Hunter's Moon

In the fall when the hunter's moon is bright, Arizona comes into its own as a hunting country. You can hunt anything from rabbits to buffalo, from quail to elk. Lion hunting is becoming a high light in the experience of all hunters in Arizona, but before you start out get some good dogs and have a hunter along who knows his business.

ONCE UPON A time an Easterner, coming to Arizona to live, made the mistake of selling all his rifles and shotguns before leaving what he thought was a hunter's paradise. It was his impression that he was going to a desert country where, since the quelling of the Indian uprising, the only things were sand lizards and rattlesnakes.

That misguided greenhorn was put right in his concept of life in the great southwest before he had even left the train. The conductor and brakeman informed him that there was hunting: bird shooting, duck shooting, small and big game. That it lasted throughout the fall months. That it was one of the things many native Arizonans enjoyed most in life. And that it was probably a good thing he had sold his rifles and shotguns back in the country of ten thousands lakes, for now he could buy equipment for real game!

That tenderfoot was I.

They told me there were antelope, elk, white-tail and mule deer in the virgin forests covering the mountains. That turkeys gobbled in nearly every glen. Mountain and desert quail to make a man curse his clumsiness as a wing shooter. White oak thickets in the forest fed flocks of slate blue pigeons with their acorns. That in the evening, flights of doves in the desert swept over you at shotgun range. Late in the fall, out of the north would come the whistling of pinions. Teal, mallard, canThey even spoke of another hunting, done to music. "Hound music" it was. And, I was to learn later that the thrill of listening to a baying pack of hounds on the trail of a bear or mountain lion running through some deep, densely-wooded mountain canyon was, for me, unsurpassable. My informants said that there were also racoon, wildcats and coyotes to be hunted with the pack.

For variety, they told me, you could go after the javalina, that fierce wild pig of the desert foothills.

It was no wonder to me then, when I learned that twenty-one hundred class B licenses are sold annually in Arizona-these permit the hunter to go after large and small game. That eight thousand class A permits are issued each year, allowing the holder to both hunt and fish. That over two hundred elks permits are sold each year, with fifty to seventy-five percent of the holders being successful. That over five hundred non-resident licenses are issued annually. It was no wonder, because the sportsman have something to go after, here in Arizona!

The sports year begins early. On September first, the date recommended by the State Game Commission to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the season will open on mourning doves and whitewings. The whitewing season will last only fifteen days, but dove shooting will extend until October 12th. Since both birds are migratory, hunters are required by federal law to carry shotguns holding three shells or less including the one in the chamber, double barreled and single barreled guns both being acceptable. These birds are to be found in the desert and cultivated areas of the irrigated districts. Hunting for them is done two ways: walking through field and gullies in the morning when the birds are feeding, and flushing them for wing shooting, or making a stand where the birds pass over in their evening flight. The bag limit is fifteen of either species or a mixed bag of fifteen.

This year for the first time, open season will be held on antelope, that colorful speedster of the plains, famed in Western song and story. Four hundred permits will be issuedfive dollars each. The hunt will be supervised, and will be held at Anderson's Mesa in Northern Arizona, from September 20th to October 5th.

During the latter part of September, at a date not yet settled upon, wild pigeons will be in season. This hunting will take you into mountain, into canyons with your scattergun, and will call for real skill, because a wild pigeon is wild! During the day you will find him feeding on acorns in clumps of oaks, or roosting high up on the dead limbs of some towering pine. One shot in the forest and he becomes doubly cautious and harder to bag. You will find that when he is frightened he will light on the very topmost twig of a skydusting pine. There he will wait until you are almost under him, then drop out of that pine tree, diving for flying speed and away like a dive bomber. For one flashing instant you can follow him with your aim, but if you don't get him, he's gone. Yet, undoubtedly he leaves you wishing him well as one of the great game birds of Arizona!

When October comes, sportsmen will put away their shotguns for the time being, and their rifles will come out of bags for cleaning and re-oiling. On the edge of town every afternoon and evening you will see groups of men and women, "sighting in." The spang of the carbine will carry over the heavier boom of .30-.06's. Some have been practicing on prairie

CHARLES C. NIEHUIS

Giles Goswick, one of the best lion hunters in the west, took a party of hunters out into the hills of Yavapai county with good results. Lions kill cattle and attack young deer. Both the cattlemen and the sportsmen join in exterminating them. Goswick, a government hunter, is an old timer in the business and knows all angles of lion hunting. He's on the left.

dogs all summer, and they will smile at their fellows' earnest attempts to put one in the black target set up against a bank or a hill. This alignment of sights on the big game rifles is important to nimrods as the hunt itself. It is a matter of pride and sportsman-ship to make a "clean" kill, and by the time the season opens for deer, bear, and turkey, they will be ready for that kind of shooting. October 16th is the opening day (except south of the Gila River where turkey and bear are not hunted and the deer season opens November 1st).

A few days before the big day, ten to fifteen thousand hunters will take the highroad. Up in the mountains they will find some trail that will lead them off the well-traveled ways into some fastness they've discovered, where big game abounds. Maybe this mecca will have a name like Buck Ridge, Deer Canyon, Deer Springs, Buckhorn Mountain, Buck Springs, Bear Canyon, Bearhead Canyon, Turkey Butte, Turkey Springs, or Antelope Valley. All these are place names to be found on a National Forest map of the state. There are many more, for the old-timers didn't waste thought concocting fancy names, they just named a place for the most obvious thing they saw there. So my conductor on the train was right, there was, and still is plenty of game in the mountains and plains of Arizona. A hunter's heaven, in reality.

Deer hunting and turkey hunting too, are probably done better by stalking than by any other method. Some hunters insist that this is the only way to be consistently successful. In the early morning, especially during the dark of the moon, deer browse and go to water. As the sun gets higher they lie down in thickets, under cedars or in small breaks near the tops of ridges. It will be your business to slip through the woods so quietly that you will see your buck before he sees you, which, by the way, is some trick, if you can do it! Since you have practiced and know what you can do with a high-powered rifle, youwill not be hasty with your shot. You will be absolutely certain that the movement you saw in the brush, or that vague shape whose outline merges with the shadow under the cedar is not another hunter who has neglected to wear red like you have on your hat and the front and back of your jacket, but a live deer. You will make sure first, because you know that the bullet, (not less than eighty-seven grains in weight as required by law for big game in Arizona) will not miss, even if it is a running shot. You will even wait long enough to see that the deer really has a spread of antlers and isn't just a doe with a dead cedar in back of her head. Then when you are sure, and not until then you will catch your trophy in the sights and squeeze the trigger for that clean kill that is so highly regarded by the true sportsman.

cedar in back of her head. Then when you are sure, and not until then you will catch your trophy in the sights and squeeze the trigger for that clean kill that is so highly regarded by the true sportsman.

And now, turkey, the greatest game bird of them all. You won't find a more wily, cunning adversary in the field and forest. Locate his scratchings, where he feeds, places that look like any domestic fowl's scratchings around the barnyard where they look for food. Find his tracks in dusty places. Then open your eyes and ears wider than you have ever had them, put on the invisible cloak of a woodsman's stealth, pick up your city-heavy feet and go look for the turkey.

You may see him anywhere. Hunters have walked along and been suddenly startled into immovability as the big bird flaps out of a tree directly overhead and soars away, leaving them gaping. A flock may feed along the side of a small canyon, or in a park-like glen. You may see a couple of birds flit through a thicket of jack pines so fast you would swear they were a couple of ghosts running a race behind a picket fence. But, then some turkey hunters, and successful ones too, just sit down in a "likely lookin' spot" and wait for ol' man turk. All you need for this is a turkey call and as one old timer told me "jest a little more time than the turkey has." The call may be a wing bone, a slate and a hardwood peg, or a cedar box, but out of that call a real expert can get such a plaintive "querking" that any turkey in hearing will answer, come over to the hunter, sit down and lay an egg for him or anyway, almost. The idea is, no matter how, get a shot at your bird with that light rifle you will use, and in so doing, bag the memory of a thrill that will last a lifetime of retelling to long-suffering friends.

If you like your hunting fast and furious, the kind that calls for speed, strength and no end of stamina, but gives you all the thrills of big game hunting, as a reward, try bear or mountain lion. These are best hunted with hounds, trained to tie the broken threads of scent into a trail that will lead up and down steep canyon walls, through crevices, and along ledges over-hanging a sheer drop of hundreds of feet. You will hear the pack giving full tongue on a "hot track." You will learn to appreciate and thrill to each change of melody, the swelling crescendo, the rapid tempo of music rendered by a running pack of hounds being led by the best of conductors-an Arizona black bear or a North American mountain lion.

NORMAN G. WALLACE

Deer hunting is the greatest autumn sport of all. In Arizona you can find deer almost any place in the state. On the Kaibab plateau, where deer hunting is controlled, you probably will find the best deer hunting in the United States. The deer hunter must be near, must shoot accurately.

When the quarry is brought to bay and the race ended, you will have written a new page in your life's book of remembered thrills, believe me, hunter!

This year, as in the past, permits will be issued for elk hunting. The season will be from November 18th to December 10th. Application must be made to the Arizona Game Commission, along with the fee of ten dollars. Four hundred of these special licenses will be issued, and the entire state will be open for hunting, except the Hualpai Mountains and the Indian reservations.

Elk are found in forested mountain country, and are hunted in the same manner as deer, by stalking.

Since most deer, turkey and bear hunters have had success by the first of November, they clean their rifles and put them away and take out the scattergun again. Quail and wild duck will hold attention from now until the end of the year.

If you are a hunter with steady nerves and cool disposition, try for quail. It opens November 16th and closes with the month, except in Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties which remain closed. However, the Game Commission is directing the attention of hunters to Mohave county where an exceptional hatch is reported. The limit is ten birds, so try and get it! There are two varieties, commonly called mountain and desert quail.

The first species is found on the foothills where the cover is scrubby brush, and often junipers. You will probably hear them before you spot one. Their call is melodious, sounding much like the soft singing of the words "Los papagos" over and over again. Walk toward them fast but carefully. The first sight of them will probably be through the openings between brush and tree. They will be on the run. So will you! The covey will flush and you will blaze away, gun, then temper, for you will probably miss the first shot. After them you go, reloading on the run. It will always be across a little canyon or arroyo where they light, and you will clatter down and up again. By the time you are where they lit you will hear them calling to each other. It will be a sharp but plaintive chirp. You will walk toward it, tense, alert. Then suddenly one bird will flush. You are more careful this time. The whirring bird collapses in flight, and you brag to yourself that it was a cinch. You miss the next four, get the fifth and follow the moving covey up the ridge. Finally the quail are so scattered you give up looking for singles and doubles and turn to locate your car. Yes, it will be miles away with a half hundred gullies and ridges between, and you'll wonder how it got there! But, you have had fun, and may I add, exercise and a lungful of pure, unbreathed air.

NORMAN G. WALLACE

Each year in Arizona, a group of hunters, selected by lot, go into upper House Rock Valley for the buffalo hunt. The herd is state owned, is tended by the State Game Department. To prevent the herd from getting too large, a limited number of buffalo are killed by hunters every fall.

Desert quail are easier in a sense. The washes aren't as deep or the ridges as high, but the way is long and dry. Here you will find the birds feeding along some weed patch or under a mesquite tree. They will run, so will you and then they'll fly to some grass or low brush. You walk slowly back and forth combing the cover. Suddenly a bird will explode in front of you. The next day you'll swear that he flew out of your pants leg.

More than likely you will stand with your gun in your hands and watch him fly away, startled into temporary paralysis. You mumble to yourself as you slowly regain control of your reflexes, and about the time you do, another rocket bursts up from under your foot. This time your gun goes off, creating a nice vacuum ten feet behind the fast-moving target. By the time you get your limit you'll wonder why some enterprising miner doesn't come into the desert and stake out a lead claim, after the season closes.

Then when the wind gets colder and you hear reports of snow flurries in the mountains, the ducks will come in! First it will be teal winging in with express train speed. Later the heavier and bigger ducks, and finally the high-flying V of geese. As you sit there in the blind, shivering, not with cold, but sheer ecstacy at being alive in this land where all such privileges are yours, you place your hand upon the gun stock and swear to yourself what you swore when you went dove and white wing shooting, again when deer season opened, what you repeated to yourself when you cuddled the stock against your cheek and lined up the sights on that bull elk, what you said again when you swung smoothly while making that cross shot on a quail: "This is the greatest of all hunting!" And, so it will be.

Mallards will circle the lake, river, waterhole or marsh, wherever you happen to be. Low scudding clouds will be etched with still another flying V of canvasbacks. The cold wind will rip the report from the muzzle of your Remington or Winchester and carry it to the hunter below you. His answering boom will barely reach you against the wind. At four in the afternoon you rise out of your blind, for then the day's shooting closes on waterfowl, by order of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, call your retriever and start home.

There you are four months of sport afield and outdoor living wait your pleasure in Arizona. And, should you be as fortunate as I am, in being able to hunt in these happy hunting grounds, you will, even as I, anxiously await the rising of the hunter's moon each fall!

For detailed information concerning any phases of hunting, guides, accommodations, equipment, write to the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, or this magazine, whose offices are in Phoenix, Arizona.