LawDog

That elephant charge was crazy! Fantastic footage and great choice of songs for your video.

Great write up and the pictures were awesome. I got one of the African hunts from the Arizona Elk Society Banquet on Saturday. If you have any words of wisdom for getting ready for a trip I'd love to hear 'em.

The Karma Gods rewarded my buddy from Ohio for his trip out here two years ago to help me with my hunt. We both drew a 22N tag (and it was the first time he put in for an Arizona hunt).

Great story. That's miserable hunting but it's awesome your hard work paid off. You've got a good hunting buddy too if he's willing to brave those conditions without even a tag in hand.

That's awesome that you made it look easy for your son. Well done!

Great video and even better bull. Well done!

Well I drew a tag last year so I figured I had no chance of drawing another tag this year. Lo and behold, I drew a late archery tag in 22N. When my wife heard, she said, "Well, at least I won't have to clear out the freezer because you won't get one this year." That was just the kind of motivation I needed to avoid my mother-in-law on Thanksgiving Day. I braved the 65 degree temperatures, light winds and cloudless sky to show my wife that I'm luckier than she thinks I am. Thanksgiving day I was sitting on the hill when I saw a few cows come by and a coyote. Oddly enough, watching the coyote was the second best part of my trip as I chirped my cow call and watched him circle around to scan the area. He wouldn't come within 60 yards of me but it was a lot of fun messing with him. The next morning there wasn't so much as a sparrow. I was beginning to get mad at myself for having screwed around with the coyote when I heard something lumbering toward me. Downwind (or at least it was when I had checked about 20 minutes earlier) about 100 yards I saw an elk and then a bit of a rack. I notched an arrow and sat as still my furiously beating heart would allow. He kept coming, closer and closer and closer when he stopped about twenty yards from me. He was staring right at me but didn't run. He started again, continued toward me and went to my left. I internally screamed, "it's now or never you moron, you'll never have an easier shot!" I stood, drew and fired. He went about twenty yards when I hit the cow call. He slowed up and then started stumbling. In all, he walked about 40 yards and ended up about 25 yards from where I shot him. I have no idea how he didn't catch a whiff of me other than it's entirely possible that the light wind shifted and I just didn't notice it. It was my first archery anything other than a feral hog. The only bad news was my old digital camera couldn't hold a charge from any batteries except to take two pictures. I'll have to wait until my pack mule, I mean friend, sends me the pics he took. You can't really tell from the pic but he's a 5x5.

Yes. There was a really worn trail that led to an erosion tank about 3/4 of a mile away. He was walking away from the tank at about 7:30.

amac - fantastic video. Not only is it great for taking my mind off of the G&F posting but it's inspiring me to begin the fight with my wife to spend more money than we can afford on binos.

I didn't believe that anyone had gotten a cc hit. I thought everyone who claimed they had were screwing with us. Lo and behold, today I checked my online cc and saw that I drew an elk tag. The weird thing is that I called my cc company yesterday (4/2) and they said I hadn't gotten a hit. Then, when it posted online, it said my cc was hit on Friday 3/30. Good luck to those who are still waiting.

Cool picture. During my deer hunt I watched a group of 'em fight like this for five minutes or so. There was no apparent reason or build up either.

Amen cw4192! Please someone let us know! I was eaten alive yesterday.

Great deer. The shot placement looks perfect too!

I vote for posting the pic. I'd also say, check for their tracks after your camera is taken and take a pic. You may just find that in a few weeks that the thief is hunting your unit at the same time as you...

Obie is my old golden. He was a genetic freak when it came to birds. I lost him to cancer almost overnight. It was a brutal blow since I'd had him for 12 years and spent more time with him over that period than anyone else in the world. They say the best way to get over a lost dog is to get a new one so I quickly put a deposit down on another Golden. Right after the check cleared some quack, err doctor, claimed my daughter was allergic to dogs so my wife canceled my plans. (I am firmly convinced she is a PETA conspirator implanted to keep people from owning pets since my daughter had never shown any kind of reaction to Obie.) Well, I was out driving around in the forest not long thereafter and found a black lab running loose. No tags, no chip and no one responded to any of my signs or web posts. My wife wasn't about to kick him out and the girls named him "Bullet." We also learned that the PETA doctor didn't know what she was talking about as my allegedly allergic daughter hasn't ever shown any sign of any kind of reaction (we've also studied up on it learned that exposure to dogs at a young age reduces the chance that they latter become allergic and, if they are allergic, it increases the chance that they get over their allergy). He's a fantastic dog with the girls but is gun shy as [the opposite of heaven]. I've never dealt with this issue before so if anyone has any good ideas I'd love to hear 'em.

I echo all the comments above. Fantastic, well told story!

BearDown - My response to your initial post was focused more on what I believed seemed like an attack on anyone and everyone who works for ATF. I get the impression that your focus is really directed more at the policy makers than the subordinates. So be it. I agree that political appointees and opportunists can wreak havoc on any initially well designed plan. I also suspect that most agents with ATF are vets that were looking for any job in any federal law enforcement agency who had spots to fill when they finished their service. As for what you feel is a double standard, I get and respect your libertarian analysis. Nevertheless, there are loads of things police do everyday that would put the lay citizen in jail - speeding, kicking in someone's door and searching their house, setting up drug deals, etc., etc. But without these tools, we'd be subject to a lawless society as there's no way a cop could ever catch anybody. Finally, I'm not a cop. The handle comes from one of my favorite movie quotes: Ike Clanton: Listen, Mr. Kansas Law Dog. Law don't go around here. Savvy? I guess it makes sense that Ike lived in your neck of the woods....

Putting aside the wind element, it just makes sense that the stronger your odor the more likely it is that an animal will smell you. So the only things I have to add to the comments above is that I also take Chlorophyll capsules starting the week prior to and during the hunt and, I try to eat blander foods since what you eat has an impact on how you smell.

July 19 1:00 PM

Easy Beardown, don't blame the ATF agents. Reading your post, however, forces me to go on a rant that been festering since Fox and a bunch of politicians who happen to be Republicans started attacking law enforcement for nothing more than political gain. 1. The boots on the ground (the lower level agents at ATF that devised Fast and Furious) are cops just like anywhere else in this country. They just happen to be employed by ATF. 2. Their job, just like the jobs of cops anywhere else in this country, is to catch people breaking the law. ATF agents' job is to find out who is involved in placing weapons in the hands of bad guys/our enemies. 3. Good cops aren't just looking for low level flunkies doing the bidding of sophisticated and well financed organized crime members. ATF was trying to catch the higher level players. 3. Guns don't kill people. It's the low life, drug smuggling [fill in the blank] that pulled the trigger. Feel free to blame the guy who financed him too.

I've never hunted bear in the fall, so I can't disagree with the advice from those that have, but here's one my camera picked up that was coming back from a water hole in May.

I added two reviews. One suggestion is that when you click "read review" just below the stars, it doesn't bring up the reviews. Instead, you have to click on the review tab.

That press release was loaded with bad news. The timing of the fire and the fact that 75% of the turkey habitat was hit - This fire is going to affect turkey in 1 & 27 for a long time to come.

Most of our best pranks have come during dove season. There's the dead snake prank that y'all have written about (which, by the way, never gets old and never loses the desired effect no matter how many times it's executed), the annual dove cleaning gut fight with my brother but another of our common pranks is the "you have to bite the head off your first dove rite of passage." We pull this one on the first timers and friends from out of state. The trick is that everyone eggs them on to bite the head off and then, right as they're about to do it, someone sneaks up behind them and saves them from the big chomp. One year, we weren't quite quick enough to stop someone from the chomp...

I was in Florida bow hunting for pig and deer. The first night, I shot a pig at thirty yards - blood bubbles all over the fletching. The blood trail was non-existent after five yards and we gave up looking until first light. We found him right at the crack of dawn the next morning about 100 yards away - covered with 50 of the biggest buzzard like creatures I've ever seen. I circled what they left me.