Be careful shooting out in the desert.  There is some national forest and small pockets of BLM land around Tucson which are good to go but most of the land is State Trust, Indian res, or private property.  You can hunt on state trust but legally, you can't target shoot on it.



Hunting is good, but its not like other places.  There is a one deer per year bag limit.  Rifle seasons are usually a week long.  However, there is a rifle season that runs from mid-December until the end of the year (during part of the rut) but there aren't many tags for it compared to other hunts.   Does are off limits and there are a lot more hunters than there are bucks to shoot.  We have both mule deer and coues whitetail.  If you want a challenge, hunt coues.  If you want meat, hunt mule deer (they are a lot bigger than coues).  For rifle hunts, you need to draw a tag or buy a left over after the draw.  There are enough tags that as long as you don't try exclusively for the hard to get hunts, you'll probably be able to get one.  You can also buy an over the counter archery tag that can be used all through January, some of August (too hot to hunt IMO), and the second half of December.

Generally speaking, southern Arizona isn't the type of place where a person hunts deer from a stand, and I consider that a good thing.  Glassing and spot and stalk will be the methods you'll want to employ.  Other big game that can be hunted are elk, antelope, turkey, black bear, mountain lion, javelina, big horn sheep (one per lifetime bag limit), and buffalo (crazy expensive, very few tags, and I think someone tells you which animal to shoot).  Elk and antelope are harder to get tags.  You'll probably have a better chance at an elk tag if you put in for a cow.  Mountain lion is over the counter and I think there might be over the counter black bear tags too but I'm not positive.  Javelina has both draw and over the counter (archery) tags.  Javelina also currently has a two per year bag limit, but they have to be harvested from different units.  Once you know where the javelina live, killing one will be the easy part.  I'm new to predator hunting myself, but so far it seems pretty productive.  I know there is no shortage of coyotes in the desert.  Get yourself a good call, be quiet and still, and you'll be putting fur down in no time.  Quail, duck, and rabbit hunting is also pretty good if you know where to go.

Coues whitetail from this past rifle season.


And here is why hunting coues is hard.  The picture was taken from the kill site looking back at our trucks where I spotted him from.


My first predator taken earlier this month.


My first coyote taken a few days after the fox and in the same area.