Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Arizona Unit 4A

I drew a late season bull tag for Arizona 4A. I am wondering if anybody has hunted 4A and would be willing to suggest good areas to hunt there?

The elk gods mocked me here in Colorado this year. They gave me equipment breakdowns, the flu and then showed me a bull at 75 yards when I had a cow tag in my pocket. I am hoping for something better in AZ!

I was on that hunt last year...

PM me with your # and I'll give you a ring...

My favorite spot in 4A:

35°2'35.643" N
110°42'5.633" W

Good luck!

The AZ Elk are in on that plan too. I think they read the proclamation better than some of the hunters....

good luck

I have returned from the great AZ Mudfest of 2019! I saw plenty of elk and played hide and seek with them in the junipers but didn't get a bull. My wife went with me and we went early so we had four days to scout before the season. It was muddy when we got there Sunday afternoon and there were patches of snow in the shady spots. And the wind blew! It blew 25 to 30 mph three days out of the four days we had to scout. It snowed again Monday night just enough to keep everything sloppy.

We had a list of places to check out, courtesy of GregW and beretz, who both hunted the unit before. Thanks fellows! We spotted a nice 5 point and some cows up in the timber Tuesday. We also saw some cows in other places. We looked over other areas Wednesday and tried to go back to locate the 5 point on Thursday. However the Forest Service closed the upper part of the forest due to the incoming storm so we couldn't get in to find the 5 point.

It rained all Thursday night and it changed to snow Friday morning, opening day. Visibility was poor but I took a walk through the junipers hoping to stumble onto some elk. I didn't see any elk or tracks. We ended up with 6" to 8" of snow by the time it quit. I put chains on all four tires for the next day. Saturday we drove back to an area Greg told me about. On the way, I spotted a herd at the far end of a big meadow. There was a four point and two spikes in the herd. They were a long way out and the wind did not favor the best direction to approach from. Plus, I was hoping for something better so I didn't go after them. We didn't see anything the rest of the morning. In the afternoon I still hunted down through the junipers above a draw. I found the smoking hot tracks of a small herd. There was one bigger track in the group that I thought might be a young bull so I followed them through the junipers. They were feeding and moving and it took about an hour to catch up to them. They were headed for an open area and I hoped to see them in the open. However they were just inside the edge of the junipers when I suddenly had elk looking at me from 30 yards away. They didn't spook, they stood and looked at me a couple minutes and walked off. I saw most of them as they moved away, but no bull. By then it was close to sundown so I headed back to the truck. Of course on the way back I found where two bulls had crossed the draw after I had passed by earlier.

I had to take it easy the next day. At 70 years old, walking a couple miles through the snow is hard work! We went looking for the herd we had seen the day before but there were hunters all over the place where the herd had been. We went high and glassed with no result. The following day we went back out to the draw I hunted earlier. Again, I saw cows but no bulls. By then, with the traffic and the snowmelt, the roads were nearly impassable in several places even with chains on. I am to old to think driving into mudholes and getting stuck is fun so we gave up on that area.

The next couple days we hunted the open country on the O'Haco and Hopi 3 ranches. It wasn't hard to find cows there but the bulls kept their heads down. I saw a spike in one herd and he was the center of attention! The elk were about a mile out and one hunter was sprinting through the mud to get there. A couple other hunters went racing out in their pickup, mud flying, and jumped out and started running for the elk. I didn't stick around to see if they were successful.

I looked at the maps and found a draw close to the main road to hunt the last couple days. It was criss-crossed with elk tracks but the junipers and pines were thick as the hair on a dog! I played hide and seek with several elk there. Had cows chirping at me a couple times. I could smell them but I never saw one. Maybe one of these days I will learn how to hunt these critters!

To cap the trip, I lost the rear driveshaft on the truck about 60 miles short of home. Luckily, I was over all the passes when it happened. I started noticing a vibration at certain speeds and coming down off the Dallas Divide the truck wobbled around a bit, I thought a wheel was coming off, and then a thump and everything was smooth again. I stopped to see what happened and discovered the drive shaft was gone! I put it in four wheel drive and carefully drove the rest of the way home. I also discovered I must have hit a rock with the steering damper because it is bent and the fluid is dripping out. And so it goes!

Great recap Marc. It’s a big, beautiful unit but it certainly isn’t easy. Sounds like you gave it he’ll though! Congrats on a great hunt despite not laying a tag on a bull.

You gave her hell Marc.....

Conditions didn't help.....

Sorry about the food options in Winslow....😁

lot of weather this year. and 4a is a challenging unit.

The snow and mud concentrates the elk there. Almost better road hunting than trying to glass.

There are 2 INCREDIBLE places to eat in Winslow. Mi Pueblo is a hole in the wall but Grandma is in the kitchen! mmmmmmmm


La Posada is incredible upscale Mexican dining.

Multiple Mexican places last year at the same time was literally the grossest trash, food, drink all over the dining area nastiest place I literally have ever seen last year....we tried the only ones open past 6 on a weeknight...

I eat out a lot and it was the grossest thing I've seen since I can remember...including the food. I despise McDonalds but the next few nights I waited 30 minutes for each car while the Natives served us a cardboard burger.... Carl's Jr. was slightly better....

I don't know about the elk but it sure concentrated the hunters! Much of the southern half of the NF was closed. We were camped at the northern edge of the NF. We had a lot of company through the first weekend. After the weekend, with the roads so bad, a lot of people pulled out. It turned out that some had relocated down to the ranch. After a couple days on the ranches there was a mass exodus. The roads weren't much better there. It was quiet the last couple days.

It did look like most people were road hunting. I like to walk and almost every time I took a walk I would come across a road that everybody else was driving on. Trucks going back and forth endlessly. Almost as bad as an LA freeway.

I don't know about the food. We went to Flying J/Denny's one day to fuel up and had lunch. That was it for eating in Winslow.

try the Falcon, old time truck-stop/diner from rte 66 days.

east side of town, towards Joe City, not quite to the interstate.

I used to like el torito south of the tracks, but closed now.

I had the same luck in 7E, just couldn't get around to the places I had scouted. Found a couple of nice bulls but my step-father wasn't up to it. I'll bet the overall success was not great in some of those units.

It will be interesting to see what the success rates were. This was it for me for AZ. It took 6 years to draw this tag and I am to old to apply for anymore.

Marc your not to old. I'll be 75 and will be applying for archery with 12 points in a mid level unit..

Love Arizona but its getting awful hard to pull a tag.
Will probably be putting in for CO where I have points as well as WY,NV,UTAH,NM and CA