Coach

The Black River, the upper Salt in Spring, the pines where snow is melting off. In Fall where the leaves are changing colors. Wherever there is a dugout filled with kids waiting for their chance at bat, or on the sidelines watching young men set aside their fears and reach inside for courage and strength...Church is what we make it, and it doesn't always have walls or even a door.

A little too smal for me. I do know Sitka clothing is very well made and probably worth the price. Bump for some quality hunting gear.

I have to say, after reading the article at the link you posted about Isaac's ordeal, I just get more pissed off. Essentially, it's a big money grab by unscrupulous dentists lining up kids and performing unnecessary procedures and billing the government (us taxpayers). As much as I’d love to see this guy get his butt kicked in sideways, I think your best recourse is to retain the best lawyer you can afford and go after the dentist and the organization that put him in Isaac’s school. You can’t undo the damage that they did, but at the very least, these guys should be paying for Isaac’s higher education.

Salt in the summer months and corn & alfalfa in winter.

Hey Pine Donkey, we had a BLAST hunting turkey this year. I took Matt out the other day in hopes of filling his tag, but it was really dead. To make things worse, the slate call I took out was completely worn out and every time I started getting a good sequence in, the odd "squack" would happen. I felt really bad about that. I'm no great turkey caller, but it seems that it only takes one bad mishap to really mess things up. It can sound all natural and attractive, but the second one squeak or squack sounds funky, they get really leary and won't come in unless they are totally "love drunk". I'm really happy that Josh and Nick were able to get their birds this year, but it just didn't come together with Matt, and at least part of that was my fault. He could have killed about 1 second after Josh shot his bird, but he was not prepared for the second Tom to fly straight up when Josh shot. I do feel bad that his little brothers got to take the easy shots, and by the time they were done, the hunting got a lot harder. But I'll tell you what, that guy is really getting an education in turkey hunting, and he can now call as well using just his mouth as many of us can do with slates, diaphrams and box calls. And he is passionate about it. He's gonna kill a lot of birds as he matures as a hunter, because every time we are out there, he is so focused on learning their behavior, habits and communication, he is growing as a hunter in ways I never did at his age.

Thanks for the replies. He drew Rhodes Canyon- Feb 22nd-24th. He killed an Oryx in Africa a few years back and echoed what quailchaser said - it was the best eating animal he's ever taken, and he's taken lots. Hey Sundevil, sorry we kept missing eachother. I'll try to call again tomorrow.

I have a buddy coming from Montanna to hunt Oryx on the missle range in NM. I'm just about to start pouring over past threads to see what I can find out, but basically, I'm looking for any kind of basic information about the hunt from those of you that have done it. What I'm really looking for is the process from checking in at the base, to the actual hunting itself. I have heard it's initially like a race for the first shot, then people kind of split off, but the general tenor is kill fast and get off the base - but that's all second hand. So I'd love to hear fro anyone who has done the hunt and can describe how it went, and any suggestions you have.

Wow, Darren, I sure hope Isaac is OK. That sounds like quite an ordeal for the little guy to have to go through. Best wishes to you and Isaac.

Yes. PM me for contact info, additional pix, etc.

Anybody been up there lately? My oldest son kinda got the short end of the stick and had to watch his little brothers kill during the early hunt. We're headed out tomorrow morning for the second part of the hunt, but from what I've heard, it's getting tough. Anybody been out lately? Sometimes after the first breeding they kind of have a post-party "hook-up" period for lack of a better term where lonely gobblers are still looking for a last "hurrah".

Great post. A while back I posted about this very topic. I had hunted hard all season and blew the chance at a really amazing bull elk at 15 yards. I ended up taking a bull that was much older, and from a scoring perspective, not all that big - maybe high 320's. But the way that hunt came together and the whole experience really made that bull a "trophy" to me. I wish I could find the original post here because it really does touch on what makes a hunt personal, and how measuring inches becomes secondary to the actual hunt. When you are there, close to a dominant bull, inside the herem, you have achieved something that most hunters only dream about. Whether he scores 300 or 400 inches kind of goes out the window. The rack size takes a back seat to what it took to get yourself into that situation. To me, that moment is the one that defines what makes a trophy.

I've been in there quite a bit after the fire. Some areas got hammered, but overall, it looks really healthy. I'm heart-sick over the loss of the sheep around Buffalo crossing. From what I've seen they took it the worst. The deer, elk, turkey and bear are all thriving, from what I've seen. After seeing the Rodeo/Chedeski fire pretty much demolish unit 3C, and watching the animals rebound, I think the burned areas in unit 1 and 27 will produce some of the best hunting we've seen in those areas in a long time. I already know people who are starting to save their deer bonus points in anticipation that it will become a premier mule deer destination in the years to come. As much as I hate seeing so much of the area burned so badly, I really think the wildlife is going to flourish in the wake of the fire.

Heard about this today - sounds like it's growning fast. The conditions are pretty bad, low humity, high winds... The area will recover but I sure hope people don't lose their homes to it.

Nice rifle, poor bullet selection. If they offered in in .270 WSM and .300 WSM, it would be much better, IMO.

Hey TJ. I've been trying to send you the video. Even on the lowest resolution it is still over 50MB and your server is denying it. I just zipped it, but it's still 47MB.... Maybe I'll have to cut out a bunch of the redundant elk pix, but it is really funny to watch in its entirety. Using MS Movie Maker I made each pic show for 1/2 second and it's still like 16 minutes long.

That's really cool. I like the camera - would be nice if it had a "zoom" mode. Thanks for the cool footage.

Hey Sam, sure is nice to be up here. I work for a company in Scottdale, but have a home office in Lakeside, so I get to be a little closer to what I really love. I pulled a card from a camera I put out April 19th. The card had over 2500 pix when the batteries died on May 4th. I'm trying to put together a video of all the stills - it is really cool. Anyway, here are some turkey highlights...

I had 4 gobblers going this morning on the roost and thought it was going to be a slam dunk. When they left the roost, I have no idea where they went, but it sure wasn't to check on my decoys or the hen-calls I was trying to entice them with. They shut up and disappeared. At least it was fun to get all that morning music - I wasn't expecting them to still be gobbling at all.

Thanks guys. Went out this morning and had 4 gobblers going on the roost. We set up the decoys and thought, oh boy they're going to be in a foot race to get these hens. For whatever reason, when they left the roost they quit gobbling and never came to investigate the decoys.

The new forum is nice and all, but I've been seeing some strange stuff. For one, when I start scrolling, large sections of the posts don't show up - just a big empty space with the background color. Also, when you reply to a topic, it used to take you back to that topic, at your post. Doesn't seem to do that anymore. Finally, after replying to a topic, it seems to take a while for that topic to get "moved up" in terms of a recently updated topic. Probably just a lag to let the moderators get a chance to review, but it definately changes the feel of the forum. I'm not trying to be overly critical, just pointing out some differences that will take some getting used to. I love this forum and spend a lot of time here so I wanted to give some constructive feedback.

I've hunted mule deer on the Navajo once and it was a very fun hunt. The deer numbers seem to be very cyclical. The guys I hunted with said the numbers were way down the year we hunted it compared to the previous year, but at least 3 of the 4 of us with tags got our deer (this was archery). Not sure if the 4th got his the weekend after I left. However, it looks like the tags are way down. I was considering doing it again and I found the following info on their website. It looks to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that they are only offering 3 tags per hunt (standard $400 tag) to non tribal members... http://www.nndfw.org/2012_13proclamation.pdf

Bump for a great bow. I killed several critters with one almost just like that. Without a doubt one heck of a bow.

Here's the really funny part. These people fancy themselves as "environmentalists". They have some romantic notion about what the world outside the city is supposed to be like. However when they get here, decked from head-to-toe in the very latest REI or Eddie Bauer drag, with no clue what to do next, and realize that they weren't magically transformed into Meriweather Lewis and Pocohantus, they have to find someone to blame. "There's bugs out here, there's poop out here, the directions are shoddy, too few amenities..." We've all seen them in their silly cars with their silly clothes and silly water bottles and walking sticks. Guys and gals, this is the face of the environmental movement that is seeking to kick you and I off of public forest land. They don't want us stepping foot in their magical forest, and they sure as heck don't want us catching fish from the lakes and streams or killing the game that lives there to provide meat for our tables. And theysure don't know a thing about what is best for our forests.

Awesome - what a great bird. Huge congrats.

Awesome, TJ. That's the way to do it right there - and making some fish tacos, can't beat that.