Old Buck

I haven't hunted on the Big Bo since 2019, but at that time it was no hunting within 100 yards of water. G+F Commission could implement any setback that they desire.

New Mexico locus. Great cover for deer, elk and turkeys. Not so fun to walk through.

It looks like sandpaper bush Mortoria scabrella. It is an indicator species of the chihuanhuan desert. Nice buck!

I drew a spring Kaibab Buffalo tag in 2013. Ammunition and reloading supplies were difficult to find at that time. The only 308 cal Barnes bullets that I could obtain were the 200 grain long range. I worked up a load for my 300 WM of 68 grains of RL22 with the 200 grain LR. I shot my bull the first morning after slipping up to about 75 yards. I was on a bipod and held for the heart. At the shot, the bull gave a hop and ran into the trees. I waited about 5 minutes and moved to where I could see where the buffalo had run. The buffalo was still up and when he saw me he started running south to the Park. Left with only the north end of a southbound buffalo, I began shooting. I got him turned and put several shots behind the shoulder. I finally had to put a round behind the ear to finish the job. As we cut the bull up, I was surprised at how little damage the bullets did. When we got into the body cavity, a friend pulled the heart out and found that there was a finger size hole that went all the way through. I must have hit the low pressure side of the heart. Three bullets were recovered in the animal, they had all lost the petals. I had essentially shot the buffalo with 308 cal copper wadcutters. I also loaded up some 140 grain Barnes ttsx for my 7mmRM as a backup rifle. I had heard great things about the ttsx so I used that load later that year on a Colorado elk hunt and it worked great. In 2018 my son drew a spring Kaibab buffalo tag and worked up a load for his 300WM using the 180 grain ttsx. It worked well. Based upon my experiences, I would recommend the Barnes ttsx over the Barnes long range for buffalo.

PM sent on Weaver K-4.

There were 2 tags issued for 2019. BT had 1 of the 2 issued for 2018. He was wanting to know who had the tags this year.

You may want to check with the court on that. Also an online review of ARS 17-309 might be helpful. Title 17 shows that violation as a Class 2.

You should have been cited for 17-309 A4 which is a Class 2. Why do you think that you were cited for a Class 1?

I have used both of these products in outdoor bait stations. After several weeks, I was using more bait than I was at the beginning. My guess is that the packrats were gaining weight on it. I switched to a product called Jaguar, I believe that it is made by the same company, but has a different active ingredient. Jaguar has worked great for me. Seasonally I will have 15 bait stations and have found that I have to wire them down in an out of the way place so javelina don't mess with them. Indoors, I only use snap traps baited with peanut butter. For rock squirrels I use conibear traps set on the burrow. The conibear trap makes relocation and release real easy.

Great news! Thanks for posting.

From the photos, it is hard to tell if your willow has died back or just hasn't leafed out yet. You can check the the branches that haven't leafed out by scratching the bark. If there is green under the bark, you are good. If it isn't green, it is dead and needs to be cut out. Willows like lots of water and respond well to nitrogen. The last few years I have been using calcium nitrate on my trees as it does not drop the pH of the soil. That has been a problem in the past for me when I used urea. You need to give each tree about 0.1 lbs of actual nitrogen per inch diameter of the tree base. I also use 20-20-20 sometimes on a planting of trees if I don't think they are growing well the first year. Hopefully your trees are just slow coming out. I am running about 2 weeks behind normal for bloom on my apples, peaches and pears in SE AZ.

I started hunting whitetails in Arizona in the early 60's and finally killed my first in 1967. Hunting equipment has changed more than music in the last 50 years. In 67, I had a canteen and a buck knife on my hip, an apple and a BP+J in my pocket and a Remington 700 with Weaver K4 on my shoulder. I was good for the day. Fast forward 50 years to the buck that I killed last December. My son and I had 2 sets of 10x binoculars, 2 set of 15x binoculars, 2 tripods, one big spotting scope, 2 laser rangefinders, 2 gps', 2 cell phones one custom Remington 700 with a big old Nightforce scope, several headlamps plus lots of water and groceries. All this stuffed into two state of the art packs with internal frames and we were ready. While I miss the simplicity of 50 years ago, I sure do enjoy watching deer undisturbed at long distances with modern optics. A side benefit is that it keeps you in shape just packing all your gear around!

I would like it. PM sent

Most g and f violations are class 2 misdemeanors. Check ARS 17-309B to confirm.

Nice sheep and a great mount. Chris Harlow did a full mount on my Arizona ram. It looks so good, it looks like it could jump off the rock that it's on and head butt my Nevada ram across the room! I am looking forward to getting last years whitetail back from him in a few months.

You might consider planting oats. They are cheap to plant and everything seems to eat them. In addition they are a good crop for land that hasn't been farmed for a while. Plant them before it gets hot this spring.

I have shot a number of elk with a muzzleloader. I use a muzzleloader because of the increased elk hunting opportunity not because I like muzzleloaders. I really like to hunt elk! I have used saboted bullets that varied from 250-300 grains, depending on which one shot best in my newest rifle. The last few have been with barnes bullets and I was very happy with their performance. I have always slowly worked up to the maximum powder charge for my rifle. IMO you need all the help you can get with a muzzleloader, so I try to get all the velocity that I can. Remember when you are hunting that you are not using a real rifle, only a muzzleloader and take your shot accordingly.

As I look at the distribution of where max bonus point holders for sheep are applying, if things don't change , in 3-4 years people with max-1 will draw tags in the bonus point round of the draw. There will be the holdouts in the max group that only want a unit 22 tag and that group may take 10-12 years to clear out. Relax, your friend has a chance of drawing in the bonus point pass portion of the draw in just a few years. Maybe he will invite you on the hunt!

It looks like you have a good hunting partner. Nice turkey too. Congratulations on both!

I had a 260 Rem built in 2014 on a 700 short action and it is a great rifle. If I had a long action I would consider a larger case 6.5 to take advantage of the potential of the long action.

Congratulations to Crystal. She had a great year with a big bull and this big buck. You are lucky that she lets you hunt with her!

My son and I had two 300 Win Mags built in 2007. We tried several bullets and the 200 grain Accubond shot the best. We settled on 73 grains of RL 22, which gave us a velocity of 2975fps. From 2007 to 2012 we drew 5 late bull tags between us. One bull was only about 150 yards, but the other four were cross canyon shots between 435 and 720 yards. The Accubonds did a good job on all five bulls.

I checked my Chase account today and it showed that G+F had taken $300! I started applying 47 years ago when I was 15. I am ready to start scouting as soon as I know if I got first or second choice.

Amazing! Good job, congratulations!

Great ram, congratulations!