Right now, I’m sitting under a blanket downstairs in front of a Christmas tree. It’s my favorite time of year. Not only do I cherish these times spent at home with family, but right after the fact, I’ll be heading into the field with my bow. Bowhunting coues deer during the month of January is like a second Christmas to me.
We were young. For the entirety of our friendship, my buddy John and I have shared the wild hills and waters of Arizona together. In our early 20’s John was suddenly captivated by bowhunting and soon after I caught the bug as well. When we first started trying our hands at archery hunting during our OTC deer hunts here, we swore off hunting coues whitetail deer. They were too hard, too jumpy, and way out of our reach given our limited bowhunting skills. Fast forward to present day and I have become obsessed with them. From their cagey nature to their beautiful coats, unique antlers, and second to none tasting meat. Hunting coues deer with a bow and arrow is the ultimate test for a bowhunter. While they are arguably the hardest animal to spot and stalk with a bow in North America, they are not impossible. Here’s a few proven tidbits of info I’ve gathered bowhunting the gray ghost through the years.
The internet is a wild thing. A few years back, I was connected to a fella named Brad Brooks, owner of the hunting company Argali. Brad wanted to come down for an archery coues deer hunt during the month of January. What was once just a conversation on tactics turned into us planning to hunt together that year and the start of a friendship. We had an absolute blast during the 2020 archery coues deer season, so naturally, we made plans to link back up the following year for the 2021 season.
The previous season, Brad had quite a few opportunities at coues bucks, but in the end, came up empty handed after his arrow rest malfunctioned. This caused him to actually miss a really great buck not once, but twice. That was a hard pill to swallow after grinding 9 days out in coues country. You can actually watch that hunt unfold via a Vortex Select Series.
This year, we returned to our 2020 stomping grounds for the 2021 season. We saw countless numbers of deer, had a lot of great laughs, and even loosed an arrow.
As you can see, we had a great hunt. Yes, it was a bummer that we couldn’t find Brad’s hard earned buck, but that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. Hunt long enough with a bow and these things are bound to happen. It’s all about having a positive attitude during these unfortunate times, and Brad hit the nail on the head with that, which is something I admire. He’ll be back down here in Arizona coues country I’m sure. And I’m sure we’ll again have a fantastic hunt together.
I cannot believe it! Season 1 of Dialed in Diaries is officially over. It has been a dream of mine for many years to put something like this together, so to see it all come to fruition is pretty special for me. Thank you all so much for the kind words and support through the season. I had some pretty low moments, as well as some pretty high ones. It was a great hunting season to say the least, and I can’t wait to get Season 2 started! First up is going to be backcountry spring bear here in Arizona. After that, I’ll travel to Idaho for, not one, but two spring bear tags! Many adventures lie ahead and I’m truly looking forward to sharing it all with you along the way.
Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to the Youtube and blog to stay up to date with all future posts and videos. And until next time, stay safe out there, and good luck in the draws! 2021 has officially started!
Coues deer are a special little deer that have a way of capturing the hearts of hunters. This is the story of how that very thing happened to me years ago. Since I started hunting them on accident as a kid, they’ve ingrained themselves in me for the long haul. From many failed attempts to simply watching them do their thing, they captivated me. Coues Deer are found in Mexico, a little in New Mexico, and my home state of Arizona. It’s a privilege to live in a state where I get to see and hunt them as often as I do.
The full film will be covering how I started hunting coues, my struggles through the years of doing so, the Arizona landscape, and then underneath all of that is an actual archery coues hunt. The hunt took place earlier this year in January. It turned out to be a great time with good friends.
You can look for the full film to be released on my Youtube Channel October 4th! Don’t forget to hit SUBSCRIBE to stay up to date with future posts and videos. I’d also love to know how you got started hunting coues deer! It’s always nice hearing stories from likeminded folks. Drop them below in the comments!
Here is a continuation of the coues deer hunt I was on with my Dad and Brother. In the last episode you saw how my brother was fortunate enough to tag his first coues deer ever. What a special day that was. Kid has been working at that for years now and getting to see it all come together for him was pretty special to say the least. Now, that my brother is all tagged out, my Dad is up on deck. Each morning we were seeing bucks and big ones at that. Today was our last day, and as you’ll see in the video, we made the most of it. Just in time too. The weather was calling for 50 mph winds, and while we’d stick it out if we had to, it was a relief to wrap this up before that. Heavy winds are no bueno for coues deer, or any game for that matter.
Here is a short film of my 2019 archery deer/javelina hunt with my brother here in Arizona. Our December/January archery deer season here in Arizona is a hunt that has skyrocketed to the top of my favorites. The weather is generally great, the deer are rutting, and it’s just a phenomenal time to be out in the mountains here. The tags are over the counter and if you play your cards right, you can draw an archery javelina tag and be hunting them and rutting coues and mule deer at the same time! A great excuse to get off of the couch in the month of January! Each year my brother and I look forward to backpacking into some of our favorite units to chase deer with our bows and soak up that backcountry experience we long for. This hunt was a wild ride and one that I will never forget. You can read about it in depth at a few recent posts called 2019 January Archery Deer and Javelina Hunt (Part 1) and 2019 January Archery Deer and Javelina Hunt (Part 2) Hope you like it! I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below!
So, it began, or I should say continued. Another backpack hunt lay in front of us. This particular area has held a meaningful part in my heart for years. It is where I took my first archery deer and a place I have spent a good portion of my Dec/Jan archery deer seasons in the past. What the next few days would hold, we did not know. I did know that we would have a great time though chasing rutting bucks. On top of that, I had been seeing a herd of javelina regularly in the area. Lucky for us, Jake had a tag in his pocket.
When the month of August rolls around, I have one thing on my mind when it comes to hunting. For those that know me, you know that the answer to that is bears. Over the years, bears have become my favorite species to pursue here in Arizona. This hunt that takes place at the end of August has become one of my most anticipated hunting camps of the year. I get together with friends and family to escape the heat/daily grind of city life. Camp is filled with shenanigans, laughs, and sometimes we come home with something that has a tag wrapped around it. While this is mainly a bear hunt for me most years, this year was different. For one, we had some new company in camp. Good company and some folks that I wouldn’t hesitate sharing a camp with again. For another, I had already filled my bear tag earlier this spring. I still had a deer tag in my pocket though…
2015 was a pretty exciting year for me in the field filled with new experiences and opportunities. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, when I stopped to think about it all. It was almost overwhelming reflecting back on everything, which is what I intend on doing here. Being relatively new to the hunting lifestyle(3 years), means a lot of things happened to me for the first time. The deeper and deeper that I dive into this, the more things that I want to experience someday and the things that I do get a chance to experience, seem to create new traditions that I can’t wait to take part in the following year. There were way to many firsts that happened during 2015 to list here, but I would like to take the time to reflect on the major ones.
Here in Arizona, all of us hunters look forward to the end of July/early August. Why? This is when we find out if we have drawn the deer tags that we are hoping for through Arizona’s lottery system. Myself and my family had not been drawn since 2013, so the anticipation of the results was just plain cage rattling. During the 2013 season, I had found an area that would soon become a second home for me. The amount of bucks that I saw left me awestruck. I can remember calling my dad every night telling him things like, “I saw 11 big bucks today,” or “I had shot opportunities at 7 bucks tonight.” Never in all of the years that we went deer hunting had we seen things like that or had those types of opportunities.
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