Coach

Not a winery, but there is a pretty good brewery in Lakeside called the Pinetop Brewing Company that appears to have a pretty good selection of wines in addition to hand-crafted beers. It shares space with Stolen Recipe BBQ so it's a fun little place to get some good BBQ & beer/wine.

Thoughts and prayers sent!

I'd take the 190" muley over the 120" coues. JMO. But I've taken a lot more coues than I have muleys. As for table fare, the way I process meat, I don't find coues that much better than mule deer. I'd prefer a cow elk over both, but super lean, well cared for meat from any deer species is awesome. I just love those big wide muleys from a trophy aspect.

Nice group - I'm glad they took care of it and got that gun shooting the way it should.

Gotta laugh, we kill about 3 of these a week. I'm usually very compassionate about snakes but we've got a koi pond with some regular goldfish. We've lost some very nice fish to these idiot garter snakes who bite anything they can latch onto but can't swallow.

Godspeed, Brian.

Islam has become the epitome of radical religion gone nuts. These guys cut each other's heads off not because one is non-muslim, just not the right kind of muslim. And what do you think they have in store for Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists? Or maybe you're agnostic or atheist, how do you think you'd be treated by the Muslim Brotherhood in exchange for your tolerance? Their stated goal is world domination - one god, allah, one power system, one government, one law - Sharia law. And they've already successfully taken over big parts of the United States, like Dearborn, MI. Europe is quickly allowing islam to infiltrate and subjugate local law - look at the Netherlands, look at Egypt. If it isn't crystal clear that there will be a time in our lives or our children's that Islam will kill or convert every non muslim person on the globe, you might not be paying close enough attention to the world around you. We've gotten fat, lazy, complacent and ignorant on the fruits of our grandparents, and it's gonna come back on us hard.

Black Mamba.

My biggest concern in this, is that after they spend all this money, they'll look for entrance fees. Just kind of goes with the territory I guess. Give them something they didn't want, then charge them for it. Bartlett, Roosevelt are good examples.

Wow - that's some great taxidermy work on a tremendous buck. Great job!

Probably a dumb question, but is there a way to find your old posts here?

My guess is, that's next. They have a whole different perspective than we do. They want to modernize, while we want to preserve. It's "progress" in action, and it's here to stay, unfortunately.

I'd add to the WAG one thing, GAS. so maybe it's WAGG, lol. You're going to spend a lot of time driving unless you pick one small spot and stay in it. I took 13 5 gallon gas cans (13B) and was going through them fast - and I was targeting a relatively small portion of the unit. I can't wait to see the pictures and hear the story of your hunt. As I mentioned via PM, I might be up there at the same time helping out a friend. If I can swing it with work, I'll definitely be there. That place is amazing, and having only hunted the strip once, I'll only put in for 13B/A again and be content with left-over tags and archery hunting until I can go back.

Yeah, I agree with you guys. IMO it's not necessary. The access up there is great, but I preferred the dirt road feel. I live here in Lakeside and spend a lot of time up around Big Lake and all of Unit 1. The good news is, they'll never pave it all (I hope) and there are still lots and lots of great roads to go explore. It doesn't really surprise me that they want to continue the pavement all the way through 3 forks to Alpine, but that is such a great road already, I don't understand the need. There are a lot of cool campgrounds off that road, that will lose appeal if it's paved.

If you want to hire a guide, it would greatly increase your odds, but it's still not a sure thing. I've heard great things about the Bundy family up there, Ryan Hatch obviously is a great resource. The McClendons guide and hunt up there all the time - maybe putting down some money for a scouting package would help out. I got a very generous offer from a well respected guide who knows the area, but you just have to decide if you want to go with a guide, or go self-guided. When I went up there, I wanted as much info as possible, but still wanted to do the hunt unguided. I wouldn't trade the "self-guided" experience for anything, but without a doubt, I was going up there with some good ideas of where to start and what to expect, due to the generosity of many guys who were willing to share some of their past experience.

HuntScout.com has some really good hunting maps. http://www.huntscout.com/

I saw the same thing - it's crazy how just plain dumb some people are.

I accidentally got the 3A/3C late rifle hunt. Meant to put in archery as my second choice. There's some burned bp's.

Can't answer all your questions - but I would say the 300 WSM is a better all around round than the .270 WSM just because you can load it heavier. I have both, and reload for them and really like them both, but if I had to choose one, it would be the 300. It will do just about anything. The .270 WSM is my 2 of my 3 sons' favorite but my oldest and I prefer the .300. At 800 yards, I would definitely side with the .308 over the .270. As sjvcon mentioned, plenty of good charts out there. Retained energy at longer yardage always favors the heavier bullet. I would not shorten the barrel to 20". I think the accuracy would suffer compared to a 26" barrel.

One really cool thing about the Badlands - not sure if the other brands mentioned here have this - they have a hook attached at the bottom you can hang your bow from while you use your binos or range finder, instead of setting your bow down on the ground every time you need your optics.

Sooner or later maybe we'll get p-o'd enough to do more than complain about all the illegal, anti-America, anti-constitutional stuff going on - maybe not. And I'm not exempting myself from that in any way. We citizens shouldn't have to - there's enough Americans out there who have sworn an oath to prevent these kinds of abuses, from police and sheriffs to county commissioners to generals and judges, and of course our.. wonderful...elected officials. We should NEVER even have to entertain the thought of doing ourselves, the one thing we put them there to do.

For some reason the link in the opening post is not working for me.

Nicely done BeardownAZ. Class act for sure.

Welcome to the site. Good folks, lots of info.

Very cool picture!