Awesome Article of Ted Riggs

AZMIGHTYMULIES

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ere's some more history -- this on the AZ Strip from two different articles I've writen on it. -TONY

The "good ol' days" mentioned by **** are what made the Strip legendary.

Among the world's trophy hunters, it once had a reputation as lofty as its next door neighbor -- the North Kaibab Plateau. Over a span of about 20 years, the Strip produced some of the best mule deer hunting in the West, and many of the bucks grew to record-book size. In fact, the trophy record book published by the Arizona Wildlife Federation still lists more than 30 typical and non-typical bucks from the Arizona Strip that were killed from the mid-1950s into the early 1980s.

The history of the Strip prior to the early 1900s is somewhat vague. We know the Mormons used timber from Mt. Trumbull to built a temple in St. George, Utah. We also know good populations of pronghorn antelope and desert bighorn sheep inhabited the Strip because local cattle baron Preston Nutter proposed that it be turned into a big-game refuge. Nothing ever came of it, though. And supposedly, Teddy Roosevelt brought a herd of gazelle from Africa and turned them loose somewhere on the Strip. Nobody knows what happened to them either.

But unlike the Kaibab, where the mule deer had been a mainstay back into the 19th century, the Strip herd has a much more recent history.

When Abraham Bundy and his family first arrived in the shadow of the Hurricane Cliffs in 1917, it was nothing but a vast, dry panorama of sagebrush flats and pinyon-juniper forests. The nearest water was miles away on Mt. Trumbull. Yet, despite having to haul water or melt snow, the homesteaders persevered.

Eventually about 40 other families joined the Bundys to settle a few miles from the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Their tiny community, complete with school and church, became Bundyville. They farmed the arid land and even started to raise cattle and sheep once they constructed some cisterns and stock tanks in the surrounding territory.

Pat Bundy was one of Abraham's sons, and according to his accounts seeing a deer in the Strip country was a rarity during the early years of his life. For the most part, much of the land was marginal deer habitat anyway, and the lack of water in what was basically a high-desert environment didn't help.

This all changed when more ranchers began to utilize the Strip country for sheep and cattle grazing. For two decades beginning in about 1930, the ranchers built dozens of stock tanks to ensnare free-running water for their livestock.

In 1947, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assigned Ted Riggs to the area as a predator control trapper. Using both traps and poison, Riggs made a serious dent in the coyote and lion populations.

Then the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls most of land on the Strip except for a few small, private parcels, moved in during the early 1950s to improve the grazing habitat. With a heavy steel chain stretched between them, bulldozers 'chained' down entire stands of juniper and pinyon trees so new forage could sprout.

For the deer's sake, everything came together. The rest, as they say, is history.

Within a few years, the steady supply of water, increased browse and low predation helped the deer herd grow huge, even to the point where it threatened to overrun the available habitat. The Strip literally turned into a deer factory. By the mid-1950s, hunters in Arizona learned about the excellent hunting and trophy-producing ability. Nearly anyone who wanted to venture into the remote area and endure hours of bumpy, dusty roads could tag a buck. If they had the patience and willpower to pass up the smaller ones, they had a very good chance at an outstanding trophy. Because the soil in the area mirrors the same mineral-rich type as that on the North Kaibab, antler growth was sometimes spectacular, with spreads often going well beyond 30 inches. Place names within the Strip such as Poverty Mountain, Mt. Dellenbaugh, Snap Point, Trumbull, Black Rock, Wolfhole and Seegmiller became well known for their big buck production.

At an old line shack near Grassy Mountain, the graffiti-covered walls tell some of the story. In 1966, a local cowboy, Garn Esplin, scribbled, "Saw 40-50 deer in the past two days." Farther down the wall, in March 1963 ranch foreman Mel Wipple wrote, "What's the matter with the deer hunters? There's 10,000 deer here by the look of things."

Even Riggs saw what was happening. In 1956, he rode his horse from the Wildcat Ranch to Snap Point. On the way, he counted deer; his one-day tally totaled 346 of them. More than half of them had antlers, and half of the bucks were four points or more.

Not surprisingly, three of the notable entries in the Arizona record book have Riggs listed as the hunter. His typical entry from 1968 scored 189. His two non-typicals scored 249 6/8 and 240 2/8. His last Strip deer, taken in 1988, was an 8x9 with double eyeguards.

Sadly, sometime in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Strip no longer harbored a lot of deer. A lot of finger pointing occurred, but for the most part, the downward population trend happened because of several factors.

Worried about a repeat of the now infamous debacle where thousands of deer starved on the North Kaibab in the 1920s, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) liberalized the seasons and also issued a large number of doe permits. Then in 1972, President Richard Nixon banned the canid poison, Compound 10-80 for use on federal land. This move took away Riggs' most effective predator control. About the same time the coyote population started to grow again, the AGFD gave the mountain lion the status of a big-game animal, thus creating the need for a special tag and an annual limit of one lion per hunter. Finally, the drought that has plagued the state for the last 12-15 years arrived. Together, these factors resulted in a dramatic drop in the total deer population.

At one time, the Strip country west of the North Kaibab comprised a single hunt unit. After the deer numbers started to plummet, however, the game department split Unit 13 into Unit 13 A and 13B for management purposes. The split effectively separated the deer populations around the Mt. Trumbull-Mt. Logan area from those in the Virgin Mountain, Black Rocks and Mudd Mountain area.

Although there are fewer deer, Unit 13B still produces high success rates and ranks as a top trophy area.


When I was trying to find a different article regarding Ted Riggs dedication to predator control and helping the Mule deer populations on the Arizona Strip, I also came across this article that I found quite interesting !!! The other article I was trying to locate via internet, shows the coyote/cougar kills by year in the hundreds and thousands, and how Ted Riggs predator control allowed the Mule Deer populations to rebound into the #'s of exceeding 100,000 deer in the unit . Anyone knowing about that article please share . It just shows that predator control is crucial to getting our deer herd populations back where they need to be .
 
thanks, that's an interesting article. it mirrors what happened across the west to many other mule deer herds. seems it wasn't just the yotes, but the combination of a few things. thanks for posting up.
 
I remember reading about Ted Riggs some time ago and it might have been in the early issues of Eastmans but I no longer have the mags that had has stories of hunting. He for sure took some monster mulies out of that area though.

Brian
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LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-12 AT 10:39AM (MST)[p]Guess there is a reason why all those Bundy's have there names attached to giant deer out there. Seems like every deer that gets killed off the strip has some Bundy mentioned. Very cool article
 
ere's some more history -- this on the AZ Strip from two different articles I've writen on it. -TONY

The "good ol' days" mentioned by **** are what made the Strip legendary.

Among the world's trophy hunters, it once had a reputation as lofty as its next door neighbor -- the North Kaibab Plateau. Over a span of about 20 years, the Strip produced some of the best mule deer hunting in the West, and many of the bucks grew to record-book size. In fact, the trophy record book published by the Arizona Wildlife Federation still lists more than 30 typical and non-typical bucks from the Arizona Strip that were killed from the mid-1950s into the early 1980s.

The history of the Strip prior to the early 1900s is somewhat vague. We know the Mormons used timber from Mt. Trumbull to built a temple in St. George, Utah. We also know good populations of pronghorn antelope and desert bighorn sheep inhabited the Strip because local cattle baron Preston Nutter proposed that it be turned into a big-game refuge. Nothing ever came of it, though. And supposedly, Teddy Roosevelt brought a herd of gazelle from Africa and turned them loose somewhere on the Strip. Nobody knows what happened to them either.

But unlike the Kaibab, where the mule deer had been a mainstay back into the 19th century, the Strip herd has a much more recent history.

When Abraham Bundy and his family first arrived in the shadow of the Hurricane Cliffs in 1917, it was nothing but a vast, dry panorama of sagebrush flats and pinyon-juniper forests. The nearest water was miles away on Mt. Trumbull. Yet, despite having to haul water or melt snow, the homesteaders persevered.

Eventually about 40 other families joined the Bundys to settle a few miles from the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Their tiny community, complete with school and church, became Bundyville. They farmed the arid land and even started to raise cattle and sheep once they constructed some cisterns and stock tanks in the surrounding territory.

Pat Bundy was one of Abraham's sons, and according to his accounts seeing a deer in the Strip country was a rarity during the early years of his life. For the most part, much of the land was marginal deer habitat anyway, and the lack of water in what was basically a high-desert environment didn't help.

This all changed when more ranchers began to utilize the Strip country for sheep and cattle grazing. For two decades beginning in about 1930, the ranchers built dozens of stock tanks to ensnare free-running water for their livestock.

In 1947, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assigned Ted Riggs to the area as a predator control trapper. Using both traps and poison, Riggs made a serious dent in the coyote and lion populations.

Then the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls most of land on the Strip except for a few small, private parcels, moved in during the early 1950s to improve the grazing habitat. With a heavy steel chain stretched between them, bulldozers 'chained' down entire stands of juniper and pinyon trees so new forage could sprout.

For the deer's sake, everything came together. The rest, as they say, is history.

Within a few years, the steady supply of water, increased browse and low predation helped the deer herd grow huge, even to the point where it threatened to overrun the available habitat. The Strip literally turned into a deer factory. By the mid-1950s, hunters in Arizona learned about the excellent hunting and trophy-producing ability. Nearly anyone who wanted to venture into the remote area and endure hours of bumpy, dusty roads could tag a buck. If they had the patience and willpower to pass up the smaller ones, they had a very good chance at an outstanding trophy. Because the soil in the area mirrors the same mineral-rich type as that on the North Kaibab, antler growth was sometimes spectacular, with spreads often going well beyond 30 inches. Place names within the Strip such as Poverty Mountain, Mt. Dellenbaugh, Snap Point, Trumbull, Black Rock, Wolfhole and Seegmiller became well known for their big buck production.

At an old line shack near Grassy Mountain, the graffiti-covered walls tell some of the story. In 1966, a local cowboy, Garn Esplin, scribbled, "Saw 40-50 deer in the past two days." Farther down the wall, in March 1963 ranch foreman Mel Wipple wrote, "What's the matter with the deer hunters? There's 10,000 deer here by the look of things."

Even Riggs saw what was happening. In 1956, he rode his horse from the Wildcat Ranch to Snap Point. On the way, he counted deer; his one-day tally totaled 346 of them. More than half of them had antlers, and half of the bucks were four points or more.

Not surprisingly, three of the notable entries in the Arizona record book have Riggs listed as the hunter. His typical entry from 1968 scored 189. His two non-typicals scored 249 6/8 and 240 2/8. His last Strip deer, taken in 1988, was an 8x9 with double eyeguards.

Sadly, sometime in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Strip no longer harbored a lot of deer. A lot of finger pointing occurred, but for the most part, the downward population trend happened because of several factors.

Worried about a repeat of the now infamous debacle where thousands of deer starved on the North Kaibab in the 1920s, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) liberalized the seasons and also issued a large number of doe permits. Then in 1972, President Richard Nixon banned the canid poison, Compound 10-80 for use on federal land. This move took away Riggs' most effective predator control. About the same time the coyote population started to grow again, the AGFD gave the mountain lion the status of a big-game animal, thus creating the need for a special tag and an annual limit of one lion per hunter. Finally, the drought that has plagued the state for the last 12-15 years arrived. Together, these factors resulted in a dramatic drop in the total deer population.

At one time, the Strip country west of the North Kaibab comprised a single hunt unit. After the deer numbers started to plummet, however, the game department split Unit 13 into Unit 13 A and 13B for management purposes. The split effectively separated the deer populations around the Mt. Trumbull-Mt. Logan area from those in the Virgin Mountain, Black Rocks and Mudd Mountain area.

Although there are fewer deer, Unit 13B still produces high success rates and ranks as a top trophy area.


When I was trying to find a different article regarding Ted Riggs dedication to predator control and helping the Mule deer populations on the Arizona Strip, I also came across this article that I found quite interesting !!! The other article I was trying to locate via internet, shows the coyote/cougar kills by year in the hundreds and thousands, and how Ted Riggs predator control allowed the Mule Deer populations to rebound into the #'s of exceeding 100,000 deer in the unit . Anyone knowing about that article please share . It just shows that predator control is crucial to getting our deer herd populations back where they need to be .
Great read, Thanks......................BULL!
 
Damn. I had the early issues of Eastmans and Trophy hunter. Thew em all out when I moved to the oil feilds of N. Dakota to work in 2011. Saved em along time for nothing,..................BULL!
Thinned out my collection a few years ago. Some people wanted old magazines they were in. Most got boxed up and sent over seas to those defending our country.
 

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