Arizona buck - sheds added 11-20
Well, after 7 days of my 10 day season, I decided to fill my tag with this heavy horned 5x4. One shot at 35 yards with the trusty 7mag and he didn't even have time to get out of bed. I passed on plenty of others, but he was the largest buck I located during the hunt. I can imagine when Northern AZ gets a bit of snow, bigger bucks wouldn't be too hard to find (and I found some hugh sheds that support this theory).
I have been fortunate enough to take lots of mule deer, but this hunt will go down as one of the best! There were very few people hunting, none of which ever managed to walk more than 40 feet from their ATV, so all the roadless country was mine. The deer (of which there were LOTS) were more relaxed about their movements then I have ever seen.
As it turned out, I had been keeping my eye on this buck for a few days. He perched himself within range of an RV and 3 other fellows with deer tags, and each day it was the same routine. He'd stare down and wait for the guys to drive off on their ATVs, get up and feed, bed down after an hour and then feed again while the guys were off again for the evening. The day I ended up taking him, one of those guys told me that all they had seen were does and fork bucks all week. I didn't have the heart to tell him how close my buck had been, but I was nice enough to point him towards a pair of 5 points I'd been watching not too far away.
Now I just have to wait and see how badly Oscar shows me up...
Well, after 7 days of my 10 day season, I decided to fill my tag with this heavy horned 5x4. One shot at 35 yards with the trusty 7mag and he didn't even have time to get out of bed. I passed on plenty of others, but he was the largest buck I located during the hunt. I can imagine when Northern AZ gets a bit of snow, bigger bucks wouldn't be too hard to find (and I found some hugh sheds that support this theory).
I have been fortunate enough to take lots of mule deer, but this hunt will go down as one of the best! There were very few people hunting, none of which ever managed to walk more than 40 feet from their ATV, so all the roadless country was mine. The deer (of which there were LOTS) were more relaxed about their movements then I have ever seen.
As it turned out, I had been keeping my eye on this buck for a few days. He perched himself within range of an RV and 3 other fellows with deer tags, and each day it was the same routine. He'd stare down and wait for the guys to drive off on their ATVs, get up and feed, bed down after an hour and then feed again while the guys were off again for the evening. The day I ended up taking him, one of those guys told me that all they had seen were does and fork bucks all week. I didn't have the heart to tell him how close my buck had been, but I was nice enough to point him towards a pair of 5 points I'd been watching not too far away.
Now I just have to wait and see how badly Oscar shows me up...
