The 2016 Predator Masters Convention is upon us, once again being held in the southern Arizona city of Tucson. I'm excited about returning to Arizona, where a variety of predators/furbearers are available for sportsmen and women. I'm looking forward to chatting with hardcore predator hunters as well as representatives of some of the best companies in the industry, many of which are dedicated sponsors of this site and have donated generously of their wares to support us.

Though not officially underway until later this week, the Convention presents a good opportunity to use up some vacation doing what we all love - hunting predators - so I came over early to do just that. Today is travel day, plus a few hours in front of the boob tube watching the big game. I hit the road about noon or so and made pretty good time. Like last year, I passed what must be the vacation home of the Fraggles, cousins of Henson's Muppets.


I made it to Tucson by about 4:00. There was just enough cloud cover to keep the sun from completely blinding me to this view of Sentinel Peak.


I checked into the hotel just about kickoff time. A few other PMers were loitering, so we made a quick walk for some dinner. Now it's back to the room to finish the game and get a decent night's rest before hitting it hard tomorrow. I'm looking forward to a day of calling with matt1953 and Toro2269, then some afternoon/evening/night sets with AzDiamondHeat. Probably won't check back in here until Tuesday night, when I hope to share photos of Arizona's beautiful desert country, and with some luck, resident predators.

Good luck

Thanks Dave, your well wishing paid off.

Monday morning I met up with matt1953 and Toro2269. After a quick bite, we hit the road and headed east. Roadside trees swayed with a stiff breeze, which luckily laid down to rest about the time the sun came up. We made our way into some rugged state trust land for our first Arizona predator hunt of 2016.

Here's a sampling of the terrain we started out in. Beautiful but rugged country.


Our first stand was a bust, but on the second stand, bird sounds from the Shockwave brought in a pair, one of which got close enough to meet a cloud of 00 buck after getting a close up look at the spinning decoy.

See the call on the right and the coyote on the left?



It wasn't long before the wind returned in force. We toughed it out for a few more stands, but called it a day after lunch since we had to return to town for some other commitments. One of those was my planned meeting with AzDiamondHeat. We had arranged to meet up in the afternoon for some evening and night stands. Neither of us is well-versed in night calling (it's not really legal in NM from whence I come and has just recently become legal for coyotes in a few hunting units in AZ), so I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that a half-dozen stands turned up nothing but a red haze in the air.


We were disappointed to miss our chance at getting a nighttime coyote, but vowed to hit it hard the next day after a few hours of sleep. Morning came, and once again the wind was howling before daybreak, but calmed in time to start hunting. We began our first stand before the sun came up in a large creosote-filled flat with plenty of sign. That evidence of coyotes wasn't enough though - we turned up a blank. And then we turned up some more blanks. By mid-morning, we were out of the lower flat country and deeper in the rugged foothills.

It was my turn to call when we peaked over a hill and down a steep embankment into a wide, brush-filled draw that called out to our inner predator hunters. I stumbled my way down the steep hill to place the Shockwave on a flat rock in the middle of the sandy draw where it would be easily seen by us and hopefully by something furry. After clambering back up to the top of the rise, I started off with bird sounds, then played some bunny blues, then back to the birds. I'd been calling for about 20 minutes or so and was about to give up, again, when a stealthy shape seemed to appear out of nowhere. I had to look twice to confirm that it was a bobcat and not my imagination! I have never called in a cat, so I my heart immediately started to beat faster with a shot of adrenaline. AzDH, being the consummate host, let me take the shot when the cat stopped just feet from the call. The 2010 Egg Shoot gun broke the silence and the bobcat jumped straight up in the air, took about three steps, and stopped to look back at the caller, which was now playing annoying coyote kiyis. Silently cussing myself for apparently missing what should have been a simple 50-yard chip shot, I lined up the crosshairs on the cat's shoulder and fired shot number two. This time he did as he was supposed to and collapsed in a heap. I was so stoked that I negleted to get the "view from here" photograph. In fact, I nearly ran off the hill without my gear, but AzDH reined me in and we made our way down with a bit more care than I started out with. Within minutes, I was able to lay hands on my first bobcat. What a beautiful animal, and a true treat to have taken him with a good friend.





We strung him up on the critter toter for the recovery and headed back out to the truck.



After tending to the cat and having a bite of lunch, we got back to calling. Despite working some great looking stands, we failed to turn up another critter. We called it a day at about 4:30 so we could get back to base, load up our gear in separate trucks, and part ways.

I must thank AzDiamondHeat for sharing his base of operations and showing this out-of-stater his stomping grounds and the hows and whys of calling in this cactus-rich environment. I enjoyed the day and look forward to our next outing.

But now I need to get some sleep to prepare for more tomorrow. There's more fur out in them there hills!

Great reading Troy. Rick

Thanks for sharing your story-Enjoyed your hunt-Grats on your Cat--

Great story Troy thanks for sharing, and congrats on a gorgeous kitty, Keep us posted.

It is ALWAYS good times hunting with Troy.

And now, for the REST of the story....lol

Weather predicted HOT and windy. I told troy we would be hard pressed to see anything after early morning, but if the weather was as predicted we COULD see a cat. The area we were calling was very catty so I thought we had a chance. Ironically, the stand where the cat came in was just about the LEAST catty of all the stands we did. GO figure.

Funny enough, when we set up Troy trudged his way down to the bottom of this big wash to set the call up in the middle. As he climbed back up he actually said, and I quote: "I am NOT climbing back up that hill without a bobcat!". NOT kidding. Troy called his shot.

For the record, I wasn't being THAT great of a host by "letting" Troy shoot. The fact is I was over-gunned and would have blown it up. Had I the proper rifle I would have shot it in an instant(I DID see it first!) just to rub it in his face and watch him cry. lol. Actually I barely even lifted my rifle after I asked if he was on it and he replied in the affirmative. Troy never misses.

Last year Troy said he had never shot a grey fox. So we went out and called all day and called A grey fox that he subsequently put down. This year, as we were heading out he mentioned that he had never shot a bobcat. So we called ALL DAY(and the night before) and called in A bobcat which he subsequently put down.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Troy, NEXT YEAR tell me that you have yet to shoot a pair of big tom lions!!!

Nice cat!

Great cat and write up Troy!! Get them hand calls out and call in another one!!

Will do!

That blue antler call I got from you hangs from the same lanyard as my Shockwave remote and gets used in conjunction pretty often; just not on this particular stand.

I will definitely try to arrange that. You find a hill that I won't climb back up without one, or two, and we'll go give 'em he!!.

Awesome! Nice going guys.

Arizona predator trifecta? Check.

Mastery of Photobucket. Err, not. I'm really starting to not like Photobuck and it's orientation edit feature. If any of these pictures show up 90 degrees off, please rotate your head or skip those that offend.

A couple weeks ago I reached out to SnowmanMo from Predator Technology Group in an attempt to take him up on last year's offer of a day hunt. (Aside - if you need a great AR or replacement trigger for your current evil black rifle, look no further than PTG. Mo and crew will definitely take care of you.) Mo was able to adjust his schedule to free up some time for a hunt this morning. We met at the hotel, loaded up my gear in his truck, and headed out for some calling.

Less than an hour later we parked the truck, moved gear to Mo's butt-kickin' Kawasaki Mule, and roared off into the desert in search of furry critters. A few miles later, we left suburbia behind and found a place to park the Mule for our first stand. I thought it was a good sign when I saw this gal right off the bat. At least some game was out and about.


We sneaked up a small draw into the rocks and found a good place to set up. Mo sent me a bit further up the hill, with instructions to hang his little FoxPro from a branch half way between him and me. He told me to watch the adjacent hillside and the narrow canyon before us because a fox would come from one of those two places. Not one to argue with past successes (check Mo's posts!), I did just that. With shotgun in hand, I hung the call then found a nice prickly bush to snuggle up against. About seven minutes into the stand, I spied a grey fox moving down the very canyon Mo pointed out. As the fox disappeared behind some other prickly bush, I quickly calculated his approach to the caller and readied my Mossberg. When he reappeared, I was ready and sent a charge of #4 buck his way. At less than 20 yards, he didn't stand a chance. My second grey fox was in the bag.


Mo called for a while longer, but no more fur was to be had on this stand. I collected my fox...


...and met Mo for our walk back to the Mule, where we posed for the obligatory Snowman hero shot (see the little snowman on the Mule skid plate?).


We stowed the fox aboard the Mule to be skinned later and puttered on up the trail looking for another likely looking spot. We found one a little higher in the foothills and stashed the buggy before a short hike out into the desert. Once again we split up, with the call between us. Mo bushed up watching uphill, while I tucked into the shade of a large boulder looking down in a canyon from which we hoped a cat or fox would come. Mo fired up the Scorpion and within five minutes I spotted something grey moving in the brush about 50 yards out. I couldn't clearly identify it right away, but about a minute later a cottontail rabbit hopped on his merry way. Disappointed that it wasn't a furbearer of some type, I went back to scanning, switching my attention between the vista ahead and the call behind. After one such glance back, I turned around to find a fox perched upon a rock just 25 yards away. I froze and we had a short stare-down before he hopped of the rock. While he was in the brush, I moved slightly to reposition my rifle in his direction. I peered through my scope and was able to spot the fox concealed in some brush. With some fine tuning, I found a small gap in the brush through which I could see the fox. Fearing that the 53 grain Vmaxes would be less than fur-friendly, I waited until I was sure he was facing me straight on, then I centered the crosshairs on his chest and pulled the last of the slack from my PTG trigger. I didn't see the fox fall in the brush, but I was confident of a good hit as I went back to scanning for additional animals. A few more minutes of calling brought nothing else in, so I collected and admired another beautiful Arizona grey fox.


After this sunny stand, we had to ditch some clothes before loading up and looking for another stand location. Unfortunately, we encountered impassable terrain (even for the billy goat-like Mule) and had to turn back. We boogied out of this area, loaded the Mule on the trailer, and traveled a short distance to another area Mo wanted to check out.


After a short Mule ride in, we found a nice place to set up and eased into the brush. While placing the call, a somewhat disruptive hiker passed by, hollering "Don't kill anything" and "Leave the animals alone." We waited for things to settle down, but in the end, disruptive hiker lady got her way - we didn't call anything in at this location. By this time it was getting hot and windy, so we called it a day and headed back to the truck. Though we made only three stands, we called in a couple nice foxes and scouted some new country, hopefully laying the groundwork for successful future stands.

At the trailhead, we took a few minutes to get a picture of both foxes before skinning them out.


I had a couple spare hours in the afternoon, so I hit Sportsman's Warehouse for some camo wrap (to tone down my clanking Critter Sitter). Lo and behold, I also scored a five-pound keg of Reloader 19, which I haven't seen on the shelf for a long time. Getting a good supply of one of my favorite powders was nearly as exciting as getting a bobcat or fox! Well, okay, not really, but you get the picture.

Back at the hotel, I listened in as an Arizona Game Warden briefed us on the ins and outs of predator hunting in Arizona. From there, I wandered across the street for dinner, where I bumped into JB from EOTech, who's in town to speak at the Convention and show off some of his company's goodies. I can't wait to hear and see what JB has to offer later in the week. We can always count on EOTech to regale us with some fun hunting tales and showcase some wonderful gadgetry.

That's it. Day three is over. Tomorrow the search for Arizona furbearers continues...

Troy, you're having entirely too much fun LOL

Good to see you've had a couple of great day in the field.

Congrats on getting all three! Now go get some bonus critters!

Congrats.

Just wish it was a little cooler for you while you are here. It's 84 in Phoenix today.

nice dude!

On Wednesday evening after the Game and Fish presentation, I met and chatted with member desert dave. Since he hadn't made plans for Thursday, we decided we'd go calling together. Thursday morning he and I met up with Matt1953 and Toro2269 for a bite of breakfast before heading out. We traveled about half an hour to some state land outside of town and were set up for our first stand before the sun rose. Three of us set up overlooking a wide open area, while Toro watched a narrow road carved through the heavy brush to our rear. Before we started calling, we heard barks and howls in the distance, so instead of going right to distress, we threw out some female invitation howls and whimpers. Then into some bird sounds, rabbit sounds, and back to the birds. I mixed in some rabbit distress using my catwhacker-make open reed antler call. Shortly into that series, Toro opened up on a large coyote trying to sneak in our back door. Despite what appeared to be a solid hit (based on hair and blood), we were unable to recover the coyote. Disappointed, we moved onward. By midmorning, we left the rocky desert areas behind and entered flatter, sandier scrublands.



On a stand much like the one pictured above, we called in another coyote, which I managed to scare off by switching sounds just as Toro lined up for the shot. Lesson learned - make sure there's not a coyote in full charge ten feet from the call when you switch sounds. It was very frustrating to lose out on another coyote, particularly since Matt and I needed to leave shortly after that to get back to help set up for the opening night of the Convention.

Of course that night we were treated plates full of tasty Italian grub and then educational and entertaining presentations by Big Al Morris from FoxPro, Tom Austin from Predator Strikeforce and FoxPro, and John Bailey of EOTech.







Then it was time to tear down and make plans for the next day.

Thanks for posting Troy!!

When Thursday evening's festivities came to a close, we had made arrangements for five of us to head out Friday morning to see what we could rustle up.

Friday morning we (SnowmanMo, desert dave, Toro2269, Matt19953, and myself) met up in the parking lot, selected a location to hunt, and hit the road. About an hour later we pulled off to finalize plans and split up - Mo and I headed north and the other three guys headed south - with plan to circle around and meet up in a few hours.

On the first stand of the morning, Mo called in a nice looking fox, which played hard to get before finally popping out of the brush in completely the wrong spot at less than ten yards from me. We had a short stare down, and when I made my move to bring the shotgun to bear, the fox bolted. I burned up three rounds of buckshot and killed a mesquite bush, but managed to miss the fox completely. Disgusted, we left and made a few more stands, but had no other takers.

We met up with the other guys and decided to try to get out of the increasing heat by heading into higher country. On the way, Mo, aka The Fox Whisperer, stopped the truck and told me "You guys have to call that little canyon right there. There's a fox in it." Not one to argue, I grabbed the other three guys and we hiked down into the canyon and set up on a nice vantage. Less than 20 seconds into the set, I saw a fox come bailing off the far ridge on a beeline for us. While watching for it to reappear on a small hill between it and us, another fox popped up right at the call, caught a whiff of human scent, and exited stage right. Drat, I knew I should have set up over the caller with the shotgun. A few minutes later, the first fox made its appearance and got made famous. Here's desert dave recovering his first Arizona fur.


I'm not sure who was happier here - Dave for getting his fox or me for calling my first fox double and getting one for a new buddy.


We left there to move further up into the hills, but the heat followed us and we had little further luck on our several more stands (though Mo did call in and get backdoored by a coyote). I had to get to the Game and Fish office before closing time to get a CITES tag for my bobcat, so Mo and I left the other three to make a few more stands and made tracks for town. On the way out, we saw evidence of at least one truly intrepid desert adventurer.


We also saw several places that just begged us to come back and call for foxes or cats.


(Aside - if you kill a bobcat in Arizona and want to remove it from the state, you need one of these tags, which are like zip ties. That's not a big deal. However, Game and Fish personnel are required to route the tag through two of the three holes in hide of the head. That's a bit of a challenge if you freeze the cat without skinning the head.)

Later than night we regrouped for dinner and more camaraderie. After a meal of roasted game hens and all the fixins', Byron South of Convergent Hunting Solutions took the stage to regale us with tales and video of him and others using the Bullet call and related mobile phone apps. If you like tech, this call could be for you! It appears to have a lot to offer, and I'm eager to see one in action personally.


As the festivities wound down for the night, I wandered by the table on which the various Egg Shoot prizes were on display.

Here's the custom AR that the winner took home.


And the trophies and other prizes.


Past Egg Shoot winners get a chance to take home this traveling trophy and FoxPro Shockwave .


And last but not least, young PMers get to compete in their own Egg Shoot for one of these trophies.


All of these trophies were won Saturday morning and presented during the main banquet on Saturday night, but that's another post...

Thank you Troy for an awesome adventure!

Troy, what did you do with your bobcat?

well, I'm glad Troy is willing to tell us about the parts he got into, since everyone else seems to have lock jaw...

Been that way for a couple of years now!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I froze it again. I'll be running it down to the taxidermist for a rug when I get the chance.



I hope to finish up tonight with tales of Saturday's Egg Shoot fun and the banquet where, once again, I didn't win a rifle. Got a nice scope though...

Troy, I heard you ended up with a rifle though

Nope. My daughter won one of the little Savage .22s that were used in the Egg Shoot, but I didn't, despite putting a bunch of tickets in little boxes. I really wanted that PTG AR, but it wasn't to be. Guess I'll have to buy an upper from Mo now...

Saturday dawned clear and bright, with minimal wind - the perfect kind of day to go hunting predators, or in our case, eggs. If you don't know about the Egg Shoot, take a few minutes to read up on it HERE. After all the shooters checked in themselves and their rifles, the crew delivered the eggs to the 150-yard line.


Yes, there really is a wooden stand with five eggs on it in this picture. I'm not sure mere mortals can see it with the naked eye though.

The contenders were divided into shooting groups of five or less for the first round.



After some good shooting, and some luck I think, the field started to narrow...


And within a short time, only two shooters remained to duke it out for first and second.


But in the end, there can be only one, and AWS from Washington (on the left) walked away the winner of the 2016 Predator Masters Egg Shoot. He'll get to hunt next season with that dandy AR I showed above.


Once all the hands were shaken and congratulations were imparted on the three winning shooters, past Egg Shoot winners took to the range in the Egg Shoot Champion shootoff. In case you didn't know, past Egg Shoot winners are not eligible for the standard Egg Shoot, so PM recently started a secondary contest that pits past winners against each other in a yearly match to see who still has it. This year there were four past winners in attendance, and we lined up for our turn to send bullets down range.


Within just a few rounds, we were narrowed down to two (reb8600 and me), and then just one (unfortunately not me). Reb8600 outdid me in the final round when I missed and he didn't. In fact, he didn't miss an egg in the entire shootoff. Darn fine shooting sir! After getting our butts kicked, the three of us were still nice enough to pose with this year's champ (second from the right).


When all the big guns were put away, Jeff Mock and I broke out a couple of the little .22s that Savage sent over and got them sighted in for the Youth Egg Shoot. There were four kids in attendance this year, and we wanted to them to have some fun. In addition to the rifles donated by Savage, the fine folks at Predator Technology Group donated enough ammo for the kids to take plenty of shots at those pesky eggs. We moved the egg stand in to 50 yards and put the kids to work.

Here's my son sighting through the scope to get a feel for a strange rifle.


And here he is after a couple good shots.


My daughter also shot. Here she is getting ready for her turn.


And reloading after a less than perfect shot.


Here are the four happy egg hunters after the match was complete.


Good times and good shooting. When it was all done, we had a few hours to kill before the banquet, which I'll summarize in my final post (you're ready for that, right) in the next day or so. Thanks for reading this far.

I will have some information on the egg shoot as well as pictures of it and the banquet nights but am trying to get caught up at work and home. I will try to get something over the weekend. I didn't do much hunting so I wont have any stories for that.