Arizona Deer Hunt

[texastrophies]

~~My Arizona deer hunt started out with the realization that under the current system I would never get one of the much sought after and desired late Kaibab or Strip hunts. After talking with a friend, Stan, he helped me make a decision on what unit to apply for. I had enough points to where I was pretty much guaranteed to be drawn, so with that thought in mind I took a July 4th scouting trip to learn the area.

As expected I got drawn when the results were posted. Living at sea level, I knew I needed to get ready for the 8000’ elevation where I would be hunting. In late August, my knee began swelling up on me. Finally, after trying to tough it out, I made an appointment and after a failed attempt at draining the knee, the doc suggested surgery. So about three weeks before the season opened, I am laid out on the operating table having my knee cut open to be cleaned out. Two weeks later I get the stitches removed from the 5” cut.

I did have some good news in this time, my 83 year old father is getting to go with me. With the season opening on Friday, we chose to leave on Monday morning for the two day trip, leaving me two days of scouting before the season opens. The trip begins great, I pick my dad up, and head west. After about 300 miles of the 1300 mile trip, a tire on the trailer I am pulling blows out. We go into pit crew mode and made a 30 minute – 1 tire change. With the spare on, I ease into the next town about 5 miles away and find a Discount Tire. About an hour later, we were back on the road. I joked with my dad that I probably should have replaced both tires on the trailer instead of just the one that blew out.

About a hundred miles later, my joke became reality. The other tire blew out. Luckily I wasn’t far from another town, and this time it was only about a thirty minute stay at a tire shop. All told, we were about 3 hours behind my planned schedule. Then we hit the rain, from north of Fort Stockton, TX. to Roswell, NM. We were in and out of rain the whole way. We finally get to Roswell and now it’s the truck’s turn to give me trouble. It goes into reduced power mode with Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) issues. We find a room for the night and then I am waiting at the Chevy Dealer when they open. The service manager says he is undermanned but would take a look at it. He initiates a burn off which took about 45 minutes and sends me on my way, no charge. Simply amazing in this day.

We were off again, now at least 6 hours behind my schedule. We get to where we planned to camp after dark, drop off the trailer to save the spot and head back to Jacob Lake Inn to eat and spend the night in the motel.

Wednesday morning, we head out, set up camp, and I spend the afternoon scouting. I walked about a mile and a half from camp, most of it being on a road that I could have driven on. In the end though, I do get my glass on a couple of decent bucks about 1000 yards away. After getting back to camp and checking maps, I come up with a plan to drive to the same spot the next morning to continue scouting.

Thursday, morning and evening both produced a lot of deer sightings, all in the same area as Wednesday evening. I knew where I was going to be on Friday morning for the opener. I also got to spend a little time talking with Stan, who I was camped next to.

Opening morning, I got in position, set up my tripod and 15’s and immediately find a 3x3 at 400 yards. Not what I am looking for. After he finally moves on I happen to glance over to my left and see more deer. The wide 4x4 that I saw the first day is there with about 15 other does and smaller bucks. As soon as I see them, they are making a hasty retreat over the ridge into the next drainage. I stay put and just glass the area as shots are ringing out all around. I hear a noise behind me, turn around and see two people walking towards me, apparently a guide and a hunter. My camo must be amazing as they walk by less than 20 foot away and never even glance at me or acknowledge that I am setting there on the fallen tree. They end up making a big circle and go all the way around me. At that point I decide to take off after the wide buck. As I make my way over the ridge and start glassing where I thought they went, I see nothing. Then I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and turn and watch about 20 deer come out of the top of the draw and go across the next ridge. The big buck was joined by at least five other bucks, all smaller. Rather than continue chasing them, I hunt my way back to the truck and call it a morning.

That afternoon, I tried to outthink the buck and head over and find a new place to glass from that is a little further away from the road. It is the second ridge over and gave me a large area to overlook. As soon as I get set up, I spot a few does feeding on the opposite slope. About an hour before dark, out comes a 4x2 and a 3x3 to feed with them. I watch them till dark. Also saw a coyote and a number of does.

I spent the evening with Stan, watching him clean his niece’s nice first buck that she took. Havalon’s have a sharp blade that is able to draw blood fairly easily. Took me three band-aides on top of each other to stop the bleeding

.

Saturday morning, I head back to my spot. To get a picture of where I am sitting it is about a quarter of the way down the slope, setting on a tree that has fallen over with my back against another tree trunk that was broke off about 5’ high. The ridge in front of me is about 250 yards away to the top and it ends in a valley with the ridge I am on bending around to make a nice area to overlook.

As daylight breaks Saturday morning, I see the 4x2, 3x3 and a couple of 2 pointers feeding in the same place as they were last night along with a few does. Shots are going off all over the place and I see groups of deer, both bucks and does running all over. About 8:30 I notice 4 bucks sneaking along the bottom below me. One of them is a nice 4x4, but not real wide or tall. I watched them for about 15 minutes from about 100 yards to 250 yards before they turn and go up a draw out of sight. A few minutes later, I hear a shot from that direction, and in a couple of seconds I see the three smaller bucks run out the top of the draw and then a couple of hunters walking down into the draw. Ended up seeing 16 bucks that morning and I didn’t keep track of how many does.

Saturday afternoon the wind picked up and was blowing hard and steady. I went to an area Stan suggested to me before he left that morning. The deer weren’t moving at all. Watched one group of 15 does and a small 2x2 all evening until it got dark.

Sunday morning, the wind was still howling and I wasn’t feeling real good, so I stayed in. Mid-morning, my father and I decided to ride into town. About half way there my check engine light came on, with a message saying it would go to reduced power in 200 miles, but if driven it could correct itself. Drove about 75 miles with no luck. That evening, I went back out to my spot, riding my ATV, with the wind still blowing, the deer sightings were limited.

Monday morning I get up early and head into St. George, Utah, the closest Chevy Dealer, about a 100 miles or so away. Right as I get there, the message changed to reduced power on next restart. I went into the service department and they said they could take a look at it pretty soon. Three hours later I headed back to camp with a new DEF tank. Not cheap.

Monday evening I joined the army of road hunters because I wanted to listen to my Cowboys on Monday Night Football. Ended up seeing three bucks, decent but not what I was looking for. The football game sucked to.

Tuesday morning, the wind had finally laid down. Back to my spot. As soon as I get set up and start glassing, I noticed two deer, still a little dark to determine sex, near the spot where the buck was killed on Saturday. As I continued watching them, I noticed their attention was directed up the slope from them. I swing the binos around and see a deer walking down towards them. Just by the size, I was sure it was a buck. As it got down to the other deer, which I could now tell were small bucks, I could see this was a decent buck. He just wouldn’t stop so I could get a good look at him.

He ended up going around the ridge at a good pace until he happened upon another buck that I had not seen yet, a 3x3. They ended up milling around feeding. I could tell by my looks at him that if I got the chance to take him, I would give it a go. They were feeding between 450 – 500 yards away, and the bigger of the two was amazingly either behind trees or either facing straight at me or dead away from me. The smaller one was feeding towards me, the larger one was going away.

As this was going on I had a group of does run behind me about thirty yards away obviously on the run from hunters somewhere. I was getting worried I wouldn’t get a shot. I had practiced out to 400 yards and felt confident at that range, but they were a little further than that. Finally, the two fed back together and then started quartering towards me. The smaller one was leading and hit an opening, which I ranged at 441 yards. I figured that was going to be my only chance. I took my heavy jacket off and put it on the tree that I had been setting on and braced the gun against the standing tree. I put the 400 yard crosshair at about the top of his back and the shot eventually sounded. Don’t really remember pulling the trigger.

When I got back on him after the recoil, I couldn’t see him. I looked with the naked eye and could see a few deer trotting around and looking. So I jumped up and looked through the binos and could see he was down right where he had benn standing. I watched him for about 15 minutes to make sure he was down, then packed up and took all my stuff back to the truck, knowing that I was going to have to pack it out, I wanted to get rid of all of the non-essential weight that I could.

When I got over to him, turns out he was at a distance of .37 straight line miles from the truck. The way I had to go to get to him was over a half of a mile. I had to run a couple of deer off to get to him the first time and had a couple of hunters watching me from the next ridge over. Seems like if I had not taken him when I did, either they would have had a shot or more likely scared him out of the drainage.

I utilized the gutless method and the first trip out took both hind quarters and one backstrap. Luckily I had a first aid kit in the truck because I needed more band-aides to stop the bleeding from the new Havalon attack. I must be a slow learner.

The second trip, I loaded the front quarters, backstrap and loins in the pack, then put the hide & head in it and started out. Made it exactly 200’ and stopped. Head & hide needed to be in load number three.

Got everything out and back to camp, where we took some more pictures and then started packing up. We pulled out about 5:00 pm and made it to Winslow, AZ. For the night. Didn’t see a flatbed ford, but we did Take it Easy.

Got up the next morning and headed out. Ended up doing 1135 miles in about 16.5 hours (ignoring time zone changes) and got home about 1:30 am.

A few takeaways from this trip:

There are a lot of deer in Arizona. This was a very fun hunt. Can’t wait to go back.

While the 15x56’s aren’t cheap, on a hunt like this when they are used on a tripod they are invaluable. Used them much more than the 10x42’s.

I want to say thanks again to Stan. Thank you for all the help you gave me. I wish there was some way I could reciprocate.

If you never use the on/off switch on your ATV, be sure to check it before spending 2 hours tearing it apart trying to figure out why it won’t start. Just sayin…

Though this trip had a lot of challenges from my knee to mechanical issues, take the good with the bad and stick with it. Don’t get down.

Even though my father never left the camp, I so much enjoyed him being with me. I am scared this might be his last trip though. It was pretty hard on him at times. The altitude took it out of him.

Here are the pictures. ~~Camp pictures.

A few scenery pics.

The reward on a 441 yard shot.

[wtnhunt]

Seriously sounds like how my luck goes with the breakdowns and problems. Funny about the 4 wheeler.

Hope the knee is fully recovered, sounds like it did not slow you down too much.

Way to stick it out Jeff. Congratulations.

Quite a shot for that distance too, what rifle/caliber/bullet?

[texastrophies]

Thanks William.

It's was with my Model 70, in .300 Win Mag using Barnes Vor-Tx in 165 gr.

The AZ game & fish want you to use non-lead bullets due to the California Condors getting lead poisoning from the remains. Don't know about that, but, they gave a free box of ammunition to everyone that wanted it, and there were 500 tags for this hunt, so I guess they are serious about it.

[smha6784]

awesome story, congrats on the kill. sounds like a eventful trip

[Ravin R10 man]

Congrats on a good buck and great story...pics are cool...

now if you were driving a "Chevy Van" your luck may have been different...lol

[stevebeilgard]

great pictures and story, jeff. i saw lots of nice deer on the ranch you were on. just sayin.

hey, one part of the story i'm concerned about is where the other hunters (you heard shots all around so i'm assuming lots of hunters in the area) were 20 feet from you and did not see you. were you wearing orange? goodness, i'd wear enough orange to look like a chirstmas tree in the dark.

[texastrophies]

Thanks all.

Yea, Steve, I had a orange cap on. They saw me, they had to. They just chose to ignore me.

That's sounds good on the deer. Hopefully they have returned/rebounded. Was that where you were elk hunting?

[silvertip_co]

Great story and great pics Jeff. Heck of a nice buck. Glad you got all the mechanical issues straightened out.