OpticNerd

I read on another site that the buck was recovered. Exciting video thanks!

O man that's AWESOME! Looks a lot like my old stomping grounds around E creek and the G.B. Thanks for sharing the pics!

Looks to be around the Montezuma pass/canyon area. Also looks to be close to some houses. Not good!

I didn't know where to post because I couldn't find a reptile section so hopefully this was the right place. I thought this was pretty cool and even though it's not a big ol buck or bull I thought some of you enjoy it. I found this monster while hunting coues with my bow in Aug. Luckily it allowed me to get some pretty good footage before getting too pissy with me. If you listen carefully at about the 48 second mark you can hear him hiss. This was the first time I've ever heard this and let me tell ya these things sound pretty mean. I've been running around the hills my whole life and have only came across 3 of these so needless to say I was pretty pumped to get video of one. On a side not I'm very curious to know how many Gila Monsters others have seen while out in the hills?

Wow looks bad as of now hopefully we'll get enough monsoons to green it up. Did you see any wildlife at all?

Wow this fire is really getting bad! For those of you that don't know anything about it you should look it up online. Do a Google for Monument fire. Over 40 houses lost and counting. I can see this monster burning over 100 homes when its all said and done.

Looks like they doing a very good job attacking this fire. Hopefully they can get it put out as quickly as possible.

The camera was a Canon XL2. Unfortunately it developed a image stabilization issue that Canon tried to fixed 3 different times but couldn't so I sold it. Very nice camera but very big and bulky.

By far the biggest I've ever seen let alone got on video!

Thanks for the info RR. We have a family friend that owns one of the cabins at Parker Lake and I was worried if it was in any kind danger of being burnt down. So far it looks like it should be OK hope it stays that way. Like elkhunter said we had a lot of smoke here in town yesterday even had ash coming down at my house.

118 7/8

Ipods, Blackberry's, etc have voice recorders. That they do. All I was saying is this guy had it turned on before the cops even started talking to him. Seems to me this guy was planning on trying to piss the cops off and get them to say something negative which is a lot like entrapment if you ask me. Who knows maybe the cops in this neighborhood are known for harassing people for no reason and this guy was just trying to get proof of this. Not saying what the cops did was right but I don't know the whole story I only listen to the first 30 second or so of the incident but it seems there is a lot of hatred towards cops these days. Cops have got to have one of the toughest jobs out there. What if this guy with the gun is the next Jared L and he was planning on going on a shooting rampage and these two cops saw that he was packing but just let him go about his day? People would then blame the cops for not asking the guys a few question just before he shot up a parking lot. None of this would have probably happened if this guy would have cooperate with the officers. The guy was acting like he had something to hide which he did the audio recorder and the cops probable could sense this so they went on the defensive. Unfortunately cops have to act this way now days especially in a place like Phily if they are going to make it to retirement. If your a law a biding citizen then act like one and you'll more then likely have no problems with the law.

Who walk around with an audio recorder on? Kind of a weird thing to do unless your planning on intentionally rerecording something.

Good video! For awhile there I thought the older one was going to get skunked by his younger bro. Love the part where the younger one tells the older one to "lip him" just after losing a fish at the boat because the older one didn't lip him. Then the older bro immediately says "I will lip him shut up". The look on the younger bros face after his bro losses his fish at the boat is classic! Thanks!

I'm an optic nut! From binos to telescopes I love them all. I'm constantly searching for the perfect all around hunting optical system. Over the years I've realized that the perfect optic can be quite different depending on the hunter. Some like 15s while others prefer 10s or even 20s. The one thing has puzzled me in my quest happened when I bought my first pair of ELs about 8 years ago. Before then I was using 3 pairs of binos 8x32 Steiners, 10x50 Pentax and 9x42 Steiners. I still remember the first time I looked through the ELs. The view through the ELs was crystal clear and I couldn't wait to take them out looking for deer. I was even more excited to see how much more deer I would be able to find with them. I thought for sure I would notice an increase in the number of animals I would glass up. After my first outing using the ELs I was very impressed with the optical quality of these bins but the thing that really shocked me was I didn't find very much game with them. I was very disappointed in my results and just chalked it up to having a bad day. The next time I go out I'll surely do better I told myself trying to re-build my confidence. After my 2nd outing with my new ELs I did a bit better but not as good as I thought I should. Well fast forward two years later. I came to the conclusion that the ELs were not producing more animals when compared to my old less expensive glass. Although the view was very sharp and clear I was disappoint in the number of animals I was finding. In the end this bothered me so much that I ended up selling them. I just couldn't justify keeping them for how much money I spent on them and not seeing an increase in number of animals I was finding. After selling the ELs I bought a $300 pair of Nikons. Even though the Nikons aren't as clear as the ELs I still find just as many deer with these Nikons as I did with the ELs. I remember back before I bought the ELs whenever I had a bad day glassing I would tell myself if I only had a pair of Swaros I would have done better. Now when I have a bad day I tell myself I suck and I just couldn't find anything. This isn't a high end optics bashing thread because I thought the ELs quality was excellent. I'm Just curious as to what others have experienced when switching over to top of the line optics and not just Swaros but all others as well. Were you able to notice an increase in the number of animals found or were you like me and didn't notice a difference when it came down to the number of game found?

How about just posting the score only for us impatient folks and post the results later when you get them all put together.

I'm going to guess Ropers. Good looking fish. You fished Cluffs at all lately?

Thanks CouesKiller.300 and desertdog sounds like both of you have seen a good number of these. Just curious as to what elevation and terrain you guys see majority of them? All three that I've seen were fairly low under 3000 ft in creosote country.

Those are some GREAT pics Coosefan! Looks like it had some pretty good size to it.

Bow fishing is a blast! I haven't been able to go for quite awhile and I like seeing post like this to feed the need. When I first started bow fishing it took me forever to get it down. One way that helped me a ton is to tied a milk jug to a brick and toss it into the lake at various depths. I went through a ton of jugs but it helped my underwater accuracy quite a bit. I tried balloons but it was a pain cleaning up the balloon pieces and I couldn't tell where I was hitting. With the jugs you can tell where you hit. Be sure to have a retriever line tied to it to get the gear back.

Sorry for the misplace post Amanda thanks for clarification. Thanks for all the comments and thanks for those who shared their Gila Monster encounters with us. It looks like they aren't seen too much in the wild. The encounter WadeNAZ had would have freak me out big time!

HOLY CRAP!!!

Good point! This was one of the reasons I started shooting expandables because you can get some that have a huge cutting diameter. My thinking was the larger the cutting diameter the greater chance I have of doing some mortal damage on a bad placed shot. This was over 10 years ago so things might be different now days but at the time I switched I went from a 1.25 inch cutting diameter with the fixed blade to a 2.5 inch cutting diameter with the expandables. I remember a crazy broad head that had both fixed and expandable blades. I don't know how good they worked or even if they're are still around all I know is that I wouldn't want to be shot by one. If I recall they had something crazy like a 5 inch cutting diameter.

Thanks I'm glad some of you liked it. The video camera I used was a Canon XL2. I love the quality this camera processes but it's just way too big for a hunting camera.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm not looking for any one particular answer just wanted to see what others experienced when switching over to the top of the line optics. I wouldn't say I was overspending with my optics because the cost was well within my budget. I just didn't think the extra money is worth it since I didn't think I was finding more animals. While clarity and sharpness are definitely important to me I'd say the most important thing to me is a big FOV. When comparing my Nikons to the ELs I could barely tell a difference in clarity with the ELs being a tad sharper but there was nothing I could see with the ELs that I couldn't with the Nikons. The biggest difference was in the FOV between the 2. The Nikons have an extra 40 ft at 1000yrds over the ELs. I'll take a bigger FOV with just a tiny bit less clarity. This feature seems to find me more game then any other. My Favorite is the Nikon spotter I get a bigger FOV when compared to Swaro 15s and it's just as clear to my eyes. Like I said earlier while one thing might work best for one guy it might not work best for another. Thanks again for all the input guys keep them coming. So far it looks like I'm the only one who haven't noticed and increase of game found when switching over to the good stuff.