Recap of arizona hunt

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Loaded and just about ready to hit the open road.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Good luck!

 

[rustednuts]

Well I decided to head back to Arizona on Thursday morning to let the coues evade me again for the last 3 days of the January season. Going to a new spot that I've never been a little farther north to shave a few hours off my drive time. Calling for some snow, don't know if that is good or bad, but it should be fun.

I find in the cold mornings they don’t move till the sun hits them. I’ve seen deer moving around in the snow.

 

[duckhunt]

Good luck

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

No deer yet. But its a beautiful morning.

 

[JLS]

I can’t believe your wife let you pirate her 4Runner to go hunting.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I can’t believe your wife let you pirate her 4Runner to go hunting.

I begged! I laid it on thick about how much more convenient it would be for me. Haha

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

1 coues doe and 1 failed quail stalk. On to lunch and then to a new spot for afternoon. Looks like rain turning to snow after dark for the rest of the day.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Evening hunt was eventful. My buddy from Mesa came and met up with me and we were headed to a new spot. He stopped on the road and said "lets check out a spot I used to go back in the day, the road might suck but if it gets to bad we will turn around". Ok let's do it! We head that way and the higher we get the worse its getting. We get to one spot that took him 6 tries in the suburban to get up but we made and continued. The next bad spot on his third try i see smoke coming from his suburban so I jump out and we find that he cracked his radiator. "Sean i said if its bad we will turn around what the heck man". We fill it with water and coast it down the mountain best he could. We got to a pull off and he says let me call my brother and see if he can bring me a radiator. His brother steps up and say yes. (2.5 hour drive) We jump in my rig and head up to a point to glass until dark while we wait for his brother. While glassing we spotted 9 coatimundi and I was gonna go after them so I packed up the tripod and stuff and right as I was about to go I watched them scale a rock cliff like it was a mole hill and said nope. Set tripod back up and immediately spotted a good coues buck. 1031 yards away 4:49pm. I take off and about 3/4's of the way there tristan texts and says he walked over the top. Ok ill call you when I get to the top and you can walk me into the spot he went over. I get to top put in the Bluetooth headphones and call. Well his phone doesn't have enough service to answer. He can't locate me and its getting low on daylight so I start peeking over in spots looking way left, way right, way off straight ahead...nothing. I peek over again looking all over, well low and behold he was right below me maybe 40 yards he sees me right when I see him and he gone. Nice little 8 point. It started raining pretty much the whole stalk and all the way back to vehicle so all I had to show for it was wringing out my clothes.

Up in the morning to try and locate the same buck and put radiator in at lunch.
Tried to upload a video of coatimundi but it was not allowed.

 

[F250]

I must admit, I had to look up Coatimundi. Odd little critter. I assume they are furbearers and not an animal for eating...

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I must admit, I had to look up Coatimundi. Odd little critter. I assume they are furbearers and not an animal for eating...

Some people eat them. They are considered a pest and you can take one a year with your hunting license. They are odd little dudes. Remind me of a lemur.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Coatimundi stalk in progress. Somewhere on that upper rock cliff.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Tristan's coati stalk was a failure. Only because he was trying to shoot a certain one and got busted by the ones he could of shot.

I messed up on a stalk this morning on a small forkie I went up the wrong wash. Nothing more need to be said. Haha.
Got radiator in by 1130. Then went up to where we were last night. We saw 6 coues doe along with the coati. No bucks spotted. I did manage to get a quail for dinner with the bow. Tomorrow is the last day and we got a fool proof plan in place.

 

[zpooch]

Good luck man. Nice to be in the 4runner lol

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Last day....time to let her rip hang 10 dudes!!

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Well all we could find this morning was girl coues. Girl coues everywhere we looked. Glassed until 1030am. Then my buddy had to head back home. I put some miles on and am grabbing some lunch at a hole in the wall tavern before I hit a spot for an evening glass session. Tick tick tick.....

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I don't always lose but when I do its with coues deer. Until next year or December....

 

[Ahab]

I think I did something wrong down there... I saw two nice bucks and a few does but that was it... sounds like you were on a ton of deer. Were you hunting near water?

 

[FlatlanderAZ]

Central AZ is a lot better than Blackfoot in January.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I think I did something wrong down there... I saw two nice bucks and a few does but that was it... sounds like you were on a ton of deer. Were you hunting near water?

The spots i hunted had water tanks for cattle on each side of the ridges, but we don't hunt the tanks. Its a learning curve hunting deer down there. Not sure if it was your first trip and not passing judgment but my guess is you were near deer and just didn't spot them. Thats how it was for me my first trip. Once you start seeing them and you paint the terrain where you saw deer in your head similar looking spots start popping up everywhere along with the deer.