Just a Poor Colorado kid!

Dinkshooter

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 5, 2005
Messages
7,969
Location
Colorado
It not often for me to remember the one thing that made me want to go someplace, hunt something, buy something etc. But I can clearly remember the one thing I read 38 years ago that made me want to bow hunt elk in Arizona. I’d beg borrow and steal to get this new magazine into the cart when grocery shopping every quarter. And one issue had this. 44859FD2-A71E-4631-9C06-4712279F7BFF.jpeg
 
Everyone knows the difference between a dream and a goal. Unfortunately, it was only a dream for a long time as I was too disorganized and too poor to apply out of state until 2000. But then I even flew to to AZ to take the Hunter Safety class for the extra point. Certainly, I’d draw in no time and most likely get to hunt there a couple times in my life. Ha!
 
AZ elk hunting sucks!

I wanted a unit 1 tag when they only gave out 150 archery tags. When the state decide to add hundreds more tags, I did the only sensible thing I could think of and I switched to unit 9 archery. I waited 17 years for a unit 9 archery elk hunt. I went on the hunt and had 16 300 plus bulls in easy archery range over the course of the hunt. Best hunt on my life. Then AZ went and changed the rules. I thought I was one and done…I am now back up to 10 points (one loyalty and one Hunters ed).

That state will spoil you. Careful when you decide to apply. There are some awesome hunts but the wait between is killing me. I have draw three deer hunts in AZ and they have been great as well
 
Along the way I tried and tried to get a solid bigger type archery bull under my belt. I spent weeks in Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico and even Colorado. It just just never happened for me.

This little fact started to get me concerned, as I really wanted to go on the perfect hunt with zero pressure and expectations. I even started applying for the AZ gun hunts at times just putting it off, hoping to not go into this hunt a big bull virgin.

At one point I even had enough money saved to possibly go guided on this hunt. I talked briefly to a few outfitters and was seriously considering it. I didn't want to pull a Munson on this. Its silly in hindsight, because the longer I waited, it certainly didn't help the pressure part.

In 2022 I had decided I was going throw down and apply. First and only one choice, early archery bull. I had a new job with a good vacation and time off policy.

Then a friend mentioned he heard on a podcast that there was going to be a huge calendar shift for the 2023 AZ hunt calendar. Sure enough, in 2023 the early archery season was to start 6 days later than 2022.

That was enough to make me wait another year.........I applied for an early rifle hunt and punted.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
113,395
Messages
2,019,618
Members
36,153
Latest member
Selway
Back
Top