kimberx2

Good questions. It depends on a couple different things. How close your downed animal is from a road, and how comfortable you are preparing the meat yourself. If your downed animal is close to a road and not too far from a processor, I would recommend you gut it and hold the chest cavity open with a stick. Get it in your truck and haul butt to a processor as fast as you can. Let them skin it and process the deer for you. If you can get it to camp easily but a processor is far away, I would gut it where you get it, then hang from a tree at camp and skin it, cover it with a game bag or cheese cloth. If it is cooler than 40 degrees let it hang overnight and take it to processor in morning. If warmer get it in an ice chest. If it is down far from road I would do the non-gut western method. You start by skinning 1/2 then removing that side and Backstrap, front leg, hind leg and cut as much meat as you can from the neck area. Putting all meat in hanging game bags to cool. Fold the skin over the cleaned side and roll the deer over. Repeat on other side. If you want you can cut the abdomen open and cut out the tenderloins. If I'm in a hurry to Get out before dark or other reasons sometimes I'll just leave tenderloins. You can then pack out the smaller bags of deer legs and meat and the skull and cape. If colder than 40° let hang. If warmer than 40° put all parts in ice chest. There are many videos at stores and on web on gutting, skinning, and the no gut method. I'm sure there are lots of different theories on this but without much practice I would try to get the gutted deer to a processor as quick as possible.

Saw alot of squirrels in 6a during the archery deer hunt. The northern part of the unit by Mormon lake area. Very wet up there this year and the most squirrels I've seen in a while.

Wow that is a great bear. Congrats. Thanks for the story and pic.

Got back tonight from unit 23. Lots of water up there but got on turkeys every day. Got a nice long beard at 8:30 this morning. 10" beard and 7/8" spurs.

I appreciate your post but i disagree with your conclusion on why whitetail harvest has increased five fold over the last five years. As a biologist who has hunted unit 23 for the last thirty years. I see many other possible reasons for the increase in whitetail harvest. The increase of information available on the web, including forums like this one. If you read the success stories and listen to their years Of experience, it gives newer bow hunters techniques that are proven successful. the increase of information available by the use of game cameras. You can pattern whitetails without having to Spend hours in the field. Five years ago this was difficult,imagine having to have all your picture developed Instead of instantly downloaded to your ipad. Whitetails are easier to pattern than muleys for me on my cameras. The availability of pop up ground blinds. Five years ago you had to commit to tree stands or build brush blinds Now you can pop up a scent holding ground blind in seconds. The increase in the technology of archery hunting equipment. Laser range finders with angle compensation, faster bows; if you do guess yardage incorrectly the faster flatter shooting bows are more forgiving. And my main theory on why the whitetail harvest has increased by so much... The whitetail population in unit 23 is increasing. I have hunted unit 23 for 30yrs and i am seeing a definite increase in whitetail numbers. I have been seeing whitetails in areas within the last 4 to5 years that only held muleys the previous 25 years. This is true for other units as well, 24a and 32 are both units I have observed this Whitetail and javelina populations have been expanding throughout Arizona since the territorial times. Elliot Coues was not able to obtain a specimen of a Coues during his stay in Arizona. The species was named in honor of him even though he wasn't able to shoot any. Coues were not as common as they are today even in the 1800's. I haven't seen any current data on their expansion but I have definitely seen an increase in Coues and a decrease in mule deer. I do not hunt over bait, but my archery success has increased over the last 4 or 5 years. My friends and i, all long time archery hunters, have seen an increase in success that i would contribute to ground blinds and game cameras. I'm sure Azgfd will want to ban these soon enough.

Thanks for the heads up. I was getting ready to go up to there and all the roads I was going up to are closed. I'll hold out and pray for rain. Hope my cameras aren't melted.

Wac'ems. Fly just like my field points out to 70yds.

Units 23 and 6a seem to have a good number of turkeys. Plus they are up in the pines. A lot cooler than here in the valley.

Zen ray 10x43 around my neck. 15x swaros in my pack. Only use the 15s on a tripod. The lowest end binos I would go with are nikon monarchs. Then anyhing above that. Not many people mention zen ray on here but I found they are super awsome for the money. I've tried vortex but found them worse than my older nikons. They were the older non HD vipers But cost more than the zens. I know everyone is going to slam me for not loving vortex,but I thought I would throw out Another option that is not too expensive.

Cool pics. I've seen an albino muley doe in 23. I'm not sure if she was a true "albino". But she was very white and visible without binos for a long way off. Saw her on and off for 2 years. Always figured that coloration increased her odds of Predation. But it sure is cool seeing the different color variations.

No I realize that it is a cap and not all hunts are filling the non resident cap. I was just giving an example of a large amount of money that Regge090 did not account for in his post. It IS a significant amount. I have never seen where the azgfd posts how many nonresidents were drawn for each hunt. Does anyone know where it is posted? It seems like when an out of state person puts in with me I seem to get drawn more often. Just makes me wonder a little!

Did you factor in the 10% non-resident tags too. $595-121= $474x10%(2300)=$1,090,200. That's an extra 1 million dollars just from the elk tags. For antelope. 485-85=$400 x 10%(79)=$31,600. That's. Almost 50% of the resident antelope amount for 10% of the tags. They sure do make good money on the 10% out of state cap... hope they don't figure this out they might raise the non-resident cap. Kirk

I have been hunting this unit 20 yrs. I've. Had 1 rifle cow and 4 archery bull tags. Last year was the worst for number of hunters. I hunted the north side of the rattlesnake and not many hunters. The stoneman lake road side was full of hunters. Make sure you scout multiple areas last year I was hunting one area mostly and with the week of rain and other hunters I had to change plans the second week. It worked out and I shot a great bull. The bull in my avatar is 6a bull and 345. Devil diver feel free to pm me if you would like help scouting or figuring the area out. Kirk

I had this tag last year, and 1 year befor that. Last year there were hunters everywhere. They were really huge numbers around the mormon lake quite area. The first weekend there were people off of all the main roads in the northern part. By midweek it cleared out a lot then was way wosre second weekend. A lot of the hunters that were hunting the quite area moved away to try to get away from all the hunters. By the last week there were very few hunters. I hiked into rattlesnake quite area and didn't see anyone. Three years ago there were not half as many hunters and the hunts were divided into north and south units. Lots of hunters, but hike away from the roads and into areas with no easy access and you will find the elk. You still will run into people and another hunter shot a bull I was set up on, but that will always happen on public land hunts. Also had problems with people not respecting you getting to a water hole first. They would just go off 100-150 yds and start calling. I had three other hunters around me at one hole. As the elk started moving in they all started calling and moving in on them pushing them out. I have always had people respect you being first till this year. Had 4 or 5 days of people just hunting right around a hole I was on.

Last year 188,715 people applied for elk and antelope. Was there really 55,000 less people applying this year? That's crazy... because only one person I know got drawn this year! With 55,000 more people imagine how bad the website and phones would have crashed. I agree a text or email when the tag is generated would be nice.

I think it is pretty good now, with a good chance for everyone. But I agree it is not fair for those with high bonus points. I think azgfd should look into squaring the bonus points. Definite advantage as bonus points increase. Maybe raise bonus point pass to 25 or 30%??? Keep non-resi cap at 10%. I don't think you should have to wait to reapply, and with the squaring of the points it would not be as advantagous until you aquire more points. Good discussions. I like hearing all the different ideas..

$175.00 for a turkey tag is a big jump. But it is $221.50 for a non resi tag in Az, and it is a draw. Most of the units in NM are otc for shotgun or archery. Plus the second tukey tag was $10.00, not sure if that went up too, but 2 tukeys for $185 is way better than AZ. I'm just glad AZgfd is increasing the otc spring archery turkey tags each year. I can't afford the gas to get over to NM anymore. Thanks for the heads up.

336 phone calls and I finally got through last night. No tags.. bummer. Time to concentrate on otc turkey and bear. Good luck to everyone who drew .

pm sent

Cool pics. Is there three different cameras or did one of them get moved by the kittens?

Good luck on your hunt, I want a Goulds tag soo bad. 12 points and still no draw. I use expandables but only seem to recover about 50% of my turkeys. I wish I knew something better. I use a blacked out bow and fletching with noctural nocks. I use a double bull blind and it makes it a lot easier to draw on those turkeys. I have never found a mask that doesn't effect my arrow flight so I paint my face. I usually wear a black shirt, hat and gloves. If it is hot I wear shorts, cold pants, but color doesn't matter inside the blind. I prefer a head on shot but take what I can get. With the blind 10 to 15 yd shots are the norm for me and my buddies.

Congrats on the tag Mark. I don't think you can go wrong with any new bows. Try out lots of diff models then decide. I haven't seen you in years and thought I would say hi.. If you go over to Archery Headquarters to try new bows give Steve and me a yell and we can meet you there and shoot some. Kirk

I'm NOT turkey hunting, so I'll let you know if I find any turkey sign. When is the turkey hunt? Does it oerlap with the archery spring tag bear hunt? Yes the draw turkey and the otc archery turkey hunts do overlap with the bear hunts. There are turkey hunts from april 20th until may 24th. Yea for the otc archery turkey hunts this year. Don't have to drive to NM.

great timing on this thread. I've been out puttin up cameras for turkey and haven't seen any bear sign. I was wondering if any one else was seeing them on their cameras, or while shed hunting. Several cameras in unit 23 and 6a. Thanxs for any sightings...Ill post any good pics I get in a few weeks.

Nice spot, 200 deer in a week! Thnx for sharing. Good to see they haven't shed yet, gives us a chance that haven't got out shed hunting yet..