Last Pre-Season Pictures

Here are a couple of coues deer pictures before season opens, actually hunting season this year started yesturday, Wujuuuu!!!! It't been 6 years since I last killed a coues, hopefully I will get one this season, I am aiming high and try and get a 120+ coues, I haven't sean any pictures of a deer that big this year, but I am positive there are a couple of monsters at the ranch...

A little skunk vs deer action...

I will go and retrive a camera I have at another location, its been there for a month now, hopefully we'll get some good pictures.

Aug-Sep Trail Camera

These are the latest pictures I have, since it has been raining more than usual, the deer are not hitting the water that often, but on the hot days I get a few pictures...

This last picture date actually is August 23rd, because when the battery is running low the camera resets the date, this buck has good potential to become a nice deer this next season.

Here are some coues deer pictures from a new camera I got, I was impressed with the quality of the pictures, I will be getting another camera of this brand soon, this first picture is a group of 5 bucks, I had never seen some many coues deer bucks together.

Fighting doe...

A five year wait (Season)...

On weekends after getting off work, I gather my things and hit the road, most of my scouting was inside a ground blind and glassing from two hills that are inside the ranch. From those two hills I can glass a nice area, but still there is alot of terrain that can't be covered, those areas have to be covered driving around on a high rack.

As soon as the seasons started, I began by staying inside a ground blind at the water holes I was seeing deer on the trail cameras, In the following weeks I mostly got to see groups of does with small bucks and fawns, no big bucks at all, since the rut was a month or so away.

Here is a picture of 5 does and a yearling that came in to water, I was inside a ground blind a set up a few weeks before openning day, that morning I got to see another group of 5 does. Another group consisted of a single doe with two fawns, one of them was missing the black tip of the tail, don't know if it was a birth defect or a what.

A couple of weekends my cousin Beto (he was with me when I got my biggest coues deer), was glad to help out and tagged along, he loves hunting and doesn't get much time of to go to the ranch, but on one of our trips while glassing we spotted some javelina about 400 meters away, knowing he has not taken any big game animal, I told him we were going to get close, so he could take a shot.

As we got to the point were we where still above the javalina and they had no idea we were around we settled for that distance to take the shot, we were about 200 meters from the pigs. I placed my tripod so Beto could have a solid rest and I began to guide him on where the pigs were, it was dificult to see them, they were hidding behind something I could not tell what it was, after about 15 minutes, finally one of the javelina came out to an opening and Beto made a great shot. All excited about his first javelina, we went down the hill to take a look.



The javalina were all behind a biznaga eating it up, no wonder they last long time without having to go to a water hole, biznagas are really tough, I would love to see how they open one of them up...

I got to see plenty of deer before I got to take my first shoot, here are a couple of the bucks that gave me the time to take pictures and I let go in the process.

This is a video of a buck I got to film eating some cholla, the buck was really calm with my presence, I got to see it jump a fence back and forward and was minding it's business, really nice deer, but not quite what I was looking for. It will be bigger next season.

The sheep hunt

It has become a tradition for my friend Ricardo "Cayo" and I to make a trip on the last weekend of the hunting season and usually that weekend is a long weekend, I belive the 2009-2010 season was our fourth time doing it and on our last trip Cayo's brother Luis Manuel "Mane" also tagged along for the hunt.

A five year wait (Pre-Season)...

The 09-10 season was somewhat special for me, I got to hunt in my ranch myself, it may sound weird, but since we always have hunters comming in the ranch, I mostly get to scout, take pictures and only hunt predators. Last time I had the oportunity to hunt the ranch was back in 04-05 season getting a nice coues deer at the time.

With the economy being in bad shape hunters comming to Sonora declined, as a result we were not fortunate to get someone to come and hunt the ranch, so all the hard work I put in by scouting, having trail cameras set up, was about to be tested if were going to be succesful.

I started scouting and setting up trail cameras two months before the seasons started. Getting some nice deer still on velvet. BTW I never got to see most of these deer with my own eyes.

Mule deer trail camera

Here are a couple of pictures, that came up in 2 diferent trail cameras, the deer look in good shape being the pick of the drawght season, yesturday we had some same at the ranch finally, after about 5 moths of no rain. It will be harder to get pictures of the deer, I will be changing them soon.

I like the eye guards on this one, they are pointing to the outside instead of going up, very wide, I am not sure about the forks tough.


Look at those bumped up ears, couple of fights or barb wire?



This is one masive and wide deer that I have been looking up this same camera, looks to have potential, we'll see how it develops.

Couple of deer that come in to water, they mostly come in groups of 4 or 5 bucks.

Might be the same group, but I keep looking for any marks or scares to make out every deer, there is one I call Quijote, since it has a big mark on the right of the shoulders, very easy to point out.

Another group with daylight, I belive this is one of maybe 5 pictures I have with daylight, they all come in when its dark. The buck facing the camera looks much taller then the rest I have been looking at, hopefully it will develop big forks too.

The Cat Camera

It's been 3 year now since I started ussing trail cameras, and I have to admit, it is an addiction. I started out with one camera, placing it only a month before the season and taking it off as soon as the hunting season ended, and now I have 5 at the same time year round.

Since drawght hits hard here in Sonora, the represos (I never know how to say this in english, there is always diferent words, tank, dirt tank, pound, wash, etc) are all dry and I put in some metal tanks with water to keep deer comming in, but this also pulls in coyotes, bob cats, mountain lions.

As you can see and to my amazement, deer and cats can live togheter. It looks like deer are waiting in line for the bobcat to finish and have a sip of water.

This is the one that caught my attention, I know its a small mountain lion, but still, I did not belive they could be together in peace, or that is what I perceive. I haven't found any dead deer.

Here are some other pictures of bob cats hanging out at the same metal tank.

Las Glorias Muley

I was lucky enough to get invited to a cousins ranch, to hunt eather mule deer or coues deer, he had tags for both, I had hunted the previous season and ended up taking a shoot at a really nice coes deer and clean missed, it was bedding at 400 mts (about 450 yards), but that is another story, I knew some good areas for spottig deer, as I got to the ranch on a saturday evening, I didn't miss a second and went ahead to this area.

Once I got on top of the first series of hills, I got to see a couple of coues deer, small buck and doe, they got spocked and I went ahead to the next hill... as I got to the top I saw another coues deer doe looking away from where I was, very intrigued by what the doe was looking at, I sat down and started glassing towards where the doe could not take the eyes off.

I did not see any movement for 15 minutes, I was looking in to a deep wash with thick brush, when I got to see a deer leg at 450 yards. I had to stare at that same spot for another 15 minutes until I actualy got the deer, It was 5 does, a small forky and "the big buck". It was getting late and I was running out of light.

The deer started moving closer but very slowly, I could not contain myself for a long time, I waited for the deer to get at about 300 yards, as they got to where I wanted just waited for the buck to stop. Pulled the trigger and nothing happend, a couple of does went ballistic, but the big buck just cuddled into a couple of small brushes, put in another round in the chamber and this time I got him, the deer went down.

Since I didn't have much light I gatther my thing and went down hill to get my buck, I called in the radio for back up to help me get the deer out, but help was too far away and I had to move fast. i got to the deer just as the sun went down, I had to take a couple of pictures before preparing to pack the deer out, I had to use the timer and ran back and forward to see how I was doing on the self picture taking, I guess I did alright.