AZ hunting

I'm feeling like a very blessed man this month. I said I'd get back to you guys on how the archery coues hunt went with an old hunting buddy, so here it is. Jason took me to his personal hunting spots in 34a and we sat and rattled and grunted and checked trail cams. There were multiple bucks moving through the areas per trail cam pics and vids so we knew it was just a matter of sitting and waiting. That was pretty much saturday the 19th. We checked cams again the next day at the first spot and sat there all day without any luck. Monday was back to work for me but Jason headed back out there. Right around 11:00 I got a text from him telling me that he just arrowed a monster non-typical. And he wasn't exaggerating! Here's the pics of his buck. He measured at 117 2/8" sci score.
Hell of a buck!

This past Saturday, the 26th, was my last shot at a buck this season. Jason and I headed back out there way early to make sure we were in position for any early movers. Just before 10:00 I saw legs and immeadiatly pulled my right glove off and reached for my bow. By the time I had my bow in my hand, I knew he was a buck but I didn't try to figure out what his rack looked like. I just looked down and started to clip on my release. When I looked back up, he was grazing behind a shrub. I drew my bow and tried to focus on the sight pins through the peep. He stepped out and I lined up on him, telling myself repeatedly to use the 30 yard pin. I almost blew the shot but I caught myself before I released and eased the bow back on target. When the pin touched the right spot behind his shoulder, I released. I was conscious that he started walking but I was already reaching for another arrow. I asked Jason if I'd hit him and he said "yea, I heard it hit but I'm not sure where." I knocked, glanced up, didn't see blood and looked back down to clip in. At this point Jason says "I think you hit him in the leg." I'm thinking, "FUCK! For the love of venison, get clipped in and get on him before he bolts damnit!" That's when Jason slaps the hell out of my arm. I looked up and the buck was on the ground! Turns out that he lifted his back leg up (which is why he thought I may have hit him in the leg) and then just tipped over. He never got back up. I watched him take his last breaths through my rangefinder. From first sighting until he hit the ground, the whole thing took place within about 35 yards and maybe 30 seconds. I'm learning that archery hunting happenes like RIGHT NOW and you have to be ready and not hesitate or you'll miss your chance. When we walked down to get him I was amazed to find such a beautiful buck. It's a good thing I didn't let myself look at his rack before the shot. Lol. We both figure he'll measure in the 70's. It turned out I had made as close to a perfect shot as can be claimed without actually hitting the heart. The arrow, to my surprise, went exactly where I had been aiming upon touching off the release. Jason did a great job of photo documenting the whole process for me, so here come some of the pics...


I feel extremely lucky to have taken my first coues with a bow (and such a nice one at that!) just two weeks after taking my first javelina with a bow. What a way to start off the year!! Next up is rifle javelina and then OTC black bear. Sorry for the long winded post but I'm still on cloud 9 over this whole thing. Hope you guys enjoyed reading about it.

 

Nicely done! Congrats on filling your tag. Awesome buck!!

 

Thank you. It's always a great feeling to bring meat home to my family but getting a buck like this one as my first archery deer... that's special.

 

A couple of fantastic archery coues bucks right there! Great job! Glad you guys had an amazing hunt and your freezer is full!

 

Thanks. I got really lucky to hook up with Jason after all these years. I've never hunted the rut before and he, obviously, really knows what he's doing. I give him all the credit for my buck, except for the actual shot.

 

So how's everybody feeling about the cold wet weather for rifle javelina this weekend? I'm hoping the wind stays down but I'm expecting that it's probably going to be a lot of hiking up washes looking for protected bedding areas

 

Im feeling like this is going to suck until Sunday.

 

I hear ya. I'm debating just glassing from the truck and hoping they hit the hillsides to warm up whenever the sun actually comes out. You'd think they'd be hungry after a couple days of overcast rainy weather

 

I found a small herd while out scouting a few weeks ago. Haven’t been able to get back in since due to the weather and road conditions. Hoping I can get back at them by end of this season. Good news is if I couldn’t get in, most likely the HAM hunters couldn’t get at them too.

 

How many in the herd?

 

3 that we could see. I’m guess there were more since these were all older and on the bigger side. They retreated into a thicket which probably held the rest of the herd.

 

Sounds about right. I've spotted a lone javelina several times but you just know there's others lurking around there somewhere.

Good luck on your hunt. Try not to freeze your balls off

 

Well I called it quits in the hunt. My prime locations which I spent two months scouting were not reachable. They roads buried and snow and deep mud, and my taco just couldn’t make it. We retreated to lower elevations to finish out the hunt, when my Dad got the call that his vacation was canceled since he got two snow days on Thursday and Friday (he’s in Prescott). After losing him, I headed to the north end of the unit, somewhere I hadn’t been at all. I walked several washes and set up a few ambushes, but no javelina showed up. I did happen to locate a few coveys of quail, so looking forward to pursuing them later this year. Also spotted some fresh mountain lion track, so thinking of going back to see if I can find the big cat.

Anyways, it was great to be out and explore some new parts of the state. Javelina just would have been the icing on the cake. Also busted a a fog light cover, so I told the wife might as well get a new front bumper. Looked like a rock strike.

 

I feel you're pain. Snowmagedon 2019 was crazy. We were hunting rifle Javelina in 33 south. We pitched camp and got hammered by wind, rain, snow, rain, snow, and then some of the worst mud I've seen. I think this crazy weather messed up the Javelina normal pattern because we didn't see anything for days. We ran into two Javelina busting a road. Lucky for us because we got one of them. Still haven't seen anything since though. Last day is tomorrow. Hope to get some more luck...

 

Don’t forget to update your payment in for if you put in for big game.

 

Sorry to hear you struck out but good luck on the quail and the lion... and talking your wife into buying a new bumper! Lol.
The weather definitely screwed with the javelina's routine behaviour, but also, I thought it was a unique and far too rare experience to walk through the snow covered desert.

 

Where you at in 33? That's where I was hunting too... off marsh station wait on i10.

 

Well my javelina hunt was absolutely beautiful and I'll never forget it, although I was ultimately unsuccessful, I wouldn't give this hunt back for anything. I had 3 days to hunt unit 33... Friday through Sunday and my brother in law only had Saturday to hunt. My buddy Jason decided to come with me on Friday even though he wasn't hunting. When I woke up at 4:30 am, the rain was pounding the ground... bad news. J and I talked at 6 and decided to wait until 7:30 to decide if we'd go or not. Shortly after sunrise the snow started... worse news. But by the time J and I talked, the snow had been sticking and we figured that if anything was moving we would have the unique experience of actually being able to track it. We decided to give it a go. But first I had to play with my younger two kids and my wife in the snow in our front yard. Snow never happens in Tucson and I wasn't gonna miss the opportunity for this priceless memory.

When I picked Jason up and we headed out we couldn't stop talking about the excitement of hunting in the middle of the Sonoran desert during a snow storm, and our hopes of seeing the snow painted red after a successful harvest. We hiked for about 5 hours and roughly 3 miles but each mile felt like 3 in the 8"-12" deep snow. The only animals we actually found moving were cattle and we found a coyote track that was still visible, but no javelina. The snow finally let up as we got back to the truck around 4:00, exhausted but elated to have been able to experience hunting during the day long snow fall in the desert.
Coyote tracks in the snow:
Saturday morning my brother in law and I set out to a sunny day, but with the desert still covered in snow. We were hoping they'd be moving and easy to track through the snow. We hit the hills and started glassing for tracks. Pretty early on I spotted a cotton tail running across an opposite ridge line. He stopped. I ranged it at 187 yards. I took a shot off my shooting sticks and scored a hit! My rifle is zero'd for 200 yards so it was no big achievement but DAMN is a cottontail a small target through a 9 power scope at that range! I felt pretty damn good about making that shot. My desire to paint the snow red was satisfied! Lol

Somewhere between 4 and 6 ridges later a blacktailed jack popped up and ran for cover. My b-i-l made a perfect heart shot on a running jackrabbit and 35 yards. It did a somersault and rolled to a stop... and the snow was red again! Haha
I cleaned the jack and strapped it to my pack so my dogos would have a nice treat from the hunt and we continued on our way. I jumped two javelina a short while later and missed a pop shot at one. I was leading him as he came into the only clearing I had to take the shot, the crosshair drifted up at the exact moment I need to fire and I missed. Probably shot 3"-4" over his back at 50-ish yards. I hate that I missed but for all the dove that I've had "dead to rights" and missed somehow, I can forgive myself for this one shot. Shit happens fast, adrenaline pumps and shit happens. Welcome to hunting. Lol. So we tracked for a mile or more, never caught up and headed back to the truck before the sun dropped below the horizon on us.

Sunday Jason came with me again. Early on we crossed a set of tracks from a lone javelina. He asked me if I wanted to track it (he learned to hunt by teaching himself to track javelina and mule deer through the creosote and mesquite flats around tucson, so tracking through the mud and snow is child's play to him). I said, "why look for them where they might be when we know where one went." And the hunt was on!!!! Apparently I decided to fuck with the wrong boar (or sow). Long story short... 4 hours and at least 4 miles later, we were trying to run it into exhaustion. It had been running, flat out, for 2+ miles and it was starting to drag it's hooves as it ran. We knew it hadn't stopped to shit or eat since the night before and figured it would try to hide or just flat out make a mistake before too long. The trouble was, is that the power walking we were doing to try to avoid busting our asses as we hurried through the mud and snow was taking a toll on us too. I was pouring sweat under my hoodie and my feet were absolutely swimming inside my soaking wet boots. I called a halt so I could pull off my hoodie. Jason drank a coke, I ate a power bar, he lit a cigarette, I smoked my tobacco pipe... and so on. When we got back on the trail we found that this amazing animal had continued on about 300 yards past where we stopped, cut 100 yards north, and then headed back the way we came... presumably back to the herd he had been leading us away from all day. Well FUCK THAT!!! We weren't about to back track another 4-5 miles at this point in the day. We headed to a hill top about a 1/2 mile away to glass. I pulled my boots and socks off to let them dry in the sun and we glassed and rested. No javelina were spotted and we headed back to the truck before we lost the sun.

I didn't harvest this hunt but I left it with a full heart! I got the chance to hunt the Sonoran desert during a day long snow storm!!! With the snow coming over the tops of my 8" boots and the prickly pears and barrel cactus' barely peeking through the fresh powder! I had the opportunity to truly track animals when I could clearly read their tracks and add knowledge to my inventory of hunting know-how. I GOT TO PAINT THE SNOW RED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I gained a plethora of knowledge about an animal that alot of people consider "trash" animals.

I'll tell you what I learned about javelina on this hunt, in hopes that it'll help you on future hunts.

There is a "dominate" boar that circles the herd while they graze and marks the borders of that herd's territory with their scent. When he's doing this, he WILL circle back to his tracks to see if he's being followed. We observed this twice. The first time he did it was in the middle of the night, and there was nothing following him. The second time he did it, we were following him, and he took off like a bat out of hell and he did not stop for at least 2 1/2 miles. For all the people who will tell you that they're dumb, blind and slow... they don't know shit. If they were dumb, they'd be extinct. They live every day avoiding predators like mtn. lions and coyotes and they can see well enough, up close, to know when shit's not right (although from more than 50 yards they can't see shit). As for slow... picture a small-ish Pitbull running for its life. The endurance, determination and, most of all, the fucking agility I saw in this particular animal amazed me. There was one point where it hit a 4' vertical wall sideways, touched down twice in the bottom of the drainage, and hit the 4' vertical wall twice on the way out, then it was back to an all out run on flat ground. That is pretty amazing when you consider the size of the animal.

Javelina are not coues deer, they're not big horn sheep, but they are a worthy prey animal, with all the instincts and senses required to evade and survive. I have alot more respect for them after being able to actually see what they're capable of. I believe every javelina I take from here on out will mean a bit more to me after this hunt. I'm happy to have experienced this hunt... I'll never forget it.

 

Got a CC hit for elk.

 

No hit yet