Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pictures Or It Didn't Happen

Very few to be honest.

I see bucks with a doe tag in my pocket and vice versa. Bulls with a cow tag, turkeys during elk and deer season, get within 25-30 yards of dumb ass bugling bulls when trying to arrow a cow and then get busted by the 15 pairs of eyes on the girls and calves. Wait in the sun, 100+ degrees next to a scrub bush, for a bedded pronghorn to get up and come to water. He does, starts heading straight towards the water I'm watching and then veers off to head to the other tank. Passes by about 29 paced yards from me. I shoot traditional and on an animal that size want a 20 yard shot, maybe might stretch to 25 if he had stood still. But not taking a walking shot at nearly 30. Later in the hunt we had a herd coming to water just before end of day. I hustled down to the tank, lay down behind a broken trough in the cow crap and dust, had them come up the draw right to the beaten down area with no cover, I was behind the only piece, 13 yards from the tank. Does came in led by grandma. She pulled up at the edge of the brush, scoped things out, then moved around to get downwind of the water. Mr Big Buck and his little buddy kept inching toward the tank, looking at the does with that "But the water's over here" look. Eventually, the doe got far enough downwind she got a whiff of something, never spooked and ran off but just headed toward the other tank a mile away dragging the disappointed boys with her. Muzzleloader tag and I have horns and meat to eat. But 35-40 yard is too much for me and my setup. My outfitter wrote up a story about our hunt in the Kingman Miner newspaper, because even though we didn't kill, we had a great time. While waiting for some bedded goats to move, I even found out I can call quail over to the edge of the draw I was hunkered up against when I heard them up above me. The "rooster" came over to see which of his girls was getting away I think.

Hunted Coues pretty hard, DIY, down in AZ one winter. Saw some does. Last day I glassed a bit in the AM, had lunch, went for a hike in the afternoon. Big circle back to the truck, parked on a bit of a ridge. Get back to truck from the driver side, start removing pack, binocs, etc and decide perhaps I better look over the other side of the truck. Sure as scheidt, I look over about 300 yards from the truck, see something light in color. Glass it, a deer butt, head in the rose bushes. Oh, there's another. Mule deer does, Oh, there's their two kids. Up from behind the rose bush comes a big ol' Mulie rack. One of those don't look at it, just shoot racks. Of course, I have a whitetail tag in my bag. Would have been and easy stalk to better range, although the '06 would have done just fine. By why not use the numerous draws and junipers to get a bit closer?

I had a great hunt though, saw the Red Rock area of Sedona for a week. And prior to that, I was up on the Rim in the cold. I can post pics of that.

First day up there I set up camp, have enough time to walk down the FS road to check it out, see movement before I get 1/4 mile from the truck, coming down the side of the hill to the road. Friggen herd of cow elk. Stop broadside and munch a bit, 80 yard away. 400 yards from the truck. right at the road. No packing, just load the thing............if I could have shot. They didn't do that the year prior when I had a cow tag.

Next day, morning hunt in the forest, opposite direction from the elk. See movement, scheidt, it's a winter flock of about 50 turkeys. I freeze, 3 jakes walk up to find out what I was, 13 yards away they're doing the bird thing, turning heads side to side to scope me out. Do you think they ever do that when I have a turkey tag?


Wrote some about my hunt a couple falls back for a cow in AZ, that same outfitter friend tagged out his hunters and invited me over to hunt with his guides before they took off.

Between the binocs and scopes he and his fellas were using, and my meager ones, there's $20K of glass looking for elk there. We found them, and chased them for about 4 miles before they "disappeared". That happened multiple times. Again, I saw all sorts of great stuff, and a good number of elk through the glass, but never could get on them.




I am known by friends as the "Unluckiest Hunter in the World" . B grateful, I soak up all the bad luck for you other guys.