billrquimby

I've shot more than a few deer that were infested with ticks, and I agree with Amanda about eating the meat. If there were problems with eating venison from tick-infested deer my family and I would be in big trouble. Also, I've never heard of Lyme disease caused by ticks from an Arizona deer. Bill Quimby

You also can learn a lot by looking at who is endorsing each proposition. With Prop. 202, it's farmers and restaurant owners. Bill Quimby

Lark: I'm not getting senile. I just smell that way. The way to reward us old farts for surviving so long in this state is to require Pioneer licenses for special seasons and allow us to hunt (not shoot) from vehicles. There aren't enough antelope tags for everyone to hunt them, so I say let the young guys have 'em. Give us Pioneer hunts for deer and elk and I'll be happy. Bill Quimby

Lark: Be careful. Your comments could be considered blasphemous and profane by some on this site. More importantly, it also could increase the odds against drawing mule deer tags if the word were to get out. Just a word to the wise .... Bill Quimby

Snapshot: I'm in the White Mountain phone book. Call me a few days before you head up and we'll flip to see who buys the patty melts at the Rendezvous. Some of the best days of my life were spent with my grandson and his buddies on the Little Colorado in Greer, making certain that every boy caught his limit. But after Logan discovered music and girls, he didn't have time to come up. (He's 20 and a junior at the UA.) Meanwhile, without someone to fish with, I hadn't fished on the mountain for the past five years. It's hard to describe exactly how thrilled I was when he drove up in August and we were back on the creek together again, just like old times. Can't wait until he returns next year. Bill Quimby

You've made me homesick already. We closed the cabin in Greer last week and moved back to Tucson (ugh!) for the winter. Our cabin isn't winterized and whenever it got down below 22 at night (which happened twice in the past three weeks) our pipes would be frozen until at least 10 am. Although I wanted to stay longer, my wife broke her ankle last year on our icy deck and wanted to get out before the rain and snow began. Congratulations on your beautiful trout. Bill Quimby

My mule deer tag is for unit 32, starting November 14. No need to scout. I'll be hunting in a friend's farm north of Willcox where I've hunted before. I have sighted in a new rifle and scope I intend to use, though. Bill Quimby

Lark: I hope you mean a hunting season in which geezers are allowed to participate, otherwise I'm going into hiding if they open a season on us. I'd be all for allowing those of us with pioneer licenses to hunt deer, elk and javelinas in special seasons, especially if we were allowed to legally hunt from a vehicle (but not shoot from it). Lots of geezers like me don't qualify for a CHAMP license because, according to the way the regs are written, there is nothing wrong with our legs. We just can't walk more than 100-150 yards without stopping to rest, and it's frustrating as heck! Bill Quimby

Biden may or may not have been prophetic about Obama being our next president, but he was right on about a time of crisis not being far away. No matter who is elected, Israel has had enough of that madman in Iran badmouthing and threatening the "Zionists." It probably won't happen until after our elections, but I for one will not be surprised to wake up one morning soon and hear that the Israelis have attacked Iran's nuclear facilities. After that, we can expect all heck to break loose in that region. Bill Quimby

119 7/8 Bill Quimby

I had two experiences worth mentioning: When removing my saddle after hunting all day from my mule in the Chiricahuas I discovered my rifle was missing. When I followed my tracks the next day I found it hanging where a branch had caught the rifle's sling and pulled it out of its scabbard without my knowing it. My partner and I had fun joking about someone finding "the rifle tree" before me. Then, while gutting a buck near Camp Verde, I laid down my knife to do something. When I reached back -- without looking -- I realized I had picked up another knife. It gave me a spooky feeling to realize that someone had gutted a deer in that exact spot years before me. The knife was an antique, with bone riveted to its rusted steel blade. Who knows how long it had been there? Bill Quimby

David Miller, one of the world's best known custom rifle makers, is in Tucson. His "best gun" rifles have sold in the mid-six-figure range at Safari Club International's auctions. Patrick Holahan, a talented up-and-comin rifle builder and a super nice guy, also is a Tucsonan. If I wanted a new custom rifle today, I would call him. Bill Quimby

There's a photo of an almost-abino ragged-horn bull elk in Henry's barber shop in Springerville. It was shot four or five years ago by someone Henry knows. The elk was well-known to Round Valley locals because it ran with the big herd that can be seen regularly at Mexican Hay Lake. I went over there two or three times specifically hoping to see it myself before the hunt opened, but never was lucky enough. Actually it wasn't a true albino, according to the photo, Its coat had an assortment of very light tan colors on it. Its antlers were as dark as any other bull elk. Bill Quimby

.... and many more! Bill Quimby

Scottyboy: You were smarter than I was. I would never have gone to the hospital if my wife hadn't called an ambulance. I now know that if she hadn't, there would have been a hearse coming for me the next morning. Bill Quimby

Scottyboy: I feel for you. A similar thing happened to me about five or six years ago. The pizza was from another pizza shop -- in Green Valley -- and within two hours after eating about half of it, both ends of my body began trying to purge it. I tried to tough it out, figuring I'd be better the next day, but I wasn't. After two more days of vomiting and diarrhea, my wife called an ambulance. The ER doctors said I had put off treatment so long that it could have killed me. I was so dehydrated that my potassium levels and electrolytes counts (whatever that means) were close to fatal. The next two days and nights were spent in intensive care where nurses (God bless them) had to change my diapers and clean me up every ten minutes or so, while the lab guys tried to find what was needed to treat me. After eliminating the usual suspects, they eventually determined that I had been infected by some sort of rare water-borne contaminant. Funny thing, I have eaten all sorts of strange things in all sorts of strange places on six continents, and never had a intestinal problem that lasted more than a few hours until I encountered that pizza. It was a while before I could eat one again. Bill Quimby

What a shame, if indeed a bowhunter lost that bull because it crossed the reservation line. Incidentally, far back in my memory I seem to remember someone telling me that there are no crows in Arizona and that all the large black birds with big bills we see everywhere are ravens, which cannot be hunted legally here. Anything to that? Bill Quimby

Gutpile: Sorry to hear your hunt was screwed up by that guy. If that's what he was doing he deserves to pay a fat fine. But it's the first I've heard of anyone dressed in camo using cow calls and bugles to try to scare elk away. Is there any chance the guy could have been trying to push that herd to a hunter on the reservation side of the line? Last year, a friend and I were near Sunrise Lake, about a half mile inside the reservation boundary, watching a good bull chase a couple of dinks away from his cows, when a pickup truck drove up. The Apache tribal member who was driving the truck politely demanded that we leave (we were parked on the side of a paved road, mind you). "We're trying to hold a hunt here," he said. We left, of course, but I sure wanted to see if the guy who was paying $17,000 for his hunt bothered to get out of the truck to shoot that bull. Bill Quimby

I live April to November in the heart of unit 1, and I want everyone to know that all of our elk moved to units 2, 3 and 27 or into the White Mountain Apache Reservation last week. They are not expected to return. Take it from someone who knows, and apply for other units in 2009. Bill Quimby

Hayden: I've been busy getting our cabin ready for the winter and tagging along on friends' elk hunts. My wife also is doing our final Christmas shopping in Zuni and Gallop, and I'm the driver, but I will be sure to call your dad after we've moved back in Tucson in a couple of weeks. I'd like to get together over lunch with him and Alex Jacome and talk about the misadventures we three experienced when we were younger and dumber. In the meantime, tell him hello and let him know I often think of the fun we had together. There's a tale you should ask him about that concerned his prized possession at the time ... a folding potty that folded when it shouldn't have on an antelope bowhunt south of the Apache Maid lookout! It was about 1975 or so, and the darned thing had a design flaw (as he soon learned while field testing it). Your dad may be happy to know that although he is mentioned often in my book I did not include that incident. It has a couple of photos he took of me killing a javelina with a bow on the Rail X that he probably will remember, though. Bill Quimby (This is for those who have ordered my "Sixty Years A Hunter" from Safari Press: I corrected and returned page proofs to their production department two weeks ago, so it's possible they could ship books by the end of the year. I was tickled pink to learn that an elk painted by my longtime friend Paul Bosman was chosen to illustrate the dust jacket.)

There was a forked-horn mule deer with hard antlers in my yard in Greer when I returned from the post office this morning. Bill Quimby

My wife is related to a branch of the Magees, and I hunted that mountain a lot with them in the 1950s-60s-70s, but not at all since then. The best bucks used to come from a couple of canyons near what they called "Lone Star Cabin" up on top. I shot my best whitetail from that area on a cone-shaped hill they called "Sugarloaf." It was pretty close to where they're mining now, so the hill may be long gone. If I were going to hunt that area again, especially with optics, I think I'd try the low but tough little hills on the far southern end of the main mountain. The Magees I hunted with called it "Bee Mountain," but I don't know if that's the same name you'll find on topo maps. Bill Quimby

My birth certificate says "born at home, three miles east of Tucson." My birth took place on a couch in the 350-sq. ft. house my father built on my grandparent's little ranch on Speedway about a half mile east of Alvernon. I remember hunting jackrabbits with a .22 there by just walking out the back door of my grandparent's home when we came over from Yuma to visit during the 1940s. Speedway wasn't paved east of Campbell Avenue (Tucson's eastern city limits then) within my memory. There were only a few houses along that road and one little "mom and pop" grocery store (it sold the best damned homemade donuts I've ever tasted), but mostly there was nothing but greasewood as far as we could see between Campbell and a big home "way out east" about where El Dorado Hospital is now. I watched them tear down a beautiful resort where the pavement on Broadway ended and build El Con Mall, and after graduating from the UA, I worked as advertising manager for Levy's and Jacome's department stores -- pioneer downtown Tucson merchants who no closed down when the chains moved into town in the early 1970s. Except for those along North Campbell, our present home on Agave Drive in Tucson was one of the first half-dozen built north of River Road and south of the Westward Look Resort immediately after they pushed North First Avenue from the river to Ina Road. Before the new road, I used to sight my deer rifles in the canyon where First Avenue ended a couple of hundred yards north of the river. I actually walked from my wife's family home at Park and Fort Lowell into the foothills in 1956 or so, and shot my first Coues deer just inside the forest service boundary where Ponatoc Road now ends. I have watched towns like Kearney, San Manuel, Catalina, Oro Valley, Page, Sun City, and Green Valley and others sprout from nothing but desert, and I've watched places like Twin Buttes, Kelvin, Ray and a couple of others disappear. So, yes, I've seen a lot of change and development, but we all can take heart in the fact that only slightly more than 16% of all of Arizona is in private ownership and can ever be developed. The vast majority of our state is in public ownership and should be safe if we can get more controls put on the sale of state trust lands. Bill Quimby Red Rabbit: No, Badger Pond is not affected. It's is on forest service land, about 500 yards up the canyon from my cabin. The meadow in question runs along the Little Colorado River from Osborne Road/Becker Lane almost to the Tin Star Trading Post. It has been subdivided into seventeen one-plus acre sites. In addition to forcing our little elk herd to move elsewhere, putting additional land up for sale has hurt the value of our property a bunch. There were two undeveloped one-acre cabin sites a short distance down our road that sold for $425,000 and $450,000 in 2007. This guy is offering adjacent (but out of the trees) sites for $200,000 each! (We bought our two acres more than 35 years ago for a fraction of that, or else we'd really be pissed!) Lark: The forest circus wasn't called. Bill and Shirley Mattausch hosted a birthday party for me last night at their home in Eagar and, fortunately for everyone (except the candle-making industry), there were no candles on my cake. As with all old farts, I tend to ramble on. Thanks for caring, everyone.

I try to develop loads that will give me the tightest group possible at the range. However, with some rifles, that can be a large as two inches. When I'm hunting -- with unsteady rests, moving targets, and unknown distances -- minute-of-animal is all I ask. Bill Quimby

No way will any mountain lion weigh 520 pounds. The Zambian lion shown with my posts is as big as any African lion, and it was estimated to have "only" weighed between 450 and 500 pounds. That's a big mountain lion tom, to be sure, but I'd believe its weight more if it were reported to be 175 to 200 pounds. Bill Quimby