Becker

Lions are a major problem obviously. But sheep do coexist with lions. The number of lions would be my main concern and I can see lions overtaking the sheep. Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the lion/sheep issues arise in units that all that is there is mostly sheep and lions only. Very few deer if any, or any other prey species for that matter. If all they have to eat is sheep, well you know the picture. With multiple prey species I could see the sheep doing way better than may be thought simply because of other prey options. Look at Arivaipa as an example. You can't tell me there aren't lots of lions over there. There are still sheep there. All the concern over the human encroachment I think is overstated. We have built up to the national forest line now. If human activity plays such a factor as lots of you have mentioned why do all the Rockies hang out in town at Morenci, or all the Deserts in the mine site in the Silverbells. ?????? I think the sheep that WERE there had a hard time because their habitat that they were accustomed in using was overtaken by us. If you put sheep back there now I don't see an issue with them getting acclimated to the habitat they have available and being able to live as happy as can be. I guess in my mind the human aspect is pretty much not a factor simply because of all the examples of sheep living in and around human activity already. Just my 2 cents! In the end, my feeling is it would be cool if sheep were back in the Catalinas. They were there before, they could be again. The other thing to think about is a ton of our prime sheep units that currently exist were started from transplants. They WERE there originally, then gone for what ever factor, and are now there again because we put them back.

They are the Bee's knees his legs and his arms. Best adapter I have found to date. Myself am all my hunting buddies have them. They re ridiculously easy to use. Just slide it over the spotting scope, zoom in, focus scope to the camera, hit record video and sit back and capture amazing video. I highly recommend the TinesUp adapters. You won't be sorry

Why didn't I get one then idgaf????? HAHAHAHA

I think we all hope that they are going to get bigger. I am always thinking the same thing. "I wonder what he will be next year." As always age and genetics are the major requirements when talking about big deer. Since we can't really control genetics lets talk about age. Will all old deer have big antlers? No. But big antlers generally mean an older deer. The key that I am looking at is what is that age. What is the age you need to get a deer that would make the 110 mark. My father has been sending the teeth away to get the age of the deer we have been taking over the last couple of years. I have three deer for example because I cant remember any of the others off the top of my head. These are all gross scores. First one is a deer my father shot that was 112 gross deer, he was aged at 6 years old. The deer I shot this last october was 127, aged at 5. and my mother shot a deer that grossed 118 that was aged at 4 years old. In this case, the oldest deer was indeed the smallest. Why? Most likely genetics. Another factor, the 112 had a bad infected tooth that had actually caused deformation in his jaw bone. My guess is thats why he remained the same antler size in the 2 years that I had watched him. The question I have is what would the other two bucks have been in two or three years???? Bigger, smaller, heavier? Obviously they had some awesome genetics. BUT I don't know. Based on my experience and some of these known aged deer my early on thought is that you need a deer at least 4 years old to get up there to your WANTED 110 INCHES. But not every 4 year old will make and there are 3 year old deer that would make the cut but they are genetically superior. Its really a deer specific question in my mind. I have never encountered a study where they have actually looked at how many deer in a given population would grow a specific size of antlers. Could be one out there though. Another thing on Coues that I have noticed, is drought years vs non drought years. I don't see a huge difference in antler growth. More so I see differences in antler densities. Drought years they seem like they are made of balsa wood where in real wet years they seem like they are made out of lead. I am sure that it affects growth somewhat but not near the affect as say elk. Now lets address what I think is the major issue here when talking about antler size in Arizona. TAG NUMBERS. I know that Arizona has the potential to produce huge deer. It is proven. The problem is that majority of the deer don't ever get old enough to get there. Say your given three year old deer is 90 to 105 gross inches. I would say 90% maybe even more of coues deer hunters would shoot. Take one southern unit as an example. 3 general hunts (not including trophy and youth hunts), 600 to 700 tags, thats potentially 1800 to 2100 deer. Granted not everyone is successful but thats 1800 to 2100 hunters out there looking. What are the odds of a deer being able to reach the age of 4 or 5. Thats 4 or 5 years of slipping through the cracks of a minimum of 7200 hunters over those years. THEY JUST DONT MAKE IT!!! And not harping on anybody, but how many times do you hear, "Well didn't find the big one, this was a last day buck." People want to be successful and they want to shoot a deer. No fault in that, but when you start shooting the two and three year olds, it throws back the age class even farther. Mexico is the prime example of what we could potentially have. Given the right genetics, ranches down there consistently year to year produce huge bucks. WHY??? They only shoot a few deer out of the population each year. The hunters are in all reality trophy hunting so they are holding out for the highest age class. The deer are able to hit the 5 to 8 year old age classes. And not every deer in Mexico is 120+. They are not crawling under every tree BUT, Odds are way better to encounter one down there simply because of the numbers of older age classed deer. I think we would be extremely amazed at what our deer herd would look like if we did not hunt it for 5 or 8 years. Will every buck get huge NO, but obviously the more deer we have getting to the higher age classes, the more potential you would get for a monster. Now if we went that route here in Arizona, hardly anyone would get to hunt. So its a catch 22 I guess. And I know all this has been said before over the years but I had some free time to type away. My 2 cents on big deer.

PM Sent

Jim, I was thinking the same thing. Hunting is a LUXURY in my opinion. Its not a need its a WANT. I do whatever it takes to make it happen. ITS MY WANT. In reality I only have to save up the money once, put it in a little piggy bank, and pull it out to apply. Since I never draw no biggie but say the average person does every 3 to 6 years(for ELK), $200 bucks every three to six years, not a ton of money. Most of the people that are complaining to me would just have to cut back ONE can a week of chewing tobacco and they could put three people in BWHAHAHA. Its all about priorities and planning ahead. I could see if you didn't save up the money and had to pull it out of your wallet the day of for 5 people, but everyone knows they will put in every year, make it easy on yourself and save a little money ahead of time. I'll probably take some crap for this but hey its what I think. As for the hike in prices, its bound to happen. You can't run a business on 1960's prices. Everyone knows that. How they raise them, well, we are seeing what they want to do. I don't necessarily like the separation of the type of hunt but I don't really mind it. "Trophy" or "RUT" hunts are generally better. I would rather pay a little more to hunt rutting bulls, than get drawn for a november hunt. Thats just me though. My main complaint, which is off topic from this is how the Game and Fish actually manages our wildlife with our money, or doesn't. I watched a presentation at a Mule Deer Banquet and the WM presenting was talking about mule deer after the Rodeo Fire. Mule Deer numbers were low and trending down but after the fire they were growing considerably. What I got from it was look how good we are doing at managing the deer herd. In reality what he said was, "our current management was failing, we needed a natural or should I say unnatural disaster in order to have good deer numbers." My general feeling is that G and F does not manage our animals. They simply delegate how many people get to go hunt and sit back and watch. Then don't spend very much the money we invest to manage our GAME animals, they blow it on wolves, chubs, and frogs. Not saying that we don't need to manage those other species as well but come on. The natural process of the world is extinction of old species and evolution of new ones. We have zoos for the ones that can't make it anymore. OOOOOH that sounded harsh but ohwell. If they are charging us more to hunt the animals we want spend it on those animals!

Usually it seems that the northern deer drop a little sooner than the southern deer. Just my thoughts but the rut seems to be a little earlier as you move north thusly the antlers fall off a little sooner. But nothing is set in stone. My friend saw some muleys down by Arivaca still packing and another buddy got motion cam pics of a muley buck That had dropped. One thing for sure they are falling off but each deer is on his own time frame!

That is sweet!!!

Seems to be about 50 50 right now. We have picked up two brown antlers already just in poking around a bit. One off about a 65 inch buck another off about a 95 inch buck. However we have still been seeing bucks sporting head gear so...

Flew out to Pittsburg to meet up with a customer of ours and meet a shipment of animals we completed for him. Not the best picture but we are returning to finish his entire trophy room and I will get some better photo's then. Anyway thought you all might want to see something a little different. Nothing like a HIPPO mount to add some flare to your trophy room! Hope you all enjoy.

Not trying to defend I am nuetral here but on mossback az's blog they have the buck grossing right at 120. Not 125. They also state that the beams are 19 inches from what I remember and with the mass and couple of extras I could see the deer crowding the 120 mark gross. However my initial guess is around 115. Pictures can really be deceiving.

Nope, all teeth are there??? They have six teeth out front of the molars on top and they don't stick out very far from the gum lines. Referring to the K9's the top two are rather small compared to the bottoms. They don't grow proportionally like our javelina or hogs. We actually casted the real set of teeth since they were so large in this particular bull!!! Here is another view to see the top teeth a little better!

AHAHAHA There you go!!!

Had an awesome morning today! Fish were hungry. Kept these two for dinner tonight. Weighed 2.5 and 3 pounds! Let another one go had had a few hits and misses!

Oh come on AZbob, your not supposed to post that until after this weekend!!! HAHAHAHA

second for cohntr6's request

My dad was watching ten bucks a couple days ago one had dropped already!!! Having dropped already we KNOW it was a 145 inch monster of course BWHAHAHA Anyway probably still a touch early. Big monsters are probably starting but the main population will be end of April throughout May.

I would agree that 300 bucks sounds a little fishy. I know a couple outfitters that do sell hunting packages. Or scouting packages. The one in particular is Arizona strip bucks. They offer a package with specific details on particular animals that they know about very well. I know they only offer a certain few so as to not double dip if you know what I mean. They will only sell specific info on one animal to one guy. Straight legit operation that way. They are out to help and the resource is rather invaluable in my opinion if you don't have the time to do your homework. Just my 2 cents about it.

Never know My wife drew back to back bull tags!!!

Well rats no tags for me yet again. But I will always take a COUES tag over any stinky old elk!!! HAHA

You should check out Matt Shimberg at Arizona Strip Bucks. Serious about only the biggest baddest and has a couple different options available! Straight up nicest and honest guy I know in the outfitting business!

Well I couldn't stand it and had to go back out to the hotspot yesterday morning. Turned out to be way worth it. Caught these two beauties!!! Let another go. One on the right is 4lbs. Did not weigh the other but its right there also. Wish I could have stayed another day!!! Hope you enjoy the pic!

If your planning on selling them don't stretch um until season. They won't last. Do as twowindy suggested. Pull the hides off roll them up starting with the head nice and tight. Put them in the freezer till your ready to sell them. Then stretch and dry them. For the fur trade you don't salt them FYI. Or at least all the guys I know don't. Stretch them skin side out let them get tacky and then flip them fur side out And dry them.

Well guess my phone added the pics upside down but ohwell!

Nice!