billrquimby

Mr. Quimby, Two points to consider: 1. If you add up all the hunting you’ve done ( species hunted, location hunted, hours spent in the field, etc. ), I would bet that you’ve hunted more than 100 average hunters who lived to be 100 years old. 2. That place in Greer probably has a porch just perfect for a recliner. Either way, you win. Looking forward to the pictures of your spring gobbler.-Jimmer Jimmer: Yes, our cabin has a back porch from which we see game regularly. Even if I wanted to shoot one of them, I couldn't because there are other cabins nearby. We like to watch elk, deer and bear, though, and it gives us a special thrill to see them on our property. However, I do know of a spot ten minutes away for sitting in a recliner when the time comes that I need it. I may do exactly that if I ever draw a unit one elk tag again. Bill Quimby

I would guess that they will be 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old. A friend who owns one of those deer-hunting farms in Michigan claims that's the age that produces the best antlers. Bill Quimby

It's scary to think that fellow is just 11 years older than I. Bill Quimby

Try calling the Sonoita Inn, 520/455-5935, and Patagonia's Stage Stop Inn, 520/394-2211. You may want to check the motels in Nogales, too. Bill Quimby

Mike, I doubt there are many Coues deer that are not subject to predation. Where there are not mountain lions everywhere in Coues deer range, there certainly are coyotes and feral dogs that also will kill and eat deer. I believe that if the truth were known, few prey animals (and deer are prey animals) in Arizona die of old age. I would bet a dollar that the Arizona Game and Fish Department has a paper somewhere that has estimates of lifespans for Coues deer in the wild. I can think of at least three or four studies that were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s that involved capturing and tracking wild deer for many years. Game and Fish also used to set up roadblocks all over southern Arizona during the deer season where they checked licenses and tags and inspected (and sometimes pulled) teeth from deer. That data could have been best used to learn the average age of deer killed by hunters, but it also should have given a good idea of just how old our deer can get. Researchers also closely monitored a herd AGFD kept at the University of Arizona's farms on Campbell Avenue in Tucson. My point is, a lot of data has been collected and a heck of a lot is known about Coues deer. I suspect Jim Hefflefinger could answer your question off the top of his head. Bill Quimby

Game departments in Arizona and New Mexico undoubtedly would have info specific to our little deer, but I was unable to find it on the Internet. However, many sites claimed the lifespan of "white-tailed deer" is 10 years in the wild and 20 years in captivity. There's no reason to believe that Coues whitetails would live longer or die earlier than other whitetail subspecies. Incidentally, one website listed 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years as the average lifespan for deer in the wild. That's the age when whitetails carry their best antlers. Bill Quimby

Spring gobbler near the cabin. Bill Quimby

Lark, let's hear it for parvovirus. Bill Quimby

Lark, this is one of the few instances that I disagree with you. Releasing these animals wouldn't be a long-term threat if they really couldn't exist without inoculations, feeding, checkups, etc. There is evidence that they are breeding in the wild, though, and as this thread shows they are learning how to kill large mammals to feed themselves. Like Hvy Drop, I am not against bringing wolves back to Arizona (I will draw the line with grizzly bears, though.) However, I support reintroduction only with the provisos that wolves be managed by the state and not the federal government, and that ranchers be compensated for their losses. State management also must include the option of sport hunting of wolves to keep their numbers within minimal sustainable numbers. Unfortunately, this is something several influential Arizona groups and individuals would never allow. Bill Quimby

The bible for anyone who wants to know more about elk in North America (and a little bit about elk/red deer in Asia, Europe, Africa and the South Pacific, too), the Wildlife Management Institute's thick and informative book whose exact title I've forgotten. I have a copy somewhere and will post the name when I find it. It's an great book and because it's been in print a long time you should be able to find an inexpensive copy on Amazon.com, Alibris.com or Abebooks.com. A lot of the text is technical, but I can guarantee that you'll know more about elk than any of your friends if you read it. Wayne van Zwoll's "Elk and Elk Hunting" is an easy read and provides many insights on how to hunt elk. Jim Zumbo has several titles on elk hunting, too, but I've not read them. I think J.Y. Jones did a book called "What the Elk Guides Say" or something similar for Safari Press. I've not seen it, but J.Y. usually is a thorough researcher and easy to read. Closer to home, John Caid, who works for the White Mountain Apache Tribe, did an excellent book with fantastic photos and text about trophy elk hunting. Try searching the three websites I listed above for "elk" and the authors I've mentioned. Bill Quimby

You got to be kidding! Wolves rare? In Alaska and Canada, as well as all across Europe and Asia at approximately that same latitude, wolves are as common as coyotes in Arizona. Just tell a hunter or a rancher in eastern Idaho, western Wyoming or Minnesota that wolves are rare if you want to start a heated debate. It's hard to believe that any Arizona hunter hasn't heard about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's expensive and ongoing program to reintroduce grey wolves to Arizona and New Mexico. I have seen wolves on three occasions during the past four or five years on my weekly summer elk-viewing excursions from our cabin in Greer, and I also have seen wolves twice between Hawley Lake junction and McNary when driving to Show Low. My wife and I also watched from our cabin's windows this summer as two wolves tried to catch an elk calf in our driveway. They may have made a kill later on the hill between us and Northwoods, but we'll never know for sure because the 34 elk in that herd ran off with the wolves behind them. As do others, I am convinced there could be more wolves running around east-central Arizona than the biologists know. Just wait until they move back into southern Arizona's Coues deer country. This was their historic range, one of the last areas in the state to lose its wolves, and our little whitetails were their primary prey. Bill Quimby

Amanda: I've never cared for wild duck or goose because it lacks the fat that makes domestic duck and goose taste so great. If I were to try to cook wild waterfowl again, though, I think I'd stuff it with a moist dressing, wrap it in bacon and slather it with oil, and baste it a lot while it roasted slowly. Reading your post brings back memories of the best duck I ever ate. It was in the restaurant in Beijing that supposedly originated Peking duck (now called Beijing duck there, under government order). They had at least two dozen ducks hanging in the back of a huge, open brick oven, about two feet from a charcoal fire. Every once in a while, the cook would use a metal rod to rotate the birds. Our translator said the heat reflecting off the oven's bricks took most of the day to cook all the ducks needed for each evening's customers. She also said the ducks were force-fed for a couple of weeks before they were butchered to build up their fat. After they took them out of the oven, the restaurant staff pulled the meat off the bones and served it with a sweet brown sauce on a Lazy Susan packed with strange things I'd never seen before. Some were good, some I couldn't eat. Our group of 12 boisterous guys fresh from hunting elk in Mongolia had been assigned a Chinese government translator/guide who knew the people running the place, and we got the VIP treatment. This included beginning the meal with an elegant tray of plucked SPARROWS, each with its little head pointed straight up, beak open. A colorful candy sauce had been poured artistically over them. Our guide ate most of those little things. Those of us who tried them (I did not) said sparrow breast tasted like dove. I don't eat doves, either. Bill Quimby

Beautiful! Bill Quimby

Funny how the brain of an old man works. I shut down my computer and went to make a burro from the roast we cooked yesterday and between my office and the kitchen the name suddenly came to me: It's called "Bergmann's Rule." Bill Quimby

There is a "law" (whose name I've forgotten) that biologists quote that says individuals of a species grow larger the farther north they are found. The Coues whitetail is a subspecies, and it provides proof of that theory. Just compare our little deer to the several other subspecies found from Washington State and British Columbia across to Maine and New Brunswick. Cuidad Obregon is located within Coues deer range, but if you hunted anywhere on the other side of the Rio de Sinaloa, you were hunting a different whitetail subspecies and not a Coues whitetail. Mexico has up to seven, and maybe more, subspecies of whitetail, depending upon which expert you believe. All, except for the larger texicanus found in Coahuila, Nueva Leon and Tamaulipas, are reported to be the size of our Coues deer or smaller. Some in Central and South America may weigh 30% to 50% less than Coues deer. Incidentally, the SCI chapters in Mexico present an award to SCI members who have taken all of the various types of whitetails and brocket deer found in Mexico. Only a couple of people have done it, as far as I know. Bill Quimby

The first time I saw Coues whitetails in Sonora's lower desert I couldn't believe it. Until then, all my experience with this subspecies had been in southern Arizona's oak-grassland habitat and here they were in what in my opinion was mule deer country. Like Tony, I also saw whitetails (plus a jaguar) on trips to Dominguez and Hidalgo lakes. That brushy country looked nothing at all like my misinformed notion of what whitetail habitat should be. I now know that the Coues subspecies is also found in pines and aspens, as well as palo verde and ironwood habitat. A case in point are the whitetails living with mule deer in the thorny brush along the San Pedro River south of San Manuel. To me, that's the most unlikely Coues whitetail habitat I've seen, but the deer obviously haven't been told. Bill Quimby

Back to top one last time.

I'm thinning my library's inventory starting with these five collectible stated first-edition hardcover reprint books from the Peter Hathaway Capstick Library series. All five books are in like new condition except for the dust jackets on three as indicated below. All five for $275 including shipping within contiguous USA. C.H. STIGAND --- “Hunting the African Elephant” St. Martin’s Press 1986 reprint with comments by Capstick. Dust jacket is bright with no tears but its corners show slight shelf wear. WILLIAM BUCKLEY --- “Big Game Hunting In Central Africa. St. Martin’s Press 1988 reprint with comments by Capstick. Dust jacket like new. THEODORE ROOSEVELT --- “African Game Trails” St. Martin’s Press 1988 reprint with comments by Capstick. Dust jacket like new. EDOUARD FOA --- “After Big Game in Central Africa.” St. Martin’s Press 1989 reprint with comments by Capstick. Dust jacket is bright with no tears, but its corners show slight shelf wear. KALMAN KITTENBERGER--- “Big Game Hunting and Collecting in East Africa, 1903-1920” St. Martin’s Press 1989 reprint with comments by Capstick. Dust jacket is bright, but one corner has a 5/8” tear and the top of the cover’s spine shows slight shelf wear. Bill Quimby

The southern boundary for the Coues subspecies and the Sinaloa whitetail's northern boundary is the Rio de Sinaloa, not far south of Los Mochis, so any whitetail found near Guaymas would be a Coues whitetail. (It also means that an individual deer could become another subspecies, simply by crossing the river.) A friend had a small plane that we flew all over Sonora, both Bajas, and Sinaloa in the early 1960s to mid-70s, and it seemed to me that there was a lot of potential whitetail habitat on the mainland near the gulf, especially 20 miles or so north of Guaymas and Empalme (the village of San Carlos didn't exist when we started going down there). I don't know that they do occur there, but that country certainly looked like the brush-covered hills where I've seen Coues deer elsewhere in Sonora. I do have first-hand knowledge that Coues whitetails occur at sea level farther north at Puerto Lobos. We saw a doe and a fawn looking down at us when we were fishing in the surf just below the cliffs south of the village on one of our flying trips. There was no mistaking them for mule deer. As for looking out and seeing the ocean while glassing for a whitetail, gun writer Jack O'Connor wrote about doing exactly that when hunting mule deer, whitetails and desert sheep in the Sierra Viejos between Puerto Lobos and Caborca in the 1940s and 50s. Bill Quimby

These are classics that anyone who is interested in Africa's hunting needs to read, and they're highly collectible. I'll take $200 for all five, plus $10 conus shipping. This is considerably less than you can find them anywhere on Amazon, Alibris or Abebooks. If no one is interested, they're going back on the shelf for my heirs to worry about. Bill Quimby

I remember seeing one that taxidermist John Doyle had mounted. This was in 1967 or so. Its antlers were puny (a fork on one side, spike on the other.) Haven't heard of another since then. Bill Quimby

There was another book written by someone other than Power that is supposed to give a different slant to the story. Anyone know anything about it? Bill Quimby

God bless your granddaughter. No one, especially a child, should have to undergo seven major surgeries. Bill Quimby

Siwash: Yes. Dragging Nut: Alibris.com had a copy for less than $10 when I checked earlier today. Bill Quimby

+1 Age, how fast it is cooled, how much dirt or piss from the hide touches meat, how much it was pushed after it was shot (clean kill versus lots of adrenaline over time), gut shot, bladder shot, boiler room shot, etc..... all play major factors in how a critter is going to taste. For rutting deer, there is a gland on the hind leg that oozes a nasty oily musk. Get that on your knife or let it touch meat and it will not taste too plesent. M I used to think young animals always would be tastier and tenderer than old ones, but that was before I shot two bulls a week apart. My first elk that year was a 6x6 bull on New Mexico's Jicarilla Reservation. Its antlers were long and wide, but the tines were wimpy and its teeth appeared to be worn, which made us believe it was an old animal on its way downhill. The second was a spike bull that ran past me a mile above my cabin. I personally cared for and butchered both animals exactly the same. We expected the spike to provide better meat than the old guy, but it didn't. There was little difference in their taste, but the spike's meat was tough; the old bull was tender. The only only thing different about the two animals is that the spike was running from other hunters who had shot at it lower on the knoll. The older bull also was pushed to me by someone else, but it wasn't in a panic mode when I shot it. Both dropped within forty yards after I shot. To answer the original question, we've never noticed a difference in the taste of elk meat from juniper and pine areas. However, the deer we used to shoot in the Texas Hill Country definitely were superior than those we've killed in Arizona and elsewhere. We always figured it was because they fed heavily on pellets that ranchers set out as supplemental feed for their cattle and goats, as well as corn from the deer feeders that were everywhere in that country. Whatever the reason, I'm salivating, just remember how those little Hill Country whitetails tasted. Bill Quimby