First coues deer hunt

[dididraw]

I'm new to the forum - really enjoy Randy's utube channel and just learned there was an associated forum.

Here are a couple of pictures of my first coues deer hunt in southeast Arizona last Dec. Fun hunt but more challenging than I expected - these little devils are sneaky.



Looking forward to participating in your forum.

 

[Bamaboy16]

Man that's awesome! Coues in Zona is definitely a goal for me within the next 10 years. Did you go DIY?

 

[Arty]

Very timely post will all the podcasts getting put out lately talking about Arizona. Sounds like a fun trip.

 

[Crumb]

Congrats!

 

[LCH]

Great buck! That's a fun hunt.

 

[dididraw]

Man that's awesome! Coues in Zona is definitely a goal for me within the next 10 years. Did you go DIY?

Yes, we did the hunt on our own. I have a friend with a ranch in the unit so we had some good information about where to start looking. People there were friendly as well, one group with the big eye binoculars put us on a nice buck for a stalk.

 

[Nameless Range]

That's really great. That as he lays picture encapsulates that country well. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[dalbo]

Congratulations, that's a beautiful buck! great photos also.

 

[Robinhood21]

Give us some details on how it went down. Love to hear a good success story!

 

[publichunter1]

Welcome and congrats on a fun hunt!

 

[Festus]

Welcome! Congrats

 

[Elkhunter24]

welcome and congrats on a great buck!

 

[dididraw]

Give us some details on how it went down. Love to hear a good success story!

I really wanted a hunt in 2017 that allowed me to hunt with my boys and step dad (4 of us), after looking over the options for how many points we all had we decided to do a late dec rifle coues hunt (took an avg of 8 points to draw). After drawing the tags I learned that a friend of mine had a ranch in the unit we had drawn (he lost his wife and remarried - his new wife owned the ranch with her husband before he passed away). We got an offer to stay in their ranch house and they gave us some good intel about where to start looking. Good friends are priceless.

My boys couldn't get out of school before Christmas break so my Step Dad and I went down the day before the opener to start scoping it out. On opening morning we each climbed up into separate saddles along a ridge line and started glassing. I had been given the advice multiple times to be very patient and glass, glass, glass. I'm not a patient hunter but I stuck it out on opening morning until about noon (torture to sit in one place that long). While glassing I found three bucks and one doe - they were all on the move and I didn't want to blow them out so I spent some time looking at the map to find a way to there location for the evening. Come evening I was above them trying to be quiet moving to a good glassing point - the deer didn't show themselves in the evening but now I had a better lay of the land for the next morning. On the first day my Step Dad had four deer cross a dirt road in front of him coming from a water tank - one was a small buck.

Second morning I left earlier and got where I wanted to be in good time. Wind was right and sun was coming up behind me. I had just set up my tripod for glassing and spotted two bucks with two does. I hurried and put my spotter with a camera on the tripod and ranged the bigger of the two bucks for a shot. Took me almost two minutes to get things situated in the rocks and cactus before I was stable enough to shoot. The buck was behind a big rock that covered the bottom 1/3 of his chest - I thought I could sneak a shot over the rock and hit him center line. After the getting back on the scope after the shot the buck was still feeding and hadn't moved (reviewing the video later the bullet hit the very top of the rock - couldn't believe he didn't bolt). After a few seconds he took two steps out from behind the rock so I had a clear shot the second time. He kicked out his back feet, ran 20 yards and immediately bedded where I could barely make out the tips of his antlers. My shot was back a bit and I needed a follow up when I got closer. He is probably a 3 or 4 year old buck.

We came back with my boys the day after Christmas for four days of hunting. My older son and I headed to the same spot where I had hunted 10 days earlier because I knew there were two bucks there. We didn't see anything the first couple of hours and my son wanted to move a bit to be able to see deeper into the canyon. He was there 10 minutes and he shot, I walked over and he said he had one down 40 yards away. It was a yearling, I asked why he shot so quickly and he said he knew it would be hard to find them and we had three tags to try and fill so he took the first buck he shot. I am seriously going to find a big jack rabbit and have the antlers mounted for him

My younger son and I hunted hard together the next three days. We put on lots of miles and found 15-20 coues deer. He got a shot a buck at about 300 yards (he was standing using a tripod) and missed cleanly. We got back on the same buck two days later and he got a shot at about 100 yards free hand as the buck was sneaking through the brush and missed again. We ran into some local guys that had the big binoculars the next to last morning after my son had missed at 100 yards. They had a really good buck (maybe 100") spotted high on a hill side beneath some ledges (how that spotted that thing amazes me). They said they were fine if we wanted to put a stalk on it. We got within about 400 yards and ran out of good cover to get closer so we got my son set up solidly on the bipod and a pack. We stayed there for nearly two hours waiting for a clean shot that never came. It was exciting for both of us even though it didn't end in a shot.

My Step Dad had a really hard time getting around in the rocks (everything rolls under your feet there) so he was limited as to where he could set up. He took a pretty good tumble on opening weekend so he didn't venture far off the road the second time down. He saw a couple of small bucks and passed.

Overall a very, very fun and challenging hunt. Even in late Dec the bucks were showing very little interest in the does. It felt like a 2nd season Colorado deer hunt where seeing deer meant being at a glassing spot at first light then again for the last couple of hours of light. These critters blend in perfectly with their surroundings and they seem to sneak everywhere they go making them exceptionally difficult to spot. There small size also limits effective glassing range (out beyond 400-500 yards spotting one with 10x binoculars was almost impossible).

Can't wait to try it again once points are built back up.

 

[NYSKIER]

Very cool story I'm think of trying DIY Archery this year. The pic are awesome!

 

[Elkdog]

Great story and buck. Congrats and welcome!

 

[Nunyacreek]

Thanks for sharing. Great story, esp. the guys who,glassed the buck and let you stalk.

 

[coues52]

Great story ,,thank you for sharing..Coues is on my bucket list..Danny

 

[mtmiller]

Awesome critter and hunt area. Thanks for sharing.

 

[CampRipleyLF]

Congrats! Great pictures