BirdDog20

I saw a small 3ptr running with another spike, 2 does and a faun in 36B. I was sorta surprised with the mix.

My dad and I both got 36B early December. Now to break it to my wife that I need to fly / drive back to Tucson on Thanksgiving Day.

Dang ... I got hit for $225.25 on Jul 12th, but I still can't see my results. Tried calling the G&F and plugging my Sportsman ID etc and it said that the results were not available yet. My first two choices were late Dec hunts. Hopefully I got one of those. This was the first year that I created a sportsman ID instead of using my SSN.

The "Harvard of Arizona" beat Harvard to advance. Glad to see Oregon represent the conference in the Sweet 16 as well. Wish UCLA had not lost Adams on the last play of the UofA game. Would have been nice for the Pac-12 to go 4-1 in the first round if UCLA had not lost their 2nd high scorer and best defender. I was rooting for the Sun Devils in the NIT.

That's good. I root for all Pac-12 teams to do well against other conferences. Otherwise, how else can you claim conference superiority ... about time you guys start pulling your weight.

I never get tired of hearing the U of A chant at an away game ... especially when that game is at ASU.

I always thought the over rated chant was one of the most ridiculous chants ever ... so basically you didn't beat a top ranked team, but a much lower one and thus you diminished your accomplishment.

On the bright side, AZ carried the mantle for the conference in the non-conference slate and losing to Oregon actually helped in terms of allowing the conference gain some recognition. We now have 3 teams ranked in the top 25. I never thought the Cats would dominate. We are too young up front and these guys aren't consistent yet. Improving yes, but they disappear at times. Fortunately, there are a lot of options for Miller to mix'n match. I wish Miller would play Gabe York more over Jordin Mayes who has limited upside. Should be a good year. The conference is at its best when there are 5 or 6 good teams. I like seeing Oregon, UCLA, ASU do well. Much better than the days of Snow White (Lute) and the 9 dwarfs. Consider how bad it was last year. Collectively, as a conference, the Pac12 did not have one win against a top 25 team. This year, we had several. UofA had two, UCLA beat Missou, Oregon beat UNLV, Colorado beat Baylor, ASU ... well, as a conference, we've done pretty well and should be getting better. 4 or 5 teams into the tournament this year instead of just 1.

Great story. Beautiful buck.

Has anyone here hunted San Carlos? Since it's reservation ... under it's own sovereignty, does taking a deer count against your Arizona limit. I'm guessing ... no. Do they charge extra for non-resident? Looking at the possibility of putting together a hunt for my uncle and perhaps my father for a trophy hunt. Looking for references or reviews of guides. Any information appreciated.

Drove in from Texas again this year so that I would have some flexibility in my departure date. 16 to 17 hour drive. 1100 miles. Crazy to think, you can leave Houston at 2pm, you're getting into El Paso at 2am. How do I love hunting deer in Southern AZ ... Had a great hunt this year. Had to learn a new area as my old standbys that served me for 10+ years have dried up ... literally and/or have been shot out with much greater hunting pressure. It was one thing when I still lived in Tucson. I love scouting and could be found in the mountains on most every weekend when I was still at the U of A. My dad doesn't get out scouting nearly as much as he used to as he's not hunting for big bucks anymore. He used to hunt specifically for them back in the 60s and 70s when Cashbox and Leo's used to have their contests, but anymore, he's satisfied just bring home some meat. We didn't camp out since I wasn't sure what area I wanted to hit. 6 straight days of getting up at 2am to drive approx 2 hours. Hike for 2 hours and be sitting 30 minutes before the sun came up. Exhausting. So anyway, I had to do all my scouting from 1100 miles away with google maps. And it worked. Spent 4 consecutive days going into a new area and saw 3 - 90ish heads at 600 to 800 yards. Had a shot at one at 480yards which i missed low. If I had more time, I would have been able to cut off substantial distance, but he was coming down for water quick. All the better in the end. There should be 3 nice heads in the area. I let them be and went back to my original area to see about a shooter buck I let go last year in my late hunt. I never saw him, but with it being my last day, I went ahead and took a spike buck that my dad glassed up just to bring back some meat. I'm really looking forward to next year with that new area though. To me, that made the hunt! Although, I am curious to what kind of hunting pressure this new site may have. Couple of interesting finds: - Found a natural seep. - Found a troop of 12-15 coatimundi's. They were all over the place. - Dismantled a staging area for illegals. Tore up the canopy they had created. Pissed on the sleeping bags (more of a symbolic statement). Drug back all the plastic they were using to mask their heat signatures back to my truck. Gave the GPS coordinates to the Border Patrol so they could do flyovers. The Border Patrol were very appreciative of us hunters. Basically this site makes sense for the coyotes to set up. It overlooks the valley coming up from I-19. They can see any Border Patrol or their pickup coming from a long way off. Amazing that this grand ol' tree finally died. Shows how low the water table is getting with Green Valley and Tubac, etc pulling water from the ground and the ongoing drought. There was a time when 684 had water running in the road. It used to be lush. I can't believe how dry that side of the Tumacacori's look now. Lastly, I just want to say that I appreciate any time that I get to hunt with my father. He cracked 75 this year, but still works out and can still pull his way up the mountains. He went out all 6 days with me and then we both helped out my uncle in 36A afterwards. I'm amazed, appreciative, but sadly I realize that there will be a point in the next few years that things will change. Can he make it to 80? He can still hike and glass with the best of them. He outglassed me on finding the does this year, but I found all the bucks, except for the one I got. Lol. I like to think that I help give him incentive to stay in shape. I know he's looking forward to that new area next year as much as I am.

Lol. Martian from the UFO crash site? I didn't take any pictures of the spike other than us processing it on the back porch and the tag on the deer for proof so that I could transport it back to Texas. Was torn about taking him or not, but figured two years in a row of tag soup isn't very efficient use of meat / $$.

Thanks! Third generation is about to start in the next couple years. He comes out on my dad's hunts since they tend to be shorter and I can afford him to miss a couple days of school instead of a full week. School first! Lol. Good to hear your father is still at it too. There's hope! If you don't use it, you lose it, my dad always says, so I hope he can maintain. P.S. @ Bill Quimby - Bob Lee from TNI says hi.

Good info guys. Thanks!

He hadn't developed a whole lot of mass yet, but holy smokes, what tremendous tine length!!! Must be some good genetics in the area. Congrats!

Anyone here a member of goazcats.com? (rivals)

We start hiking about 2 to 2.5 hours before the sun comes up and look to be sitting 30 minutes before it rises to let things settle back down. Not only does it allow you to get into good territory without spooking them out, but if you set up in the right spot, you can utilize hunting pressure patterns to your advantage as the other hunters leave their camps / atv's. We sit and glass all morning. My dad will stay in one spot ... but that may be more due to age (75). Lol. I like to get up and still hunt to cover more area. I don't rely on jumping the deer. I still like to see them before they see me. Move slow, glass new angles and territory before going through it. Before I top a ridge, I glass as much as I can before exposing my silhouette then crossing over for a more thorough glassing.

I don't get the over-reaction on each UofA game. Lot of my friends ramped up their expectations to unrealistic levels and have taken the loss hard. Realistically, the Cats aren't quite there yet, but definitely headed in the right direction with RichRod. WAY AHEAD of schedule. Offense is solid with Scott at the helm, but their defense is / has been smoke and mirrors ... opportunistic more than anything. They are undersized and lack depth. We aren't going to shut down anyone. Everything has to break just right like it did in the USC game. I wonder how severe Scott's hit was in the USC game and it makes you question if the UCLA performance was a product of that hit. Probably should not have been playing but I could understand that the dude is a warrior. It would have been nice if the Colorado game followed the USC game to give him a time to recoup. Gotta keep the player's health in mind and sometimes you have to protect the player from himself. They should definitely keep him out of the Colorado game since we should be able to get by that one with a backup QB and our running game. I think it's worse that he's letting on. I came back for my dad's hunt and we came back out of 36B specifically to catch the USC game (my 11-year old son's first UA game - what a game!). When I saw Scott throwing up on the field and then saw the replay, I certainly feared the worse. I just hope it doesn't have Tuitama type lingering effects. Let's beat Colorado (w/o Scott), and get Matt healthy for ASU. The Colorado game gives us bowl eligibility. Use him sparingly or not at all against Utah if he needs more time.

Impressive shot. I certainly have no problem with it ... you obviously know what you are doing and are skilled. I am even more impressed looking at your setup with just a bipod as a solid rest. It was all you. I half expected the picture to show your rifle locked into a tripod with shooting sticks behind it. All you! Solid.

Sorta found what I was looking for. All rattlesnakes inject hemotoxin venom which destroys tissue and causing swelling, internal bleeding, and intense pain. Some species, such as the Mojave Rattlesnake, additionally possess a neurotoxic component in their venom that causes paralysis and other nervous symptoms. Need to be able to identify the Mojave species so that the proper antivenom can be applied to neutralize the nerotoxic component. This is going back 25-30 years to either H.S. or hunter's safety, but I remember a video pointing out the differences in the head and that you should save it and not destroy it if bitten. Don't remember them pointing anything out about the tail or patterns. Could be wrong there. I didn't realize how deadly the Mojave rattlesnakes are ... there's actually 2 subspecies and you'd want to be bit by type B than type A. (Apparently type A is overbearing and a perfectionist).

Sure thing ... the ones that I've killed to eat, I splattered the head with a shotgun. But I was saying if you've been bitten already, there's two different anti-venoms which depend on which type of snake bit you which is why it is best to ID the type of rattler and for those, it's best not to destroy the head if you can help it. I'll have to look it up later ...

I don't remember if it was biology or hunter safety class (it was YEARS ago), but I had thought that it was really important to ID the snake because there's were two types of anti-venom. So if you can catch / kill the snake, do not just blast the head with a shotgun, but kill it and cut it off with the head in tact. Perhaps the vet can comment on this.

Flying in with my son on Wednesday to help my dad with his hunt. We'll be camping on 684. My dad isn't too particular, he'll bang the first buck he sees. Looking forward to the trip and my son is super excited. I'll be driving back for the late November hunt. Man that's a long drive ...

Thanks for the feedback on crossfit. I agree with strengthening the muscles around the knee to help lessen the impact ... I tried the same approach in combination with changing my gait to more of a forefoot strike before doing half-marathon the year after surgery. Ended up with shin splints. Lol. 13.1 was probably too much pounding ... but i think in general, if you can strengthen the area around a trouble spot, everything works better together, and you can rise with the tide.

I'd been interested in CrossFit as well. I had run a couple of marathons and had put off playing basketball while I was training. Was jonesing to play after the 08 Houston Marathon and wouldn't you know it the first time out, I felt some popping sensation when I was boxing out, grab the board and without being touched, my knee seized up as I pulled up for a jumper. Turns out that I had somehow scalped a huge chunk of cartilage off my knee, tore my meniscus, and the cartilage got lodged in the joint. Freak injury. So I had microfracture where they scope the knee and drill little holes into the bone so that marrow and blood seep out to form scar tissue to essentially replace the functionality of the missing cartilage. Downside is that my lesion was at the size that microfracture begins to lose effectiveness. I ended up running the 2010 half just to prove that I could ... but that was somewhat bittersweet. Great that I did it, but also came to the stark realization that I would just be a plodder. Part of the fun of running was getting faster and I just couldn't run enough / hard enough to get better. Impact is the enemy b/c the microfracture repair site isn't exactly durable. It swells normally and at the end of a race like that, I can't even put any weight on it. So i gave up running. But I miss competition. Crossfit seems like a cool community, just afraid of how much impact I could expect. Been staying in shape lifiting weights by myself (wish i had a spotter). At 168 ish, I'm the heaviest I've ever been, but also the strongest I've ever been. Can't max out b/c no spotter, but I can put up a set of 10 reps at 195 and finish with 5 at 205. Not bad in terms of %tage of bodyweight. But still missing something ... Love competition. The one cool thing about hunting is I like to think that my dad at 75 is still motivated to stay in shape to be able to get up and over some of these mountains. He still lifts weights and says he can carry his deer out himself this year if i don't make it back. "If you don't use it, you lose it," he always told me and still lives by that motto. Certainly an inspiration to me and my kids. I like to think that between bowling nationals together and deer hunting, he has great incentive to stay in shape. One other thing. I can vouch for Weight Watchers. One of the most sensible diet plans out there that becomes a lifestyle as it teaches portion control. My wife had lost 30+ pounds after the kids with it, then picked up triathlons and did marathons with me once she got down (and started from scratch). Crazy what you can do when you put your mind to it. Good luck to all with meeting your goals.