A Fulfilling Success

[coues7]

Weeks of scouting paid off opening day 12:07 pm. The spot we had chosen we'd scouted for 2 weekends, with a total of 8 weekends all over the unit. With 550 WT tags I really wanted to be prepared. Friday morning we got up at 4:50 am, warmed up some hot water cooked the oatmeal and loaded up our gear.

 

Here's the camp cook: My dear ol' Dad!

 

We had a good friend of ours come in that morning to help us glass and we settled in on the same radio channel and we were off and running. We were setup and glassing by 5:50 am and by 7:45 am hadn't seen any thing. My dad was glassing an area and noticed what he thought to be an old sign, so he left it alone and glassed else where. When he returned to the sign....it was gone. He says "Scott we've got some deer" and proceeds to dial me into where he's seeing them. One look through my Swarovski 10x50's and I say "we've got lions". There were 4.....YES FOUR (4) LIONS running together. No wonder no one's seeing to many deer. Here's a few pics of the lions.

After watching the lions for about 10 minutes they slipped out of sight into a canyon towards some water. As we sat and glassed I picked up a buck about 1/4 mile away from where we saw the lions. I put the spotting scope on him and being that it was about 1.5 miles away all I could tell was that he was what appeared to be a 3 point. Here is a halfway decent picture of him.

 

I knew he wasn't huge from the build of his frame but we decided to go after him since I was pressed for time due to lack of vacation time. We began the 3 hour trip just to get to him after putting him to bed. Here are some pictures of where we glassed from and where he was.

 

Where we glassed from

 

Where the animals were

3 hours later we finally got to him and found he bedded just where we had left him. It was a 425 yard shot and all we could see was his head.....so I decided to get closer. I backed down off the ridge where we re-picked him up bedded and snuck to within 175 yards. Once I got there I couldn't see him so I sat and waited and waited and waited. I started throwing rocks in the canyon to maybe try to get him to stand up and give me a shot. He finally stood up and started feeding. He moved between my only shooting alley quickly and I shot....I wasn't sure if I'd hit him or not so I waited about 2 minutes. I finally got tired of waiting and stood up. I moved towards him hoping he was down and he trotted up the hill. I took my time and down he went at 75 yards.

 

Here's the both of us!

I would like to thank my Heavenly Father for answering my prayers, my wife and daughter for being extremely patient with me during the many weeks of scouting, my dad and mom for their great effort and "Mr. Krank" for his time!! We did it boys!!!! More time and bigger bucks next year.

 

Over and out!

 

Scott

[AzBuckCHaser1]

cant wait for pics

[COUESAZ]

Way to go Scott. Very nice Buck. I just started a new post about the Packs of lions beeing seen this last year. It seems very Odd to me.

[Dan H]

Why didn't you shoot a lion?

 

I would of passed on the deer for a lion, and tried for the deer later.

 

Nice story and great job though.

 

Dan

[AZcoues_addict]

Nice buck, job well done, congrats and thanks for the pics. To see 4 lions together is absolutely amazing! I heard of someone catching 3 mature lions all together on a trail cam at water in one of my hunting areas. Crazy to see them all together like that and hunting together too???

 

To draw on the pics, right click on the pic, go to open with, and open the file in paint or an equivalent image editing program. Once the pic is opened in paint, go to save as and save the file as a new document name so you don't overwrite the original pic! Click on the lines, thickness tool, and color and draw on the pic. If you mess up drawing the lines, immediately go to edit, undo.

[John O]

Nice buck Scott. You Da Man!!

[creed_az_88]

nice deer. looks like some muley genes in him.

[azyoung]

Congrtulations! Great story and pics. Nice buck and man I would love to have seen those lions!

 

 

azyoung

[rugerman]

Coues7,

Nice buck.... you shoulda shot a lion too. I thought you sold those Swaros

[coues7]

I thought you sold those Swaros

 

I did......I borrowed a pair from my buddy

 

Can everyone see the pics? What do I do to fix the red x's?

[Red Rabbit]

Scott,

I see you got the pics resized and posted. Good luck going back after those lions.

 

Did you notice from where the bucks came from, which way they were feeding, or special terrain/place they bedded since lions were in the area? From which direction/ridge did you make the stalk?

 

Doug~RR

[russd]

can someone repost the pics all i can't open the pics. thx

[Tucson John]

Yes we need pics! All I get is "IPB Image",but it won't open. I'm dying here! Please repost pics!

[coues7]

All problems fixed....thanks photobucket, bye bye webshots!

 

RR,

 

The lions were headed towards a canyon with some water. The buck and does were one more canyon over and were easily in walking distance of yet additional water (springs). There was lots of scat in the area and most of it looked like it had javelina hair in it. I could care less about the lions eating javelina but I got major issues with them eating my coues!!! Most of the does we saw had a least one fawn with them. I'm probably going to be headed back into this area on the 24th and 25th with some dogs. Hopefully we can catch a scent and pop at least 2 or 3 of these lions depending on how many of us go.

 

scott

[az4life]

Well with lions you often have to take em where and when you see um. I read they travel a large distance for home range so Hope those dogs are good.

Congrats on success.