COOSEFAN

Congrats on a monster pig! 15" inches is a hog, and that is cool you were able to weigh it, always wanted to but never wanted to haul one out whole! Jim

Chuck Adams!? In the RMEF booth!?? I haven't heard about that yet, but I also haven't been to any meetings lately either. David, how did that come about? Do you know what part of the day he'll be there? JIM

I would take B any day and if no tags left, go for C! I have been on many bear kills in B and took my first archery bear there. Lately we have been hunting C and always fill tags. Last year my bro-n-law took a 21" bear in C and we went 4 out of 5, the 5th guy was very picky, (my dad). Just get a tag and scout the waterholes, buy a fishing permit and fish the waterholes as well, some great fishing and absolutely beautiful country! If no luck around water holes, they'll be along the river. Good luck, JIM

I agree with Red Rabbit, there were alot of great photo's. I always cringe when I see a pic with alot of blood or a tongue hangin out, because you know a non-hunter will eventually see it! I'm surprised I placed in the contest with my Mex. buck, I know there were alot of huge bucks taken from there this season. I guess they just didn't sign up, hopefully next year there is more participation. It's very cool to see the results and remember back to each persons hunt story and experience! Congratulations to everyone! JIM

Hey Jim, Stop taking all those deer over to Bret. I want to get my elk back sometime this year. David <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hey, don't worry David, my deer are getting pushed way to the back of the to-do list because I have no $$ being without a job for 6 months and spending your entire savings to hunt coues deer leaves you with nothing but a taxidermy bill! Hey, I buy only Danner boots and I buy the most expensive ones hoping they'll last longer than my previous pair, I can barely get a year out of them and I never even new there was a warranty on them like you talked about!? I just took my current pair over to Brets to sew the seems back together with taxidermy thread so I wouldn't have to buy a new pair for my Mex. hunt. My previous pair wore holes in the top of the toe area (leather) and leaked water in. They still last longer than any other boot I've used, but I'm very hard on boots. JIM

Thats awesome, I will and I'm sure he'll be excited. He loves his Leica's and we raz each other about our choice of optics but in the end we know there's no proof which is better, is all personal preference both are great! ( EL's are better!) Thanks JIM

I have spent alot of time near the TB ranch, and I couldn't even imagine seeing a turkey in that country, but, I have never seen a Goulds turkey in Arizona yet either so what do I know. It's always a possibility! JIM

I love Swaro's overall but you won't go wrong either way, BUT there is a difference in mounting them to a tripod. Leica might have come up with something different lately, but last I knew, you had to use the claw adapter or the velcro strap plate. I don't like the Swaro adapter for the EL's because it has little springs and little plastic parts and I guarantee you drop your tripod, head first, it will break the EL adapter. I had Outdoorsmans install a nipple on my EL's and bought the outdoorsmans adapter for about the same price and it is bulletproof! My bro-n-law has Leica's and has to use the claw adapter and he hates it. "my.02" Good luck, JIM

ha ha haa

Seasons over and not a whole lot to write about so I'll show off my new license plate. I have joined the ranks of the overly crazy coues fanatics that go as far as to pay extra money for a personalized plate. I think there was a topic not long ago about personlized plates already, but it would be cool to hear of others. Thanks, JIM

Hey DBackaz, yeah that is real close to mine, I like it! Couestracker look in the store on the home page or email Amanda, she'll get you one. Thanks guys, JIM

Thats awesome Ilene! Great buck and story! I never got to see any of the Goulds turkeys but I heard them several times during the hunt. My brother is videotaping some of the turkey hunts this year for Antonio, sounds like fun! Congrats on your buck! JIM

I figured you would be back on here soon! My dream is to do what you did, to get a coues with a bow would be incredible! I will be guiding and helping Goose and Antonio with the hunts next Jan. and hopefully, if I can afford it, try to whack a coues with my bow as well! Thanks and congrats to you as well, thats a beautiful archery buck! JIM

Well I'm finally back from a hunt I dreamed about for a long time! I experienced some of the most desolate, untouched, rugged country I have ever been in, and made friends with some incredibly nice poeple! We were 3 hours out of Nuevo Casas Grandes, up on the highest mountain range, and another client and I had it all to ourselves! I didn't expect to be hunting Coues in the Pine trees in Mexico, and I wasn't overly excited with the thick country but it sends chills up your spine knowing there's deer in that country that have never seen a man and live to a ripe old age! This ranch has had only a handful of hunters over the past years, and only a small fraction of the ranch actually gets hunted, it's truly amazing to head out on a good road, before light and find shed coues antlers from years past, on and just off the road! I did that opening day and knew we were going to experience something special! The owners of the outfit had wanted us to hold out for 110" plus for at least the first 4 days of the hunt They wanted really big bucks for pic's for a new brochure and website and I agreed to try!? My brother was with me to video the hunt, and we had Antonio and Jaime helping. At first light my brother glassed up a bear crossing the ridge and I found only a couple does. We took the quads about 500 yrds further up the canyon and stopped to glass another clearing. I set up my tripod and immediately had a buck cruising sidehill. My heart jumped out of my chest and I turned to Antonio and said "I found my buck!". I set up fast and just before the buck disappeared, I shot him, but didn't see him go down. I climbed a tree, and ran around to find another window to the hillside when Jaime found him standing licking where I had hit him. My brother had the film rolling as I dumped him with the second shot. I knew it wasn't the buck they wanted me to hold out for, but when a guys biggest whitetail-to-date is a 75" 2-pointer he's not passing up a 100" class! This whole hunt took place in less than 1 hour of opening morning and was the first Mexico buck I have ever seen or glassed up! This buck is 97" and is absolutely beautiful!

What worked: My classic featherweight Win. 270 with the B+C VXIII scope What didn't work: My ability to hold out for " Muy Grande" Result: Three coues bucks to the taxidermist in 3 months and a outrageous bill! JIM

Not trying to find your spots but was this in units 22 or 23? They have the late archery season and I couldn't imagine that bull lasting from the Sept. hunts. I've seen that before but never with a shot like that and I just can't believe that the arrow is still there and not broken or bit off even from the late archery seasons. I think that arrow hit maybe one lung, more than likely neither because it's too low, the lungs taper up towards the back and I just have a hard time believing a bull could last this long if it were in lungs. That is a very sad pic, and it would be very bad for it to get into the wrong hands. JIM

Hey Justin, Bret sent me that pic of the coues a while back, but it was from farther away and I thought it was a hoax and that there were actually 2 sets of antlers sitting inside the rack of a mounted buck. I was wrong! that is a freak. It reminds me of that buck Dan King killed, those bases are insane! With a tail like that, I bet that Mulie didn't have any problems with keeping the flies off his butt! JIM

I want to say thanks to everyone that replied to my earlier post inquiring info about 35B. With that info I went there with alot more confidence, thanks. I settled on an area on the far eastern border of the unit and couldn't make it to the meet and greet in Amado on Fri. because camp was just too far. I'm helping a tagholder on the last week of the hunt and a good friend of mine, Craig Cormier, also had the tag. We went down there to scout and hunt together for the first week. We set up camp and got familiar with the area on Fri. and began our hunt on Sat. A 30 min. quad ride got us in and a 1 1/2 hour hike got us to our vantage point. Craig passed up a nice 80" buck on the way up and our hopes were high. We glassed for about an hour with only three does spotted and no bucks. We moved over the other side of the ridge to glass a different canyon when I saw a deer headed up out of the canyon. With no binos I could tell it was a buck and when I looked through them I about fell over. This was the largest framed buck I have ever seen. We stared in disbelief as the out of range buck went up and over the highest saddle. With gear packed up, we followed to try and relocate the buck. The backside was too thick to glass so we headed to another canyon east and started glassing there. Ten minutes later Craig glasses up another huge buck bedded in the sun in a small ravine. This new buck wasn't as wide or long but a toad nonetheless! The deer was 518 yrds straight down with a strong wind, so a stalk was made. Craig stalked to within 50 yrds. and dropped the buck with one shot. The buck grosses just over 108" and has incredible mass and character! This is the third coues that Craig killed and by far the biggest, and I've been fortunate to have experienced each one with him. There was no sign of rutting activity and only a few deer spotted but there's a bigger buck there and we'll be looking for him this week! I was bored waiting for coueselk to finish his hunt story so I fixed the pic's in this earlier post! JIM

You can get sponsors if you kill a monster elk, deer etc. and take individual pic's with all your gear then start asskissing the product owners. It would help if you are already known in your community and stand a good chance of killing another monster animal as well. Or you, as mentioned earlier, put together a video, it has to be dang good, and then take a demo to all the shows and/or product makers and do alot more asskissing! I have a buddy that killed a world record with his bow, and he didn't get any sponsors but he wasn't after any either, he did get some free stuff though because products were in pictures that were published. To get sponsors, your sponsors are going to want something in return, ADVERTISING! They want to know how you are going to accomplish that ie; killing monster animals on a regular basis or better yet producing good video's. Good luck, JIM

Thanks Amanda and everyone else that sent reply's. I had high hopes of bringing home a buck-of-a-lifetime on this trip, and I might have if I held out. When I'm the one pulling the trigger, it's a whole different ballgame!!! I just need to raise my "trophy standard" a little higher next time, but I doubt I'll be able to! There's just something about these little deer, regardless of antler size! Thanks again guys! JIM P.S. I was just finishing with my above post when I saw your reply Couesnut. I wasn't "slammed" or anything like that. I was just informed that I might be crossing that line of being disrespectful to the guys that advertise here and actually pay the money to do so. I agree with you that I would like to know about the good and the bad but we just have to be respectful in both cases by keeping names and certain info private through PM messages. No one has been disrespectful to me here! JIM

Thank you DEERSLAM, everything's cool! I'ts just that there's a "possibility" that someone here was offended and/or upset that I was promoting a outfitter, I'm apologizing to that guy! I really didn't need to say anything, it's just that it bothered me a little becuase I know not to do that and never intended to do that and was just excited about my hunt and wanted to relay it in full detail. I like this site because I could do that and can read about everyone else's hunts. I don't want to hide facts or alter facts about a hunt that I want to share with you guys just so I don't piss off another outfitter. To tell you the truth, I didn't want anyone to know who I went with and only stated their name when I was asked, I should have sent a PM instead! Oh well, no big deal. Thanks for all your replys to my hunt, I enjoyed sharing it with you all " In Full Detail"! JIM

It was brought to my attention that my post here is too much of a "promotional" post for the outfitter that I used. My only intention was to share my experience with you guys with as much detail as I could to accurately relay the experience. The outfitter I used does not sponsor this site nor have they even heard about this site until they met me. The outfitter I used "does not" have very much time or experience in guiding hunts for coues deer! I took a risk by booking with them knowing they had only been in existence for three years. Every one of the sponsoring outfitters of this site have alot of years and experience behind them and deserve alot of credit for supporting the #1 website we all enjoy! I'm in the same business and know of the reputation a few of them have, and can attest to the fact that this site is supported by the best coues deer outfitters in both Arizona and Mexico and If a person wanted to book a hunt with an outfitter, they should look no further than the supporters of this site! I just wanted to apologize to anyone that I may have offended. Sincerely, jim

As per a meeting with Leonard Ordway (Game Branch Chief with the AZ Game and Fish Dept.) today this is what the Department will recommend to the Commission at the Game and Fish Meeting in Yuma on February 10th in regards to their proposed archery elk hunting structures: The existing archery elk hunting season in September will be shortened from 14 days to 10 days. There will be approximately 300-400 of the archery bull elk tags removed from the existing September archery bull elk hunts in 6 different units (along with re-structuring the existing unit 22/23 November hunts) to create archery bull elk tags during a August (August 18-31) or a November (November 10-23) hunt structure. The existing unit 22/23 archery bull elk hunts in November will be changed to having both units now having a September 22 - October 1 archery bull elk hunt. Unit 22 will also have some permits (less than last year) in the traditional November 10-23 hunt structure. Unit 23 will also have some permits in a new August 18-31 hunt structure. Units: 1, 4A, 5A will be among the units that have some of the traditional September archery bull elk hunts removed to create an early (August 18-31) hunt structure. Units: 4B, 5B and 10 will be among the units that have some of the traditional September archery bull elk hunts removed to create a late (November 10-23) hunt structure. About (+/-) 50 tags will be taken from each of these September hunts to create the early/late hunts. Changes from what we had discussed previously with the department: THE EXISTING ARCHERY BULL ELK HUNT IN SEPTEMBER WILL BE SHORTENED FROM 14 DAYS TO 10 DAYS. The new November archery hunt structure will be for bull only, not any elk. The new August hunt structure will be before the archery deer/turkey season, not a multi-species hunt. The trade for the new August and November hunt structures will likely be at less than a 2.5 to 1 ratio. They will also propose the original changes recommended that would reduce the permits in the existing late December firearm coues deer hunt to create more permits in an October/November hunt structure. If you don?t like these proposals you better be at the Game and Fish meeting in Yuma on Friday, February 10th to express your opinion to the commission before they accept the proposal. If you think you can wait to the April hunt set meeting to express your concerns you will be too late. The department will move forward with what ever proposals or recommendations that the commission gives them direction on at this February 10th meeting in Yuma. It would be very unlikely that they (Commission) would change their minds in April after they directed the department to move forward on such a huge change that would involve a lot of department time and money. Yuma Game and Fish Meeting: Friday - February 10, 2006 - Shilo Inn - 1550 S. Castle Dome Road - Yuma - AZ

I ran out with my bro-n-law Sat. to help him stalk this buck. The buck is 4 inches outside his ears and probably has 24-25 inch ears! Just a hog muley, the stalk didn't work and I learned AGAIN how frustrating digiscoping can be! I sat there for an hour taking pic's of this buck while he bedded, trying different f stops and aperature settings and you name it. The best pic's I seemed to get were on the AUTO setting. I messed around so much with the camera, that when the buck finally turned ( for the first time in an hour) towards me, showing his width, the camera died! It takes me so long to turn the camera on, zoom in, and let the set-up stop shaking, that I just left it on for the whole time, not wanting to miss the shot or him standing up, big mistake. The buck sensed something was wrong when jimmy crawled to 80 yrds, and blew out of there, with me sitting 950yrds away ready to throw my scope and camera down the cliff! I never got a pic of the buck looking at me, but he did for a while when the camera was dead! I use the Canon G6 7.1 mp camera with the Zeiss swing out style adapter, and the Swaro STS 80 HD scope. I think my first problem is I'm setting this all on top of an Outdoorsman's tripod! It doesn't take much to get it shakin'. I have, and will use it next time, the Bogan with the fluid head, but it's so darn heavy but i'm sure alot more stable. This was only my fourth time digiscoping and my fourth time being frustrated as heck with it. I took hundreds of photos to get a few decent ones but none have ever been the quality I want. Is there any tricks to use or does anyone have any advice on digiscoping! Thanks JIM

Great information, tips and awesome pic's guys!!! Thanks JIM