They're a lot like elk because they both used to roam the prairies together in the central states of the US. Now elk occupy 10% or so of their native range. Wild buffalo aren't so lucky.
Only 4% of the buffalo on the continent are wild. According to P&Y and B&C there are only four wild herds that are recognized as fair chase, without fences. They are in the Wrangell mountains of Alaska, the Henry mountains of Utah, the extreme north in Alberta, and in northern Arizona on the edge of the Grand Canyon.
This is the begining of an archery-only hunt for buffalo in Arizona's Kaibab Plateau. The season starts in about two weeks and I'm planning to update daily as the hunt progresses.
Buffalo with a bow in August in Arizona? Nope, this isn't going to be your average hunt.
Seriously, very much looking forward to seeing the story unfold, elkstabber!
Best of Luck, Jeff
So here's the way that I got lucky enough to draw one of the tags. I was up late studying deer and sheep draw right before the deadline a few months ago. It was my first time applying in Arizona and I had to break it all down from the start. First, it was the mule deer. There's the Arizona strip, possibly the best and hardest (to draw) mule deer tag in the country. Then there's the Kaibab Plateau, and then there's the rest of the state.
Then I spent a few hours studying the sheep because I'd like to hunt them once in my life and I can't afford to hire a guide in Canada or Mexico. After studying the units, the success rates, the trends, the backcountry access, and under the influence of Miller Lite I made my decisions.
So I logged on to Arizona's website and selected the deer and sheep choices for my very first time. After selecting them I saw on the website where I could apply for a buffalo. Hell, I didn't know that Arizona had buffalo - why not try? I've wasted $15 lots of other ways and, besides, it's going to conservation I thought. It was late and I was tired so I didn't give it another thought.
Months went by.
My wife was paying bills about three weeks ago and screamed, "What's this charge from Arizona?" Hmm, I don't know, maybe I won a sheep tag. I was scared (of her) and happy because that meant that I got a tag of some kind and it was too much to be a deer. Turns out it was too much to be a sheep too. I was the proud owner of a buffalo tag.
Now what? I don't know much about buffalo except that I've seen them twice in Yellowstone. So I read up on Arizona's regs and saw that the House Rock herd is very difficult to hunt because they mostly live on the Grand Canyon National Park and if they don't leave the park then you can't hunt them. They can only be hunted on the adjacent national forest land.
On a side note I thought the pink mountains were free chase as well. I thought that was the place to go to get a p and y buffalo.
Also from bowsiters I was told to talk to Russ Jacoby, as he is the most knowledgable guide for Arizona's buffalo. I figured that since I'd never hunt wild buffalo again I'd better do it right. So I booked with Russ.
I've always been a DIY hunter. I truly enjoy learning from my mistakes and love the challenge of doing it all myself. I also need to hunt out west every year and can't afford a guide. If I paid for a guide I couldn't afford to go the following year. So that's how I've done it up until now.
The trouble with a buffalo is that they are very hard to pin down because they wander more than even elk. Also, from a practical standpoint: August in Arizona is going to be hot and a cow buffalo can weigh over 1,000 pounds. That's right: they're bigger than moose! A big cow buffalo can weight 1,400 and a big bull can go over 2,000 lbs. So handling a big cow buffalo in the heat is going to require help and that's all there is to it!
There are 3 free-ranging herds in Alaska alone. The Copper River herd near the Wrangel Mountains is just one of those. There are also free range bison at Delta Junction (along the Tanana and Delta Rivers) and another herd called the Farewell Herd in the western Alaska Range east of McGrath.
Congratulations on your tag!
Pete
Steve mentions that there are only four wild herds where public land hunters have limited opportunities (Chapter 11).
If anyone knows the details please share.
But one thing is for sure: I'll be hunting a big cow buffalo with my bow one time in my life and it will start in just over two weeks. I've already got a tag to hunt elk and deer in NM but I think they will just have to wait.
There is a lot of planning that I still need to do for this hunt. From the travel to the equipment. More coming tomorrow.
Good luck keep us posted
There is a rather old video of Pete Shepley bowhunting for bison in an arid setting. You should try to find it....it'll really get you pumped up....
Pete in Fairbanks - Thanks for the info. Maybe I misread Steve's book or maybe hunting opportunities opened up since he wrote the book.
Bowbearman - I don't understand why the Yellowstone herd wasn't mentioned in Steve's book. I doubt that he was wrong because he seems very thorough. Maybe the Yellowstone hunting opened up since he wrote it? Congratulations on taking a nice bull with your bow.
Since taking the job I've been out of town as much as I'm in town. I'm out of town now too.
By a wild coincidence I'll be working at a military base near Las Vegas the week before the buffalo season. This works out great because I'll just rent a car and drive a few hours to the hunting unit in Arizona.
The two biggest planning problems are going to be:
1. How to practice shooting my bow when I'm staying in a hotel for the week before the hunt. I shoot a recurve and need continuous practice. There is an archery range north of Las Vegas that might work... 2. How to get the buffalo back home to Virginia in a rental car if I do shoot one. Fortunately the Lezbaru thread on bowsite had some great ideas. Can you imagine tying a buffalo head to the front of a rental car and driving it across the country?
After I get the planning under control there is the business of broadheads and equipment. More to come...
Steve Rinella's book "American Buffalo" is one of the best hunting books I've read. Even if you're not a book reader, you've got to check this book out. You'll be blown away by how cool of a book it is.
As far as the herd data, the hunt took place in 2005 and the book was written a couple years later. In the years since, there's been some change in the clubs' definitions as there's been changes as far as Bison hunting - for instance, I'm pretty sure the WY Bison hunt didn't even exist back then.
Again, grats on the tag and good luck on the hunt!
Do you have a deer tag?
I can't believe BC would allow an animal from Custer State Park to be entered in their records. There is nothing "Fair Chase" about that hunt other than the buffalo all get a fair shot at the hay bales and the auction block every year.
Congrat's on your tag!
Chuck Adams has an entire chapter on his AZ Bison Hunt! Amazing what he did in tracking his Bison for miles and miles! Good luck and enjoy the AZ experience!! C
1. He and his guides spent a lot of time guiding buffalo hunters and they know them best. 2. I can't afford to make mistakes because I'll never get to hunt buffalo again. Technically, Heat is right: if I don't score I'm allowed to try to draw again but my wife won't let me. 3. A 1000 pound animal in Arizona in August needs to be handled quickly because buffalo steaks and burgers taste great!
So that's the deal. I'm going with Chad and believe that he and Russ are the best. I can't wait to meet them and discuss the final details next week.
In the meantime we talked on the phone about how he thinks the hunt will go and about my equipment.
Equipment first: I'm a traditional shooter and have been for about 12 years. I'm currently shooting a 55lb Black Widow and have been shooting the same arrows for the last 3-4 seasons. The arrows that I've found to shoot best are Carbon Express Heritage 350's that weight 630 grains with a 200 grain head. I draw 29-1/2" and the arrows are an inch longer. They pack a punch. I've shot through a bunch of deer and an elk too. They fly perfectly.
But of course I've never flung an arrow at anything as big as a buffalo so I made a small adjustment. If I had the time to plan I would have probably stepped up the draw weight and shot a heavier arrow but since I found out about the tag with about a month's notice that was out of the question.
I chose a very stout one piece 2 blade broadhead by VPA. Their 3 blade is what I've been shooting the last couple of years. It's awesome on deer and leaves a great blood trail. But I wanted to increase the penetration so I chose the 2 blade. It makes sense that you need all the penetration possible since they're huge. Forget about a blood trail - their hair is so dense that they don't leave a trail. For a while I shot single bevel 2 blade heads. They did a number on deer but I occasionally had trouble with bending the aluminum ferrule so the one piece steel head seems like the best choice.
The main reason that I went with those heads is because I've shot their 3 blade heads for 3-4 years. I've shot probably a dozen deer with the first three pack of heads. I've recovered them each and every time and sharpened them back up.
The rest of the equipment is simple because I've got all the hunting/camping gear from hunting elk. Nothing new but probably bringing 8 game bags instead of the usual 4!
So I've been practicing for the hunt in a number of ways. Shooting from a ground blind is straightforward. It's easier even than shooting from a treestand. And buffalo shouldn't be shot from a treestand because of the angle and their heavy bones.
Probably hunting from a pop up blind is the hardest. I shoot a recurve instinctively. From shooting 3D courses it seems that shooting from the shade into the light or shooting from light into shade messes with judging distance. Shooting from a blind is tough for an instinctive shooter and shooting through screens is even tougher.
So I've been practicing a lot shooting from a blind.
Here's what I've found. The broadheads shoot through the screens with no problem whatsoever. No difference in accuracy at any distance. In fact, I tried field tips and they shoot through clean if the screen is tight. That surprised me.
I tried shooting right up close to the screen and also tried shooting from the very back of the blind. That way the arrow was off of the string when it went through the screen. It didn't make any difference. So with that all of that out of the way it's time to practice shooting as much as I can from a blind.
First, I'm concerned because the first season finished two days ago and the 7 hunters only got 2 buffalo. Everybody has been warning that these buffalo are WILD. Tomorrow is the opener for the second season. Well have 14 days to (hopefully) get it done.
This area is BEAUTIFUL! No wonder the Kaibab is so popular with deer hunters. Last nights low was about 40 and today's high was 75. The camp is at about 9,000 feet.
Practiced shooting out of a pop up blind today and feel real good about it. Now if a legal (cow or yearling) buffalo will just come on in....
While in camp this afternoon I took a stroll and found what simply has to be buffalo chips. They weren't fresh but they've been around.
I'll report back tomorrow with more pics.
I wish you all the luck you need, and I hope you have a memorable hunt.
So I set up about a mile away at a similar location with some water. Trouble is that it rained hard here a few days ago and there's standing water in lots of places. 12 hours in the blind and never saw a buffalo.
Here's a buffalo chip. Probably a day or two old.
So I set up about a mile away at a similar location with some water. Trouble is that it rained hard here a few days ago and there's standing water in lots of places. 12 hours in the blind and never saw a buffalo.
Here's a buffalo chip. Probably a day or two old.
Here is a buffalo track.
All of us watched water from popup blinds today. Again, no buffalo were seen from the blinds. But since the woods are fairly dense it seems to me that when we do see one we're probably going to shoot. That's just a guess but other than one or two sightings on the roads we haven't seen them much. And those sightings were in the dark anyhow.
These buffalo have a reputation for being spooky. So spooky that they're rarely seen even in the Grand Canyon National Park where they spend most of their time.
Funny story: the National Park Service's opinion was that there were about 180 buffalo in the park. Then my guide, Russ Jacoby, showed them a picture he'd taken during the winter when you could count 400 in the photo. The park service revised their estimate to "over 200". It seems that buffalo are a political problem everywhere they exist. I'm just glad that AZGFD has the guts to have this unique hunt.
Speaking of unique, I had a lot of time in the blind to think today and realized this. There are only 4 herds of wild buffalo and they are in Arizona, Utah, Alaska, and Alberta/British Columbia. I'm not certain of the details about Yellowstone.
But except for Arizona and Utah the other buffalo are usually hunted in the late winter. Bowhunting with heavy winter clothes has never been my favorite thing. On the other hand, both Arizona and Utah have reasonable weather for their buffalo hunts. Last night's low was about 40 and today's high was around 80. My blind got warm but it really wasn't too bad. Of course in the heat of the day I took my pants and boots off! Why not?
This is going to be tougher than I thought. But they also didn't have the great guide that we've got lending his experience.
We're encouraged because one other hunter tagged a buffalo yesterday so now there are only 6 of us. Even better, the ground is continuing to dry up from the heavy rain a few days ago. This means that the buffalo will have to start coming to water instead of just drinking from puddles.
Hopefully, they'll come to where we're waiting.
I'll to update tomorrow night.
This morning I saw a very encouraging sign on the way in to the waterhole. When you trip among buffalo bones right near your blind that's a good omen. Also, a buffalo had left a recent deposit near the blind so I smeared the still-fresh pile onto the bark of the nearest trees. Seemed like a great cover scent.
This morning was a lot different than the first two. We woke up at 2:30am in order to be the first at the waterhole. Apparently this race to the waterhole is fairly common in Arizona no matter what you are hunting. When the other hunter showed up at 4:45 he seemed surprised that I was already in my blind. I shined my headlamp in his direction and said "Good Morning!". He wasn't in a very good mood but said that he would give me the waterhole today since I was there first.
The usual chipmunks and pine squirrels went about their business. One chipmunk didn't mind his business and ran through my blind twice. One mule deer doe was acting funny even though she was about 100 yds away. Maybe she smelled me because the stomped, snorted and left in a hurry.
Then, today at noon it got hot in the blind. So I stripped down to just a t-shirt and boxers. While it may sound weird there's no way I could be seen in the blind and besides, my boxers were camouflage.
Oh, look at the time. Got to go. I'll finish this afternoon's hunt tomorrow.
At 1pm I heard what I immediately thought were a bunch of horseback riders charging into the meadow. What? Horseback riders?
When I looked out the blind's window I saw two dozen buffalo stampeding to the water. I mean they were racing each other. Dust was flying so that it was hard to see the buffalo in the rear of the herd. When they got to the water they all circled around and some stepped in. But mostly they were jockeying for position. The big ones were pushing the little ones out of the center. It was absolute chaos!
When the slowed down the wild circling the dust in the air was so thick the buffalo in the back couldn't be seen! The nearest ones were 10 yards and the furthest were 25 so it was game on.
What I should have done was realized that the herd was now relaxed and that I would have plenty of time to carefully select which buffalo to shoot. Its important to shoot the right one because the tag is only valid for a cow (any size) or a yearling bull. Unless you have a trained eye a yearling bull can be very hard to tell from mid-size bulls. I wanted to carefully pick out a big mature cow.
So that's what I should have done. What I actually did was realize that I was on the verge of completely losing control and that I'd better shoot quick. So I picked out of the biggest, closest buffalo. I saw that it didn't have the male "junk" and it's horns curved back together. It was slowly walking and quartering away perfectly. I picked the spot that I wanted to hit, let loose of the string, and the arrow went there. It all happened so fast that I barely had time to think. If I'd thought about it I might screwed it up.
But I didn't screw up. The big cow headed up a little hill with the arrow buried to the crest. That's about 24" of penetration. As she ran I saw the arrow back out some which meant that the broadhead was working around inside her. She went about 100 yards and I lost sight of her because all the rest of the buffalo blocked the view.
Then they all just sort of stood around. I've heard that the rest of the herd will hang out around an injured buffalo and that's what it looked like. I tried looking through my binoculars but they were shaking too bad to be useful.
I had to calm down and let my nerves settle back down. It's been a LONG time since I got that excited. It all happened so fast and I was overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, and smells of the stampeding buffalo.
After 10 minutes can you believe that the herd returned to the waterhole? And then they hung out for another 1/2 hour. Just in case I kept looking for a big cow with an arrow hole but she wasn't there.
Every now and then a couple of them would go up on the hill and hang out around one area and thought I could see a dead buffalo when my binoculars finally steadied.
About an hour later they guide had come (I used a sat phone) and we walked up on a very dead buffalo. I'm always humbled when I walk up on an animal that I killed with my bow but I was surprised just how big she was and how little my bow looked!
All I could think was, "What did I just do?". The arrow had hit perfectly for the quartering angle and she ran 100 yards in maybe 10 seconds and that was it.
I'm partly grinning because I did the fun part and I'm paying the guide to do the work of getting this beast out of here. Russ thought this was an 8-10 year old cow and that she probably weighed 850-900 pounds. These Arizona buffalo are HUGE!
The game bags were filled and the meat was cooling in the freezer that Russ keeps in camp.
Breaking down the buffalo was a real experience. The heart was as big as a football. The backstraps were about 5' long. The tenderloins were about 2-3 pounds apiece. I even wanted to take the tongue because it was considered a delicacy to white settlers and indians both many years ago. The tongue is also over 2 pounds. The ribs were loaded with thick muscles and all of the fat is orange-colored. Unlike most animals the fat on buffalo tastes great from what I've heard.
Sadly, I can never hunt buffalo in Arizona again because this was a Once In a Lifetime hunt and I'm no longer allowed to apply.
I hope you enjoyed!
Thanks for sharing the hunt.
She is a beautiful buffalo. You did well!!
CD
The actual moment of the kill is so often anti-climatic, the anticipation, the experiences and the emotions leading up to it, and the adrenaline rush immediately afterwards all come together, and that's why we hunt.
Best of Luck, Jeff
Nick
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Congrats to you also Randy!
