Coach

Awesome - great job! Love to see those Jr. hunters out there. Thanks for posting the story!

Man - that is friggin' AWESOME!!!! What a great buck. Nice write-up too. A Huge congrats to Ian.

Thank you all very much for the information! I really appreciate it.

Check out the beretta tomcat. It's only.32, but you can get some pretty hot Hornady personal defense rounds for it. Its semi auto BUT you don't have to work the slide to chamber the first round. The barrel pops up. Bought one for my wife and she loves it. It's much lower profile than the hammerless revolvers.

What a truly amazing buck!!! Holy smokes! Congratulations!

Wow - that is REALLY cool! Great job!!!

I've seen some bombers that have been taken with rattles and bleats. These guys were at the peak of the rut. No personal success yet using these tactics, but I know they work if you get in the right location and do it correctly. No idea on the decoys. I've yet to fool an elk with a montana decoy, so I'm too skeptical to try them on coues.

Cool thread. I have one that could be reused this year, but I put the Muzzy broadhead on a fresh arrow. The old arrow needs some cleaning before it can be used again. Would love to send that same broadhead through a piggy tomorrow- we'll see.

+1 to that! Wow - what an aweseome hunt! Thanks for sharing!

That is one great looking buck! Congrats!

Great buck and great story Gino. Congrats to the young lady on an outstanding trophy. She overcame a lot and had some amazing friends in the field to put it together. Excellent job, my friend.

Or you could get a person who claims to hate "e-scouting" but asks for information on a unit they've never hunted - or scouted. You go against your better judgement and divuldge very detailed info in the interest of helping out a fellow hunter. Just suppose (hypothetically, of course) that hunter went on to take a nice trophy-class buck and then refused to say, even privately, whether it was taken in one of the areas you suggested. In this "purely hypothetical" situation, you can see why some people might opt not to share information in the future, knowing that gifts given aren't always returned. Some food for thought anyway.

Great lookin' buck there. Congrats!

Nice looking sheds. A year or so back i was camped in NM next to some good ol' boys from Texas who found some amazing 7x7 sheds in an area of NM that isn't really known for big bulls. The NM back-country holds some amazing bulls and kongo muleys for sure. Thanks for sharing these!

Not THAT far south. I'm fully convinced it's a lion, and a big one. This particular set-up was only 3 weeks old and the number of camera triggers was crazy for that time period. Mostly does (probably 40+ pix of multiple does), but the batteries failed in the cold weather, or the camera - not a good one, and the last 50-some pix were totally blank. I did manage to get 72 good pix that were mostly coues does with a couple cows and some "tough hombre" cowbows and a couple small bucks. I've got a good camera on this spot now so it will be interesting to see what's really going on in there. I've never seen a new setup with this much activity, that's for sure.

Just checked my cameras in the desert and got this pic of one Huge lion... Here's a pic of some coues does taken from the same camera at the same distance to get an idea how big this cat is...

Personally, I think aluminum shafts have had their day. They will be lost somewhere between cedar and carbon as a good "stand-in" as technology progressed. They definately played their role, and many great trophies have been taken with them. I just don't see much of a future for them. You can make modern carbon arrows heavier if you want more KE, and they never bend or warp. If you want larger diameter to get a more helical arrow, there are "fat" carbons available. Combined with the shorter fletchings we're all using these days, I don't think you'll find a "technological" argument for aluminum shafts. On the other hand, if you find them more asthetic or have some fondness of them, by all means shoot them. Just like cedar shafts with turkey fletchings, bamboo fly rods with hand-tied caddis nymphs, Italian 28 guage over-and-unders, we all find ways to make our sport more personal, and if going back to the 2017's that made you love archery makes it more enjoyable, use them with pride. Sometimes backing away from technology actually enhances our experience in the field. Look at how our ancestors took game with flint-lock rifles, and the "masters" of archery hunting took amazing trophies across the globe with long bows and recurves. We all have to find what we are comfortable with. For some it's blazing speed with the latest bow shooting ultra light arrows tipped with mechanical broadheads. For others, its a long bow and hand made arrows built by hand with natural materials. It's not what you take into the field, it's what you leave with.

Let's try this. I attempted to lighten it up and sharpen it with photoshop.

BTW, great job on the photos. I love it when hunters take the time to pose their deer respectfully in the field. Kudos on one heck of a buck, story and pictures for us all to drool over.

What an amazing buck and a great story to go along with it. I would guess 113 conservatively, maybe 117"??? That is one great looking buck. It obviously took a lot of patience and work, but it was clearly worth it.

Yeah, the pic looks a little better on my PC, but not much. I can see the outline pretty well though. This camera is not the best - especially the flash. I've got my Cover II on it now, hopefully there will be some better night pictures.

Nice pictures. Thank you for sharing your hunt. Those carvings look very familiar. I know of a spot near Globe where there are very ancient rock carvings of snakes and people with swollen hands. There are several rattlesnake dens close by. If you see the "squiggelly" lines with round heads and pictures of people with large round hands, you know you've stumbled on an area that holds rattler dens. Thanks again for posting.

C'mon guys. I bet there is at least one member on here that would be willing to take this guy out and show him the ropes. SE AZ is too far away for me personally, but I bet there are some guys in Safford or Clifton who wouldn't mind getting out of the house for a day or two. Jim, you really are taking on something big if you are coming from out-of-state and going in blind. I checked your profile and couldn't tell where you are coming from. Can you give us something about you to go on? Hunting the desert is hard, hard, hard if you aren't used to it, and don't know where to start. This forum is full of knowledgeable hunters from all over the state, many of which are very glad to help out somebody who is willing to do some leg-work. As others have stated, be ready to spend lots of time glassing. The country is generally very open, but the critters here know that and don't show themselves much. I had a wise old guy tell me I should wear out the seat of my pants long before my boots if I want to figure these animals out. He was dead on. You won't see much walking around unless you are focusing on escape routes that lead to places you'll not likely glass nor hike. Shoot me a PM if you want, and I'll do my best to give you some idea of what to expect. However, Amanda has done a great job of describing the habits and habitats of coues deer, along with detailed glassing and hunting advice, right here on this site. I doubt I could tell you much that isn't readily available from the CWT home page. After that, it comes down to fine-tuning the basics, which takes experience in the field.

I got a lump of coal. Times being especially tight, we decided to forego presents for us adults, and focus on the kids. I did build one heck of an AR15 upper-half with my work bonus, though. Would love to post pix. It's a really cool 16 inch "entry" upper with a floated YHM quad rail fore-end, phantom flash suppressor, tango-down grip and some nice magpul goodies to make it look cool. The "old" upper half is a RRA floated stainless heavy (one-inch) barrelled varmint rig with a Pentax scope from Doug @ Cameraland. Can't wait to see how it shoots with a real scope on it. My middle son shot a pig at 125 yards this year with the "close quarters" Aimpoint Comp-ML. I'm pretty sure this rig with the RRA two-stage match trigger is capable of shooting much tighter groups than I can.

Pretty buck! Congrats!