We started out this year wondering just where we were going to live while we were down in Arizona. We had been staying with a good friend who passed away in 2020. Then I called the old motel that we had stayed in and they were closed due to covid. I tried a number of other motels around the area but all were closed except for one and they didn’t have a vacancy for when we were going to be hunting. So out came the tent and camping gear. The day before we left I received a call from the one motel that was open, they had a cancellation and they had a room for us. So the camping gear got unloaded from the truck and we were ready.
We drove for 9 hours and got a motel room in Show Low, Arizona. And then continued our journey the next morning. My partner had never seen the road from this point down to where we were going to be hunting in the daylight so we took it nice and slow and stopping to take some picture of the Salt River Canyon that we drive through in the dark all the time. If you have ever been this way you will appreciate a daylight picture of it.
We got into the motel and checked in Thursday. The lady at the desk told us that most of the restraints were going to be closed by the time that we got back in each night but that there was a grocery store that had just opened up, so we headed out to check out the store. I was also driving a diesel pickup so we needed to find a fuel station and a few other things. Well, the one station that had diesel was now closed. The grocery store was a mom and pop outfit that really didn’t have very much in it, so we decided to head over to Catalina to a large grocery and stock up on microwaveable foods. Once we were in this store the supply chain problems hit. Most of their food shelves were empty. We managed to pick up a enough items to get us through the next week and were happy that we did.
The first morning of the hunt started out like all of our other hunts. We hit one of the washes looking for tracks. We drove through it up to a location where a long canyon came into it and decided to take a hike and check it out. I went one way and my partner went the other. After checking out different areas and not seeing a thing we met back up at noon to head over to another area to have lunch. We were prepared for lunch, I had picked up a box of frozen chimichungas from Costco before we had left and had wrapped them up in tin foil to cook in a fire. For those of you who are uniformed these are a burrito type of food but with chicken and or beef inside. It takes a little trial and err to get them just right cooking them over coals but once done they make for a good meal.
We had lunch and headed in a couple of different directions. We met back up at the truck with neither of us seeing a thing other than deer and cattle. We headed back to the motel for a meal out of the microwave.
Day two show up and we both headed a different direction. I went up to a long draw that we had nicknamed the “honey hole” from the number of javelina that we had taken out of it over the years. I hiked into it and down along the bottom without seeing any of our quarry. I dropped down and into another draw only to just get some exercise, then back to my wheeler and up over a powerline road to find a location for our lunch. Each of us checked out different areas that afternoon with nothing in sight. On my way back to the truck on my wheeler I came around a corner in a wash and spotted a coyote loping right towards me. I got off the wheeler and pulled my .40 caliber and the coyote was gone. I looked on the side hill and there he was just walking away. I got off one shot and he started to run, then at the second shot he hit hyper drive like coyotes do and he was gone.
This was the routine for the next couple of days. On the fourth day I headed into what we call javelina hell. It was hard to hunt due to all the small ravines and hiding places. We had chased them into this area but had never succeeded in getting one out of it. I checked out a few areas and was headed back to my wheeler when a javelina came up out of a draw right in front of me. He was off and running up a hill. I sat down and pulled my T/C Contender out of its holster and placed the sights just above his head as he was headed up the hill on a slight angle away from me. At the shot he crumpled. I hiked over to him and found that I had caught him just behind the ear. I got the cleaning chore out of the way and got him packed out to my wheeler just as my partner showed up. So we had our lunch over a campfire, I headed back to the truck to get him skinned out and my partner headed out to find his.
The rest of the hunt was a hard hunt. We hit areas but didn’t see a thing to chase. On the last day I was walking down a ridge just before noon. Then what did I spy but another coyote trotting up the ridge coming right at me. I just had my .40 cal, so I pulled it and clicked off the safety in one motion. I didn’t even aim but just pointed it at the coyote and pulled the trigger double action. I caught him right below the neck and he was done. This guy looked horrible. He had mange or something and I just left him where he laid. Later I talked to the rancher who told me that he wished that I would stick around and just hunt coyotes. This year they were wreaking havoc on the new born calves. I just wished that I could of helped him out but we were headed home the next day.
A couple of pictures of the hunting area
