Well this is gonna be a tough blog to start and will undoubtedly undergo several edits. Once again, Team Mossback AZ had an outstanding year during the early AZ elk hunts. As good as this year has been, it still isn't over yet. We still have several late hunts to tackle before we close out the season. As usual, once the turkey and shed antler hunters left the woods in May, we began our annual ritual of locating and watching many great bulls. One thing we noticed this season was that this seemed to be the year of giant typicals. Last year, we watched several non-typical bulls that would've potentially scored over the 420" mark. This year some of these bulls grew typical racks or we were not able to relocate them. However, we did locate some giant typicals during our scouting. It seemed that the upper end bulls did not get the boost that many of the bulls in the 350"-380" got. Nevertheless, big bulls were still located.
We started the season with Stan Atwood's AZ commissioner tag. Stan was a pleasure to hunt and spend time with, he is a true hunter and we appreciate his tenacity as we hunted some rough country. We'd located several giant bulls but as everyone knows, early September is a tough time to follow bulls as they are in the middle of their big moves and spend lots of time in the thick stuff raking trees. Stan patiently hunted a giant typical for several days before we turned this bull up across the state. This is a bull that we'd gotten trail cam photos of in July. We lost him for some time and during some preseason scouting, we were able to relocate this giant. After several days of watching and hunting this bull, Stan was able to bring him down with a well placed shot. This bull had moved 23.8 miles from the last place we got tc photos of him. This was a move across great country with tons of cow elk so he obviously had his mind set on this piece of real estate. Jay was able to get some awesome HD video of this bull while hunting with Stan. At nearly 49" wide, this was one of the widest bulls we seen this year. Congrats to Stan Atwood and Team Mossback on a beautiful typical bull.
That hunt was just the start of a crazy month of hunting. I could go on forever with stories behind all of these hunts but just to get everyone caught up, we'll just post some pics for now. Hopefully we can find time to get stories posted for each great bull that was taken.
Mossback AZ guide Marc Lopeman teamed up with Kayle McCleve in their unit to take these giant bulls.
Marc Lopeman's 2010 enormous non-typical bull!!! Gotta love those extras on the back end.
Mossback Az guide Jay Lopeman teamed up with the Curtis family, Darrel Neff, and Shane Church and took several giant bulls in their unit.
Trail Cam photo and field photo of Christi Curtis' typical 7x7 2010 Archery AZ bull
Trail cam photo(above) and field photo(below) of Shane Church and his huge 6x6 2010 Archery AZ bull
Chad Curtis' long beamed 2010 Archery AZ bull
Team Mossback AZ guide Joe Gonzales and his whopper 2010 Archery AZ bull
Darrel Neff with his battle-tested 2010 Archery AZ bull. Look at that left horn!! Even though he's busted on the right side, it doesn't take much of an imagination to realize this is a giant bull.ARE YOU STARTING TO SEE WHY I SAID I COULD GO ON FOREVER!!! That was just the archery season!!!
In a different unit, opening morning found Clint Sorensen, the cousin of Chad and Brian hunting in a different unit . Brian and Clint passed several giant bulls and connected on this giant all within the first hour and a half of his hunt. Clint's 2010 Rifle AZ bull is a bull that we watched last year and always wondered just how big he really was. Now we know!! This bull has a 61.5" beam and a 27.5" royal!!
Not to be outdone by the rest of the family, Terri Curtis filled her 2010 Rifle AZ tag with this very heavy 6x6 bull. What a gorgeous bull!!
As we put this blog together, it is still jaw-dropping to realize the true quality of the bulls taken with Mossback AZ thus far. I'm sure we'll add several more giants before the season wraps up. A congratulations to all of Team Mossback AZ's guides and clients for such a successful early season. All of these bulls are public land Arizona giants that anyone with a tag had a chance to hunt. We pride ourselves in the amount of time and effort we put into each year's scouting and it continues to produce great results. We rarely run into any other guide/outfitters in May through August. By the time most others start their scouting, we are honed into the best bulls in the units.
Stay tuned for more as we enter the 2010 deer season and finish the 2010 late elk hunts. Take care and enjoy!!!
