes me wonder if I am the only human remaining on this planet who has absolutely no interest in running, jumping and throwing games. Bill Quimby

"George Parker from Amado??? Damm, That's a trophy room and one fine family... " One Shot: George was a friend and eating the menudo he served for breakfast before heading off to hunt in his old Jeep was a treat. I learned a lot about hunting Coues deer in the Santa Ritas and Tumacacoris from him, and although his trophy room was small compared to those I've visited lately, it was the first such room that I'd seen. I've always wondered what happened to his giant sable from Angola. There are only three or four of them in trophy rooms anywhere in the world. I've lost track of Jacque. Has she moved back to their old place? Bill Quimby Incidentally, there's a photo of George as a young man with a B&C Coues deer in my book, "Sixty Years A Hunter."

Well done, Ernesto! Congratulations to your son ... and to his outfitter/guide. Bill Quimby

I doubt that we will ever be so enlightened, but we can certainly hope for that day to come. It took me a lifetime to realize that hunting should not be a competition between hunters. Bill Quimby

"I think that for every animal that is entered there is an animal that is not entered that could have been." My guess is that the number of hunters submitting their trophies to a record keeper (there are more than just the two mentioned) would be more like less than ten in 100. At least I would hope so. I've said it before, but record books and measuring tapes will be the death of hunting. Bill Quimby

Lark, your wisdom and humor never cease to amaze and entertain. Keep up the good work. We all need a bit of levity each day. Bill Quimby

"reminds me a the adventure that Tracy had on his archery hunt!" Unfortunately, too many judges would side with the women Tracy described, and would want to keep others from ever having to undergo the trauma of witnessing such brutality. Bill Quimby

There was a chrome moly barrel on my first .270. It was a J.C. Higgins Model 50 built on an FN Mauser action. Sears was offering it on a special sale that included a Sears 6X scope and two boxes of ammo, all for $89. I still was in college and had to put it on layaway and pay in installments. I used that rifle to take six or seven of Arizona's ten big game animals and also for two summers of competing in a siluetas metalicas league in Sonora in the late 1960s. I probably fired 2,000 to 2,500 rounds through that barrel before I retired the rifle and started fooling with other calibers. If I ever draw another elk tag, I may use that rifle again. Bill Quimby

We don't have any "semi-primitive" areas in Arizona to my knowledge, but a similar ruling could be applied to the Blue Range Primitive Area, every designated wilderness area, as well as such places as Lake Mead National Recreational Area, the ironwood preserve north of Tucson, assorted national wildlife refuges, etc. Bowhunters shouldn't get complacent, just because they think this ruling will only affect hunting with firearms. If this dumb ruling holds, some court will say just knowing that men, women and children dressed in camouflage -- and some of them wearing face paint -- are shooting arrows into wild animals can ruin the outdoor experience for hikers, wildlife photographers, birdwatchers and campers and should be banned for the greater good of all users (except hunters, of course) of the public's land. Bill Quimby

Lark, my maternal grandparents didn't move to Tucson until right after statehood. I guess that's why I had to wait so long for my tag. My wife's grandparents got here long before mine, though, and they should have taken this into consideration as well as the fact that I grew up in Yuma and (like you) have been bumping into Arizona's cliff carp all my life. Incidentally, bullwidgeon's grandfather is hunting a big ram in Arivaipa Canyon right now (if he hasn't killed it yet). I think it took him close to 30 years to draw his tag. Bill Quimby

Lunch will have to wait until after January 1. Will PM you then. Bill Quimby

I either helped or watched maybe eight or nine people kill antelope in Wyoming at 100- to 500-yard distances with .257 Weatherby Magnums over the years. All but two were one-shot, instant-death kills. I also have taken a couple of Arizona mule deer, a Wyoming antelope, and two Coues deer, three or four Texas whitetails, and a couple dozen feral goats and a chamois in New Zealand with my .257 Roberts. None except the little chamois was more than 250 yards, though. George Parker of Amado took everything from mule deer and desert sheep to elk, greater kudu, leopard, African lion, and giant Angolan sable with his .25-06, but I suspect he was like me and usually tried to get much closer than 500 yards before taking a shot. The .25 calibers are killers because their mild recoil means most people can shoot them well. Within reason, bullet placement is always far more important than bullet size, weight, speed or brand. Bill Quimby

Record books and measuring tapes will be the death of hunting. I reached this conclusion after editing the SCI record books for 17 years and seeing how some hunters measured their manliness by the size of the antlers, horns or skulls of the animals they killed. Bill Quimby

Cliff, congratulations for taking a fine-looking ram. Lark, like Cliff, it also took me 39 years to draw my Arizona cliff carp tag so there's hope for you, too. Bill Quimby

20 killed over weekend in Mexican border city By OLIVIA TORRES ASSOCIATED PRESS CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico Nov. 7, 2010 -- At least 20 people were killed in drug-gang violence over the weekend in this northern Mexican border city, including seven found dead outside one house. The seven men were believed to have been at a family party when they were gunned down Saturday night, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the attorney general's office in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located. Five were found dead in a car, and the other two were shot at the entrance of the home. There have been several such massacres in Ciudad Juarez, a city held hostage by a nearly three-year turf battle between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels. Few residents now venture out to bars and restaurants. And like those attacked on Saturday, others have discovered that they aren't even safe in their own homes: Last month, \gunmen stormed two neighboring houses and massacred more than a dozen young people attending a party for a 15-year-old boy. Eleven other people were killed Saturday in the city, including two whose bodies were found dismembered, Sandoval said. On Sunday, two city police officers, a man and a woman, were shot to death inside their patrol car. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, has become one of the world's deadliest cities in the time that the two cartels have been fighting. More than 6,500 people have been killed since the start of 2008. The U.S. Consulate in the northern city of Hermosillo, meanwhile, announced new travel restrictions for its U.S. employees in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora. A consulate warden message said all official travel is banned along Benito Juarez highway between Estacion Don and Guamuchil, Sinaloa, "due to extreme threats of violence." U.S. employees must travel in armored vehicles in the rest of Sinaloa, a state considered the cradle of the drug cartel by the same name and where drug-gang shootouts are frequent. The consulate made an exception for the city of Mazatlan, though it did not explain why. In Sonora, the consulate said armored vehicles were required south of Ciudad Obregon and it banned travel south of Navojoa and in the mountainous areas in eastern Sonora. U.S. personnel also must travel in armored vehicles in the area around Nogales, a town across the border from Nogales, Arizona, "due to widespread violence" and "the threat of known drug trafficking activity throughout northern Sonora." U.S. employees traveling from Nogales, Arizona, to Hermosillo, can only use their own vehicles on the Mexican toll road Higway 15 during daylight hours, the statement added. The U.S. State Department has increasingly taken drastic measures to protect U.S. employees in northern Mexico from rising violence, including temporarily closing some consulates. In southern Mexico, meanwhile, police in Oaxaca city found a human head in a gift-wrapped box left Saturday night on the side of a cliff popular for its view of the picturesque colonial center. Reporters at the scene saw a threatening message left with the head signed, "the last letter Z," an apparent reference to the Zetas drug gang. The gruesome find came a week after two young men who had been involved in violent university protests and other conflicts were gunned down in the middle of the day in a public plaza. An e-mail purportedly from the Zetas claimed responsibility for those slayings and said that the two were killed for falsely representing themselves as members of the gang. Oaxaca state Attorney General Maria de la Luz Candelaria Chinas said the e-mail is suspected to be fake, although she said authorities had not ruled out the possibility that the Zetas sent it. Mexican government officials describe the Zetas - former hit men for the Gulf cartel who became independent this year - as a sort of franchise with units across the country. But officials say some of those cells are copycats using the Zetas name to intimidate extortion and kidnap victims. The Zetas have grown in power over the past decade, and experts warn their clout could grow following the death Friday night of one the gang's major enemies, Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen. The kingpin, known as "Tony Tormenta" or "Tony the Storm," was killed in a shootout with marines. Although there have been some beheadings in recent years, cartel-style violence is rare in Oaxaca, the capital of the southern state by the same name, especially compared to northern Mexico or the central Pacific coast.

Scotty: Congratulations on yet another great safari. May I suggest that instead of another elephant that you go for lion on your next trip? As you know, there is an organized move afoot that would ban lion hunting by flooding the public, CITES and USFWS with gross misinformation and outright lies. Once closed, it will not reopen in your lifetime -- even after that misinformation is proven wrong. If you think your buffalo and elephants stirred your adrenaline, try moving on foot before first light to within 25-30 yards of a 500-pound cat that's roaring to tell everyone that he's the meanest S.O.B. around and it's still too dark to know exactly where he is. Email me in the New Year, and let's get together for lunch again. Bill Quimby