In October I had a chance to head out with another hunter named Daniel, who was home for a while from spending some time overseas. We had a pretty good day, and called in a number of predators and even gave a few a long dirt nap. Well Daniel was home again and so we headed out into the low desert of southern Arizona to try and bag some more predators.
Our first stand was an interesting struggle. I setup the FoxPro but couldn't get the remote to work. This hadn't happened before, so I moved around and danced about and finally figure out that a small dirt rise between me and the caller was preventing the signal from getting through. We laughed about it and headed back to the truck. On the way we spotted an official looking truck parked alongside the road near us, but we pulled away and we thought nothing of it. As we got to the next stand location, however, we were crossing a fence when that same truck pulled up and a uniformed officer asked us "You're not going in there, are you?" My leg was about halfway over the fence, so of course I said "Yeah, we are." "I wouldn't do that - it's an active bombing range." "What?! There's no signs up." So he says "Yeah, you gotta look on the map." Lesson learned: look at the map or you might find yourself on an active bombing range. So after a little more verbal roundabout with this officer, who was actually very friendly, we headed back up the road a few miles to the auxiliary air field, so that we could get one of these obviously necessary maps and also a permission form to hunt on the inactive parts of the range.
The air field was a real treat - it looked to be from the WWII era, it was half deserted, and was seemed to be mainly a paperwork junction. We watched a fantastic and well-made 15 minute video about hunting on the range, not touching unexploded or inert ordnance, and leaving the land better than you found it (and at the end I had a sudden strong urge to join the Air Force). Then we filled out the paperwork, got our permission slips and much-required map, and we were on our way. On the very next stand, as we setup and began to call, we got to listen to F-16s dropping live ordnance on the now very active range. Yikes! Turns out the government does not have to put signs up everywhere, and GoogleMaps sure doesn't warn you about it either!
On our way out of there, we found exactly what the video warned us about - though I think this is a flare of some kind:
Things were getting a little windy by now, and we still hadn't seen any fur. We did get to watch some pretty awesome low flybys by F-16s and what appeared to be a game of tag by a couple of pilots. Heading down the road we also got to watch some A-10s on the other side of the highway, though they later flew right over one of our stands in a group of four jets. Yeah, that'll drown out your calls, by the way.
We were really enjoying the air show and the beautiful landscape, though we still hadn't run across any predators. Sign was pretty scarce as well (we had our own theories on that) so we decided to head a little farther south, out of the range of F-16s and A-10s. We eventually ended up in some pretty excellent looking bobcat country, and even found two recent quail kill sites, presumably by bobcats, so hopes were high. Those hopes didn't pan out so well for us, though, so we headed on down the road again. After forcing Daniel's truck down a road that I think was made for quads, we came into some fantastic rolling hills covered in creosote and saguaro, but we still produced no animals on stand. One thing there was no shortage of was trash, though, especially in washes and hideout-type areas. Lots and lots of trash - this is a major frustration point for me. And we came upon this little site as well - an interesting structure in the middle of nowhere.
We hadn't run into too many people, but we also weren't running into much predator sign, either, and we sure as heck weren't seeing any predators. We had tried everything - e-caller, handcalls, up high, down low, spread out, back-to-back . . . . nothing seemed to work. But we had good conversation and interesting sites to see, so we pressed on.
Finally we ended up at the base of some very rocky hills. We were thick in the desert brush but had an excellent view of the surrounding landscape. Still, no predators showed themselves. The sun soon sank below the horizon, so we resorted to spending the remaining minutes of daylight killing water bottles and discussing the finer points of caliber effectiveness on plastic. As we headed back towards civilization, and a long drive home, we ran into an AZGFD Warden who was a little more excited about carrying his rifle than I would have liked to see. But after a check to make sure that we were law-abiding citizens, he bid us farewell and we all went our seperate ways. This was actually the first time in my entire life that I have ever been asked for my hunting license.
Though we went home without any fur, Daniel is a fun guy to hunt with, and that can really make up for the lack of action on stand. Finding a good hunting partner who is enjoyable to be around even when the stands are dry is an important part of predator hunting.
Thanks for the adventure, Daniel, be safe overseas, and we'll get 'em next time!
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