Neat finds while roaming the hills

[billrquimby]

I've found all types of things, including rusting but complete cars and trucks out of the 1920s/1930s (these later were hauled in by collectors), plates and saucers with blue patterns out of the 1880s, etc., etc., but my two best finds were:

 

1. A saddle hanging in an oak tree near Buzzards' Roost in the Sierra Anchas. The leather was old and cracking, and the rope that was holding it up was so rotted that it gave way when I pulled on it. I figured some cowboy had a wreck there, lost his horse, hung his saddle in the tree and walked back to his camp or ranch house. The question is, why didn't he go back for it?

 

2. A knife on the Kaibab near Jolly Sink. It had a bone handle and a Jim Bowie shape with a wide hand protector between the grip and the blade, and was 8-9 inches long. The bone was split, chalky, and nearly gone. It was so rusted that there were holes along what been the thin, sharp edge. How I found that knife is the real story, though. I was gutting a buck I'd just shot when I laid my knife down to pull out the stomach/lungs, etc. When I reached back for my knife I picked up that old one. It put shivers up my spine to think that another hunter many years earlier had killed a deer and gutted it in exactly the same spot I had. This was in about 1954-1955, and the knife had been there a long, long time. I've never seen another like it. I like to think it was left there by Zane Grey or Teddy Roosevelt.

 

Bill

[COOSEFAN]

Bill, that sent chills up my spine just reading about you picking up that old knife! That would be something you'll never forget! JIM

[COOSEFAN]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's finds, I'm usually very observant while in the field and find alot of neat things but nothing out of the ordinary. Except.........I know this really isn't a "neat" find, but I once came across a leg that had appearantly been dug up and drug under a tree by a coyote. It was several years ago by Lake Pleasant, and right after some big rains. There wasn't much left of it but it was all intact and there was no mistaking what it was. I took the Sheriff's in there, filled out paper work and never found out what else they found, they wouldn't return my calls. I would rather find a KNIFE! JIM

[billrquimby]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's finds, I'm usually very observant while in the field and find alot of neat things but nothing out of the ordinary. Except.........I know this really isn't a "neat" find, but I once came across a leg that had appearantly been dug up and drug under a tree by a coyote.  It was several years ago by Lake Pleasant, and right after some big rains.  There wasn't much left of it but it was all intact and there was no mistaking what it was.  I took the Sheriff's in there, filled out paper work and never found out what else they found, they wouldn't return my calls.  I would rather find a KNIFE!      JIM

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Jim: Was the leg skeletonized or more recent?

 

I hadn't thought about finding dead humans, but that would be a good thread to start, too.

 

When I was 12 or 13 and growing up in Yuma a buddy and I found what a law guy said was a Mexican national (in those days we called them "mojados" but that's politicallly incorrect now) hanging in a tree on the California side of the river. Two more scared kids you never saw. The smell was gosh-awful. Just thinking about it brings back every detail ... and that was more than a half century ago. The sheriff would not give us or our parents any info either.

 

I also found a guy on Biscuit Peak in the Mustangs who had died of a heart attack. His friend had come to us for help when the guy didn't come back to camp. I found him with my spotting scope and we climbed up to him. He had simply laid back on a rock and died. His rifle still was in his lap. He looked totally at peace. I've always thought that is the way I'd like to go -- out hunting, up high, looking over a vast valley, with a rifle in my lap.

 

Bill

[COOSEFAN]

Bill, it definitely is something you'll never forget every detail about. I was varmint calling with my brother, I went down by the wash and sat down under a Palo Verde when I looked over and saw the leg. It was the complete leg from the hip down. The tendons and a little flesh still held it all together. It wasn't dried up and looked real fresh but with the recent flooding at the time, I figured it had been dug up. I studied it for a minute before I started screaming for my brother. I kept telling myself it was maybe from a small bear or lion, becuase they look somewhat similar in structure, but a few toes were still there and were a dead giveaway! The worst part is that the person it belonged to probably wasn't tall enough to ride the big rides at Disneyland!!!! Sorry for getting graphic JIM

[CouesWhitetail]

I don't want to find a dead body, that's for sure. I did however, always want to find some spanish conquistador armor. Bill, you know anyone that ever found any? Seems like that stuff should be around somewhere.

 

Amanda

[DEERSLAM]

Bill and COOSEFAN,

good stories, gives me the chills

[More D]

I sure am glad I haven't found any dead bodies or the like. All I have found are two stone arrow heads.

My first was while on my first deer hunting trip, unit 30B I think. We were walking on the top a ridge in the rolling hills of greasewood when I looked down and clear as day it was there looking up at me. Rather small, maybe an inch and a half long by half an inch wide and pure white! I must have been 11-12 years old. I kept thinking how difficult that area was to hunt, I mean not a tree of bush in sight and we all know how noisey that stuff is to stalk in.

The second was while scouting for an new area in unit 32 for mulie. We enden up north of Wilcox and when you keep wanting to see what is around the next hill/ turn in a new area it gets mighty dark and we called it a night and camped were we we stood. Next morning we awoke to do some scouting and when I was trying to find my way back to the truck, I was in a small wash with very steep banks and I kept thiking that if there was any deer sign(even though there wasn't any) that it would be a great place to ambush game with a bow. As I looked down looking for tracks I spotted my second stone arrow head. This one was alittle larger and grey in color laying with about one thousand other similar sized grey rocks. Pretty COOL I thought.

Those two times I remember alot when coming home from bowhunting. I just laugh at my self because if me and my family had to eat what I killed while bow hunting we would be up the river so to speak. Maybe the foruth year is the lucky one. I hope so!

 

 

 

 

[firstcoueswas80]

amanda, i know people who have found spaish armor, and rifles... pretty neat sutff. i was pretty excited when i found the .50 cal on top of the mountain. it was probably from a machine gun out of a helicopter, but i like to think some guy who was an awesome shot would get up there and glass down and shoot a 110+ from there, that would be neat!

[GRONG]

Bill,

Cool stories man! Last year a buddy of mine had an elk tag just out of town here and I told him a good place to go and glass from. He calls me about a week later and said he found a human skeleton right on the edge of the rim! He said it'd been there for a few years cause it was just bones scattered around. He said he spotted what he thought was a lion skull and when he reached down to grab it he realized what it was and kinda freaked. He hiked a couple of very out of shape Sherrif's Deputies up there, one barely made it, so they could do their investigation. I just cant believe I didn't find him first. I bet I walked with in mere yards of him before. Shows me how much stuff I actually miss out there. Up in a huge canyon here in 6A I found a few 30-40 Krag shells in an Indian ruin. I took them to the local fair at the Clemenceau School in Cottonwood a few years back and they said they were from the 1840's to the 1860's. I was stoked!

Bill,

You really advize me to soak this bayonet in stuff you mentioned to get the blade out of the sheath?

 

Cool stories guys! Oh ya, Amanda, I don't know if it's true or not but I've heard of someone finding some old Spanish armor in Sycamore Canyon up above Clarkdale quite a while back. Maybe like 30 years ago. I'd LOVE to find something like that!!!

 

Here is a petroglyph of a huge NT coues antler I found years ago.

 

 

 

 

Ya right!

[ScottAdams]

I've found a few things over the years, old black powder rounds like the 50-70,45-60,38-55 and 40-65. One of the neatest we found was few years ago out javelina hunting the boys found this old pot.

 

Scott

 

 

[AZP&Y]

Some of the items in the past 4 seasons:

 

Bushnell Buckmaster 500yard rangefinder (still working) ..just needed to be cleaned up.

 

Old part on a steel trap - some long time mountain trapper?

 

Vintage arrows from archers either on the ground or in trees.

 

Most recently while deer hunting in area 10 , I looked down at the ground and there catching the light just so subtly was an old indian ARROW HEAD. It's in real nice condition and has the notches that make it truely a distict piece to find.

 

I sometimes wondering why I'm always looking at the ground on a hunt (besides to find animal sign)..but there are definetely some neat items to be found in the Arizona backcountry.

[Buckhorn]

I?ve found a lot of knives (non to old), a lot of Indian artifacts (pots, arrow heads, rugs, axes and three Indian arrows stuck in the roof of a cave) and a pistol that somebody had left hanging in a tree.

 

Amanda,

There?s I guy I meet when I was younger that found a breast plate and a three foot sword in the White Mountain of Camp Verde.

 

Buckhorn

[COOSEFAN]

Hey Scott, is that real? I mean was it authentic and not just put there more recently? I sold a truck, about 6 years ago, to a kid from Safford, for close to $20,000.00 dollars. He was 17 years old and paid me in cash! I asked what he did for a living and how he came up with the cash, and he told me him and his buddies "explore" caves, and found a full intact pot and sold it for over $20,000.! I'm not advocating doing that "I'm sure it's black market stuff" but a museum would take it and preserve it. A full intact pot is very rare. I know poeple from Page, that when they were in high school they would go party at nearby Indian ruins and shoot full pots like they were sporting clays! They regret it now! Back then it wasn't that big a deal I guess?! That is the "Holy Grail" of indian artifacts if it's real! Great Photo! JIM

[COOSEFAN]

Hey MoreD, I'm an arrowhead nut, and have found 50 or 60 of em' all over the state, I've only found two pure white ones, both in unit 9. Both were same size, about 2 inches long and wider than normal, for me the rarity of the white ones make them special! Buckhorn, I'm jealous, thats awesome youve got to see those artifacts, I only find pieces of pottery and arrowheads. Did the arrows still have the arrowheads attached? what did the rug look like it was made out of? did the axe have chiseled rock for a blade? or steel? This stuff has always intrigued me. Thanks, JIM