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January javelina and deer was a great start to 2015

dalbo

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Joined
Mar 7, 2012
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Location
Mesa, AZ
January was an awesome start to the 2015 hunting season. I filled one of my two archery javelina tags hunting 3 separate units over 5 days of hunting. I ended up shooting this sow opening weekend in a metro unit not far from Chucky D's neck of the woods. That day got off to a bad start as I forgot my broadheads sitting on the kitchen table and had to drive back to the nearest Walmart for replacements.

It's been a few years since I've seriously hunted deer with stick and string so I decided to devote some time hunting a few new areas close to home the second half of the month. The first day was very wet as I hiked up the trail into dark angry clouds. I ended up doing more hiking than glassing due to the rain. I saw some neat new country but no deer. I wish I took my camera that day. A little valley bottom was carpeted in the most amazing lush green grass. If it wasn't for the saguaro covered hillsides it could have passed for Ireland.

The second outing with a friend to the same area wasn't much better. There was a fair amount of deer and javi sign but we only glassed up one doe the entire morning. That afternoon we met up with my brother in an area he'd been seeing a lot of deer. We got lucky and glassed up a cool, old-looking buck right off the bat. We decided my bro should get the first crack since it was his spot. The one buck turned into two bucks and 5 does milling around the same draw only my brother didn't know about all the extra eyes and ears so he bumped them.

One buck wandered off on his own. The other buck and does ended up feeding their way back towards our glassing position. I dropped into a wash and was able to close the distance out of their line of sight. When I popped out of the wash I saw the buck walking to my left and ranged him at 70 yards as he walked behind a palo verde tree. I drew back and stopped him with a bleat when he cleared the tree then sent the arrow on its way. I watched helplessly as it sailed a few inches over his back and disappeared into the brush behind him. As you can guess the deer didn't stick around long. I was left with that strange feeling of adrenaline induced exhilaration and disappointment. After re-ranging the shot and seeing where the buck peeled out, it looked like he was at 63 yards instead of 70. Oh well it was an awesome failure. My brother and I returned the next day and glassed some does butsaw no sign of the bucks in that area.

January 31 was the last day for archery deer, I decided to give it one last try a few miles north of my brother's spot. I found a canyon that was loaded with 19 does split among three groups. I spent the day watching the ladies hoping a buck would cruise in looking for some late season love. The only buck action I saw that day was two buck fawns chasing each other around the hillside trying to lock imaginary horns and fight like the big boys. That alone was worth the price of admission.

So it was a good start to the 2015 season, I got a brand new bow recently and just found out I drew an early archery bull tag so I'm really looking forward to what the rest of the year brings.
 

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Congrats on the javelina and best of luck sticking a bull. Good huntin' and attitude
 
"it was an awesome failure" pretty much sums up archery hunting for me, too. It's tough to arrow a mule deer or Coues spot and stalk. I regret not thumping a small forky I had at slam dunk range a couple years ago, just for the experience.

Nice job on the javelina. I couldn't chase January deer or pigs for more than 1 day by the time I got the brace off my busted wrist. Then I struck out the 2 days I went on my HAM javelina hunt.

Hope you tag a whopper of a bull.
 
Leupold BX-4 Rangefinding Binoculars

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