Patience is rewarded on Late 12A West Kaibab hunt!

I just had the honor of hunting on the Kaibab with one of the best mule deer hunters I know!

Duane McIntosh is from California and he lucked out when he cashed in all his bonus points and drew Tag #8 this year for the late 12A West Kaibab hunt. Duane knew this would be his last opportunity to hunt in Arizona on the Kaibab and it would go big or go home empty!

Duane also made it clear from the start he wasn't just looking for a nice, average buck. He is a selective hunter and with good reason.

He has taken an 8x6 buck in Colorado and a 29 3/4 inch 4x4 in California! On this hunt he said he would gladly take the tag home if we didn't find a buck he really liked.

The mission of Arizona Wildlife Outfitters was simple; find a buck with long deep forks, and maybe some extra trash!

Duane was booked for the full 10 days of the hunt and as it turned out, we needed almost all of them.

Besides Duane, his father Larry joined us for the hunt. A heck of a nice guy with a great since of humor, I was glad he was along.

AWO had some extra help on this hunt. My best friend Jay Chan and new hunter Laura Borden were there from Friday thru Wednesday to help with the glassing.

So was Dan Driggs, Colby Adams and Bryan Beckstead. They are from nearby St. George Utah and are muley fanatics. They helped us glass for a couple of days on the opening weekend. In the end, Colby came back and brought his 3 year old son, Trig to share in the recovery of a good trophy buck.

Dave Bruns was there on a hunt with a couple of his friends, but he managed to give us a couple of days of glassing after they both tagged out on opening day.

In the 8 days that we hunted, the group collectively saw over 1,000 deer! We also saw 136 bucks of assorted shapes and sizes.

Duane and I saw about 20 bucks we estimated were from 160 to 180. I got a feeling that a lot of these bucks would have been taken by other hunters up there, but for Duane, it was look at em, take a picture or two, and then move on.

It was for me, the best late deer hunt I have been on where so many mature bucks were seen!

A testament to the management philosophy of the Arizona Game & Fish Department.

For those who follow us on Facebook, I gave a day-by-day account of the hunt, complete with pictures.

On that fateful 8th day, Duane and I went to an area about 25 miles from where we were camped.

We had wore out areas that I thought would produce the kind of buck that I knew Duane was looking for. We had a full moon, but the rut was starting to kick in.

A friend and fellow hunter education instructor, Jim Rich, who lives in Mohave Valley, and loves to hunt mule deer on the Kaibab, sent me a text and suggested we hunt an area he likes.

So off we went on a 25+ mile trip only to get into a driving snow storm that made visibility and glassing really tough.

But we decided to wait it out and hope the snow would quit. It may have been divine intervention, as we both said a little prayer asking that the snow stop, and it did.

With 45 minutes of light left,we began to glass in earnest. I was glassing one canyon, while Duane glassed another.

It wasn't long when I heard Duane whisper, "Don I think I have found my buck!"

It turned out there was a deer "party" going on about a half mile away. There were four bucks in the group; two were mature, and two were little guys who were playing with a group of 15 very agitated does and fawns.

It was going to be close for Duane to get over to the area before it got too dark to shoot.

I didn't even hear the shot, but I was able to make out, "Buck down!" on the radio. One shot from Duane's 300 Winchester Short Mag with a 180 grain factory Winchester bullet had put the buck down in the snow for good!

When I got to where the buck was, the light was failing and it was snowing hard again.

We tagged and field dressed the buck and hung him up in a pine tree. We would retrieve him the next day.

I could see why Duane had wanted this buck. His long tines in the back were impressive as were his fronts. Double eyeguards on the right antler, and a three inch kicker made the right antler look BIG!

He had grown a sticker of the left antler too, but had broke over two inches of it off!

It took a lot of hard work to get the buck back to the truck. Then came the drive to the check in station. Ray Lee and his wife Sue took the measurements.

Ray said the buck was 3-5 years old. The rack was 28 inches wide and 24 inches tall! Lee said he was a 5x5.

If that other sticker had been in place we would have had ourselves a true 30 inch buck!

The G&F had what they called a Top Ten list of bucks based on the width.

The best buck that had been checked in was a 32 inch 5x5, and the there were three bucks that were 29 inches wide. Duane's buck was tied with another buck for 5th widest.

When we got back to the area where the buck was at, we saw a heavy 24 inch 4x3 pushing about a dozen does. The other mature buck that was with this one was also a heavy 24 inch 4x4.

Did I say we saw just one other vehicle in this area, and he was leaving? Yep we had it all to ourselves.

And after we were checked in and headed back to break camp, Duane spotted two deer at the top of a meas less than two miles from our camp.

It was a HUGE 4x4 that was maybe just a tad larger than our buck, chasing a single doe.

After we broke camp and were heading out I stopped the first truck I saw, which turned out to be another guide and his client, and told them where the huge buck was at.

I hope they found him! Figured I would just share the wealth!

A great buck and a great hunter, glad I got to be part of that hunting experience!





Here are some of the other bucks were seen and passed on the hunt!

Good Buck and Story! Congrats to you guy's.

Thanks for the recap Don, sounds like fun!

congrats to the hunter! do you know how long he had applied for this hunt?

Thanks for a great report, Don. Sounds like it was an awesome hunt and with good people. Congratulations!

That's a Great Buck Congrats to you guys! As always thanks for the great report Don!

Great looking Buck, He turned down some really good bucks for sure. Waiting to draw a tag.

"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".
>[Font][Font color = "green"]Life member of
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Duane had 15 bonus points this year.

Don Martin
AWO

Hey Don! Sorry I missed this. Just wanted to thank all of you guys for a great hunt. Dad and I really enjoyed meeting and sharing a camp with all of you. Great bunch of guys! And gal

Btw when we were heading out, I stopped and found that buck again to get a better look. Couldn't help myself lol. Pretty much a twin to mine but a clean 4x

Duane,

On my way out I ran into two guys in a white Ford F-250. One looked like a old cowboy guy who was a probably a guide. He had a young guy with him.

I actually told them about that buck; and where he was at, but not sure he believed me.

Guess he couldn't believe that a fellow sportsman/guide would share that kind of information. LOL.

Anyway, great time with you and your dad. And yes, we had some awesome friends who came out to help!

With this new 5%-5% rule, AZ residents who are the top of the bonus point pools will see more more tags.

NR's with max points are gonna get hammered under this rule, and that is a shame considering they have been in the "game" for many, many years.

But I know why the department did it (They say that NR's asked for it and they probably did)and it should be very obvious to those who know how and why this "game" is played.

I'm not at the very top, but very close for deer, so I'm thinking that my time to draw one more premium Arizona deer tag is close at hand.

You got in at the right time before this change....

Thanks again,

Don Martin
Arizona Wildlife Outfitters

Looks you had a great hunt thanks for the pics and story.

You refer to why this "game" was played please enlighten us. I have tried to get info from the dept and get the line that the premise of the point system was to give every applicant for each hunt a chance at drawing.

If non-residents asked for it there were only 16 of them versus 115 commenting on opposition to the proposal.

$

Cozmo 8:

Have no idea about how many and who they (NR's) were who asked for the change. But I don't doubt some did.

First of all I can see why the Department wanted (needed) to make the change. You got thousands of applicants who were NEVER going to draw a premium tag under the system that was in place.

So some NR folks were dropping out.

Best option as far as the department was concerned was to implement the 5%-5%.

Unfortunately, those NR's who had been in the system the longest lost out in the interest of the department being "fair" and instituting a program where ostensibly every NR has a "chance" at a premium tag.

In the end you aggravate a couple of hundred NR's who have been in the system the longest; but who you know aren't gonna drop out because they have so much time and money invested in the years and years they've been faithful in "playing the game."

And you appease literally thousands of other NR's who haven't been in the game as long cause if they don't get some kind of opportunity, they would drop out.

And you know what that translates too....

Don Martin

A guaranteed single tag in the 1-2 pass would have had the same affect without screwing those who paid the way of AGFD...

I had proposed that a single tag be pulled from the "premium" ones and offered to only NR's. For instance, on the Strip let's say there were 70 tags offered.

Under the 10% rule, that meant there would have been 7 tags that NR's COULD draw.

So pull on of those 7 out and make that a "guaranteed" tag, and leave the other 6 for those in the max bonus point pool.

That would have allowed that 1 tag that could be drawn by any NR, no matter how many points they had, and yet would not have penalized those who had played the "game" faithfully from the beginning.

But that would have required a major change in the rules Arizona has no set aside tags for NR's.

Yep, I think that could/would have solved the issue, but those at a much higher pay grade decided that the change to the 5%-5% was the best overall.

I guess we will see this year IF under this system, that NR's will get up to 10% of the tags.

Don Martin

I agree.....set one tag aside for any non-res to draw in the random

I had written AGFD with that idea also and received a pleasant response actually. But, alas, the 'let's screw the guys who we've built the system on and contributed to our payrolls' mentality prevailed.

Long shot tags are just that, long shots. People apply for them with knowledge (if they care to research them). Statistically speaking it makes no difference for 3 of those tags (in Don's ex) to make it to the 1-2 pass. But conversely, it makes a giant statistical difference to the high point holders in the bonus pass.

All the dept had to do was ensure a tag made it to the 1-2 pass to keep the system a true bonus point game instead of the preference point deal it was becoming.

Sad