COOSEFAN

Thanks Mike, I thought it would be easier to handle email and internet stuff from up in the woods but it's a lot easier said than done! I'm still tryin to catch up but doesn't look like that'll happen now that the Coues woods are callin' my name! Still a few elk hunts left and gonna be a few bulls hittin the ground here in November! You guys wouldn't believe the size of some of the bulls that we let walk away this past season and even last week! Lots O' fun So, yeah, we ain't done yet ! JIM>

Awesome! Great job on what sounds like a memorable and great hunt! Congrats Jared! JIM>

Congrats on a gorgeous buck and on making a great shot! JIM>

Awesome buck! Great job on the scouting and gettin' it done, memories that won't be forgotten anytime soon i'm sure!!! Congrats! JIM>

Congratulations on a great buck! JIM>

Whackin' and Stackin'! Great job gettin' it done, that's a ton of guttin' and skinnin' right there.....and worth every minute i'm sure! Congrats to all! JIM>

WhooHOo again! Way to go Jakob, your a deer killin' fool! Now you're on a role and i'm sure there's no stoppin' ya! Congrats to you buddy! Thanks for writin' the stories and posting the pics Bret, they're awesome! JIM>

Thanks a bunch Leland, that's what we strive to do! I wish I had stopped to say hi and congrats to you on your beast of a bull, that was one of the top bulls taken on the archery hunt, what a stud bull, i'm sure you worked your tail off for him! Congrats! Thanks to everyone else for the nice comments as well! It's been a tough season and definitely one that has put our determination and persevearance to the test, it's great to endure and still be successful in the end! Tons of great experiences, memories and friendships made this year, can't wait to see what the rest of the seasons produce! Thanks and take care, JIM>

Whoohoo! Huge congrats to you Misty and to the guys! Great job gettin' it done under tough circumstances, you guys hunted hard! I wish I could have been there, I know Bret couldn't have been more proud, wish I could have experienced it with ya'll! Great bull, congrats again! JIM>

Howdy sir and welcome to the best site on the web, you came to the right place! First off, prepare yourself for the addiction you are about to be inflicted with! Coues deer can be the most rewarding, addicting and even the most frustrating critter to hunt! The unit your hunting is one of those that can be very frustrating, especially if you have one of the early hunts. There will be quite a bit of hunting pressure in the areas that you'll be told to hunt, just remember that there are deer there and even some good bucks! I hunt this unit every year and have learned that just because you saw a group of hunters walk down a ridge doesn't mean there weren't any deer there or that they were busted out. Pay attention to the pockets that are surrounded by this pressure, most hunters don't walk through these thick pockets or even glass into them. These pockets are either thick oaks, deep cuts in a grassy hillside, or thick catclaw holes surrounded by long ridgelines. You'll find more of these catclaw pockets in the northern part of the unit and thick tree and grass pockets in the southern part of the unit. I like the northern part becuase of the glassability and tend to stay away from thick tree country....but there are more of the bigger, older age class bucks in the thicker tree covered country, I personally just don't have the patience for that stuff We find big enough bucks in the easier to glass country so that's where I tend to stay basically because it's more enjoyable for me with my style of hunting. Locate these hidden pockets, which will most likely be north facing for the most part and provide shade all day. I like to sneek into veiw of these pockets and glass hard into them looking for peices of a deer. Very rarely will they be in the wide open in these spots as they probably were spooked into these spots by another hunter earlier on. I've seen bucks in these pockets actually lay their head on the ground or crawl under the vegetation when they see a hunter, so it definitely helps to sneek into your vantage point and never skyline yourself. I'll glass lots of country at first and last light making note of the pockets that deer dissappear into and then midday I'll do "detail" glassing into those pressure pockets at closer range. I'll even use my 15x binos at close range in order to pick out a nose, antler tip, or eyeball, you'll be surprised at how productive this is for these little ghosts! Like has been said and will be said again, glass, glass and then glass some more! Use a tripod and like Casey said get comfortable so you can glass some more! Best of luck and be sure to share your story and pics with us! JIM> Here's a couple bucks we've taken on the early hunt in your unit by hunting the pressure pockets mid-day.....

I was standing on the edge of that same canyon a couple days ago and was realizing how tough a hunt that would be for sheep, that's awesome to see you were able to get r' done! Huge congrats on a trophy and hunt of a lifetime! Great job! JIM>

Hey guys I'm tryin to figure out this new crackberry I got about an hour ago, hopefully it allows me to get on here more often now! I just wanted to congratulate Tommy and the boys on a helluva job well done! I did make it in to camp to see that bull in person and its a guaranteed monster of a bull! The hunter is a longtime friend of ours and we are all excited for him, he definitely deserved this bull of a lifetime! BTW...Butters, I could've done without the sloppy kiss on the cheek in case you didn't remember that! You boys were havin WAY too much fun, wish I could've stayed longer! I'll get pics posted of all our successes this year asap, it's been tough but we've been very fortunate with the class of bulls that we've taken, stay tuned! JIM

Hey guys, stole my bro's laptop again and now after reading through all this i'm wishin' i had just stayed in camp! First off, the only time i had ever mentioned that velvet bull from last year being 430 was when I was told by somebody who is not affiliated with my outfit what he measured the bull at. I was at home when that bull was killed, the hunter passed that bull up with me that morning and i told him it would score 405". The friend of the hunter was there when the bull was killed and he took 5 mass measurements per side.....I found that out once i arrived back in camp and scored it at 420". That bull was killed towards the end of July and was still growing his top end out, thus having a lot of fluid and soft tissue on the tips of the 5ths and beams. I only stated what I scored him at in camp, never said it was official and fully expected that bull to shrink....it's only common sense. I have never heard of it being scored officially and wouldn't be surprised if there was a 10-15 inch difference in score, it's expected! Second, my outfit and friends have had nothing but respect for Team Mossback. They are the only other outfit that scouts as hard if not harder than us and their results year after year reflect that. With that being said, I am surprised at some of the comments but it's OK, everyone is entitled to em'. Third, I knew full well that this debate about score would happen. Once we knew we were going to hunt Wilbur, we asked a handful of outfitters who we knew had experience with big bulls to help us score him out. There were a lot of unknowns such as body size, face and ear lengths etc. that we had to speculate and guess in order to get a good idea of score. Nobody, including us, thought Wilbur bull would beat 410 for sure. It wasn't until I walked up to him that i realized how big his body was and that was what throws him off visually. Because we knew full well what everyone else thought he scored, and because i was coming up with crazy numbers, we decided to only have him scored by an official measurer. As for the SCI thing, I didn't care who scored it, just as long as it wasn't me!!! It was by coincidence that an SCI master measurer happened to be picking up some mounts from the taxidermist at the time we were there. He scored Wilbur with a bunch of guys watching the entire time. Anyone that puts Wilbur's rack in their hands will fully understand what is going on here. Wilbur is the most deceiving bull any of us have ever seen, i'm just glad we were guessing low! Fourth, the facts are a great hunter and friend of ours just killed a monster Arizona bull. The fact is that an official measurer scored this bull at 445 3/8's inches. The fact is also that we are very excited that Wilbur had such a huge ground "swelling" when we finally walked up to him! And also another fact is that this bull was taken legally, ethically and a whole grip of money was raised for Arizona elk with the purchase of this tag! I'm dissappointed with all that i've heard but i'm not surprised, i want to share photo's and stories with you all but at this point I really am spent and just want to go hunt and forget about all this junk. I'm sorry i won't be posting any additional photos or stories, you will see them soon enough somewhere I'm sure. I love this site, have been a part of it for a long time and have tons of respect for most of you here so I will post a picture here and will try to get some more later on when things settle down. Thank you to all of you who respect us for who we are and for what we do, we try hard to respect others and only hope for the same in return. Take care all and let's please keep this thread about congrats to the hunter and respect for an amazing bull! Thanks and take care, JIM> BTW...just some numbers to help you visualize the actual size: Average of 17's on the bottom, 20" average on 3's and 4's, 15" 5th on left 12" on right with 6" 6th on right, around 30" of extras, 53" inside, 60 2/8" right beam, 57" left beam and just over 63" of mass.

Howdy folks, i stole my brother's laptop and air-card and snuck away so I could finally get on here! Sorry for the lack of pics being sent out, i haven't figured out how to do that yet from up here. We did take another giant bull last Monday with the 2009 auction hunter. This hunter was not the "steel" guy who's tag ended on August 14. Our hunter's tag started on August 15 and we hunted hard for 10 full days! I've been living up here these last few months watching the bulls grow and one bull in particular had my attention from the start. This bull is one we've watched for the last 2 years and this year he finally grew big enough to earn a name and that became "Wilbur". I named him Wilbur because I knew he would be famous this year and he was no doubt a pig! Our hunter shared the same admiration for this bull and we knew early on that Wilbur would be the bull that we would hunt. The crazy thing with Wilbur is that he fooled all of us and everyone we shared the photos or videos with, nobody thought this bull would score bigger than 410-415 and most thought he might not break the 400" mark. The shape and configuration of his rack along with a huge body made him very decieving and it wasn't until we had him in our hands that we knew we had seriously under estimated him! As my dad stated, our hunter didn't care what Wilbur scored, we all knew he was big enough and we loved his character so the decision was easy to hunt exclusively for Wilbur. With all the time we have invested in this bull and with how great a guy and friend the hunter is, Wilbur was the perfect bull to take. We had and official SCI master measurer score Wilbur yesterday and he did score an amazing 445 3/8"! We are all excited as heck and thankful that the hunter, a good friend of ours, was able to harvest the bull of his dreams! My brother and I are still helping the raffle hunter at this time, I won't be home until it's finished but I will try to get pic's posted as soon as I can of Wilbur and hopefully another great bull as well! Our small team of guys have been bustin' their butts this summer and it's awesome and gratifying to be successful in the end. Thanks for all the hard work and dedication boys....especially to our #1 top guide Chrissy

I don't know what it is, but I had set goals to kill a 100" AZ buck and a 110" MX buck and have fallen just short of both my goals, not complainin' though, but my goals are still in place and I plan on beating both goals this year! we'll see I'm sure I could have found the 1/8" i needed to meet my goal, but that's just not how the numbers added up.......99 7/8" Az buck Again, I prolly could have poured another Capt'n Coke and re-measured to find another 3/8", but just didn't quite make the mark.......109 5/8" Mx buck As for the details, the AZ buck was taken on an early 35B hunt. I just crawled into a small area that was surrounded by hunting pressure and glassed this buck up at close range. He was hunkered down and feeling safe until my .270 barked and turned his lights off with a perfect shot in the heart at less than 200 yards. The Mexico buck was taken on a 1 day hunt with my Pops. Pops killed a 110" buck earlier on the hunt and after guiding duties were done, I was left with only 1 day to hunt for myself. The snow was very deep but Pops and I plowed our way to the top of a hill, sat down to eat a snack and glass for a bit and instantly I had this buck trailing a doe down the opposite hillside. It was 360 yards, I knew he had an inline extra and a good frame and that's all I needed to see, the tripod became the rest and the bullet was on it's way before he dissappeared. I'll never forget walking up and pulling his head up out of the snow for the first time with my hands on em' that first time!

Well I finally have a Coues tag again, drew my first choice again this year but this time I made sure to have a Coues hunt in that top spot, no more muley tags for me for a while, it's time to finally hammer a really big Coues!! Can't wait! Congrats to you all on your tags! JIM>

My first was when I was 13. My uncle and I had archery Antelope tags as well as OTC archery deer tags in our pockets for 5B. The Antelope got the best of us after a few days so my uncle and I headed into the trees in search of squirrels and deer! While looking for an arrow that one of us had missed a squirrel with, I looked up and saw a fuzzy antlered 2 point muley walking right at me! I knelt down and when the buck got to about 30 yards I let my first successful arrow fly on a big game animal........that's when the addiction started for me Pops was hunting in unit 10 with the rest of the family so he wasn't able to be with me, but this was my first success photo....and probably the main reason why I've strived hard to this day to get better success photos!

Very sad and unfortunate, prayers are sent for Dan and his family.

It sure looks human to me, could it be from way before the indians time? Maybe caveman times? They probably still had noticeable canines if it's true we are descendants of apes! Very interesting, hope we get to find out what it really is! JIM>

It was a great time and awesome to meet a few of you in person! I wish I had more time to spend talking and meeting more of the folks that were there, but I'm glad a got to meet the few that i did at least! JIM>

Howdy folks, I made a costly mistake and purchased the wrong ammo last Sat.! I'm breaking in and sighting in a new rifle for a friend that doesn't have the time to do it. I was told it was a WSM and after I bought the rounds I was told it was an ULTRAMAG ! So, up for sale is the last 5 boxes (all same lot#) of 300 WSM 180gr Accubonds that Bass Pro had on the shelf and the 1 box of cheaper 180gr Power Points that i planned to use for the break-in. I've got about $300.00 invested in this dumb mistake. I really don't have the time to sell these boxes 1 at a time and hope somebody wants them all. If you take them all I'll go $250.00 for the whole lot. I figure that equates to no taxes, the $30 PowerPoints are free and you don't spend any gas driving around trying to find em' on the shelf! I'm usually on the road in the central Phoenix area during the week all day and can deliver anywhere in phoenix, mesa, chandler etc. If shipping is needed i'll work with ya on that too. Thanks! JIM>

Howdy folks, Manny (mjmhunter) and I just got back from a 3 day fishin' trip and had an absolute blast! It was nice to take a break in scouting and finally get my first saltwater trip under my belt! We were on the boat last Tuesday evening and didn't step foot back on land until Friday night! It was rough for the first 12 hours or so but the Dramamine helped a lot and I never got sick thankfully....still having a hard time gettin' rid of the wave effect right now though! The food was incredible, the boat was big and comfortable and the fishing was outstanding! Here's a few of the pictures and just a few of the 450+ fish that we caught between 18 guys! Enjoy, JIM>

That's wild stuff Amanda! I'm always on the lookout for ancient things and can only imagine what i've walked over or around out there! Great pics and definitely keep us posted on what you find out. Hopefully you can be there when/if they do any excavation! JIM>

Pig of a bull right there!!! Congrats on an amazing set! JIM>

Thanks! It was an amazing experience, entirely new territory, critters I'd never seen before and my arms were sore from all the reeling and pulling on those fish! Can't wait for next time! JIM>