AZ Elk anyone want to come along?
- Thread starter SC Living Outdoors
- Start date
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SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Geez man. Relax. I got home at 10:30 last night. I’ve been Whitetail hunting in Texas otw home from AZ. I got up at the to go to work. Left work and went straight to the taxidermist. I’m not even home yet.
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Here’s the update.
I’ve been hunting and driving. I left Arizona and drove 800 miles to Texas. I hunted on public land for two days. Killed a good buck. Drove 1000 miles home. Got home took a shower. Slept for 5.5 hours. Got up and went to work. Left work and drove straight to the taxidermist. Otw home now.
Tomorrow is Saturday. I’m going hunting. Sunday I’m going to church. I’ll post the story this weekend if I have time. If not, it will ill be early next week.
I’ve been hunting and driving. I left Arizona and drove 800 miles to Texas. I hunted on public land for two days. Killed a good buck. Drove 1000 miles home. Got home took a shower. Slept for 5.5 hours. Got up and went to work. Left work and drove straight to the taxidermist. Otw home now.
Tomorrow is Saturday. I’m going hunting. Sunday I’m going to church. I’ll post the story this weekend if I have time. If not, it will ill be early next week.
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Back almost a year ago, I drew a really good elk tag in Arizona. I was actually tossing around the idea of just applying for a point because I knew I was still 2 to 3 years away from drawing one of the easier to draw late season elk tags. I was also thinking this might be a good year for me to burn my Kansas Whitetail tags on a late-season rifle hunt, but instead of applying for just a point I decided to throw my name in for a couple of really good tags that I never expected to draw. Results day came in my card got hit. That was a shock. Lucky.
I’d never set foot in this unit before or even driven through it. Id only hunted Arizona once previously for coues deer a couple years ago and it was a fun hunt, I knew this unit produced some really good elk. So I had confidence it would be a good hunt, but also didn’t want to set the bar too high for myself because we all know how hunting is. My goal was to kill a mature bull. I started doing some escouting, but honestly, I didn’t jump in too hard until about 2 weeks before the hunt because I was scouting and planning other hunt and once august arrived I was hunting.
When driving across the entire country to hunt I try to combine hunts or just add on an extra tag to spend more time hunting while I’m in new places. I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. It’s actually kind of crazy how much I enjoy the planning process of my hunts. Obviously, I enjoy hunting more but the planning process is a lot of fun and when it all comes together with the tags, the scouting, new places and success, it’s pretty cool. This hunt wasn’t any different in that respect.
Back in early March my wife and I met a retired couple from Texas while we were sightseeing in New Zealand. The guy and I started talking and I discovered he liked to hunt as well and he invited me to stop in and hunt axis and whitetail next time I was driving through Texas. I also have another friend who used to live here in South Carolina and moved to Texas a few years back. He and I have been trying to get together for a Whitetail hunt for a few years on public land so this seemed like a good opportunity to try to make both hunts happen if time would allow.
I left for Texas on Thanksgiving after eating with my wife’s family. I drove for four or five hours that day and spent the night at an Alabama restaurant stop. I finished my Texas drive on Black Friday stopping at an Academy to buy my hunting license (that was a mistake..). My friend in Texas owns a small piece of property that’s only about 5 acres and I hunted right behind his house for three days. I saw a lot of whitetail and a lot of axis. Unfortunately, the 3 big axis disappeared right before I came and didn’t show up while I was there. We pulled the camera after my second day hunting and a big hill country whitetail had showed up that night. My friend was emphatic that if that buck came in, I should shoot it. That was the biggest buck he’d ever gotten pictures of on his property behind the house. Wouldn’t you know it that evening that buck came in and I put a good shot on him. He went about 80 yards before going down. These deer have tiny bodies. I bet he only weighed 120lbs. He was a beautiful wide Texas hill country buck and my friend was happy for me and I was appreciative for the hunting experience. I hunted the next morning but I didn’t see anything before I headed out to finish my drive to Arizona. My friend and his wife were great host and I enjoyed spending a few days with them. They invited me to come back anytime to give the axis another try.
I spent the night in western New Mexico and got to my unit in Arizona Wednesday morning. That would give me a day and a half to scout. I’d gotten some info from a couple of people on areas that could be good for elk. One was a friend of mine that lives in New Mexico and the other was a fellow Hunter off Hunttalk. I appreciate both guys helping me out. I found somewhere to check my rifle then I loaded up my gear and I hiked back in 3 or 4 miles that first afternoon. I saw some elk right at last light in some thick cover, but I could not tell what they were. I made a plan to be back on the ridge at first light to start glassing again and trying to make a game plan for opening day.
That night is the coldest night I’ve ever spent in a tent. I don’t know what the temperature got down to, but it was very very cold. It had been snowing on me while I was hiking in that day and it was brutal that night. Close to single digits I would guess. I wore every piece of clothing I had and I was still cold. Not to mention my sleeping pad decided this trip it wanted to start leaking. It’d only hold air for about 30 minutes. I would get to sleep a little bit then wake up cold laying flat on the ground no air in my pad, so I’d blow up the pad. Try to get in a position to go to sleep while shivering and wake up again 30 minutes or an hour later laying on a flat pad. I’ve had better nights, but it also could’ve been worse.
The next morning, I got up to the same ridge and found the elk from the night before. 5 bulls. No shooters. Around 8:30am. I moved around to the other side of the ridge and glassed up three more bulls 1.9 miles away. One of them was a decent 6 point. I wasn’t sure if he was a shooter or not, but he was down towards an area I’d thought about hunting. I decided to head back and pack up all my gear, load up the truck and drive all the way around to the backside and hike in from the bottom. I got to the trailhead around 3 o’clock, and there was only one other truck there. I loaded up my gear and decided to head in with the spot I had in mind for the first day about 3 miles from the truck. I camped between a creek and a big Mesa with the plan to climb up on top and glass the backside on opening morning. This was a new area that I had not been able to see from my glassing point up top but I felt like it had good potential.
I’d never set foot in this unit before or even driven through it. Id only hunted Arizona once previously for coues deer a couple years ago and it was a fun hunt, I knew this unit produced some really good elk. So I had confidence it would be a good hunt, but also didn’t want to set the bar too high for myself because we all know how hunting is. My goal was to kill a mature bull. I started doing some escouting, but honestly, I didn’t jump in too hard until about 2 weeks before the hunt because I was scouting and planning other hunt and once august arrived I was hunting.
When driving across the entire country to hunt I try to combine hunts or just add on an extra tag to spend more time hunting while I’m in new places. I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. It’s actually kind of crazy how much I enjoy the planning process of my hunts. Obviously, I enjoy hunting more but the planning process is a lot of fun and when it all comes together with the tags, the scouting, new places and success, it’s pretty cool. This hunt wasn’t any different in that respect.
Back in early March my wife and I met a retired couple from Texas while we were sightseeing in New Zealand. The guy and I started talking and I discovered he liked to hunt as well and he invited me to stop in and hunt axis and whitetail next time I was driving through Texas. I also have another friend who used to live here in South Carolina and moved to Texas a few years back. He and I have been trying to get together for a Whitetail hunt for a few years on public land so this seemed like a good opportunity to try to make both hunts happen if time would allow.
I left for Texas on Thanksgiving after eating with my wife’s family. I drove for four or five hours that day and spent the night at an Alabama restaurant stop. I finished my Texas drive on Black Friday stopping at an Academy to buy my hunting license (that was a mistake..). My friend in Texas owns a small piece of property that’s only about 5 acres and I hunted right behind his house for three days. I saw a lot of whitetail and a lot of axis. Unfortunately, the 3 big axis disappeared right before I came and didn’t show up while I was there. We pulled the camera after my second day hunting and a big hill country whitetail had showed up that night. My friend was emphatic that if that buck came in, I should shoot it. That was the biggest buck he’d ever gotten pictures of on his property behind the house. Wouldn’t you know it that evening that buck came in and I put a good shot on him. He went about 80 yards before going down. These deer have tiny bodies. I bet he only weighed 120lbs. He was a beautiful wide Texas hill country buck and my friend was happy for me and I was appreciative for the hunting experience. I hunted the next morning but I didn’t see anything before I headed out to finish my drive to Arizona. My friend and his wife were great host and I enjoyed spending a few days with them. They invited me to come back anytime to give the axis another try.
I spent the night in western New Mexico and got to my unit in Arizona Wednesday morning. That would give me a day and a half to scout. I’d gotten some info from a couple of people on areas that could be good for elk. One was a friend of mine that lives in New Mexico and the other was a fellow Hunter off Hunttalk. I appreciate both guys helping me out. I found somewhere to check my rifle then I loaded up my gear and I hiked back in 3 or 4 miles that first afternoon. I saw some elk right at last light in some thick cover, but I could not tell what they were. I made a plan to be back on the ridge at first light to start glassing again and trying to make a game plan for opening day.
That night is the coldest night I’ve ever spent in a tent. I don’t know what the temperature got down to, but it was very very cold. It had been snowing on me while I was hiking in that day and it was brutal that night. Close to single digits I would guess. I wore every piece of clothing I had and I was still cold. Not to mention my sleeping pad decided this trip it wanted to start leaking. It’d only hold air for about 30 minutes. I would get to sleep a little bit then wake up cold laying flat on the ground no air in my pad, so I’d blow up the pad. Try to get in a position to go to sleep while shivering and wake up again 30 minutes or an hour later laying on a flat pad. I’ve had better nights, but it also could’ve been worse.
The next morning, I got up to the same ridge and found the elk from the night before. 5 bulls. No shooters. Around 8:30am. I moved around to the other side of the ridge and glassed up three more bulls 1.9 miles away. One of them was a decent 6 point. I wasn’t sure if he was a shooter or not, but he was down towards an area I’d thought about hunting. I decided to head back and pack up all my gear, load up the truck and drive all the way around to the backside and hike in from the bottom. I got to the trailhead around 3 o’clock, and there was only one other truck there. I loaded up my gear and decided to head in with the spot I had in mind for the first day about 3 miles from the truck. I camped between a creek and a big Mesa with the plan to climb up on top and glass the backside on opening morning. This was a new area that I had not been able to see from my glassing point up top but I felt like it had good potential.
Frequently Banned Troll
Well-known member
Frequently Banned Troll
Well-known member
For the love of all things spotted deer - can you get around to sharing a clear photo of a big AZ elk!?!?
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
I feel like this is all part of the hunt. I guess I could just post random pics of dead animals with no context, but I feel like explaining the whole story is better. At least that's what I enjoy reading.
I'll try to post the next part of the story today.
Frequently Banned Troll
Well-known member
I might be an outlier, but I don’t read anything unless I’m sucked in with an awesome pic or 2.
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
I might be an outlier, but I don’t read anything unless I’m sucked in with an awesome pic or 2.
Sucked in yet?
