I flew in on sunday & DesertRam picked me up. After a lunch of excellent mexican food & getting licensed, we hit the desert in search of quail.

While we did get into some birds, it turned out to be a bad day to be a rabbit, as we hammered quite a few jacks:





We saw some mule deer, hawks & other raptors, cotton tail rabbits, scaled & gambels quail, plenty of critters.

That evening I met up with Jeff, redfrog & others. A pile of us had dinner at a nice mexican place.

Monday, Rockingbbar called & asked if I wanted to go coyote hunting. This is like asking a crackhead if he wants a new rock, so shortly we loaded up with his dog Buster & headed out. Buster is quite a dog. He likes to kill coyotes. If you shoot one, he'll run out to it, jump on it & crunch its bones

We rode many, many miles in the desert, making stands along the way. Most didn't produce. After one of these, back at the truck I heard engines & 2 border patrol agents on ATV's showed up. We talked with them a bit, told then we were hunting coyotes. Barry asked if they'd seen any & one replied "Not really, it's real slow now. Most of them are still down south visiting family for the holidays."

Not the coyotes we were looking for, LOL

A bit after that we had a stand that was hot, produced a triple. I got one that weighed about 35 lbs & Barry got a smaller one that back doored him:







We later saw 2 others running while we rode the ranch. We stopped both times, never got a shot on the 1st but Barry nailed the 2nd with a running head shot at 220 yards. I'll have to post pics of that one later as they're on his camera, but we made sure to get Buster in one of the pics, too.

Nice going looks like yall had some fun.

More PM'ers, many more, joined us for dinner at the same mexican place.

Tuesday I hunted with Jeff Mock. 1st stand produced a triple, Jeff bagged one at about 185 yards.



Place we were hunting is here:



A couple stands later one came in his back door on the run. I couldn't shoot as it was too close, Jeff tried shooting backerds but didn't connect. Later we called in some quail & a gray fox. Got busted by a couple in the afternoon as we were setting up, but no more shots fired.

While hunting, we found a coyote tree:





All lower branches had been neatly trimmed off, there was an old blanket & a bottle of water stashed in the trunk. resting place for illegals headed north. This tree is less than 10 miles from the border, about a mile or so off the highway.

We also explored closer to the border, one stand down there we called in 2 border patrol agents wondering just what the [beeep] we were up to

For dinner, we formed up another large group and hit a buffet near the motel.

will post more later

Wednesday I met a couple of guys who had come in from VA, Jeremy & Russel. Both never been to the desert before, ready to get into some yotes. We spent he day covering some different areas. From one stand we saw one, maybe 400 yards out. never came in. I had an unpleasant encounter with a prickly pear on that stand, LOL

At a later stand we called in a fox, but with no one holding the permit, no shots fired.

After noon we relocated & worked a ranch, making our last stand over a dry wash in an area tore up with sign. I shot a jack rabbit at maybe 300 yards or so on that one, then it was time to head on in. After that, they spent the rest of the trip out on their own. If I'm not mistaken, I think each bagged a yote before the hunt was over. Hunting with them was a lot of fun

They had rented a Ford. That Ford aged considerably in their care...

That evening was our orientation. We had an officer from NM Game & Fish come out & make sure we were all clear on the game & hunting laws. Dinner at the buffet again.

Thursday was a working day for me, as we held board of directors meetings all day. I hate meetings, so the less said about dealing with the minutia of running Predator Masters, the better.

Our first PM dinner of the 3 was that evening, we had the caterers bring barbeque. Pretty good stuff. Sadly, I got sick from something & was too bad off to enjoy it. Fortunately, it was short lived & I was able to hunt on friday. I'm thinking maybe a reaction to something I'd eaten the last day or 2, no way to be sure.

There was a round table that evening, held by some of the top callers in attendance. As I missed it, I can't comment on it & will have to watch the video once it's posted online.

Friday, after having some coffee & brekkie & deciding that I was going to live after all, I agreed to go hunt a ranch with DoubleClutch. He'd found the place on thursday & wanted to go back.

We did & met with a young man whos family owns the ranch. He'd started calling & was interested in doing more of it, so he joined us for a few stands that morning. As he had a lunch obligation, we dropped him off in time to make it & then hunted other parts of the ranch for the afternoon. No luck calling, but a lot of fun. Very windy in that area friday.

That evening the food was mexican, very good I thought. Byron South showed some videos and gave a seminar on calling. While I didn't get a chance to hunt with him, I did get to talk with him a few times during the hunt. Byron is just as nice a guy in person as he's always been online & sure knows a lot about calling & hunting predators. It was a pleasure to listen to what he had to say.

I made arrangements with javafour to go hunting with him and our youth moderator Duffman saturday morning.

I slipped on some ice at the Atlanta airport on the way out. Hurt my left thigh & it bothered me the entire week. Still does.

Did the best I could. Walking was OK, sitting, either in a truck or on stand, hurt like [beeep]. Nuthin' I could do about it except tolerate it as best I could, though.

Friday evening was also the live auction. We had a number of items donated, calls, lanyards, knives, by our call makers. If you haven't seen their work you're missing out

Really made me wish I had some money I could spend, I would have bid on some stuff.

We had some door prizes, a bunch on .223 ammo in 50 round boxes from Ultramax, I believe. Rick Robbins donated a sack of calls to give to anyone who wanted one of his calls to check out. I got one of those so maybe I can learn something about how to use an open reed call.

He also donated more calls specifically for any kids attending.

This brings me to saturday. I had made arrangements to join javafour and Duffman



to run down to the border and look for yotes to kill.

Me and Duff down by the border:



We left out at 0500, got down there shortly after sunrise. had several encounters with border patrol agents once there, LOL

the mountains in the background are in Mexico.

Our first stand, we were quietly leaving the truck when 2 trucks full of agents rolled up & said "HEY GUYS, WHATCHA DOOIN???"

I figured that prolly blew the stand, but seeing as both trucks rolled off & we stayed silent, we tried calling any way. Didn't work...

We saw one yote running across some fields, I took a couple of shots at it with my fur friendly 30-06 but didn't connect. Sadly, I just don't get much practice on running shots here.

Our calling efforts for the day never did call anything in.

Poor Duff, got stuck riding with us. We talked about everything while riding, what he's up to in school, current events, scuba diving, politics, old Cheech & Chong jokes, even the Arizona smokin' HOTTIE at the gas station

Duffman likes the ladies, Oh, Yeah...

He was sitting back there the whole time thinking "Old bastiches, how'd I get stuck with them? They can't call coyotes for crap! What'd I DO???"

We did have a nice lunch in Demming, at a chinese place we found. Then stopped & called some BLM land back towards Las Cruses, eventually making it back to the city in time to get cleaned up for the banquet.

Ribs & brisket, good stuff. Non-attendees raffle had tons of prizes, most of which were won by Catwhacker. he must have bought a lot of raffle tickets

The general raffle had lots of great stuff too. I was fortunate to draw a full set of Byron South's DVD's, while Duff won a sweet pair of Leupold binoculars.

We also presented Rick with the 2010 Will Craig award for all the work he's done to support and encourage young hunters over the years. Rick makes some really great calls & is nice a guy as you ever want to meet. Congrats, Rick.

After the general raffle we had the extra raffles for scopes & guns, some guys went home with some really nice stuff.

All in all, it was just a great time. I got to meet bunches of people I'd known to various degrees online for years, eat some great mexican food, enjoy great company & hunt the desert again for the first time in 9 years.

Can't wait to go back & do it again. My only real regret is that there were so many people I would like to hunt with and just not enough time to even come close.

I'll be glad when my leg stops hurting. I'm treating it with rum.

That should help. Drink enough and you won't care if it hurts or not. Get better soon!!!!

Stu I hope the leg heals up quick!!
It was sure nice to finally meet you.. I think everyone had a great time.. Im really looking forward to next year.. Kerry

Stu, It was great to see/meet you, finally... Take care of that leg...I would seriously reduce the Rum intake and find some Voltaren (anti-inflammatory) to reduce the muscle/joint inflammation...I keep a supply handy at all times..

Stu it was nice hunting with you. We had a blast except when you got in the cactus. Hope to see you next year.

Stu, that little lady caught my eye for sure!

I really had a good time hunting with you and Matt.

Come back next year. I'm going to try hard to make it, maybe by then I'll be able to call something in. I may even eat the road time & drive my truck & enter the egg shoot, never know.

BTW, the small spines are still working their way out...

I was kind of spaced out--distracted by decomprressing from a nasty phone call from my ex wife ("Well, I hope you're having FUN hunting with all your REDNECK friends, blah, blah, blah...) and putting gas in my truck...I missed seeing the hottie...dang!

I think I got all the cactus spines out now...

still wishin i was there.
maybe next year.

one more of Jeff: