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Anyone here done any of the OTC bow hunting in Arizona in January? Its been a particularly dry year even for AZ so we are thinking to try and find travel corridors to/from any water that we can find. Outside of that, any other advice from anyone else who's had experience with this hunt?

I hunt it about 25 of the 30 days. Coues or mule deer?

Water will be key but there is still lots of water around....

Rut should be very trickly this year. Deer aren't moving and are in conservation mode as feed is pretty horrific due to the deought. This will affect the rut significantly. And I suspect there will be significant secondary and tertiary cycling, worse than last year....

Antler growth is also down I'd say 5-10 percent dependent on area, at least in southern AZ...

I used to love rut hunting with the bow. I had a lot of luck seeing bucks chasing does on steep faces/ridges. The only hope I had was to try to follow up and hope they were locked up with a doe so I could sneak in. Using a blind or tree stand and hunting travel routes to water would probably be much more effective

I was out in the Buckeye area, Eagle Tail mountains, this past January. Saw a lot of deer (at least I think so) and some quality bucks. Just couldn't beat all the does they were with! We would get up high real early and glass.... and glass.... When a group was spotted, we would see if there was a buck worth the effort, then make a plan and go. Water didn't seem to make a huge difference last January, browse was where it was at.

I love Jan bow hunting in AZ. I hunt Coues deer in the woods using whitetail rut hunt strategies. Yes, it is a great place for glassing and spot and stalk, but I can't quit doing what works so well. There are deer in Maricopa County, including some good ones. However, it is the last place in AZ I would go. Water is key, as is hunt pressure. If hunting wooded areas, included areas with the brushy Turbinella Oak, look for areas where deer feed on dropped acorns. It was a poor forage year, and any place that yielded acorns will be exhausted. Of course, water is the key anywhere in AZ. This does not mean you have to hunt over water. It means there will be more deer within a mile of a water source than there are 4 miles from a water source. Fortunately there is still a lot of country within a mile of water.

It's very nice to hunt the peak of the rut at 6500 feet and have nighttime temps above 25 and daytime ones around 55. This is an average, of course. It can get really cold in places, but is unlikely to be the shiver-fest found in other states. Camping in the back of a pickup with a shell is a piece of cake.