AZ hunting

Rut is still on but slowing down. I'm hearing a lot of bulls in unit 1 but this morning I heard about 3-4 sound off while I was sitting under a tree freezing and glassing.

It was a tough morning, licking our wounds with breakfast at the alpine grill.

 

Ton of deer, I think I'm on deer 50 eleven million. There is so many here it's crazy. I've glassed up or drove by 8 different heards, totalin over 50 so far. One heard had over 15 of them. Seen 6 different bucks, nothing gigantic but decent size.

 

Are you headed to the north or south end of the unit?

 

Any idea what part of the unit you're going to focus on?

 

Woooosh, so spent 6 days in the woods up north. Was a bit warmer than I expected. We had 4 cow tags for unit 27 and we ended up filling 3 of them. We would have filled them all but I miscommunicated with the shooters. I had one with me and the one behind me. As I was glassing I spotted a couple elk bedded down and when we made our move on them, I guess there were more elk than I saw and 1 busted out at less than 60 yards from the shooter next to me, meanwhile the other shooter (my brother) already had another cow lined up. I told the shooter next to me not to shoot yet till the other shooter got lined up with him they both got a chance to shoot one. Had I not called off the first shooter, we would have had two down.

All in all a tough hunt but an awesome time with my brother and my friends! The area i hunt in 27 is coming back hard and strong from the fires and lots of areas are overgrown. Aspen saplings are 10' tall and the grass is 3' tall. Bulls are talking, saw one decent sized bull come over a ridge and then drop into some shithole canyon with about 2 other smaller bulls and 8 cows. On the last night in camp it was a chorus of bulls bugling, yotes chatting and even some wolves singing in the distance.

Saw a ton of deer and even got into some rocky mountain rams. Watched an eagle swing out of the sky and grab a fish out of a lake.

good luck to the rest of ya'll with tags!

 

Hello Arizona!

So normally this time of year I would be hunting in snowy Montana for elk, since I'll be in my late 50's before I draw here in California. But since I work for the state and it decided to burn like crazy, I missed my opportunity and all the tags (and vacation days) got taken up.

I am interested in going out and trying one of the OTC non permit elk hunts in your state. My concern is if the fish and game is sayingredients "good luck" is it worth my time and particularly hard earned money?

Any advice is appreciated. And if you guys would rather keep those tags for the locals, hey I understand

 

In my opinion, OTC elk tags aren't worth the time if you're rifle hunting. Best thing I would do is to review the past years success rate for those hunts.

Put in fr bonus points and in less that 2-3 years you can draw a cow tag, 4-8 for bull depending on the unit.

 

You say isn't worth the time rifle hunting... would I have better odds with my bow? I read there are areas where you cannot discharge firearms, like in city limits.

 

I think you have better chances of getting a unit where you could be successful with a bow. There are some "limited opportunity" hunts that are rifle hunts that can be successful, I did one a few years ago in unit 1 on antelope hill, got 2 of 3 tags filled on that one. However the next year a buddy of mine got the same tag and didn't see an elk for 6 days.

Personally I would either buy the bonus point and wait it out for a couple years or just put in for the draw as an out of stater, within 2-4 years you're going to get drawn for a rifle cow hunt. And the year that you don't get drawn you can still come over and do the OTC tags so that your license won't go to waste for the year.. Not to mention we have an awesome dove/quail season.

 

Great thanks

 

Anyone ever hunt Camp Navajo?

 

It's very warm out there... about 10 degrees warmer than it should be this time of year in my opinion. The good news is that we're supposed to get some rain on Wed, so that might cool things off. Good luck out there!

 

I was thinking of staying in the southern part of the unit because the north part was so thick when I was in there scouting. Hoping to get lucky and find some desert monster hiding somewhere.

 

There are some toads in the southern part of the unit but the problem is that the locals are all over the area. When I was out there for my late mule deer hunt last year, dudes from Morenci and Clifton were cruising around road bombing. There was a spot that was just outside of morenci that I followed a buddy of mine through some neighborhoods and into the mountains, almost looked like a huge rock query. There were a few herds of deer in there, nothing we wanted to shoot at though. I'll see if I can find the spot.

Additionally, there is a good number of deer in the "blue" but it's gnarly out there and expect a lot of hiking and shit ass canyons to cross. it's not somewhere I look unless its a last resorts because I hate death marches.. Check out the honeymoon campground area too if that's not too far north. There is a ton of deer in 27. Good luck!

 

Awesome thanks. I don't mind a good hike. I usually try to backpack in to my coues deer hunting spots in 29 but switched it up for a mule deer hunt this year. Where exactly is the "blue"?

 

Hello all! Headed up on Thursday for the Antlered Mule Deer Tag I pulled in 6A. Anyone been up there recently? I am very familiar with the area as thats where we usually Elk, Turkey, and Deer hunt. Just curious if anyone has any nice leads! Hope to show some pics next week when I return!

 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/33....978,-109.1990516/@33.4855033,-109.2803285,12z

The "blue" is an area of wilderness. It's super gnarly in there. Follow the link, there are roads into some campgrounds in the area that will help you get around. Good luck to you man! Make sure you have someone know where you're going to be, cell coverage is decent up there with Verizon and ATT but you get into the blue and it get spotty. Watch out for bears and shit by the river.

 

good luck on your hunt! I haven't been up there in years, last time i was there (5 years ago) the deer were slim but I did see a small herd by stoneman lake area.. Honestly I saw more elk than deer tho...

 

Tried to relocate a giant buck for 5 days and finally gave up on him. Took this awesome buck instead and couldn't be happier!

 

Perfect. Thanks. I will be camping with some family so I will make sure they know where I am and I have a bear tag too so wouldn't mind seeing one of them also.