USA: Coues Deer Hunting In Arizona

[Green Chile]

I wish I had more of my own photos of Coues in their habitat but I never got into the digiscoping, but what a cool hobby! Here are just a few examples of how they hide and blend in. Keep in mind, you're sick of glassing, pulling thorns out of every crack...sweat in your eyes and you might see something like this in your maxed out optics on a distant hillside but more often, you won't!

The first example is usually you see a body part but not the whole body and certainly not the rack. Imagine him surrounded by brush and you find his ear...or his eye (no joke).

This example never happens for me but if you stick with it over the seasons, you will find a few looking at you. However, he's about 1/2 second away from disappearing never to be seen again and he already knows EXACTLY where you are.

Here's an example of a buck being caught in a rare mistake...moving between shade and light.

 

[WAB]

I found that hunting coues deer can roll all the emotions of hunting all up into one and all in the same hunt.

I have gone after them twice. The first time I used a bunch of points for a late hunt in 36c for the late December hunt. Hunted hard and got rained out but did manage a shot at a nice buck.

The next year I just put in for the draw on a whim, thinking that I'd never draw the tag with just a loyalty point, to my surprise I drew the late December hunt again for the second time in a row.

I missed a buck on the first day but we hiked into the same canyon that I had taken a shot at the previous year. My buddy asked me what kind of buck I would settle for and I said a respectable one. A few minutes later he came back to me and said that he had found my buck. After a hour or so of trying to get closer I got off a 420 yard shot with my .25-06 and I had my coues.

He was shot in the same canyon where I had missed the year before and is possibly the same buck

That is a really great Coues buck!!!

 

[Green Chile]

That is a really great Coues buck!!!

Agreed!

 

[BourbonTrail]

I always try to guess where people are hunting Coues based on the mountains in the background. i.e, WAB’s look like the SE slopes of the Santa Ritas.

I grew up hunting in 34A, and I have hunted in 34B, 33, 32, and 31. Never hunted in 36A or B (near Arivaca) as those units have extremely high drug trafficking (as do the 35 units, but we usually ran into human trafficking there). My late grandfather (retired game warden) actually got to do a ride along with the lone AZGFD officer for that area back in about 2002. They busted multiple illegals and a couple of gringos running drugs in one afternoon.

 

[Green Chile]

We saw a lot of evidence of trafficking…water and food caches.

 

[JimP]

On a side note to the hunts that I was on.

The first year we were sitting on a small hill and we knew that there were no one ahead of us since we had been there for a couple of hours before dawn. When here came a person decked out in full camo down the wash below where we were sitting at. We figured that he had to be a guide for the illegals scouting a route. We were just 16 miles north of the Mexican boarder.

As we hunted and got up on higher areas to glass from we would find some of the guides or lookouts "hides" They were usually covered in very thick brush with trash scattered all over. Clorox bottles that had been painted black, throw away cell phones, candy wrappers along with other snacks. But other than the one running down the wash we never saw one until the second hunt when the ultra lite flew over us heading to the north.

The first year I work up in the middle of the night and had to relieve myself. When I stepped out of the camper I saw some blue flashing lights down on the highway, I just figured that someone had gotten caught speeding or something. That morning those lights were still there. I asked my buddy about them and he told me that it was a water station for the illegals. I guess too many of them were drinking out of the cattle tanks and getting sick. Some organization had put up those watering stations with the lights so that the knew where to find good water.

On the second hunt we did find a new cross that had been placed at the base of a hill around 10 miles north of the border that hadn't been there the year before. We figured that someone hadn't made it across during the summer months when it got very hot.

Talking to the boarder patrol we learned that for the most part the illegals would leave hunters and their camps alone.

 

[Green Chile]

We saw some of the same signs of use with blackened bottles, empty food cans, etc. We didn't see any illegals but the guides say they sometimes see them running. They don't come into camp or mess with the hunters.

 

[Green Chile]

Let's talk more about optics. When I started Coues hunting, I bought some Vortex optics. The 15x binos were ok...not bad but not great. The Vortex tripod I bought was way too light. Now think about that...Coues hunts are mountain hunts for the most part with a lot of hiking and climbing to get into glassing positions. Light weight sounds good but not with optics or tripods! I was looking at these young guides carrying big tripods and fluid heads and heavy glass and folding stools for goodness sakes but once they climbed up the mountain and got into place, they may not move for the rest of the day. They just get on the glass and systematically take apart big country, piece by piece. When I got home from this hunt, I bought bigger/better glass, a good carbon fiber sturdy tripod and a fluid head.

Here's my glassing setup for this trip...the tripod is ridiculous...way too light and no fluid head. I was way under glassed and that little foam seat pad was a joke. You have to pack in serious hardware and stay focused for many hours, day after day, to find good Coues deer.

 

[Green Chile]

Let's contrast my former setup to the pro's setup...I wasn't totally off but they were at another level in gear investment.

Yea, he's really looking at those far slopes but wait until you see his secret weapon!

Binos not single spotters...actually a custom setup of 2 spotters connected with a bino eyepiece...which gave me the idea for my next setup.

Here are 3 pros who can out hike you, out glass you and you are grateful to have them!

 

[Green Chile]

When I got home, I sold a couple of nice guns and got serious with some optics upgrades...big carbon tripods that collapse and articulate around rocky terrain...smooth fluid heads and panning rods...Swaro modular glass with bino eyepieces. One piece of advice is to research what the serious bird watchers are using. They are very technical users of high end optics and if it works for them, it should be on your research list.

 

[pilar]

I wish I knew where the line in the sand is drawn where Coues deer and Carmen mountain whitetail start and end . We hunted in eastern chihuahua and SCI said they didn’t know how to classify the deer in that area , the muledeer where Crooki subspecies ,
The desert bighorn where different than Sonoran also ?
Northern Mexico is a very beautiful and romantic, remote region.
I long to return there again!

 

[Green Chile]

The Carmen mountain whitetail (Carmini) is kind of like the advanced subject for the Coues fanatics. That's on my list and sadly I had to cancel a hunt for them taking place next week in old Mexico. I was really looking forward to that one!

 

[Green Chile]

Let's talk about tripods for glassing. Somehow in my mind, I relegated tripods as a distant second consideration for glassing. I couldn't have been more wrong about that. You can have the best glass in the world...but if it bounces on the tripod in the wind...or you can't SMOOTHLY pan and lock it in...or your tripod is slipping or difficult to balance in bad terrain...it's all wasted without a really good tripod.

The tripod is the one area I really missed it on this hunt. I was thinking lightweight is key...so aluminum legs...and a simple (cheap ass) head would suffice. At one point in the hunt, I got down behind one of the pro's setups and was astonished at how much better a fluid head and rigid, proper tripod with carbon legs was. Their glass outweighed mine by 3-4x but it was much steadier than my glass on my cheap (even though it was a good brand) tripod. Then I tried their heavy fluid heads for panning and locking in. What a wonder that was! To be able to adjust the tension and then move the heavy optic like it was on greased skids with no chatter...no little bobble or shuddering movement. I wanted to take my tripod and throw it off the cliff!

Then there was the panning arm to consider. The pros were all running it kind of backwards with the arm facing in the same direction as they were glassing. They could get comfortable and then just adjust it or slowly pan without hitting themselves as they stayed leaning forward into the glass. That was a revelation as well.

 

[Green Chile]

Well since it is a hunt report, I should say more about the hunting! At this point (6 years ago) with over 30 years of hunting experience, I would say it was the toughest hunt I had been on so far. Desert hunts in general are not easy hunts mentally or physically. You will work hard to get to a good glassing spot and then you will park there for hours or possibly all day. Glassing in this environment is very tedious, detailed work. We would pull that mountain side apart and then someone would notice a fold in the terrain that looked completely different if you moved up and to the side a little bit. So one of us would move a few feet and then take that piece apart.

For the first couple of days, we didn't see a lot of deer. There were some does of course and every so often a small buck but nothing worth stalking the first 3 days. One or two of the guys in camp got deer but I felt like they kind of settled for something after realizing how much effort it took. I will say this with 100% certainty...any mature Coues buck is a good trophy and well earned. I was super happy for the guys in camp but I kept thinking, I know we can find something that the guides will get excited about. So we kept digging in and the hours and days passed slowly.

 

[Green Chile]

The fourth day we decided to take a look at a different area that the guides had done a lot of pre-season scouting on. They had taken a deer or two from it that season but not the quality they knew was in the area. We setup very early from a vantage point on the dirt road, which was something unusual on this hunt. Now we weren't on some farm to market road with traffic but it was a dirt road pretty far back from civilization. Surprisingly we saw some deer at first light moving back in a bowl about 1 mile off the road. It looked like there were a couple of bucks of decent size so the guides wanted to move quickly to get a better look as the deer were on the move and had probably seen us on the road.

The guides wanted to loop around and leave 1 guy at the road to keep watch. So we moved out at a good pace and made a big loop that took about 1 hour. After all this time hunting, I'm still a little amazed when a plan works and you make a good chess move that gets you into better position. We were able to get around these deer as they stopped somewhere along the way.

As we closed the distance, we got into a bad area of loose lava rock with bunches of tall phragmites (I hate that stuff). While working into a better position, the loose rock under us shifted and I fell forward and downhill. As you know, that's a terrible feeling when you are carrying a gun and you fall in the rocks. I was able to somewhat protect the rifle but I landed on my elbow and it was like the doctor checking your reflexes...my hand opened and threw the gun forward about one foot into a rock! Worse than that, the scope was what hit the rock. Geez...are you kidding me? All this work and now my scope is a big question mark.

We had a quick discussion quietly and I said I was concerned that we would make all this effort and then my shot would be off the mark. It was hard to do but I still think the right thing when we ended the stalk and walked back to the trucks. The guide had his personal rifle there and had checked the dope the week before. I dry fired it a few times to get a feel for it and we continued hunting. By the way, I did check my rifle when I got home from the trip and it was off by over 12 inches. We made the right decision.