Unit 9? 18 points NR

Elmacho

Active Member
Messages
546
Looking to draw it this year for either archery or muzz.

I have been there a few times in the last couple years and like what I see, but didnt make it this year to learn more...darn it!

How was unit 9 this year? any changes in the herd quality or anything else I should be aware of?

Also, probably will go guided, as I have no buddies that know how to call or can spend the full hunt with me. I am usually a DIY guy, but not sure I want to blow my OIL chance at a giant bull.

Anyone ever hunt it solo? I'd love to hear from ya....

Thanks and Happy Holidays!!


Mark
 
I did this hunt DIY and if there is a unit to go DIY in Arizona, this is the unit. Depends on what your definition of Giant bull is. 350-360 bull DIY is very doable. If your looking for the upper end bulls, consider going guided, but it seems like every Giant Bull has multiple outfitters hunting them. Cameras and Blinds everywhere, for me kind of takes away from the hunt. ON the 2nd day I passed a bull i should have shot it was a 380 type bull intact, but it had busted off the 4th so I didnt shoot. Passed on tons of 350 type bulls. Very fun hunt tons of bulls.
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-22-14 AT 10:32PM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Dec-22-14 AT 10:20?PM (MST)

Never pass a 380 even if he has a broken point even on the 2nd day that's crazy! You can have the point fixed!
Especially this year with all the rain . Elk scattered all over the unit.
Actually made for a tough hunt. But we have hunted unit 9 for 25 years.
My buddies 16 year old son killed a 333" on the archery hunt. One shot one kill!
My uncle killed a 382"on the early rifle. One shot one kill!
I know of several wounded bulls that were not recovered.
These guy's gotta quit using mechanicals on elk it's to risky! You have a 80% chance of hitting bone on a massive animal like an elk.
Use a nose cutting broad head 2 bladed and or with bleeders is good.
It will spilt the bone and keep moving instead of deflecting somewhere in the body cavity or worse.
El Macho I sent u a pm.
 
Looks like they moved it back a week and the muzzy hunt up. I'd be curious where the rut fell this year...was it late during the archery hunt?
 
I have 17 NR points and wonder how tough it'll be for me to have a chance of drawing either archery or muzzleloader in 9? I'm guessing that I'm still 1 behind being able to draw an archery tag for sure, and probably have no chance of drawing a muzzy tag.
 
You're in decent shape for unit 9 archery. They'll pull a majority of the nr tags from your pool if the applicant numbers stay the same.
 
Yeah, I just saw that on Hunter's Trailhead. I went on there after making that post, and it looks like I should have about 40% draw odds if all things stay the same.

I've been debating about what tags to really try to draw this coming season, and WAS focused mainly on my son drawing either a Wyoming moose tag in 38/41 or him drawing a Utah elk tag, since he has enough points for either tag. When I saw the dates change, the unit 9 elk tag suddenly became priority #1.
 
It will be interesting to see how having the muzzleloader bull elk hunt the week before the archery bull elk hunt affects the quality of the archery hunt. The rut seems to get going around the 15th to 18th in that unit and I kind of liked the new dates of the archery hunt until I noticed the muzzleloader hunt the week before.
 
LAST EDITED ON Jan-02-15 AT 10:01PM (MST)[p]Full moon 9/27? I was thinking about 9 this year. I am not sure what to do now. 17 NR points and it looks like it might be a few more years until I get to use them.
 
I'm not sure why the Muzzleloader hunt was moved ahead of the archery hunt in Unit 9...Seems to me they want to make two average hunts instead of two good hunts.
 
Here is the latest breakdown of bonus points for elk going into the 2015 draw for RESIDENTS and NON RESIDENTS.

17 points: 113 residents and 174 non residents
18 points: 108 resident and 99 non residents
19 points: 55 residents, 75 non residents
20 points: 25 residents, 45 non residents
21 points: 15 residents, 15 non residents
22 points: 3 residents, 3 non residents
23 points: 0 resident and 1 non resident
24 points: 1 resident and 0 non residents
25 points: 0 resident and 1 non resident

Now we know that MOST of these folks, especially in the TOP bonus point pools, are obviously looking at early RIFLE hunts.

But even at that, when you look at the Unit 9 muzzleloader tags being offered (25 tags which means only 2 tags AVAILABLE) and archery (100 tags, which means no more than 10 tags AVAILABLE) for 2015 due to the the 10% cap in place, I'd say the odds of a NR drawing these tags with 19 or less bonus points is still slim at best.

Remember there are just 12 total tags AVAILABLE for non-residents in UNIT 9 for those early hunts in 2015. Yes, there probably will be 12 non residents drawn, but I see a lot of non residents in the 17 to 20 point pools...

And I know that there are those non residents in these pools listed that may apply for OTHER units too, but Unit 9 seems to be the TOP tag to draw in 2015 in many elk hunter's opinion.

As to why this happened, (Muzzleloader hunt up first) one our Commissioners brought this proposal up at a meeting, and got support from the others. It only happened in Unit 9, and who knows that will happen down the road.

Could be good, could be not so good.

Time will tell this year!

I submit however, that there is no such thing as a BAD Unit 9 early bull elk tag!


Don Martin
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