Arizona Bushman
New member
Have you ever had one of those hunting trips that starts out rough and then gets worse but ultimately ends up coming together in the end? That is exactly how my weekend played out.
Friday morning I got up extra early to get a head start on the Arizona Bobcat/Fox season and found myself navigating a river bottom well before the sun came up. It was still pitch black out and I was making my way through a sand section when the unthinkable happened. I was stuck and stuck badly! The truck was buried up to the bumpers in soft silt and all four wheels were throwing sand. Great, I have a Sprint phone and no service whatsoever. I was miles from a nearby road and had nobody to help me out of this pinch. I walked up and down the river bottom for the next three hours collecting scrap wood and random trash. From there I used my bare hands to dig sand from under my truck and wedged the collected wood under my now deflated tires. I slowly eased the truck into four low and inched out of the sand with my improvised traction devices. I barely had time to head home and grab a shower before heading to work.
Saturday, the girlfriend and I decided to head up North in hopes of getting her onto a fox or cat. We figured that we could make it a weekend getaway so we brought up some rudimentary camping supplies and headed out in her little Nissan Xterra instead of my truck. Just as we were pulling into an area that was showing promise of holding cats, lightning struck again and we were high-centered on a dirt berm. At this point, I was over the whole getting trucks stuck and needed to walk away for a minute. I silently grabbed my gear and crept up a hill with the wind to my face and was greeted by a giant bull elk taking a nap! Man, if only it was elk season and I had a bigger rifle. The bull woke up and trotted off. I went back down to the truck with a clear mind, jacked up the rear end and stacked up several flat stones under the spinning tires, grabbed just enough traction to free the truck. We set up camp only to call it a day with a heavy rain storm and soaking wet gear…………
Sunday morning we woke up to a steady rain and wet fire wood. At about 9AM the sky cleared up and we headed down a logging road that followed a fence line. A few miles from camp I noticed a set of fresh coyote tracks running down the road and then heading up a ravine. We dismounted the truck, walked about a hundred yards and set up the first stand in three days of trying. Less than three minutes into Pup Distress 3 on the FoxPro Wild Fire a coyote was trotting straight towards me! I barked the dog to a stop at about 60 yards out and put the 40 gr. Nosler right through his neck with the .223 Flat top.
We continued down the road and were talking about finding deer or elk antlers next to the fence line when I started noticing scat piles all over an intersection that we crossed through. After driving a few hundred yards down wind, we dismounted the truck and cautiously began moving through the woods. Just as I was putting the call into a tree, my girlfriend motioned that there was a coyote on the ridgeline about 200 yards through the forest. I figured that we had jumped the dog but decided to call anyways. Less than 15 seconds into Pup Distress, we had two coyotes charging down the hill side at warp speed. The lead dog made it to the tree instantly and ran two circles around it. It was probably pretty confused as to why a puppy was eight feet up a tree. Just as the dog stood up on its hind legs against the tree I zipped it right between the shoulders and then quickly rotated towards the second dog that was now running back up the hill. The dog began to side hill in an effort to get away, I put my crosshairs just in front of its nose and pulled the trigger…….Direct hit and dog down at about 150 yards on a full run!!!
We decided to call it a day and headed back to camp for a quick BBQ and a few games of horse shoes. At about 4 PM we had everything cleaned up and began our journey back to Phoenix. After 3 hours of sitting in the car, I needed to get out and stretch. As I began driving along a frontage road next to the highway I noticed a rugged and brushy canyon that was calling my name. I grabbed my gear and set up about 200 yards into the canyon. Less than two minutes into Snow Shoe HP on the Fox Pro, I heard the unmistakable sound of a fox clumsily crashing through the brush. I silenced my call to get a better feel for the commotion and about twenty yards across the canyon a Grey Fox was peeking around a bush. Since gaining a ton of exposure for shooting a coyote in the face last week, I decided not to take the easy headshot on the fox and surgically placed the round into the fox’s neck.
Friday morning I got up extra early to get a head start on the Arizona Bobcat/Fox season and found myself navigating a river bottom well before the sun came up. It was still pitch black out and I was making my way through a sand section when the unthinkable happened. I was stuck and stuck badly! The truck was buried up to the bumpers in soft silt and all four wheels were throwing sand. Great, I have a Sprint phone and no service whatsoever. I was miles from a nearby road and had nobody to help me out of this pinch. I walked up and down the river bottom for the next three hours collecting scrap wood and random trash. From there I used my bare hands to dig sand from under my truck and wedged the collected wood under my now deflated tires. I slowly eased the truck into four low and inched out of the sand with my improvised traction devices. I barely had time to head home and grab a shower before heading to work.
Saturday, the girlfriend and I decided to head up North in hopes of getting her onto a fox or cat. We figured that we could make it a weekend getaway so we brought up some rudimentary camping supplies and headed out in her little Nissan Xterra instead of my truck. Just as we were pulling into an area that was showing promise of holding cats, lightning struck again and we were high-centered on a dirt berm. At this point, I was over the whole getting trucks stuck and needed to walk away for a minute. I silently grabbed my gear and crept up a hill with the wind to my face and was greeted by a giant bull elk taking a nap! Man, if only it was elk season and I had a bigger rifle. The bull woke up and trotted off. I went back down to the truck with a clear mind, jacked up the rear end and stacked up several flat stones under the spinning tires, grabbed just enough traction to free the truck. We set up camp only to call it a day with a heavy rain storm and soaking wet gear…………
Sunday morning we woke up to a steady rain and wet fire wood. At about 9AM the sky cleared up and we headed down a logging road that followed a fence line. A few miles from camp I noticed a set of fresh coyote tracks running down the road and then heading up a ravine. We dismounted the truck, walked about a hundred yards and set up the first stand in three days of trying. Less than three minutes into Pup Distress 3 on the FoxPro Wild Fire a coyote was trotting straight towards me! I barked the dog to a stop at about 60 yards out and put the 40 gr. Nosler right through his neck with the .223 Flat top.
We continued down the road and were talking about finding deer or elk antlers next to the fence line when I started noticing scat piles all over an intersection that we crossed through. After driving a few hundred yards down wind, we dismounted the truck and cautiously began moving through the woods. Just as I was putting the call into a tree, my girlfriend motioned that there was a coyote on the ridgeline about 200 yards through the forest. I figured that we had jumped the dog but decided to call anyways. Less than 15 seconds into Pup Distress, we had two coyotes charging down the hill side at warp speed. The lead dog made it to the tree instantly and ran two circles around it. It was probably pretty confused as to why a puppy was eight feet up a tree. Just as the dog stood up on its hind legs against the tree I zipped it right between the shoulders and then quickly rotated towards the second dog that was now running back up the hill. The dog began to side hill in an effort to get away, I put my crosshairs just in front of its nose and pulled the trigger…….Direct hit and dog down at about 150 yards on a full run!!!
We decided to call it a day and headed back to camp for a quick BBQ and a few games of horse shoes. At about 4 PM we had everything cleaned up and began our journey back to Phoenix. After 3 hours of sitting in the car, I needed to get out and stretch. As I began driving along a frontage road next to the highway I noticed a rugged and brushy canyon that was calling my name. I grabbed my gear and set up about 200 yards into the canyon. Less than two minutes into Snow Shoe HP on the Fox Pro, I heard the unmistakable sound of a fox clumsily crashing through the brush. I silenced my call to get a better feel for the commotion and about twenty yards across the canyon a Grey Fox was peeking around a bush. Since gaining a ton of exposure for shooting a coyote in the face last week, I decided not to take the easy headshot on the fox and surgically placed the round into the fox’s neck.
