GotBowAz

I never heard about the drowning, first I heard of this and i know the local ex ranch foreman there in Sunflower. I think he would of mentioned it. My hunting partner lives there too and I know he would have said something as well. do you have any details on it. GBA

They are closed and locked since the diamond fire. I have hunted on foot back in there recently for a few years. I take the Arizona trail/Mule trail in behind the old store. A lot of folks hunt it close to the freeway but I haven't seen only one person back by the tanks and he was on a horse. GBA

My hunting partner doesn’t have dogs but he does have about 100 or more Turkey Buzzards in his trees every September. So he brings them his deer or elk bones to pick at. Kind of fun to see actually. I have given my dogs the bones of deer and elk and they love it. I cut them up with a Sawsall in 6 inch pieces, boil them pretty good and serve. GBA

Great job goes out to you're daughter...way to get it done. Awesome job goes out to you dad! You have every right to be proud! GBA

That’s story turned out from bad to awesome and the smile on your faces says it all. Congrats to both of you…well done! Also glad you didn’t hurt your bow on the drop. That could have been a disaster for the rest of your hunt. Somebody is really looking out for you both. Way to go boys, nice work! GBA

Got me too dang it! Heck Im surprized they are getting cell phone service from thier blinds. Too early yet boys. 10 oclock will be the witching hour! Bag em amd drag em! GBA

NTS...I concur with what you’re saying but this would be reporting your harvest for your OTC tag, not a draw. You would be taking it in or calling it in to Fish and Game verses filling out a survey. I would then suspect that if you’re in violation (and of course got caught) it would be a pretty hefty ticket if not loss of license to hunt for a few years. I would bet most if not all hunters would turn in their harvest like they do for bear. GBA

That’s both interesting and surprising to me. I either butcher my deer right away or get it into an ice chest or cooler for transport. It surprises me that bacteria would grow that quickly. Why would it do that in Michigan and not in Arizona? Doesn’t make since to me. The one thing that does come to mind is how long they wait around to take it in for processing. Over a couple of days, yes I can see bacteria growing. But I have hung elk in the shade for 24 hours or longer in 80 degree weather and didn’t lose one piece of meat. When I was a kid, and they are still told the same now, the hide is left on to age and the deer and hung to drain out all of the blood for taste. It was never about bacteria. It is usually so cold back there during the hunt seasons that bacteria would take a long time to produce. I'm not saying your wrong about the report, I just don’t buy it. Getting the hide off ASAP and cooling that meat down is way more important than leaving it on. Hide of any kind, especially with winter hair keeps in heat. I have even heard of deer and Elk spoiling on the bottom side and laying on snow because the hide kept the heat in. GBA

Coue’s deer IMO doesn’t need to be aged. It’s the best tasting deer meat I have ever had and it isn’t tough. I get it cooled down as fast as I can. Get the hide off pronto, no gut method, quarter it up or debone it and hang each piece of meat to cool as quickly as possible. I like to use old pillow cases for this. Then hump it back to camp and get it into a cooler and rotate the meat every couple of hours until it is cold all the way through. I process my own meat so when I get home I cut it up the way I want it. If you want to age the meat you can take your time with the processing and age it in the cooler. Just keep adding ice and rotating the meat every few hours. Just be sure to have the plug or cap off of the cooler to drain and you shouldn’t have any trouble. You could feasibly do this for a week. I have never seen the need for this though. I have done it with elk but only because it was such a big job to process it took me a few days every night after work to get it finished. BTY Coue’s deer back strap cut a little over an inch thick with thick cut pepper bacon wrapped and BBQued over charcoal briquettes is to die for. I'm from Michigan too and we hung deer hide and all for up to like 3 days. They still do this. I think it makes the deer taste way worse IMO. BTY, I hunt up there every year in the late archery rut. Since I have been here in Az. and the key to keeping good meat is to get the hide off and get it cooled down I have used that practice back in Michigan and my mom has been impressed with the taste. Up until then she got to the point she didn’t like deer anymore. My 02. GBA

pm sent

Coach you missed one. 4: Require mandatory harvest reporting and when the quota is met shut the area down for that hunt just like they do for bear. GBA

I also respect your opinion and your position in this issue Tonto Rim. Thank you for your informative point of view and your time. However I also agree 100 percent with TJ’s response. In addition I don’t want to see archery OTC opportunities to go away like they did with Javelina. Why in the world they couldn’t have made a mandatory harvest cap on and OTC tag for Javelina like they do for bear is beyond me. If Harvest is the number one reason to loose opportunity and our OTC tags then it needs to be regulated like bear. This way when the objective is met hunters can move on and hunt elsewhere, but they can still hunt. Their opportunity is STILL intact and a draw was not required. I used to enjoy hunting Javelina and deer in the same month at the same time with OTC tags. That being said I was hunting more Mule deer than White Tail back in those days. Mostly because you hunt them very much the same way by glassing open country. Now that it has become a draw I don’t put in for Javelina much anymore and went over to white tail hunting instead. I have to wonder if I did this then how many other archery hunters did the same. I don’t believe baiting stands alone is major success. Our equipment and technology has more to do with it IMO than anything else. You can’t hunt spot and stalk in the thick pines or Junipers and expect to be successful, especially with the Coues white tail. To echo TJ’s response, I don’t want to see another hunting method taken away either. There are other ways to cap harvest objectives then to ban baiting, new technology or making them draw tags if over harvest is the issue. BTY, it stands to reason F&G would make more money from OTC tags as well as more would be sold then would be in a draw. JMO. GBA

Awesome video Addict! That was put together very well, you did a great job. I really enjoyed it. What range were you on? Usery Pass?? GBA

I posted this somewhere in one of these forums but I always put mine up high with a tree climber. If they want it bad enough they will need to somehow shimmy up the tree and then cut the cable. This also keeps them from getting the chip too. I put them about 12 feet off the ground. I now use a red dot flashlight glued to the top of the camera box positioned so that when I point it at the spot I want it to face, it centers the picture. This way you don’t have to keep going up and down the tree to check if its faced correctly. Works like a champ and takes great pictures too. Less chance of wind blowing limbs and things to set the camera off as well. GBA

In my experience if you find the girls you will find the boys during the rut cattle or no cattle. Generally the elk will go back to their same breeding grounds within a mile or so year after year. At least this has been my experience and they slightly change things up when the cattle are there but they will go around them. Don’t give up even though it is frustrating. If you know elk have been using the area during the rut in the past most likely in a couple of weeks they will be back in there. If the cattle are messing up the water holes, the elk will usually avoid those tanks. Find a tank fenced off from the cattle. GBA

I perfer a big entrence hole, rearward deploying Mechnical heads with no less that a 2 inch cut/slice. So I dont care for Rusty Ulmers head...its too small. I have not ever cared for Rage and thier closing feature. I think is was a really crappy design. However I do like what I am seeing with the new Rage Extreme. Looks like thier finally addressing thier issues with them and thier new collar design. Just cant figure out why they wouldnt fix thier older heads too. Maybe they will in the furture. For now I like the NAP Killzone. It by far has the best design and is the strongest head of its kind. I do a lot of destructive testing and these heads just plain hold up and the blades are super sharp out of the package. I didnt vote for NAP because they have so many heads. I dont care for any of thier other designs.

I started putting my camera up high in a limbless tree this year and love the results. First off unless someone has a tree climber with them they aren’t getting my camera or even checking out the card. My first couple of times doing this was a pain up and down the tree to get it right. So when I got it back home I played around with a red dot flash light by taping it on top of the camera, pointing the dot where I wanted it and having it take a picture. I just adjusted the red dot to where I wanted the pictures centered and super glued it into place. Works like a champ. I need to figrue out how to reduce my file sizes so I can post other pics but this will give you an idea. GBA

Looks super good to me. Did you leave enough room to get a shot? LOL just kidding. Welcome to the sight. Sorry to hear about your lost deer. GBA

This is a funny topic for me. In 2010 I had a bull tag and was hot and heavy on the ground run and gun as they say on bulls every day. I had a set of bears feet over my boots and needless to say by the 7th day of blown stalks I no longer had much material on the bottoms of them. One evening I finally had the elk figured out but I had to be down in the crunchy pines. I went back to camp, put a spot and stalk plan together and sewed carpet onto the bottoms of my bear feet. next morning I moved in quiet as could be and killed my bull at 15 yards. He never heard me coming. Best part is they have lasted me for 3 times longer than the original material and the traction is superb! I was able to climb over rocks and steep dirt banks. Even in the pine needles I didn’t slip as bad as my boots would. I have finally wore them down to the carpet backing so I will be redoing them the same way. I tried to post a pic with the bull where you can see I have them on but it says the file is too big GBA A couple of photos to see how they went on and how they performed. Second pic is from the bulls blood on them.

Coues and Sheep. I agree with your assessment in unit 22 and mineral blocks or salt not working like it used to. At least that is very true for the Sunflower area. I know the ranch Forman personally down there and he puts out 50 pound mineral blocks like their going out of style. Every saddle in the area less than ¼ mile has a 50lb block put in it every year. Including Mount Ord. All done with Mules loaded up. So to your point Salt mineral blocks just won’t work anymore, at least not in that area. If they ban baiting minerals I'm not sure it will make a difference for other reasons too. Some folks have salted a spot for years, its evident by the craters in the ground. Those minerals are not going to go away, they are imbedded into the soil. The law may required no baiting but hypothetically if the law is passed am I in violation of sitting over a spot that I no longer haul salt into? I can’t see this getting passed. Are they going to stop the ranchers from dropping off 50 pound mineral licks and if not are we technically illegal to sit over them? To pass a no baiting law all these things would have to be covered in that law as well wouldn’t they? IMO, rifle hunter can hunt wide open areas and to their advantage sit and glass the heck out of it for a good buck, do a spot and stalk and become extremely successful. Some very talented bow hunters can do this as well and for me it’s fun. But I also hunt the very thick nasty stuff you cant see 50 yards in front of you. There isn’t any rifle hunter going in there unless it’s to pass through to get to a glassing area. But those places also hold great bucks. Tree stand and ground blinds and baiting sights for the bow hunters. I cant see baiting a spot out in the middle of open rifle territory. That just doesn’t make sense to me. I'm not saying it doest happen but I would think it would be rare. Lastly, if Fish and Game are worried about bow hunters increase in success then put a cap on it like they do bear. Keep selling the over the counter tags and make mandatory call ins on recordings every Wednesday. When the quota for that area has been met the hunter can call on a different unit and if the quota hasn’t been met there then he can go hunt it. Opportunity still is there, same tags are being sold, harvest objective did not go over for the area etc. etc.. I wish they would have done that for Javelina instead of going to a draw. I always thought that was stupid. GBA

I cant remeber what case it was but it was rated to be aircraft worthy. Really strong heavy case with good locks on it also. At the time I thinkit was a $250.00 case. It was foamed deep to handle shock. I have a new one now I replaced it with but it's not as nice as that one was. GBA

Years ago I used to do something similar to what naturegirl mentioned. I had a hard case and I just used crank type bike straps to bind it to the front of my quad. It protected my bow very well from anything that might hit it on the trail and from shock. However one time when I came back to my bike my nice expensive hard bow case was gone. I always took it off the quad and slid it underneath when I left to hunt. Never thought I should have to lock it down. That was a lesson learned. I suppose if you bolted it down which was I thought I had you would reduce the theft of it but I used that bow case to fly out of state with and really didn’t want bolt holes in my nice case. Now I use a combination of bow limb holders fore quads, a bungee and cheap swimming pool noodles folded in half and camo covered that works pretty awesome. I will get a picture of it and post it tonight. I found that just bow limb holders still allowed too much movement to my liking on the trail. GBA

I did the same thing then I remebered I wrote a new ID number down on an old hunt license. I drew a 12a 12b a4rchery deer tag! GBA

Wow, what a stud! Nice buck, hope to see your pic's with him on the ground come August! GBA

I have to ask, has anyone ever got their camera as back when they have been stolen? A license plate doesn’t mean anything. I highly doubt if you went to their house or had the cops do so off of the plate number (which I doubt the police would do) that they will fess up to taking them. I just try to put mine in a place that no one will find it, but sometimes that is impossible. Taking it out during weekends is a great idea but not many of us live close enough to be going up every weekend or it can get pretty expensive. I like to bring my climber stand along and put my camera up high in a tree and Angle it down with a rock or something behind it. This way they at least have to work for it by not only cutting the cable but going back and getting their climber to do it as well. GBA