Kaibab 12AE Late Buck

CAelknuts

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Here are a few pictures of the buck my son shot on Friday afternoon, on the east side hunt. As I mentioned on the other Kaibab bucks thread, he was the only shooter buck we saw in 7 days of hunting.

The hunt had it's share of adventure. On Monday night, the wind came up, with gusts we guessed at 50+ mph. Our tent withstood the winds, but our camp was scattered for a couple hundred yards downwind when we got up. A camp another fellow had down the road from us was totally destroyed. He had a big wall tent that was shredded, and a couple other camps had their tents blown down and those guys were sleeeping in their pickups after that. To borrow a phrase from one of the AZGFD people out there, it got a little "Western" out there with that wind.

One nice benefit of this hunt is the chance to see parts of the Grand Canyon that most people will never see. While hunting out on the flats, we did take time to go over to South Canyon Point and Buck Farm Point to check out views of the canyon. I'll try to post a couple of those pics shortly.

All in all, it was a great experience and we're glad to have had the opportunity. It was tough hunting, but that did make the buck he shot just a bit more special. My son celebrated his 19th birthday while on the hunt, and this buck makes #19 a special one for him.

http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/User_files/4574e597060d2b32
 
4574e597060d2b32.jpg



Just forgot the .jpg
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-04-06 AT 08:33PM (MST)[p]Thanks for the help. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
 
Congrats to your son!
That is a nice buck. I like it!

Chef
"I Love Animals...They're Delicious!"
 
We also hunted the east side late hunt and it was a tough hunt.I did connect a 6 to 8 year old buck not real wide but heavy. saw a ton of young bucks and only saw two shooters and one was up in the high thick stuff and we couldn't get on him the other one i took.Was a little disappointed at all the road hunting,with only 50 tags ther was a lot of it going on.I can e-mail pics for someone to post

V-DOG



max bonus points to draw hope it doesn't take that long the next time!!!!!!!!!!
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-06 AT 00:02AM (MST)[p]http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/User_files/45751940544b369f.jpg

Part of the view from Buck Farm Point.
 
Congratulations on a very nice buck. He should make a great mount that will provide many good memories. looks like you taught him well! Enjoy
 
Wow....that's a great buck!! Gotta love those pics....thanks for sharing! Congrats to your son, just for drawing the tag. :)
 
Great looking buck and great pictures. thanks for sharing.......... Allen Taylor......
 
As a postscript, my son found his bullet last night while boning out the shoulders. He was shooting a Barnes TSX like AZGFD asks everyone on the Kaibab hunts to do. I am very, very impressed by the damage this bullet did, and the way it looked when he found it. He was shooting a 130 grain .270 bullet, and it entered midway on the neck and went through the neck vertabrae, traveling down along the spinal column and then veering into the off-side shoulder. Total penetration was about 20 inches or so, mostly through and along a bunch of heavy bone. One petal broke off the bullet, otherwise it looks perfect.

I have to commend AZGFD on their program of asking everyone to shoot non-toxic bullets on the Kaibab. It is one thing to ask everyone to do it. It is quite another to send them a coupon for two free boxes of Federal ammo loaded with TSX bullets for free, as a way of encouraging people to use these bullets and reduce opportunities for condors to ingest lead. They use money from their wildlife restoration fund for this, and I think its a great example of putting one's money where their mouth is.

By the way, those are damned accurate bullets. We're now shooting them in a .338 win mag, a .300 ultra mag, .270, .264 win mag and a .25-06 and we've experienced very good accuracy in all these rifles. Until they offered some freebies to try, I'd never shot a Barnes X or any of their other all copper bullets. I love Noslers, but these are also excellent bullets.
 
I can't help but post a comment regarding the Barnes X bullets. You were lucky to hit bone so you got some expansion on your bullet. If you were double lung you buck or anywhere in soft bone, you would have ended up with a pin hole going in and a pin hole coming out. The blood trail would have been zero and you could have lost a great animal over trying to save a potential problem with a condor. To me my trophy mule deer Kaibab hunt, which I have waited for over 10 years for, comes first before a potential undocumented problem that may arise with a condor. The Barnes X bullets are very accurate, but the expansion is a problem for hunting big game. The Barnes X bullets should be left for the range and not for big game hunting.
 
LVTHNT, Sounds like you wounded an animal at some time. Too bad.

I've shot animals from antelope to elk with the Barnes bullets and couldn't be happier. Where do you get a zero blood trail with a double lung hit? That is absurd.
 
I shot a deer that is this ones twin 2 years ago in 12a east.
It must have come from the same line. The main beams are so unique, I will send your pictures soon.

Nice deer,
Gary
 
We stopped by Muley Crazy Magazine on the way home, where Ryan Hatch was nice enough to take a couple hours to talk deer hunting with us. He commented that the downward curved main beams are a fairly normal characteristic of some Kaibab bucks, but that not that many bucks get old enough to develop it. He said he's seen a good number of this type of beam in older Kaibab bucks. The biologist aged this buck at 6 or 7 years old, and told us that the vast majority of bucks shot these days on the Kaibab are 2-4 year old deer. Maybe, with what these two fellows told us, there would be more of these neat bucks if only people would be a bit more selective in their harvests and let more young bucks grow up. Just a thought.

By the way, talking with Ryan was very interesting, and informative. Thanks for the generous time and advice, Ryan!
 
I shot my Kaibab buck this year with a solid copper bullet also. I shot him through the liver and lungs and the exit wound was about 2" in diameter. With chunks of lungs hanging out. I was very impressed with the bullet and how it performed.
 

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