Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Thoughts on Coues in Az 22

I also love unit 22....have got deer, turkey, and black bear....great area.

Unit 22, big unit, starts from 10 min outside my door, runs 100 miles north from the Salt river to the Mogollon rim --- 22 has alot of coues and muleys, on general principle, I'd say the central units don't produce the same number of bigger bucks per capita of the population as the southern units. My personal opinion is the central units have vast wilderness in most ---- There are plenty of big bucks but the central units require more scouting to sniff one out and much more year to year on what's available.

I like the central units and on a 24B kick the last couple years ---- 700 tags in Oct for coues and 25 in Dec, the oct hunt is almost a 100% draw and the dec hunt about a 5%.

I break the areas up to Four Peaks, Mt Ord, Mazatzal wilderness, North under the rim. Each are large areas --- If you are just looking for the best chance to kill a big coues coming from out of state, minimal scouting , 35B on the border is even better than 33. If you are looking for a packin/exploring type adventure and a for sure opportunity on a coues though maybe not a monster... the central units cannot be beat.
Kent

Orrrrrr..... Just hunt the farther south stuff, 36b, 36c, 33, etc and see more deer. Find a good area, and bucks will be everywhere. Saw 16 bucks one day on my december hunt. Most of them I would have shot in a heartbeat on a October or November hunt. One of them I should have killed on the spot but didnt.

Hunted area 22 in December many years ago...saw 2 very good deer and several smaller ones. Monsoon rains killed that hunt.

A couple years later hunted 30A just north of Douglas. I missed but my pard got a nice buck. Lots of illegal traffic in that area.

Thought those (Arizona's tropical monsoon) occurred during July and August .....

Most people who don't live in an area with monsoonal weather patterns use the term to describe torrential rains. During the period to which he refers, the southwest had a series of very wet winters which lasted from about 1970 to 1995. Some of these winters resulted in a lot of flooding and road damage, especially unpaved county roads and Forest Service roads. I was rained out on a muzzle loader elk and deer hunt in the San Mateos in 1984 when the remnants of a late fall Baja hurricane stalled out over us. In the early 1990s, I spent almost two months driving through up to a foot of standing water for over a mile to get to the ranch camp where I was living while my house was being renovated

mudhen is right on. During one of those I was hunting in the Dragoons (rather limited area) and the wind kept blowing the tent almost inside out, and I was drenched much of the time - finally had to get a motel room in Elfrida or some other little town in order to dry out. Nailed a nice buck not far from Cochise Stronghold area - but that was one WET hunt - especially for Nov. in AZ.

My brother picked up a pair of matching sheds in Unit 32 a couple years back and with a conservative inside spread estimate of 14 inches, we figured he would net 121+ typical B&C. The very next year the rancher found that buck locked with another buck and a large lion had killed them both. The buck that had dropped antlers the year before which my brother found, net scored 137 typical B&C. He'd grown 16 inches of antler in one year. The other buck that was locked with it, scored net 126+ non-typical B&C. The rancher has both bucks and the lion mounted in his house on the ranch. He also has several other 120-130 Coues bucks on display. It's quite the impressive sight when entering his living room.

A 137 NET typical would be top 5 I believe all time B&C....

So why didnt he have it entered if he had it officialy measured?