rossislider

I was up there this past weekend helping three different hunters. One hunter couldn't make it up till Saturday morning, but each of the three had their cow on the ground withing the early hours of their respective opening morning. Those cows, like most, are super patternable. I'm back in the valley now, but would be happy to give you a few places to look and tips. I'll shoot you a PM.

One of these years I hope to be in town when you do this. Sounds like fun. On the bright side we did get 3 elk on the ground this weekend, two of which are already cut up, ground up, made into sausage, brats, etc.

Pretty sure I have seen a video of this buck.

That's pretty awesome! Congratulations. I'd also love to see a picture of both horns, just pure curiosity.

Nice! My son does the same thing. I'm going to shoot you a PM with some tips to help him get started, things I wish he/we could have learned the easy way. Once he is up and going let me know. We get a lot of calls from guys on your side of town, but the geography makes drop off and pick up difficult. We'll send them your son's way.

Congratulations! Nice job having a successful hunt despite dealing with some knuckleheads. Even bigger congratulations for having such a great daughter and raising her right. Not sure what is going on with the clients of outfitters this year, but it seems that just about every outfitter I know personally has had client shooting struggles. I think they have averaged 10 misses to every hit, many from under 100 yards. I'd lose my mind. I have absolutely no problems with guides or people hunting with guides, but it seems to me that more and more that the average client feels that his checkbook is doing all the prep work needed. One buddy I recently talked with said his client stated his rifle was driving tacks, but kept missing. After a little more probing about the "tack driving" the client explained that it was dead on when he sighted it in for his previous hunt 5 YEARS EARLIER?!?!

Far right?

My son has pretty impressive draw luck, and as many of you know, drew his second 3A/3C rifle deer tag in three years. We spent quite a bit of time up there through the summer and fall scouting for his hunt and a friend’s bull elk hunt. Leading up to the hunt we had found a really nice buck that we had planned to target. But in the final weeks leading up to the hunt we lost track of him. Try as we might we were unable to relocate him prior to the hunt. Unfortunately we believe he was shot by another hunter opening day. So over the first few days of the hunt we went through plans B, C, D, E, etc. We had several good friends come and join us for the hunt and had a great time looking over in excess of 300 deer, mostly does and probably 20-30 bucks. While we were seeing some good bucks the first couple of days, he didn’t see anything that he wanted to wrap his tag around that early. As opening weekend progressed we noticed we were seeing fewer and fewer deer and the ones we saw were smaller and smaller. Our original plan was to return to the valley Tuesday afternoon so my son could go to school for a couple of days, get caught up, then return Thursday after school (it is a 10 day hunt). But the way the hunt was going we thought we might be better served to drive home late Monday night and return Wednesday after school. We figured this would give us more time to hunt after a lot of the pressure had left. So Wednesday after school, I met him in the driveway and flew up to the area just in time to get in about 20 minutes of good light. We jumped out of the truck to hear the unmistakable sound of air coming out of our tire. We decided to come back and change it in the dark after we looked over our predetermined ridge. No deer, but lots of elk including a couple of bulls still sparing. The following morning we headed out well before first light, and were just reaching our predetermined spot when I got a call from my friend Houston (WHT_MTNMAN). He was kind enough to offer to go check out a couple of spots for us in the morning before heading off to work. He had located a group of bucks and thought there might be a buck or two in the group we would be interested in taking a look at. We raced to meet up with him at speeds that were most certainly faster than I should have been going on those dirt roads. On the drive up the night before, my son and I had talked and he decided that for the second half of the hunt he would be willing to shoot a big three point or good four point. As we reached Houston and looked over the buck we noted a big three and good four point in the group. Draysen looked from his binos to me and said, “I want to shoot that four!” I ranged him at 630, a shot that I knew he could make, but was not wanting to push our luck. We made a plan to hike down to a finger between us and the deer that would have cut the distance in about half. But as we were getting ready to go I started to get concerned with the direction the deer were feeding into some thicker stuff, and was worried that we might lose him. I asked Draysen if he was comfortable taking a shot, which he said he was. So he got the 300 RUM set up on the bipod, found the bucks in the scope, we dialed in the scope, and then waited for the buck to step back out of the brush. A couple minutes went by, the buck stepped out, and Draysen made a spectacular 630 yard one shot kill. From there out it was smiles, fist bumps, and hugs. I want to thank all of my buddies who came to help us glass, and a special thanks to Houston for his help finding and dragging this buck out. It was yet another great hunt and week spent with my son and great friends. Shot Placement Pic (sorry, a little bloody) From last night's butcher session.

Don't know how I missed this till now! Congratulations and thanks for the shout out for Draysen.

I enjoyed living the hunt vicariously through your Facebook posts. Thanks and huge congratulations!

This was just posted today. It seems very rare when one of these Hunter Education courses gets offered in our neck of the woods, so I thought I would post it up for my fellow southeast valley people. The dates are the week of January 22nd, 2018. Classes are Monday (1/22), Tuesday (1/23), Wednesday (1/24), and Thursday (1/25) evenings from 6:00-9:00 PM at Heart Cry Church off of Sossamon and the Hunt Highway. The field day will be Saturday (1/27) for 8:00 AM-12:00 PM at the east Mesa AZGFD office. I have my 9 year old daughter signed up and hope to see a few of you join us. 26 of 30 seats still available as of now, but I am guessing this will fill up quick! The field day does conflict with the youth javelina hunts. So if we can't get my son tagged out on opening day, Friday the 26th, I may have to send my wife with our daughter to the field day. https://www.register-ed.com/programs/arizona/112-arizona-hunter-education-course

Done

Going that compact it going to cost you on the stability end. I can't think of anything of quality that meets your parameters.

When you brine in the bucket of ice, is that deboned meat, whole quarters, etc. and do you have salt (and how much) in that brine?

I'm a bit old school and still use a traditional wood smoker with logs from a local wood supplier. There was a much steeper learning curve with it than the others you mentioned. But once I get my fire going and stabilized, I can go for at least 10-12 hours without touching it and keep my temperature within 5 degrees. I started smoking long before pellet grills were a thing. Every now and then I contemplate upgrading to a newer version, probably a RecTec. But ultimately I am too cheap and take some pride in doing it the traditional way.

Should make for interesting late bull hunts. A lot of your scouting in this warm weather we have had this year may be affected. I'd be prepared to change up my plan to more traditional late hunt areas and patterns once that weather hits.

Great analogy. I have been trying to put my finger on it to explain that to other people. Thats why I went from havalon to outdoor edge. Outdoor edge feels like a regular knife I have and use both. For my son's taxidermy euro business. he uses Havalon because the are razor sharp, about 1/4 the price to buy in bulk, and are fantastic for caping skulls. In the field I pack the Outdoor Edge for the reasons you mention.

Good price for this pack. Kifaru is by far the best and most comfortable pack I have ever put on my back.

Thanks elkster9 for referring your friend. Draysen finished up his deer last night. Awesome big old desert muley!

I'd like to get the Vortex Diamondbacks 10x42s at Cabelas for $129 for my kids. But I'm not driving from San Tan Valley to Cabelas and waiting in line at midnight for them. But if any one is going and wants to grab a pair for me...

That was me, I just changed my name . When can I come pick it up.

Yup, been there and done that more than a few times!!!

Hey guys, I have been following this post but have refrained from commenting because I think you guys all have great suggestions and don't want to come across as a know it all or suggest that any of you are doing anything wrong. If you are doing something that works for you, stick with it. I'd thought I would just ad the two bits that I have learned with my son. As many of you know my son got licensed and started his own skull cleaning business early this year. Since then we have probably cleaned in the neighborhood of 250-300 skulls and have learned a lot about what works best FOR US. 1. Simmering (not boiling) in Dawn or Oxi powder both work great, in fact we often use a combination of the two which seem to give us the best results. Be cautious of the amount of Oxi you use, too much seems to accelerate the simmering process and can break down the bone more than you might like, leaving the bone on the drier/chalkier side. Watch your skulls carefully through the simmering process and avoid simmering more than once if possible! We have had multiple skulls brought to us for repair that were "overcooked", and the final product really shows it. Once that tissue on the bridge of the nose splits and is pulling back from the bone, get it out of the pot. We have a bull right now that was dropped off to us for repair that is in rough shape and super fragile because of a poor initial cleaning. 2. You really can't beat a pressure washer after simmering to strip all of the meat off. Just watch the power (psi) and be careful on the more fragile areas (like the bridge of the nose and lose teeth). My son uses a 1600 psi electric pressure washer from Home Depot. I would be very cautious and deliberate if using anything with more power. 3. Wrapping those antlers in plastic will save you a lot of work with recoloring, however, it is tough and there are some circumstances where you will want to tough up the color a bit. We have found Minwax stain in the the colors Provincial and Early America applied carefully by dabbing with a q-tip are your best bet for most southwestern antlers. Go slow and deliberate when doing this or you can end up with a mess. 4. Whitening with "40 Developer" (12% peroxide) cream painted on will get you a decent initial whitening. However, keep in mind that you are only treating the surface of the bone. This will help to loosen any remaining bits of meat and make the surface white. However, since you are not treating the entire bone structure, you will notice that you skull will start to yellow back up after a short amount of time as the residual grease (it doesn't all come out in the initial simmer) and other properties of the bone will cause your skull to yellow back up and your skull may smell a bit from the stuff that wasn't treated internally. This isn't a bad thing if that is the look you are going for. The best way to get a long term white and to treat the entire skull is with complete submersion in peroxide (be sure to wrap the antlers and do what you can to keep them out of the peroxide). We use liquid peroxide and dilute it down to between 5% and 6%. For complete submersion (especially for elk) you need about 4-5 gallons so it can be pricey for a 1 time do it yourself guy, but if you keep it in a sealed bucket, you can get quite a few skulls out of a batch. For greasier animals (pigs, bears, etc.) we have found the best degreaser (and we have tried many) is the same whitening peroxide. Throw those bears and pigs in the peroxide bucket for at least a week and it will slowly draw the grease out. You will notice the grease collecting at the top of the bucket. If you cool the peroxide it will solidify and you can scoop it out with a strainer. If you think you are done, set the skull in the sun or on a shelf for a while, and if you start to see grease spots within a few days, throw it back in the peroxide. Anyhow, I hope this helps some of you out. Again, I don't suggest that our method is better than anyone else's, it really comes down to what look you want and what resources you have available to you. We have continued to refine and change our method a lot since we first started and have found that thus far this method has by far and away given us the best results.

I like most of you have suffered my share of meet processing nicks and cuts from rushing through an animal. I see a couple of others have mentioned the cut proof gloves. I have mentioned them on a couple of other posts in the past and strongly recommend them. Obviously, nothing replaces slowing down and safe practices, but these have been MONEY for me. They are skin tight stretchy material, weigh under an ounce, take up virtually no room in my kill kit, are relatively cheap, and give me a lot of added grip. I've tested them using a brand new Havalon blade with a fair amount of pressure (I did not have my hands in the gloves) and there were no signs of cuts on the glove. Also, to wash, I rinse and soak in soapy warm water and then throw them in the washing machine. Mine have been used on multiple animals and are still going strong. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015MGKX4E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

One more thing I'll add. If you have the tools and supplies, it is a pretty good skill to learn. But I would refrain from trying to do something "trophy" quality for your first time. While it isn't hard, we have had a lot of skulls brought to us for repair that were over boiled, broken, etc. If anyone does want to try it themselves and just needs some coaching or tips, feel free to shoot me a PM.