AZ Coues Rugged Wilderness Areas

[BeastOfTheTrees]

Why do you want "rugged" for an otc tag? I'd go with stalkable country before going for rugged. In any case I can see Miller peak from my house. My home unit 35a has some pretty stalkable country and lots of deer. Fyi, the Miller wilderness area is hike in only. The road thst goes up to Carr canyon is closed in the winter. Your looking at something like 5 miles in.

Cause man I’m sick in the head lol for me it’s all about the area just as much as the animal I like doing really hard stuff and think about going through some rugged stuff all year long..... I bought an AZ license because y’all have so many wilderness areas and those Sky islands look absolutely crazy to hunt in.... so there ya go

 

[Fatcamp]

Ya, those are amazing areas. Even if you don't shoot a deer you will always remember that time and place.

 

[Tonto]

The general rule of thumb in AZ is that all wilderness areas are pretty rugged. Most of them were simply too rugged to develop or build many roads into, and so they were given wilderness designation. So if it says wilderness, you won't be disappointed in its ruggedness.

The southern units have higher concentrations of coues.

A 3 to 5 day archery hunt for a first timer will have pretty low harvest rates. Don't let that discourage you, but just have realistic expectations. Its a very difficult hunt with a whole set of unique challenges.

As far as sky islands go, it's pretty clear to see where they are using Google earth. There's not a ton of them, and not all of them have large wilderness areas. So you should be able to narrow it down pretty quickly.

However, often the more productive coues habitat can be the rolling canyons and broken hill country. So you can hunt the rugged sky island stuff if that's what gets you excited, but don't feel like you have to.

 

[RoJo]

Don't overlook the Chiricahuas, perhaps the poster child of the sky islands in AZ. I love those mountains, you can get up over 9,000 feet with Coues at all elevations.

I have never been to the Needles Eye Wilderness, I'll have to check that out.

 

[couesarizona]

 

[couesarizona]

These are two different units in southeastern Arizona. If you notice the background you can seen how rugged things can get.

 

[Poser]

Here was my experience doing that:

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[BeastOfTheTrees]

Love it

 

[Guythatmisses]