Brent Jones (aka WAcoueshunter) shared in the Arizona Forum the following....

"12a West Early Rifle - Here's my buck from the early rifle hunt. As the handle implies, I live in Washington but have hunted coues with family in Arizona for many years. This year I decided to mix it up a bit and applied for the early rifle Kaibab tag. I drove down (18 hours) Wednesday before the opener, scouted Thursday, and had four days to hunt before I had to drive back home. Worked out, I got this guy the evening of day 2, when he fed out of an aspen thicket in front of me at 20 yards! I was hunting into the wind, he never knew I was there. I saw two other large bucks on my hunt, and many, many small bucks that I would guess were 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old bucks. As others have noted, this is a very crowded hunt and not for the faint of heart. But if you can deal with the crowds, it sure is fun to have an opportunity at bucks like this with relatively few points.

The bio at the check station aged him at 5 1/2. He has 42" of mass, along with 17" G2s and 13" G4s."