2012 Strip Archery Hunt
MuleyMadness
9/5/12 7:01pm
Aaaaand were back! Wow, a guy goes scouting and hunting for a little while and 2 months go by! My apologies for the long absence from the blog. I give my word it won't happen ever again. In fact, we intend to ramp up our blog activity and hopefully build a faithful following. Anyways....
One of the best pieces of business advice I feel I have ever received is this. "Surround yourself with people better than yourself." I have worked hard to do this and can honestly say that it has been achieved. Case in point is the unreal job that AZSB guide Bob Dykeman, Hunter Gary Galford and assistant Tyler Tyree, did on the opener of the 13B bowhunt...
In early July while hitting all my old spots I found a great buck that appeared to be half grown. He was a 6x7 and, although a dandy, didn't strike me as something we would be hunting. My initial opinion was that he would finish a bit over 200" A dandy for sure but not the type of buck we focus our attention on. So, I dismissed him early and gave him little thought as the summer rolled on. In case you haven't heard the Strip is suffering a below average year this season. Bone dry conditions thru May and June have reduced many of our 200"+ inventory list to bucks that are mildly interesting to look at. In fact, to put a number on it, we have found exactly 25% of the gross 200" or bigger bucks than we had found this time last year, or the year before, or the year before that...Anywho it is a tough year to say the least. So amongst our team we had seen 3 bucks that we wanted to kill ahead of this buck. Not to take away from him at all, he just wasn't going to be our focus. The massive amount of rain the Strip has received this summer climaxed two days before the bow hunt started with a 2.5 inch flood that removed a few roads from existence and furthered the water options for the deer even more than they had been already. So as the 24th of August approached, my gut tightened as we repeatedly failed to relocate any of the best bucks we wanted to kill... After reducing the head down to the skull cap and antlers we began to tape the buck. As we figured, each measurement was much longer than we had estimated. The final tally came back at over 220"! To be sure that we had it right we taped him again. It was the same at 220.4 His frame was a hair over 192" with 28 inches of extra.
I want to say thank you to Gary Galford for trusting us with his valuable tag, I want to thank Bob Dykeman for his unrelenting drive for success and his endless dedication to AZSB. And last but not least to Tyler Tyree for the multiple rough miles hiked and the gallons of sweat he poured out for the cause. I can say with full confidence that the future of Arizona Strip Bucks LLC is blindingly bright and it is due 100% to the team of individuals that make up our company. I could not be prouder of what we are building.
PS- We still have two guys hunting and each is hot on a whopper buck. We unfortunately had a missed shot on the morning of day eight but we are still grinding and odds are fair that there will be more bucks to post in a day or two. Thanks for reading and God Bless....Matt
Be sure to check out Matt's website here...
http://www.arizonastripbucks.com
One of the best pieces of business advice I feel I have ever received is this. "Surround yourself with people better than yourself." I have worked hard to do this and can honestly say that it has been achieved. Case in point is the unreal job that AZSB guide Bob Dykeman, Hunter Gary Galford and assistant Tyler Tyree, did on the opener of the 13B bowhunt...
In early July while hitting all my old spots I found a great buck that appeared to be half grown. He was a 6x7 and, although a dandy, didn't strike me as something we would be hunting. My initial opinion was that he would finish a bit over 200" A dandy for sure but not the type of buck we focus our attention on. So, I dismissed him early and gave him little thought as the summer rolled on. In case you haven't heard the Strip is suffering a below average year this season. Bone dry conditions thru May and June have reduced many of our 200"+ inventory list to bucks that are mildly interesting to look at. In fact, to put a number on it, we have found exactly 25% of the gross 200" or bigger bucks than we had found this time last year, or the year before, or the year before that...Anywho it is a tough year to say the least. So amongst our team we had seen 3 bucks that we wanted to kill ahead of this buck. Not to take away from him at all, he just wasn't going to be our focus. The massive amount of rain the Strip has received this summer climaxed two days before the bow hunt started with a 2.5 inch flood that removed a few roads from existence and furthered the water options for the deer even more than they had been already. So as the 24th of August approached, my gut tightened as we repeatedly failed to relocate any of the best bucks we wanted to kill... After reducing the head down to the skull cap and antlers we began to tape the buck. As we figured, each measurement was much longer than we had estimated. The final tally came back at over 220"! To be sure that we had it right we taped him again. It was the same at 220.4 His frame was a hair over 192" with 28 inches of extra.
I want to say thank you to Gary Galford for trusting us with his valuable tag, I want to thank Bob Dykeman for his unrelenting drive for success and his endless dedication to AZSB. And last but not least to Tyler Tyree for the multiple rough miles hiked and the gallons of sweat he poured out for the cause. I can say with full confidence that the future of Arizona Strip Bucks LLC is blindingly bright and it is due 100% to the team of individuals that make up our company. I could not be prouder of what we are building.
PS- We still have two guys hunting and each is hot on a whopper buck. We unfortunately had a missed shot on the morning of day eight but we are still grinding and odds are fair that there will be more bucks to post in a day or two. Thanks for reading and God Bless....Matt
Be sure to check out Matt's website here...
3,273
Jeff