Sneaker

The ranchers where we were this year found two nice bucks, maybe 105 and a 110 type buck, dead, locked antlers together. They found them in the summer, looked like they had died rut of 2023. I would have loved to have been able to get those back home. Thought about how I could make that happen like the whole week but the only way was to smuggle them or clean them up all the way and put two tags on them, so they are still there in the yard... So cool though. The antlers go together like a puzzle, it was pretty mindblowing how they would not come apart even though they looked like they should easily disconnect at any moment. If you yanked real good on them you could have got them apart pretty easy I think, but that would be dumb Both a little broke and both had a couple extras.

We didn’t bring capes back, but the USDA guy working the Nogales border last week was a real jerk. Bossing us around all over the place. Was threatening us and acting like we were cape smugglers and going on and on about losing our vehicle if he found a cape we were hiding. I definitely got the impression he would have been very very strict about ticks if we had one to declare…

Guys have really whacked them up in my neck of the woods this year apparently, 15s are closed and 16a is almost closed, neither of them even shut down last year through Jan I'm pretty sure. I'm assuming sitting water was pretty deadly with how dry were were up until yesterday.

The OTC structure and quota system all together is what I was talking about, they are a lot quicker to remove portions of the year from allowable hunt dates as well as a result I feel like too, in addition to the quota closures. I’ve talked to several guys in town that despite all of game and fish warnings everywhere were hunting or were going to hunt closed areas due to closure ignorance.

Revised deer regs strike again.

Does anyone have a good antler repair guy? Like someone they have used or follow on Instagram or something that posts examples of their work that looks good? And before anyone says it, no I do not agree that “if your taxidermist is any good he should be able to fix it”. I have seen way too many antler repair attempts that just look bad. It apparently is not the same as being a good taxidermist, and a “good” taxidermist will tell you the truth about that Also, my wife doesn’t want to keep her bull natural and broken so that’s out.

Front seat gets pretty toasty from the engine after a while though:) We like our Pioneer, but that’s the only complaint probably.

Fish cops recorded 9 rings, scorer counted 8, this is how I personally counted using the 4th year as the first very pronounced ring, but I’m not experienced at all.

Yeah the success posts here have took a big nose dive over the last 5 years. I used to love seeing the posts and stories but people have moved to social media I think for that. I don’t do those so I come to look here and usually nada!

Why doesn’t anyone post their successful hunts any more? There’s got to be dozens of active members that have arrowed a buck this year already right? Those of us that haven’t been able to hunt yet or haven’t killed promise to behave and only respond with positive comments, right guys?

It seems like the truly professional, organized guys have less than 18 months turns. If you think about it, if their delay is longer than that, they have either experienced a major operations problem, of they are taking in too much work. Take it for what its worth, but basically every full-time taxidermist that I have visited that has more than a 20 month turn time ALSO has a shop that looks disorganized, dirty, and is not managing their inflow and outflow well, and I usually don't like the look of their work anyway. Sounds harsh but its what I've seen.

They still had weeks to hunt, so they must of thought he was done or they would have waited a bit?

Who is your taxidermist?

Real interested to see how the rain and growth do this year.

Some mass on that 3 point!

I really wish there was a better system or that game and fish would put on a field day by every office every quarter or something. Volunteer teachers seem like they are putting them on less and less and even though its mostly just the field day now, its very hard to get an open spot. I"m on my third child and as of 3 weeks ago, there was one single field day listed, and it was in New Mexico, and as of a week ago, there were three listed, the NM one, and one in Yuma in december and one in Tucson I think. I called the department and they said yeah, the volunteers aren't doing them much any more so we extended the deadline again to June 2024 now.

2 youth tags charged.

Sweet buck

If they don't get charged by noon, I'm ready to restart the "can we please discuss outsourcing this process?" debate again.

I have a 2017 Silverado 1500, Z71 crew cab, 91k miles, greenish grey color. Aftermarket bumper, bilstein shocks. My new truck should be here Beginning oh July so I can sell soon.

I read a study a couple years ago and it was saying once you get past like a 12 days forecast, scientists have not been able to find a way to reliably predict weather, and the historical average of the weather for that calendar day was a better predictor than anything else.

Nice! Almost makes me want to look into spring turkeys haha.

Man nice! I struck out pretty hard this year on my annual day-long shed hike in a new area. Found one tiny sun baked rag horn.