Is 35 too young to be a snowbird?

Similar to many retired folks, when the snow flies and the nights get long and cold, my wife and I head south. Though pickleball, orange picking, and a few cold beers in the sun is part of the allure, our main drive for going to Arizona in December and January is to archery hunt rutting deer. It started nine years ago when I first learned about the ample deer hunting opportunities at a relatively affordable price. Getting the tag and choosing where to hunt are easy. Getting into bow range of a rutted up buck with his skittish does, well, that’s proven to make this hunt the hardest archery opportunity I’ve ever done.

Let’s break down this opportunity. After all, it’s available to anyone.

Arizona Archery Deer Season Breakdown

Where: Arizona. 55% of the state, or about 60,000 square miles, is federal land open to hunting, and deer live on most landscapes in AZ. 

When: December, January, and August. This spans two different calendar years, so in theory, if you could take a buck in August or December, then purchase another tag and hunt a second one in January.

Cost: Non-residents pay $160 for a general hunting license and $300 for the deer tag.

Weapon: This is only an archery hunt. 

Animal: Buck mule deer or coues deer. In Arizona, the bucks rut in December and January.

Archery Deer Non-Permit Tags (Over-the-Counter Tags)

Archery deer used to be an over-the-counter tag for non-residents. Now it’s available online to non-residents on a first-come, first-served basis. For the 2025 season, 2,820 tags were available on November 4 at 8 a.m. through the Arizona Game and Fish website. They sold out in 10 minutes. The number of tags available to non-residents and the draw date has been in flux for the past few years, so if you want to do this hunt, keep your eyes peeled and your calendar marked.

Fortunately for residents of Arizona, this tag remains available over the counter.

Quota System

Arizona recently established a quota system for each unit. When a successful hunter takes a deer, they must report their harvest. Once a unit’s quota fills, the unit shuts down. You can view the updated harvest quota breakdown to verify where you can and can’t hunt.

*Do note, draw details, tag allocation, and quota system continually change, so refer to the Arizona Game and Fish Department for the most current information.

Our Strategy

My wife and I day hunt out of our pop-up camper. Each morning before it’s light, we hike up to a glassing knob then spend the entire day looking for deer and, hopefully, putting on a stalk. Hunting with a partner can be incredibly beneficial as two-way communication is legal in Arizona. If we spot a buck, one person stays on the knob to keep tabs on the deer while the other person goes down and puts a stalk on. With the help of radios, the ‘spotter’ helps guide the ‘hunter’ into range.

Now as helpful as radios and using a ‘spotter’ might be, the desert is the quietest place I’ve ever hunted. To get into archery range undetected, you have to move incredibly slowly and muffle the sound of your footsteps by stalking in socks, stalking shoes, or over-boots. I prefer over-boots because there’s so much cactus in the desert that I find it quite dangerous to take my boots off. My current over-boots have a thick carpet fabric on the bottom to muffle sound and laces on the top so I can tie them over my hiking boots. These were gifted to me by a border patrol agent who got them off a drug smuggler he detained, and they are incredibly quiet.

A few years ago, I filmed a YouTube series called Anyone’s Hunt that breaks this opportunity down even further with the goal of showing folks how accessible and fun this hunt can be. 

onX Hunt Tips for Archery Deer Season in Arizona

1. The Two-Finger Line Distance Tool allows me to quickly measure the distance between two points on the map by simply pressing my fingers down. It’s great for measuring how far it is to a glassing knob, the distance a bedded buck is from a particular cactus or draw, or how far it is to the truck. 
2. Leupold’s RX-5000 rangefinder allows me to range a specific spot on the landscape, and it automatically syncs with onX Hunt and drops a Waypoint on the map exactly where I ranged. This is incredibly beneficial when putting a stalk on a buck because you have an exact Waypoint that you just need to get to. Outside of this hunt, I also use this feature when shed hunting in the spring to pick up antlers that I glass up from a long way away.
3. Before the hunt, when I’m scouting at home on my computer, I mark a ton of access roads and glassing knobs in onX Hunt. Every time I create a Waypoint or make a route on the computer, those edits will automatically sync to my onX Hunt App, making the transition from e-scouting to hunting seamless because all my information is now in the palm of my hand.

Key Learnings

I first learned about this hunt nine years ago and now have eight years of actually doing the hunt under my belt. With 100+ days of boots-on-the-ground hunting, this has undoubtedly been the hardest archery hunt I’ve ever done. 

A few of my key learnings include: 

1. Glassing with your binoculars mounted on a tripod is a must. Many of the deer we spot are over a mile away, and you might only see them for a split second as they walk in an opening between cacti. Getting rid of the hand shake is critical. 
2. When using a ‘spotter’ to guide you in, the hunter should either wear an orange hat or put something reflective on their back so the spotter can keep track of this person. My wife and I have wasted a lot of time trying to locate one another when we’re fully camoed up and a mile away in the brush. 
3. When you’re on a stalk and within 400 yards of the deer, slow way down. I mean way down. These deer can hear you from hundreds of yards away and are as wary as it gets. You have to be on top of your game and not cut corners or make unnecessary sounds or movement to get in range. 

Every year I’ve hunted, I usually get one or two hard-earned opportunities. But until this year, all those close calls have either resulted in a deflection off a cactus or a miss. On my 20th day of the 2025 January season, we spotted a buck 1.5 miles out in a desert flat rutting some does. With my wife on the glass, I quickly cut the distance to 400 yards.

There was one hot doe in the group that the buck was fixated on. Over a few hours, the hot doe, with the buck not far behind, worked left through the saguaro and cholla-laden desert flat. When they were out of sight, I inched closer with an arrow nocked and carpet boot covers on, trying my hardest to be as quiet, slow, and stealthy as possible.

My goal with most stalks is to get close and let the opportunity develop, because most of the time, the buck is moving. I got about 100 yards from them, and they kept working my way, eventually bedded at 45 yards. Then, the doe got up and walked by me, stopped at 15 yards, and stared me down for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the buck got out of his bed and kept coming closer. I knew that as soon as I moved even an inch to draw my bow she’d blow, and once she blew, the buck was either going to run or stand there just long enough for me to draw and hopefully get an arrow sent.

The buck stepped out from behind some brush in a shooting lane, I started to draw, and the doe blew and started running. Fortunately, the buck froze and watched her run. I got to full draw and he whipped his head around and stared at me, but it was too late for him. I went through my shot process and sent a well-placed arrow at 37 yards which wrapped up my 8-year journey.

Will we be back? Well, we’re snowbirds now.