2011 General Mule Deer...

Imagine a deer hunt like this...  Sitting on a vantage point looking at a handful great bucks as soon as theres enough light in the morning to make anything out.  A day or two later, setting up on a huge typical buck and wondering in your head "its early in the hunt, should I hold out?"  After passing the huge typical a monster non-typical comes out that evening just before dark and leaves you unable to get much sleep that night wondering  if he will still be there in the morning.  Looking at buck after buck, just waiting for the magical 200" buck to pop up, day after day.  Some days you lose track of all the big mature bucks you looked over before the sun set behind the ridge...

This was not one of those deer hunts...

P.T. had a handful of bucks located during the summer months of 2011.  At times there were up to seven bucks hanging out together, with no sign of anyone else for miles.  P.T. watched the bucks grow all year until, that is, the middle of September.  That is about the time the bucks decided to disappear!!  No big deal right?  After all, that's how mule deer hunting usually goes when the bucks begin to get hard horned.  Problem is, P.T. knew where the bucks went, and their new location was going to be very difficult to hunt.  With thick cedars that left him with a vantage of less than about 30 yards, gravel covered ground making it impossible to stand still without sounding like a herd of elephants, and the hoards of deer hunters that decided to stake claim to this particular piece of ground made things a little tougher than usual.

Finally, P.T. glassed up a handful of bucks from a high spot overlooking the bucks new home.  They just happened to be in one of the four or five small openings he was hoping to catch them in, but they all slipped into the thick brush before P.T. could size them up and decide exactly what they were sporting on top of their heads.

Days of hard glassing and creeping through the thick patches finally found P.T. on the side of a steep hill with a good buck within rifle range.  As luck would have it, the buck only gave quick glimpses of bits and pieces of himself through the thick cedars as he fed below.  As the light finally failed, P.T. slid and stumbled back to the base of the hill, to the truck, and back to camp... Again!

Heading back to the glassing area P.T. was in the prior evening, he made a few stops to glass the country below him, hoping the buck would reappear... and he did.  This time, P.T. was able to get a good look at the buck.  It didn't take long to realize this was a mature buck, and a shooter.  A mad dash to get set up finally put the buck in the crosshairs, and one shot was all it took.

This time after P.T. slid and stumbled down to the base of the hill, he had a dead buck waiting at the bottom.  At 29" wide, this 3X3 was a great ending to what proved across Northern Arizona to be a slower than average year for the general mule deer hunters.

Maybe next time we can get a smile out of P.T.

Sherri's Bull

Sherri Roose has done a lot of elk hunting across Arizona over the years.  Listening to her stories of her past hunts, about the endless miles spent chasing elk, the long hours put in while hot on the trail of elk, the terrible weather encountered while elk hunting, and her well deserved bragging rights, showed us she was motivated and above all excited for her first bull elk hunt during the rut.

Having spent the entire month of September archery elk hunting in two states had the MuleyBull bunch ready to switch it up, and trade in the archery equipment for something that shoots a little further.

Day one put Sherri in some broken up Unit 10 country.  Up to this point, the rut seemed to be lacking a little excitement this year.  The archery hunters had packed up camp and headed home, many disappointed in the low rutting activity.  However, things seemed to be trying to pick up.

Just before daylight on day one of her hunt, Sherri was sitting next to the truck listening to a few bugles off in the distance.  All were sitting quietly listening to the elk scream back and forth to one another, once we had an idea on which direction we wanted to move, we geared up and started in.

As usual, the elk were moving away from the hunters.  Sherri crossed several draws and canyons, when finally the bunch stopped late in the morning to take a break. With ADD kicking in, P.T. decided to drop down into some country where the elk were last heard.  As P.T. crept through the thick cedars, he finally got his eyes on some elk.  Moving quietly through the thick trees put P.T. within easy archery distance of a handful of cows and a 6X7 that was feeding, occasionally chasing a cow or two.  P.T. pulled out his video camera and got a few minutes of tape before returning to where Sherri was located.

After watching the footage on the video camera, Sherri was game to go after the 6X7.  A short time later put her in the area where P.T. had filmed him.  One bugle from P.T. was all it took.  The bull immediately answered and started to move toward Sherri.  Within minutes, glimpses of the bull could be seen as he closed the distance, grunting and glunking the whole time.

Sherri barely had time to get set up when the bull began to round a cedar tree at 40 yards!  As the bull came around the tree, Sherri set the crosshairs where she needed them (this is about the time P.T.'s video camera died), and wait for the bull to stop. The bull cleared the tree, stood there looking for the intruder bull that had pulled him off his bed and BANG!!  It was as fast as that!  The bull went strait to the ground without so much as a twitch of an ear!  This is where things really got loud!  Sherri jumped up screaming, hollering, jumping and spinning.  This was the first time she had ever seen a bull come to a call, and was her biggest bull to date.

A great time was had by all.  Sherri and her bull made an appearance in the Williams Newspaper, and the Lake Havasu City Newspaper, not to mention the hundreds of picture texts that Sherri sent out to her many friends.

Quick Lion Hunt for Chad Rhoton

You never really know what you might run into while out hunting.  We had a little surprise of our own while archery elk hunting in Northern Arizona's unit 9.  This particular day of hunting is one that rarely comes along.  The early morning hours found us smack dab in the middle of  more screaming bulls than you can shake a stick at.  We called in a 380 class 6X6 to about 60 yards for our hunter, but he was unable to get a clear shot.  Within minutes of this bull leaving (to chase a smaller 6X6 to the south of us) we got on another monster 6X6 that we figured would beat the 400'' mark by a fairly large margin.  While we couldnt get closer than about 80 yards from this bull, it was still a sight to see.  About 45 minutes later, we cut off a bull and his cows.  A 370" class 6X6 came within 45 yards, but as luck would have it, he hung up behind a cedar tree, preventing our hunter from a clear shot. 

With a great morning behind us, we headed out early for the afternoon hunt.  We called in a few small bulls, along with one 6X6 that was around the 320" mark.  Soaked from the rain that had just cleared out, the hunters friend got our attention and said he just saw a cow run off.  He said he just caught a glimps of elk color, and she was running hard.

We headed over to where he thought he saw the elk run off, and came up on a very fresh lion kill...

As it turns out, it wasnt an elk the guy saw run off, but a lion.  We had jumped the lion off its kill with only about 45 minutes of daylight left in the day.  Anyone that has ever hunted lions can tell you that a fresh kill like this is a very good starting point for the next morning.

We contacted a friend of ours, Chad Rhoton.  Chad had an elk client of his own up in unit 9, but was on a few days off before his hunter showed up.  Chad jumped at the opportunity to switch gears and do a little lion hunting.

The next morning found Chad and the MuleyBull bunch unloading a pack of hounds to begin the hunt. 

As it turned out, the lion had returned to the kill that night, gorged itself on elk meat, and layed up too full to go very far.  The dogs trailed the lion, jumped it up, and treed it in record time!

After a few pictures of the treed lion, Chad filled his lion tag with his bow.

Congratulations are in order for Chad and his success.  Game and Fish aged this lion at 12 years old.  Makes you wonder just how many deer and elk have fallen prey to this killing machine!

You can watch this hunt on MuleyBull Outfitters "Just Hunting Volume 2" found at:

Amazon.com

Coming August 2014!