Coach

World's tiniest violin playing just for you! LOL. Love it TJ, you and Peg smiling out on the water with a bass in each hand makes my heart warm.

Went out today with the family to get a look at the "petting zoo". This is a spot where there's always a LOT of elk, deer, some bears and tons of turkeys. Given how little snow we've gotten this year, I had a feeling there would be very little winter kill. The amount of turkey sign we saw was amazing. Droppings everywhere, multiple roost trees. I didn't draw and my oldest son is no longer eligible for the OTC youth hunts, but I'll be getting archery tags for myself and Matt, and really focusing on some good bird calling for my younger boys this spring. Best of luck to all of you who drew at tag. And to those of you with a some kids wanting to get started in hunting, this should be a great opportunity to get them in the woods and learning the passion.

LOL, I used to shoot a lot of bunnies around (in) the golf courses in Tucson. I don't have any specific spots to point you to near the valley, but seems like just about anywhere there's lots of water is a good starting point. The areas around sugarloaf, tortilla flat, anything around Queen creek should be good places to start. Best of luck!

Funny - and sad. I was a long time cabela's customer. Bought pretty much everything from them - archery, black powder, everything fishing, boots, fly tying, reloading - the list keeps going. They used to have the best selection, best prices and best customer service in the industry. These days, they seem to always charge at least MSRP, sometimes more as your picture proves, outrageous shipping costs. These days, the only things I'll buy there are things that you can't get anywhere else. Their boots, tents, cots are still very high quality, but there are a lot more options out there these days that just keep me throwing all those catalogs in the can before they ever reach the house.

Beautiful! Great job Amanda. Something about that golden poppy bloom in spring that's hard to explain, but you captured it perfectly. Excellent music choice too.

355 with mine

knew that wouldn't last long. great deal.

Not trying to derail this, but I have to ask. All the opinions and suggestions have been "get a good doc, get an MRI, get physical therapy". I'm lucky enough to enjoy a decent wage and a decent health care plan. My out of pocket costs for the ER were staggering. My "Cadillac" plan still has me paying 20% plus copays, plus specialist bills. Physical therapy is pretty much out of pocket. Just the meds required to re-seat the shoulder are going to potentially drain all we've saved up for a family vacation. Things like an MRI, or physical therapy aren't covered. I'm looking for some real world experience, how to properly heal and train my shoulder without making my family suffer for it.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Seems lots of folks have had to deal with this and many have advised against trying to do too much too soon. A whole mess of things I was planning on doing will have to wait - oh well. Coulda been a lot worse I suppose. Best luck to you all in the draw!

Keep in mind this is a very polarizing topic. As Amanda correctly pointed out, B&C will not allow an animal taken with the aid of radios into their books. They are legal for use in AZ, just determine if you want your animal in the books. I use radios on all hunts for safety and communication. I also don't consider them unethical, but that's just my opinion. As to what's allowed by B&C and what is not, I find very inconsistent, and have enumerated countless examples resulting in some heated disagreements with some hunters I respect.

For starters, there's only one category of ammunition being targeted. Specifically M855/SS109 which are approximately 62 grain, full metal jacket, steel core "penetrating" rounds. These are commonly referred to as "green tip" rounds and have a steel core. The legal basis for banning this round is that it is characterized as a pistol round because ar15 variants can be classified as pistols instead of short barreled rifles, if they meet certain requirements. Only "armor piercing" pistol rounds are included in the ban. So, on the surface, it means very little. The AR 15 platform is alive and well, tons and tons of ammo is still readily available, The M855/SS109 has been largely dismissed as a legitimate combat round. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO The 62 grain 5.56 hollow tip is far more effective in combat. The 7.62 x39 is cheap and readily available and packs way more punch. AR uppers are available without swapping the lower half of your rifle. And if you're worried about ammo for your AR, 55 grain fmj is not on the banned list and costs around .24 a round compared with the average ten cents a round as .22 LR. Philosophically, we should fight the M855 ban because it is a meaningless stab at gun owners. As far as I've seen, not one law enforcement officer has been killed in the line of duty with an 855/109 round shot from an AR15 pistol variant - ever. BUT - if this does become law, it sets precedence. And precedence determines future laws. Fight it - and fight it hard because it's a foot in the door. And while you're fighting, buy as much .223 62 grain hollow point as you can, and start your stockpile of Ruger M30, AR variant uppers that can shoot 7.62x39, and buy all the bullets you can. Since 2012-23 .22 LR has been non existent. Right now, .223 and 7.62 is readily available. If they can choke out .22 lr, the others are not far behind.

Interesting topic. Let's say you are walking down the street and find a wallet full of cash. You pick it up, look around for an obvious owner, none to be found. Depending on your ethics it's either A) your lucky day or B.) your hardship because now you have to find the owner and make sure it gets back to him/her. What I love about this forum and the community here is that the vast majority fall into category B. However, there will always be those that fall into A and will rationalize it any way they can.

I was down in 23 this weekend for the HAM hunt and had a muzzle loader bounce out of my ranger. It wasn't just any muzzle loader, it was an old Thompson Center Hawkens .50 cal that belonged to my grandfather. I know - how stupid was I to let that happen? I debated taking it but grandpa killed a lot of white tail in Oklahoma with hand poured balls. It's been sitting here in my office for years, and I just thought it would be really cool if I killed a pig with it and his ammo. Of course, I was devastated to have lost it. I re-traced every road I had been on trying to find it with no luck. Everyone I met, I asked if they had seen it. None had, but some took down my phone number - asked where I was camped, real, honest folks hoping to find it and get it back to me. I stopped by a big camp close to mine and asked about it, and the guys kinda grinned and said, yeah, we found it. Really great guys - they said as soon as they found it they knew it meant a lot to someone and weren't sure whether to put up a sign, or how to get it back to the guy who lost it. I just want to say, THANK YOU 1000 times over to these guys. They could have just kept it but they didn't. That's just awesome. And to the guys who took down my phone number, looking to get it back to me if they found it or heard about it. As I was driving out today, one guy came running out and flagged me down. He was one of they guys I had met earlier and just wanted to know if I had found it. Not too often you find people like this that are so honest and caring. I just want to say how grateful I am to the good hunters in AZ that look out for each other. If any of the folks I bumped into are on this site - thanks for being such stand-up people. I know a lot of members here have found optics or a gun that someone else lost and went to great lengths to find the owner. You guys are top notch in my book.

Wow that thing is a giant! Congrats on an awesome lion. Great story too - I bet your girls will never forget that adventure.

Getting up there in points, but reading similar posts, it looks like 16 points isn't much. Do I apply for premium hunts and expect not to draw, or are there any really good hunts that I have a decent shot at drawing that are worth using up the points?

G&F does things slowly, by the book, and occasional, farms out work to contractors. The state of their current online system illustrates how far they are behind the rest of the world, technologically. The way I see it, they are under-funded and what funds they do bring in are mis-appropriated, of just flat out stolen by the state. They do what they can with what resources they have. The best minds in technology are not working for state level government. And the lowest bid contractors are not going to provide the kind of experience we are used to with Amazon or retailers like Cabela's or Midway USA. I've said over and over, 3 or 4 guys could radically make over the G&F online system. in a weekend. They just don't have the funding or the interest to do it.

Odds are pretty good in NM with a bow. And as many have pointed out, Wyoming has some incredible tags. Some OTC. I helped a friend on a muzzy goat hunt this year and the goat he took ended up something like 89 5/8, and he was passing a solid 84 goat each day. A friend of mine says he has access to a ranch in CO with lots of 80+ bucks. I've only hunted antelope with a bow. Some of the bucks I saw and chased were amazing. I really want the classic antelope hunt, where I can see lots of good bucks. I realize at 16 points, it's no guarantee, but I've waited this long and don't mind waiting more - for that once-in-a-lifetime hunt. So, unit 10 looks like the most promising, but I know nothing about the 5s and 4s. 2A, 2b, 2c and even 3c and 4b are close enough to go learn. When I do finally draw, I'll go self guided, but I feel at this point I know more about goats ins other states than I do here.

Not to derail, but has anyone fished Sunrise this year through the ice? Some of my best memories up here are landing some bomber bows and brookies. Had a couple 22+ of both.

While I was glad to see it, that had to be one of the dumbest calls ever.

I've found that most digital cameras take really big pictures. Before I post any pix here I open them up in Adobe photoshop, go to Image/Image Size. The default size under Print Size is 60x45 inches. By changing the width to 10, the height adjusts to 7.5. Then I select File/Save for Web, which allows me to save as gif, jpeg or png formats and the resulting file size is shown in the lower left corner. A typical photo will with medium quality will be under 100K saved as JPEG. I save these photos off to a folder called "reduced" and can post them easily. Example: This photo was 19.8 MB on camera and reduced to 103 kb.

Awesome bucks. Congrats to your hunters. I've hunted the SC twice and come home empty both times but have seen some really nice buck. Nothing like what you turn up though. Great job getting your hunters on some really beautiful bucks.

Nice! Lovn' the AR. Probably not a better pig gun. My middle son connected this weekend with my AR. Pix on another thread. Congrats to Laura!

Dang. Nice looking rig.

We'll be down there with 3 tags to fill - staying at Punkin Center. Good luck to all the youth hunters this weekend.

Great vid. I use this method on all the animals we harvest. I've always started at the back quarter though and worked forward, taking the back strap. then the tenderloin last on each side. The order doesn't matter much IMO, but they did keep it really clean. The goal is to use the hide, peeled back, to act as a tarp would to protect the meat from contaminants.