Coues 'n' Sheep

I know it is said, that hunters are cold heartless people.... but I sure should felt my eyes filling up as read your story.... Sorry for your loss Amanda. It is truely amazing how much our pets touch our lives....

Awesome buck! Congrats!!

Whooo Hooo Grumpa!! So glad all went well! ....as for the Grumpa part... I bet that grand-baby will soften your old Arse! HaHAHA!

Go for it, Man!! Just remember you are making a lifetime commitment... you can't divorce a Tat.... it took me over a 1 1/2 years to decide that this tat was exactly what I wanted then we did it! It is on my shoulder and I have never regretted it!

Did it as a kid growin' up.... ... The advice I have is have a good light... I ended up in over my head and swimming in the East Verde one night cuz the water went from knee deep to ?? ?? in like one step... ...and that makes for a long cold night!!!! Lots of Coons in your area.... Every creek bed in the Rim Country has em' in it....Good luck.

Glad Hap is doing better! Thanks Randy for posting this Awesome Cat... You should post his trophy photos that will really show him off! I really appreciate that that you are one of the few who calls a lion what he is... and does not try to "compete" with the monsters they kill in the northern states.... I've grown up around some very good Lion Hunters and the good ones stand appart by never "throwing" big numbers around.... they just produce good cats. Kinda like every canyon DOES NOT have a 400" and two 350"+ bulls in it... ... and yet everyone is seeing them. Anyhow thanks, Randy! I love hearing about truely Giant AZ Cats without the BS... and year after year you give us just that!

We did see a lot of bulls..but the strange thing was i did not see one cow the entire hunt! That is cuz you were not lookin' for the ladies! HaHa! Great Post, Buddy! Glad you finally post em' up! Congrats to the whole Crew!

We have found that the cheap camp chairs with no arm rests are almost the best... less noise and don't impead shooting... being able to lean back is key to staying in the blind, IMO.

a honey badger is what the guy from south africa said they were Scotty would know for sure, but I too thought they were a Badger. Great pics Amanda... thanks for sharing them.

Happy B-day, Mike!! Hope it is a great Day.... If you make it up this way I'll buy you a Cold One!

This one is a little different... . Two Different Versions.... .......... .... Two Different Morals OLD VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself! MODERN VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.' ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper. The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.. The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010. I’ve sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant – not a grasshopper! Make sure that you pass this on to other ants. Don’t bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldn’t understand it, anyway.

Sure wish I could go... everyone that I know that goes to this banquet has a great time.

Thanks.. we have seen and taken more than a couple bucks that have that genetic... It is really cool.... like heart stopper cool! Only one of the "splitter bucks" that I have seen there was under a 100"er.... and he is a pickup head. My personal pic is a "splitter buck"... hoping to get me one more!!

Well it all started with a phone call from my buddy, Jimmy Mullins… “Hey, I promised Ian that I’d take him archery deer hunting this January… now my truck is acting up and I need have it in tip top shape for Mexico… can you help a Brutha out?” My reply was “Heck Yeah! I’d love to do it!” In preparation for Ian coming to hunt with us, I wanted to get a couple more ground blinds out so that he could hunt them. You see with Ian’s hearing loss I did not want his first archery coues hunt to be spot/stalk or in a tree stand… the ground blind method would allow him more movement and lil’ more noise tolerance. I set one up and then off to a surefire location that I have hunted for about 10-15 years…. Great spot and no one seemed to be there this year which was refreshing… as easy spots had become popular the last couple of years causing me to avoid them. I had monitored the area for several weeks and with no real sign that hunters were in the area… I set the blind right in the same swale I had always hunted…. 36 hours later… blind is gone! It had happened last year to a buddy… hope I get it back… but know I won’t… Well I’m stubborn, so I put up a new blind in the exact same spot and this time I put up a trail camera, 12 feet up in an oak pointed right at the blind the night before Ian is to climb in and hunt. But as luck would have it other hunters found the blind before dark that night while scouting the area… At 6:30 the next morning as Colton and Ian sneak out to the blind they bump into 3 guys setting up to hunt a 100 yds from the ground blind! The one guy asked if they were hunting the ground blind that had the Cam on it. Colton replied, “Yes, and Ian cannot hear well so please don’t screw with him.” The reply Colton got was, “No worries.” They wished each other good luck and parted ways….. Colton and I discussed pulling Ian out and moving him… but a 100 yds in coues country was a long way…. Those guys knew they were that close when they set up… and we decided we would move Ian to location 2 at noon if the sudden increase in people there affected the deer movements. See… having hunted there many times I knew that most of the deer would move past Ian’s blind first in the normal travel pattern in the area, giving him first crack at shoot or pass… I was very hopeful and positive that he’d have that chance by mid morning…. Mid morning came and I was expecting a text saying “Got one!” Instead I get “Some A-Hole just slung an arrow at a nice 3 point coming down the trail 13 yards from the Blind! I was at full draw!!” Colton and I are in full flight mode… Colton beats me there and finds the other “hunter” quizzing Ian as to “whether or not he hit the buck” with his 100 yard shot through the thick trees! This is where I am very Proud (while I was running as fast as I could through the woods to get to them)… Colton and Ian packed his stuff and got him to a new hunting spot without starting any kind of a fight or so much as a cross word. They rose to the occasion. I, however, was on the fight when I got to the site of the ground blind…. only to find everyone gone. I had a few choice words (with the trees) … then I took down the blind and waited for Colton to come back for me. Later at home, waiting for Ian to have more luck, I follow up on a hunch and show Colton a pic of a “Fellow I knew” …. He says, “Yep that’s him… except he was wearing checkered sweat pants and bleached hair, today…” Well, long story short, not only did the other “hunter” shoot at the deer and nearly over the blind at a 100 yards (one hit branch could have deflected that arrow at Ian)…. he may have also wounded the buck and didn’t even pursue to check. We saw the buck the next day with a high back (non-fatal) wound…. Ian tried to get the buck but it never gave him a clean shot. As Ian sat another ground blind the next day he had lots of action, bucks and does were moving through the natural funnel area he was sitting and there seemed to be a hot doe. Colton and I spent the morning scouting near Ian, feeling confident today was his day…. Colton bet that 9:45 AM and I bet that 11:45 AM would be when Ian scored. We were both close when my Phone went off at 10:23 AM, “Shot on! Big buck!”… “Split g2 on one side!” The Buck had come charging out of the brush less than 20 yards from Ian as a smaller buck was trying to rut a doe infront of him…. And he Hammered him! Ian tried to explain his shot to me, but I nervous. The thought of an arrow in a buck with a split G2 in an area where all the “splitter” bucks we have seen were Toads, made me very cautious about how long we should wait. Ian and Colton were both confident and wanting to go after him and I was skittish… Playing it safe we waited 3 ½ hours… only to find Ian’s first Big Game with a bow laying 40+ yards from the shot! He had punched through both Shoulders (below center) and the arrow stuck in a tree on the opposite side! (Hoyt....WOW) The buck had run just over a rise, where Colton was the first to spot him. Ian commenced to whoopin’ and hollerin’… Colton and I were speechless… not one splitter… Two! Ian got his Redemption! He had risen above a very discouraging situation the day before and the good Karma had simply flooded his way!! For a young man who has overcome so much in his life, he is the most humble, polite, and dedicated gentleman that I have met in some time. Ian’s largest kill with a bow before that day was a coyote he called in himself and then shot at 15 yards... He has put archery at the front of his passions and I am so happy that I was able to boost his efforts by helping him get this Fantastic buck… I know lots of Giant bucks have been taken this year, but this one seems larger than life for me , because of the young man who harvested this awesome buck! I taped Ian’s, Karma Buck at 114 3/8” gross and the buck has about 3 inches broken off of his right eye guard…. Making him a Giant in my book! Congrats Ian!!!

Hey if you are looking for a hunting partner, Shorty... let me know.

Tell Jack... ... he better not have forgot to send me a packet.... HaHaha.... I'm gunna buy a Ranger ticket instead of a dinner ticket!

Yeah I'm wondering when the health care crap is going to float back to the top... it will put tens of thousands of small businesses like mine out of biz.... Stupid..... ...that will really help the economy....

Boy that sure gets my blood pumpin'!!! Just cant wait to get video of one of them hittin' the dirt!!

Congrats on a nice cat!

I like the "Pic Heavy" or "Long Read" warnings.... lets me know if I have time to check it out or save that one for my next trip.... I hate it when people name everything they kill.....

these new decoys are great... and get video ops to be had....

Great advice above.... shoot several bullets with different powders and grs of powder if you really want to get picky... the barrel will like something.... then fine tune from there... if you have one bullet you want to use play with powder... you might get it to shoot....

Outstanding Cat!! Congrats!!

+1....

Nice to meet you and your Daughter today James. Glad I bought it... see you later.