billrquimby

+1 I always try and challenge myself to get a big deer and sometimes I go home empty handed, but sometimes I shoot small buck just because it feels like the right thing at the moment. Mostly I would say it just depends on if the buck moves me in such a way that I want it. Most of the time, if they are little, I am just not interested and would rather keep hunting. I really love unique bucks, like when they have something unusual, super long beams that almost touch, nontypical points, extra main beams, extra large mass, etc. Love the diversity in antlers, so in general I try and get something that I haven't already shot. And despite what Bill Q seems to imply with his posts (in the other thread) that if you are trophy hunting you are not enjoying your hunt experience, I find exactly the opposite. The harder I hunt and the more bucks I pass on, the more I enjoy it. I hate to have a hunt end the first day and I can't think of any Coues hunt I have been on where I couldn't have shot a buck the first day. Amanda Hi Amanda: I don't think I said people who are obsessed with trophy size don't enjoy what they do. It's just that I believe too much emphasis is placed on antler size and record books, and that some "true trophy hunters" are motivated to hunt for the wrong reasons. I measure my hunts by the memories they produce, and not steel tapes. Bill Quimby

A year without seeing the inside of a hospital. Bill Quimby

Well said! At the beginning of the 20th Century, conservation was viewed as catching poachers, eliminating predators, and establishing game refuges where wildlife could flourish and spread into the surrounding countryside. Protecting and enhancing habitat usually wasn't considered important enough to consider. We've come a long way in the past hundred years, but some of those myths still persist -- especially among hunters. There are valid reasons for attempting to reduce predator numbers, such as to increase fawn survival in a specific area. Unfortunately, the public will no longer tolerate government programs to kill predators. Bill Quimby

RCBS Bill Quimby

You can't go wrong with either. As Bobbyo said, there is only one degree of dead. That said, the 7mm Rem Mag is my favorite caliber for just about everything. Bill Quimby

I have hunted in some of the world's remotest areas and hunted hard for some extremely elusive and desirable animals, but I also must admit that I have shot on game ranches in Michigan and Africa. It is my belief that the animals (in the places I visited, at least) were absolutely unaware that they were captives. The size of their enclosures ranged from 640 densely wooded acres in Michigan for northern whitetails to more than 400,000 acres for antelopes in South Africa. I pondered long and hard before accepting an invitation to fly to Michigan to shoot a whitetail at The Sanctuary on an expenses-paid junket with a group of other outdoor writers, worrying that it would be like shooting a Hereford in a squeeze chute. It was not. In fact, the experience differed little from hunting the free-ranging whitetails I'd hunted in Texas, Wyoming, Illinois and Minnesota. I do make it a point to tell everyone who sees the mount of my Michigan deer exactly where it came from. It's a beautiful buck with wonderfully heavy, wide and tall antlers, but I have no illusions about it being a "trophy." A game ranch specializing in Coues white-tailed deer was inevitable in light of the emphasis on hunting for trophies that has grown way out of control over the past thirty years. To me, judging your trophies with a measuring tape is a much greater sin than game ranching. Good men have been known to do some awful things, just to get their names in record books. I long ago outgrew judging the success of my hunting based on the size of the antlers or horns I've taken. If you hunt long enough, so will you. Bill Quimby

Ask to speak with Ludo Wurfbain, the owner of Safari Press. I'm sure he'll want to do business. You might want to ask about "drop shipping," where you simply forward orders and don't actually have to stock and ship the books yourself. I received an advance copy a couple of days before I went into the hospital two weeks ago, so I guess the boat carrying the shipment from the printer in China finally reached California. As soon as I receive my author's copies, and you let me know to whom it should be inscribed, I'll mail you the copy I promised for the prize in your contest. The book is a good one and I'm happy with it, except for a couple of dumb changes the editors made. It's not a big thing, but I call a male white-tailed deer a "whitetail buck." The editor changed it to "white-tailed buck" throughout the book. Bill Quimby

The Humane Society of the United States (not to be confused with the American Humane Society, which is an animal welfare organization and not an animal rights group) has been the largest, most active, and best-funded anti-hunting group on the planet for years. Even Rush Limbaugh has been taken in by its propaganda. Bill Quimby

Agreed! I'll bring the brush, tar and several old down pillows, if that's the case. Bill Quimby

Audsley: Please say your summary is only a cruel joke to punish those of us who were not there! Lark's comments are right on about the Mountain Lion Foundation's mission. Bill Quimby

I also couldn't go because of a health problem. Who was selected by the audience? How did the other candidates do? Bill Quimby

Lark: The AGFD did not come up with the list of people who are crazy enough to seek a seat on the game commission. The candidates themselves created the list by submitting applications to the governor's office. Bill Quimby

<<<<<<"Some feel all G&F commissioners should be hunters. Others want to see active membership in conservation groups like RMEF, ADBSS, SCI and similar organizations. However, I've heard that years before I was paying much attention, governors were appointing people from business and political circles who had hunted very little if at all and had little knowledge about hunting, and that these people gradually learned to appreciate and respect hunters for our contributions. Eventually they became highly effective spokespeople for sportsmen and wildlife because of their connections and status in other circles. Or so I've been told. (Where's Bill Quimby when you need him? He was there and could probably corroborate or refute this.)">>>>>> Audsley: The time has long passed when sportsmen dictated who served on the commission. I covered nearly every commission meeting from 1967 to 1994, and came to feel that the most avid sportsmen often made the worst commissioners. They came to the panel with opinions and agendas and could not be budged, even with solid biological data. Early on, the Arizona Game Protective Association (soon to become the Arizona Wildlife Federation) controlled the appointment process through Bill Hardt, the chairman of the Arizona Senate Natural Resources Committee. No one got the appointment without the blessing of the AGPA/AWF and Hardt. That changed when Bruce Babbitt appointed Frances Werner and was able to get the appointment ratified. By then, the AWF's membership has slipped to only about 1,000 across the state. Lark: Bob Hernbrode indeed has a degree in wildlife biology and, while he was employed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, he rose to the position of regional game specialist for southern Arizona. He left that job and moved to Colorado, where he served in a variety of positions in the Division of Wildlife there. He is a hunter, but not a trophy hunter. (I have been told that when he was in Colorado, he shot a cow elk every year.) He was among those in AGFD who tried unsuccessfully to dump our permit-only, multiple-opening-day deer hunting system on its tenth anniversary. Wildlife managers loved the system, however. They rebelled and lobbied sportsmen, who pressured the commission to keep the system. Talk about politics. We got deer permits because of just two men, even though there was no biological need to reduce hunting. Deer numbers and hunter success were stable, even growing in some areas of the state. Nonetheless, George Parker of Amado, an international big game hunter and a sometimes Coues deer guide, came unglued when he heard that Arizona had sold more than 100,000 deer tags in 1969. He called Bill Hardt and convinced him that we needed a five-year moratorium on all deer hunting. This happened at a time when AGFD employees had not had a pay raise in years. When AGFD Director Bob Jantzen showed up before Hardt's committee to ask for a raise (employee salaries are based on a percentage of the director's), Hardt hit him with the moratorium threat and Jantzen quickly folded. In exchange for his pay raise, he promised "to do something for the deer." What Jantzen did was send a memo to his regional supervisors, asking for recommendations on how to reduce deer hunting by 30% close to Tucson and Phoenix. This meant permits, even though there was no indication that they were needed. What happened next were complaints from the wildlife managers of areas next to the targeted areas, saying they expected to be overrun with hunters. The impact was like knocking over a single domino in a long line of dominos -- the proposal the agency eventually took to the commission in 1970 called for permits in all units and a 30% reduction in deer hunting statewide. Despite what some on this forum might say, money is not why the commission authorizes more tags. The fact that deer hunting has been reduced more than 60% from its 1969 level should be proof enough of that. After 27 years of closely following its actions, I would say exactly the opposite has been true. Time after time, I watched proposals to cut permits fly without question. Proposals to increase permits, even by only a few hundred, almost always resulted in heavy grilling by the commissioners of the regional people. Would love to attend tonight's meeting, but I've been ill and my wife won't let me leave the house. Bill Quimby

Lark: The laws that established the commission were designed originally to REDUCE political pressure on wildlife management decisions. They mandate that no more than three of the five commissioners may be from the same political party, and that each must reside in a different county. Terms are staggered to reduce the possibility that a single governor will dominate the panel. Although a standing governor can fire the entire commission, such action requires a reason and a hearing. This is not true in all other states. Although you don't like having commissioners appointed by a politician, sportsmen are so drastically outnumbered that we sure don't want our commissioners to be elected by a vote of all Arizona citizens. Bill Quimby

Gosh, it snowed more than 2 inches in Greer on October 7 and again on October 22. Don't know what fell in the last 24 hours because we have moved off the mountain for the winter, but if Lakeside got two inches you can be sure that Greer got up to twice that. Bill Quimby

Beautiful photos! Mount Graham isn't the only theater presenting a unusually great fall color show this year. This has been one of the most incredible autumns in the White Mountains I have seen in 63 years of visiting Greer. Unfortunately our second snowfall of the season hit last night (the first was October 8) and stripped the trees in our little valley. Last week, though, my wife and I and Bullwidgeon's grandparents spent a day driving around up here with our jaws on our chests. Waking up this morning with two inches of white covering everything was our warning, though. We're packing up now for the move down to Tucson (ugh!) for the winter on Saturday. Bill Quimby

Ditto! Hope you have 100 more, with good health all the way! Bill Quimby

I can't recommend a brand, but I can commend you on your choice of calibers. I've taken maybe 50-60 head of big game on six continents with mine, and it has served me well for the past 20 or so years. I guess you could call it a "custom" rifle, although it's not very pretty. I started with a barreled commercial Czech Mauser action, built its stock from a chunk of walnut we cut in Texas, and installed a better trigger and safety. I have used 140- and 175-grain Nosler Partition handloads for everything from 10-pound grysbok and 35-pound javelinas to red stags, elk, moose and eland. It's not my most accurate rifle, but it consistently shoots minute-of-deer, which is all I require. Bill Quimby

Congratulations! What a ram! Bill Quimby

Amazing photos! I found it interesting that they don't show the lion using its claws to kill or even hold the ram. The cat jumped on the ram's back, bit its neck, then its head, and then switched to choking it by biting its throat. It must be a horrible way to die. Bill Quimby

Lark: You are not the first to choose this method, and you will not be the last as long as hunting organizations keep records. Bill Quimby

Consistency is important, but simplicity is even more so. A measuring system to be effective must be able to used by a variety of people with minimum equipment and training, and result in each of them arriving at the same score. The B&C, P&Y, and SCI methods credit mass by recording the circumferences between antler tines. If we hunters are to keep records of our prowess, and I wish we didn't, then let's keep it simple. Bill Quimby

The system used by the CIC of Europe measures deer antlers according to water displacement and conformity to certain questionable standards such as "beauty." For roe deer, for example, this includes the amount of "pearling" on the antlers. There are lots of problems with this system, in my mind. Hunting organizations around the world have devised a number of methods to score deer. The simplest (and best, in my mind) is the one used by B&C and P&Y. SCI uses the same method, but does not deduct for non-conformity, thereby giving a deer credit for all of the "bone" that it grows. Actually, though, as a former editor of the SCI books, I'd like to see record books and the emphasis on hunting for trophies go away. Hunting success should not be judged with tape measures. Bill Quimby

There always are 400 to 500 elk along the reservation's boundary near Sunrise Lake, especially on the forested little hill that used to be a ski run and now has communications equipment on it. Also, take a look around A-1 Lake and the outhouses at the reservation's border on the upper road to Big Lake. Bill Quimby

Why not buy the .22-250 now, and get the .243 later when he grows a bit and graduates to larger game? I hate to see anyone get boogered by the recoil from his first rifle, and the recoil (and noise) of a .243 is significant for youngsters. Flinching is a terrible thing, and darned tough to cure. I shot many Coues whitetail-size deer (60 to 100 pounds) in the Texas Hill Country with the .22-250 years ago, and it killed them in their tracks. It also should be deadly on young, 110- to 130-pound mule deer out to 150 yards or so, but I'd want at least a .243 if a 225-plus-pound buck presented itself past 200 yards. Bill Quimby