junior88
Well-known member
Since AZ Game and Fish charged credit cards this past weekend, and mine wasn't one of them. I'm going to have to apply in the first come first serve leftover draw. I figured it was about time that I shared this story of my 2016 coues hunt, which came via a leftover tag.
Opening day found me in familiar country. It didn't take long to find deer. The sun wasn't even over the horizon yet when i jumped a doe and two fawns. I continued on and topped the ridge. I was glassing the opposite ridge and I started spotting deer. As the sun began to light up the ridge the deer really began to stand out. To my right there were a lot of does and fawns, I began to glass to my left and finally spotted a buck. He was small but it was nice to see antlers. I began to move to my left and I spotted a couple more bucks. One of them was really good. Before i knew it I was looking at twelve bucks. I felt they were too far away so i decided to cut the distance. Bad idea, they spooked, and they were gone. As they skylined themselves going over the top of the ridge, the good buck showed just how good he was. Couldn't count points but the width of his rack was past his ears. 28 deer including twelve bucks, not bad for opening morning. I went out with my son that afternoon, and we spotted another 20 or so deer. A couple of good bucks too, but everything was too far away.
Saturday morning found my son and I back in the spot where i saw all the bucks the day before. This time all we saw were does. As we were glassing another hunter walked up and we chatted with him. My son said to give him 5 minutes after he walked off to see if he would spook something up for us. Nothing ran off. However as we were glassing across a valley my son spotted two bucks in a coulee. Nobody was around so we decided to make a stalk. We would cross the valley and walk up another coulee opposite from where the deer were. We would walk halfway up the coulee and then over the ridge and we should be directly across from the deer. As we got close to the top we dropped to our knees and crawled the rest of the way. As we topped the ridge the bucks took off. I stood up and tracked the buck in my scope. When he stopped I shot. He dropped in his tracks. My son used his range finder to determine that it was a 180 yard shot. Standing up, off hand. Lucky shot i know, but i'd rather be luck than good. He's a nice 3 pointer, and the rack has a nice curl to it. The main beams almost touch.
I've said it before, these hunts in southern AZ are very good and are easy to draw. Unless you are applying for the December rut hunts, many of these hunts have leftover tags that are available otc. We did see some illegal aliens and thus the reason for the lack of interest for these hunts.
Opening day found me in familiar country. It didn't take long to find deer. The sun wasn't even over the horizon yet when i jumped a doe and two fawns. I continued on and topped the ridge. I was glassing the opposite ridge and I started spotting deer. As the sun began to light up the ridge the deer really began to stand out. To my right there were a lot of does and fawns, I began to glass to my left and finally spotted a buck. He was small but it was nice to see antlers. I began to move to my left and I spotted a couple more bucks. One of them was really good. Before i knew it I was looking at twelve bucks. I felt they were too far away so i decided to cut the distance. Bad idea, they spooked, and they were gone. As they skylined themselves going over the top of the ridge, the good buck showed just how good he was. Couldn't count points but the width of his rack was past his ears. 28 deer including twelve bucks, not bad for opening morning. I went out with my son that afternoon, and we spotted another 20 or so deer. A couple of good bucks too, but everything was too far away.
Saturday morning found my son and I back in the spot where i saw all the bucks the day before. This time all we saw were does. As we were glassing another hunter walked up and we chatted with him. My son said to give him 5 minutes after he walked off to see if he would spook something up for us. Nothing ran off. However as we were glassing across a valley my son spotted two bucks in a coulee. Nobody was around so we decided to make a stalk. We would cross the valley and walk up another coulee opposite from where the deer were. We would walk halfway up the coulee and then over the ridge and we should be directly across from the deer. As we got close to the top we dropped to our knees and crawled the rest of the way. As we topped the ridge the bucks took off. I stood up and tracked the buck in my scope. When he stopped I shot. He dropped in his tracks. My son used his range finder to determine that it was a 180 yard shot. Standing up, off hand. Lucky shot i know, but i'd rather be luck than good. He's a nice 3 pointer, and the rack has a nice curl to it. The main beams almost touch.
I've said it before, these hunts in southern AZ are very good and are easy to draw. Unless you are applying for the December rut hunts, many of these hunts have leftover tags that are available otc. We did see some illegal aliens and thus the reason for the lack of interest for these hunts.
