BuzzH
Well-known member
Just spent 14 days hunting Coues deer in Arizona, and what a great time!
May as well say from the start I ended up not shooting a deer and only chambered a round one time in 14 days.
But, IMO, Coues deer are about as challenging, over-all, as any deer you'll ever hunt. They are extremely cautious, tough to glass, live in some rough country for a deer, small targets, etc. etc. A real test of your over-all deer hunting abilities. Patience, persistence, shooting ability, glassing ability, stalking, all are tested while hunting these guys. I found success pretty easily on my first 2 hunts, but was looking for a deer that would be better than my first 2.
I crunched the numbers from my journal and I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 hours behind glass. I saw 74 bucks and 450 total deer give or take a few. Of those 74 bucks I saw 5 that were very good. Passed on 3 that I probably shouldn't have, got winded by one at the last second prior to getting him killed, and found one that was on land I couldn't hunt.
The bucks I passed on that I could have killed (and likely should have) were a very heavy old buck that just didn't have much for G-3's but had awesome bladed eye guards with a 2 inch sticker off one of the eye guards (passed him twice once at 80 yards), a 5x4 with a 4 inch point on the inside of his drivers side main beam, and a 6x5 that had a split G-2 on one side and 2, 3 inch stickers off the base of his passenger side.
Anyway, a few pics of the country:
Had about every kind of weather, including snow:
Crap picture with my phone through the spotter...the 6x5 with the non-typical points:
Found these from a glassing point between 2 large canyons:
All in all, a great 14 days in the desert and I really took the time to just slow down and concentrate on deer hunting...something I haven't done for a while. Killing a deer seemed not that important.
I cant wait to go again and will do so as soon as I can draw again.
May as well say from the start I ended up not shooting a deer and only chambered a round one time in 14 days.
But, IMO, Coues deer are about as challenging, over-all, as any deer you'll ever hunt. They are extremely cautious, tough to glass, live in some rough country for a deer, small targets, etc. etc. A real test of your over-all deer hunting abilities. Patience, persistence, shooting ability, glassing ability, stalking, all are tested while hunting these guys. I found success pretty easily on my first 2 hunts, but was looking for a deer that would be better than my first 2.
I crunched the numbers from my journal and I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 hours behind glass. I saw 74 bucks and 450 total deer give or take a few. Of those 74 bucks I saw 5 that were very good. Passed on 3 that I probably shouldn't have, got winded by one at the last second prior to getting him killed, and found one that was on land I couldn't hunt.
The bucks I passed on that I could have killed (and likely should have) were a very heavy old buck that just didn't have much for G-3's but had awesome bladed eye guards with a 2 inch sticker off one of the eye guards (passed him twice once at 80 yards), a 5x4 with a 4 inch point on the inside of his drivers side main beam, and a 6x5 that had a split G-2 on one side and 2, 3 inch stickers off the base of his passenger side.
Anyway, a few pics of the country:
Had about every kind of weather, including snow:
Crap picture with my phone through the spotter...the 6x5 with the non-typical points:
Found these from a glassing point between 2 large canyons:
All in all, a great 14 days in the desert and I really took the time to just slow down and concentrate on deer hunting...something I haven't done for a while. Killing a deer seemed not that important.
I cant wait to go again and will do so as soon as I can draw again.
