Up North Journal Pro Staff Kevin

I've been Lynched!

2009-11-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

Well, this weekend sure was an interesting one. First, instead of getting out and doing any bow hunting I was down in Dundee at the local Cabelas working for Mossy Oak at the Deer Classic show. Kind of a tough weekend to be working, the weekend before Michigan’s Whitetail gun opener. Business was a little slow and it certainly seemed like there was almost a 3 to 1 ratio of women to men in the store. Business looked a little brisker on Sunday, the day I got Lynched…

Now, if anyone has been listening to the podcasts you know that Mike has been working on a project for George Lynch, you know, Lynch Mob Calls. George was stopping in to meet up with Mike and Chico on Sunday and I happened to luck out by having lunch with them when he stopped by. Our listeners (and readers) will also know that Mike and Mikey and Chico have all been trying to get me out waterfowl hunting this year. I’ve bought a new Remington 887 and even bought my waterfowl license. Besides that, I’ve been serenaded by Mikey and his variety of calls time and again… I even think he’s now called the “Bling Master” or something like that. To actually meet the man responsible for Mikey’s “vocal” obsession and a large proponent of many of the waterfowl conversations, I’ve listened to was very exciting.

To see George walking through Cabelas, you’d never know the man behind the product without realizing he’s one of those folks who just does not need to be anyone other than who he is to do what he loves doing. He looks like anyone’s country neighbor, laid back, friendly to a tee, welcoming and I’ll bet someone you could sit on the porch with over a beer or two and talk until the air ran out. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s not one of those folks who’ll talk your ear off and bore the saints out of you. George just has so much information, ideas and stories worth listening to, he’ll never have enough time to get them all out. I’d love to sit on that porch, listening and talking until the air ran out, I’d just be ticked that I’d have to pass out from lack of sleep and miss something. (I don’t think George would sleep, he seems like he’s got too much energy).

Telling myself that since I’ve never waterfowl hunted I probably will get totally lost talking with George, I sat and listened and did my best. I got lost on a few points in terminology (heck, I can barely tell a mallard from a wood duck…sitting still) and a few discussions on decoy placement had me wondering what those guy’s had been eating, but I sure started to get fired up about getting out. Hunting ducks and geese is really starting to sound like a great time to get out with friends. It sounds like it’s really a social hunt, the best type of hunting if you ask me. I used to wonder what was so much fun when you see pictures of waterfowlers in the rain and snow, freezing and wet… then I thought of what I’ll go through to be in the deer woods with a bow or gun… Time to get off my behind and go sit in the water or the fields and look up, instead of down.

So George, I just need to pick up some Duck Blind camo and I think I’m ready to go. Mike, Mikey and Chico had better watch out cause I’m probably gonna start buggin the duck snot out of them to help get me out. I might even ask Mikey to teach me a few tunes on a call or two. (Yikes and sorry to anyone in range when I try…) ...Also, my daughter has already asked me to take her Goose hunting... Guess I can make it a family outing!

Some day I hope to have the proficiency to use one of George’s calls and do it justice. He’s put his heart and soul into them and I’d be ashamed to do any less.

Thanks for shaking my hand George, hope we can do so many more times down the road. Honk, Quack and a story or two.

Building a blind for Up North

2009-11-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

With today’s economy, building a nice permanent deer blind (or shack as we call them) can get a little pricy. But, as luck would have it, I was helping my cousin out at his building when they had 8 new roof top A/C units delivered, delivered on pallets. Now these are not A/C units you’d have by your house, these are units about 8’ long and 6’ wide…and the pallets are just as big. When I was asked to break the pallets apart for trash pickup light bulbs began to flash and I carefully disassembled them instead. Loaded them in my truck and brought them home, visions of deer shacks in my mind.

Deer shack time. I now had piles of 2x4’s, 2x6’s, 2x8’s and tons of 1x4 and 6s from 6 feet to 8 long (much to the dismay of my wife). Now that I had all the lumber, I needed to design the shack. One of the first considerations I had to plan on was how to pre-build a blind so as not to spend too much time disturbing our hunting area. Then I had to design the shape and how high it needed to be. I figured it needed to fit two hunters (daughter and me) and allow me to go to full draw on my bow, standing…so…about 7’ 6" in the front and 6’ 6” in the back.

With the pallet boards being 6’ long I figured they were already cut for me! So the blind is 6 x 6. I built the platform/floor out of the 2x6 and 2x8’s framed out in two 3’ x 6’ sections that would get bolted together once in the woods. I used the remaining 2x6’s for the flooring. This would be one heavy but very solid blind. I built it so that once the two sections were bolted together down the center, a center floor board would be finished in and two 2x8 frame boards would be bolted to the sides to complete the structural re-enforcement. Hey, I’m a big guy and I don’t want to fall through the middle….especially with my daughter there (she’d probably be ok and would just laugh at me…)

I built each wall in two parts, the primary (bottom) being 6 wide and about 3 tall, and the upper which size would depend on which wall it was on. With the frame being made of 2x4’s I used all the 1x6 and 4’s to make the exterior sheeting. To help prevent rain and snow from coming in, I ran all the boards across my table saw and put 45 degree angles on all the edges. I built the primary sheeting with the boards running horizontally and the 45 degree cuts let them lock up perfectly. I built 3 primary sections and temporarily attached them to the base. I then built each upper wall section, leaving the window areas open until we set the blind and decided the best shooting lanes. I ran the 1x4’s horizontally above the windows to provide a good drip edge for rain. With the 3 uppers built and attached to the primaries, I built a frame for the back that would include the door. The door would only be just wide enough to allow me to get through without making noise. The “back wall/door” section is the largest piece since it needed to have the door frame. I once again attached the 1” stock vertically for the lower portion and left the rest open until we set the stand. A couple of 2x4’s notched for roof support and a couple sheets of ply on top that would be covered in roofing paper and shingles later… and it’s done!. The daughter and I use some spray paint to make dark breakup lines on the blind and she paints the inside a bit in red " A Team" ... Up north it's pretty much me and my buddy against the kids and his dad. We're the B Team and they're the A Team. I think we're ahead in points but the A Team seems to have their own point system ... age, gender, age ...who knows. We're still ahead.

I mark all the boards for location and within 15 minutes the blind is in about 12 pieces and ready to haul up north. It’s late Sunday night so I clean up and head to bed.

The wife is happy all that lumber will soon be out of her driveway too…

The first thing next morning I get a call from my hunting buddy… He threw out his back Sunday.

Today, I’m ordering a Smart Air blind from Gorilla Blinds (http://www.gorillablinds.com/). It’s tall enough for me to shoot my bow out of.

I'm holding off on lots of pictures for now. We're still going to haul the blind north, just not set it up until after the season is over. We've got a new 30 acres that is being timbered over the winter and it will open up new shooting lanes so we might change were we're going to place the blind anyways. When we set it up, I'll take pictures of all the pieces and the finished blind and post them... like I was going to do this week.

Still, the blind only cost me some time and a box of bolts/screws. I can't complain...one mans trash is another mans treasure!

My First Buck with a Bow.

2009-10-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Finally I got to go hunting! Wahoo! Saturday was out because I had a house full of CamoGirls friends sleeping over for her “friend” birthday party. Yes, I know, it was an excellent excuse to LEAVE the house… but it was also raining like Noah was building another Ark. So, Sunday morning, light rain, cool, no kids in the house (besides my own)… I loaded up the Bronco and off I went. Even overcast and misting it was a beautiful morning to be in the woods, with 10,000 chipmunks and a couple squirrels. But I am not complaining. When I came down from my stand I saw a couple kids up on the ridge behind me playing… oh well. I went home got some lunch, napped (needed after the other night). I headed back out around 3:15 and the sun had finally decided to peek out once and awhile.

Around 5:30 I watched a nice buck walk past at about 60 yards. He seemed to be on a mission. He came out of the same trail I walk to my stand but he didn’t turn towards me, he just kept going up the ridge towards the private property behind me. In case you haven’t read my other blogs, I hunt public land just a few miles from my house. Needless to say, my adrenaline was up a bit and I was really watching for movement now. About 70% of the leaves are down so I can see from one swamp to the other, it’s just a matter of looking in the right direction at the right time.

Not too long after the buck disappeared I heard some noise behind me that could have been a bow shot. Then nothing for a few minutes. Then, CRASH. I turn around and see the buck cruising down the ridge right towards me! I stand and get ready but he’s hit a flat spot on the ridge behind some brush were I saw those kids and disappeared. …waiting….waiting… I hear some thrashing and finally see the head and shoulders of the buck peeking out. Something doesn’t look right though. He dips down and back up a few times… then he comes a little farther out and I can see that he is thrashing on his front legs while his hind quarters is still down. Well, a few thoughts race through my mind at this point. I’ve been watching him for a few minutes through my Leupold range finder (first time I got to use it…very clear!) and I have not seen a wound. So, could it be the kids were setting leg traps? Did he get caught up in some barbed wire from an old fence line (lots of those in the woods)? Or is he wounded in his hind quarters and unable to move? I watched him run down the hill so the wound theory is iffy because I’ve been waiting to see if he expired and while he’s struggling, he’s definitely not going to be laying down for the long sleep any time soon. I wait another 10 minutes to see if a hunter makes an appearance…no such luck. By now, it’s been about 20 minutes and I’ve got to make a decision.

My hunt is not and never will be worth sitting there watching an animal struggle like that.

I leave my gear in the tree and quietly climb down. He’s about 60 yards away, up hill but there is no way I can sneak up on him all the way. I creep slowly up the hill using trees and brush as much as I can to try and avoid upsetting him further. I make it to about 5 yards away before he will be able to finally see me. I have decided that if I get close enough to see he’s been wounded, I’ll finish the job. But, if he’s caught in a trap or fence I will call for assistance and see if we can cover his head and get him freed… not something to try by myself with an animal carrying all those sharp points on his head!

I’m standing behind a large tree so to mitigate his stress and struggles. I go to full draw in case he’s wounded and step out. He’s on his front legs and immediately throws himself in the opposite direction when he sees me. That’s when I see the arrow wound directly over his spine on his hind quarters. He spins back immediately and I gently squeeze the release, sending 400 grains of carbon and steel that drops him instantly. Within seconds the woods are quite again. My first buck with a bow, a shot for the soul not the sustenance. I stand staring, knowing that I have achieved something that gives me no sense of accomplishment in the great hunt, but rather a sense of peace.

I hear a shout from above.. “did you get him?” The hunter had been tracking his wounded deer and finally caught up. I felt a sense of gladness that the hunter knew his shot was bad and was doing what he could to find the buck if he was down. An ethical hunter. He made his way down the hill and I introduced my self and shook his hand on such a nice buck he harvested. He offered me the kill but I simply told him I was just helping out to recover his deer, his shot, his deer. A beautiful 7 point 3 year old that I would guess ran to about 175 lbs.

We chatted a few minutes and by being there I got to meet the property owner from the ridge above. He tells me that he’s been watching five bucks running around were I’m hunting and this one is the smallest of the group…the smallest… hmmm. He tells me about his shot. The buck was at 18 yards when he released but turned, thus the bad hit. The broad head snapped off the end of the aluminum shaft. Pete (the hunter) is using a bow that looks about 25 years old. An old laminated wood, small circular wheel compound with aluminum arrows. If there is one example of a good reason to move up to more modern equipment, then this shot could justify it. From the details and looking at the wound it is easy to see that the buck jumped the string. You can also see that the kinetic energy was just a bit too low to push his broad head through the spine all the way and stop the deer at his stand. From our best guess, it looks like the buck slipped running down the ridge and that slip cause the final damage to his spine that prevented him from continuing on. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with an old bow but it is an example of problems that can be fixed if not avoided with newer equipment. BTW; I guess I can say that this is the first deer shot from my new PSE Omen. Even given the circumstances, I can say I’m impressed. Well, Pete and I exchange thanks again and I offered to help drag it up the ridge but he had an ATV. So I walked back to my stand to sit out the remainder of the evening… you never know. Besides, the deer in this area are used to people and noise. Pete quickly hooked up and as a final courtesy, he dragged the buck off without dressing it out first, just to make sure I had as much time in a quite woods as possible. Thanks Pete.

The woods remained quite the rest of the evening. Once it got dark I climbed down and headed in… only to hear several crashes in the swamp as deer spooked from my movement. They’ll be there next time.

Now, anyone that knows me should realize that there was some opportunity here once I got home….. so… I walked in the door carrying my bow. CamoGirl said I looked tired and was all sweaty. I said it was a long tough walk out tonight…. CG: did you get something???? I showed her the quiver and as her eyes saw the arrow completely painted in red…. You Did You Did!!! I said yup, a nice 7 pointer. She asked if she had been there could she have shot it? … I thought for a minute and said… Yup. Then I showed her the picture… she looked at it…looked at me… who is that? Pete, I said, the guy who shot it first! I quickly related the story. Then I told her to text mom… (she was taking my eldest back to CMU). I think the phone had barely finished sending the text when it rang! …Who is that? (in the picture). Story time again!

Asides from the fun at their expense, there was one question, asked by both CamoGirl and mom… Was I glad CamoGirl was not there to see that. I thought for few seconds and said no. It’s part of hunting, it’s part of what we sometimes have to deal with and something that CamoGirl might have to experience first hand some day. I told them both that it was a good lesson in Ethics, and a learning experience on the differences in deer physiology and our own. Mother nature has different rules for her animals and what they feel. The buck was obviously stressed but showed no indication that he was in any major pain. You will know if a deer is in pain, it is something that you will not forget. I was a positive meeting of two hunters who until that day did not know each other. If that buck had not been claimed by the hunter, I would have tagged it myself even if that is not the way I would ever want to harvest a deer, it would be the right thing to do.

My first buck with a bow: Pete and his 7 pointer.

My weekend deer.

2009-10-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

Well, if you’ve been following my blogs and my posts on the Talkhunting.com forum, you know I’ve been struggling to get out for a hunt yet for this year since the youth hunt I took my daughter on. …well, this weekend was no different. I guess it’s all a matter of opportunity because my wife said we have an “opportunity” to get a weekend alone since grandma is heading back to Alabama next weekend and she can watch the critters and my daughter this weekend, if we want….It’s been raining all week and the weather is supposed to be cold and clear on Saturday. I’d been thinking that would be perfect for getting the deer moving for my first hunt…anticipation…chopped at the knees.

Now, don’t get me wrong, a weekend with my wife is a wonderful idea, it’s just tough when you’ve been itching to get into the woods for some hunting and the season is here and you’ve still seen no “opportunity” to get out there. I get to read all the other pro staffers blogs on how much fun they’re having getting out hunting the geese and ducks and the adventures in the first week of bow season…. I need my doctor to call in a prescription for hunters itch ointment. Forget the cortizone, get me some huntizone!

Well, if I couldn’t get out hunting I at least got to enjoy an absolutely excellent weekend with my wife. We headed up north for the fall colors along the west Michigan coast line. It was cold, it snowed and the wind was ferocious…basically, it was incredible. The colors are about half way out and the only downfall was that lack of full sun to enjoy them more.

We stopped just north of Frankfort at the Betsie Point Lighthouse (http://www.pointbetsie.org/ ) and walked the beach a bit.

I took a few pictures.

The one I missed was of my wife bent over looking for Petoskey stones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petoskey_stone ) and completely missing the large wave coming in…. I didn’t know what to do, keep laughing or grab her before she did a nose dive into the lake…. In a life saving decision (mine!) I grabbed a hold of her jacket before she had to start swimming…. That would have made an excellent picture to remember! At least she had another pair of shoes in the car and the heater took care of the cold feet fairly quickly.

(This petoskey seeker was a little bit more aware, he stayed a little higher on the beach and didn't turn his back on the Lady of the Lake!)

On the way south from the lighthouse, wouldn’t you know it, I got to see what I was missing…

My Weekend Deer.

I’m still not sure if that is just salting the wound, just punishment for my out burst from the lighthouse “incident” or a message that good things are waiting for me in the wonderful woods of Michigan.

So, whether you’re out in the woods hunting, sitting in a duck blind calling in a green or two or just enjoying the colors of Michigan’s fall, it’s all good. Get out side and live!

Opening Weekend of Bow Season...but not for Me.

2009-10-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the first weekend of Michigan’s bow season arrived to find me unable to get out and hunt. Now before anyone get’s worried, no injuries are involved unless you count the one to my patience.

As luck would have it, the power steering on my Expedition, ok, my wife’s Expedition, decided it was time to blow a line and scream about it. Now, my dilemma is this, I can fix it myself for less then a $100 or save time and get into the woods by paying the shop over $500 for the new lines and pump installation…. My next thought is …gee, what could I buy for $400….a new gun, new camo…. Hmmmm. I explained this to the wife and “my” decision was to fix it myself since she could go shopping with $400 extra… My next thought was…the way my luck is going I’ll get into the job and something will go wrong…down vehicle until it’s fixed. OK, my solution is to get my Bronco running, which has been down since it’s power steering box decided that steering was too much work… I’ll fix my Bronco and then we’ll have a vehicle to drive while I’m working on the Expedition… besides, I’d rather drive my Bronco any day! So I get the right tools to pull the steering box and pitman arm and get to work, and work, and work, and work…. How come a part with 15 years of service just don’t want to come off! I hate having to take a torch to a vehicle but there’s no helping it…time to burn off a little grease! And burn, and burn, and burn…talk about stubborn! After about an hour of heating I finally get things separated (with the exceptional help of my step dad!) . I get the new steering box installed and find that the steering shaft bolt is toast and the pitman arm nut is toast. You would think two little parts would be easy to find…. Right. After a day of running around hunting down a nut and bolt …INSTEAD OF DEER!... I get the beast put back together and turn the key….tic, tic, tic…. Guess I left a light on or something…. Jumper cables and turn the key….I love a V8!

While it rained all weekend and I would have hunted anyways, some times you just have to buck up and get your chores done…. Now, I have to get the Expedition fixed or my hunting privileges might be revoked! But at least my Deerhtn machine is ready to prowl!

Here's a picture from last year with my daughter and the "old" UNJ logo!

Sight problems... again.

2009-09-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

Well, as many of you know, my daughter recently had some issues with her sight on her compound bow. Getting to a competition and opening the case to find it broken…and dad had to make it work.

Round Two: This weekend was the Youth Deer Season here in Michigan. My daughter decided that she wanted to hunt with a crossbow for this two day only season. Great, I picked up a crossbow for her to use and she jump right in on practicing. Practice, practice, practice she did… While practicing, I found out the hard way that the foot stirrup was in upside down and the locking screws were only holding it in by pressure. Not enough pressure to prevent the crossbow from slamming me in the gut when I was cocking the string (lucky me my gut was there to stop it on it’s way to my jaw!). I then started a system of checking all the screws and bolts regularly. We had some issues with the scope not staying locked in as well. So we checked it each time we shot. 20 yards was dialed in and since her stand was set up in a 20 maximum zone, she was ready to go!

The first day of Youth Season left us with seeing zero deer and a zillion squirrels but we did hear a few deer and kick one up on the way out. The second day found us in the stand again when my daughter whispered…..”Dad, there’s something wrong with my scope…” She handed it up and to my dismay the locking nut on the rear ring was gone! The ring was also loose on the scope!

Well, I had to pull a MacGyver and I used the lanyard from my range finder to get the scope tied down until I could get it replaced. Luckily, the scope ring was a fixed side and a clamp side, so I was able to tie it with enough pressure to one side to lock up the fixed side and get the scope correctly aligned.

We finished up her hunt without see anything but a hoard of chipmunks taking over where the squirrels left off….

When we got home I found that all the scope screws were loose and the whole thing was basically being held in place by my jury rigged tie down! Yikes! I had checked all the screws before we went out! Well, I had an extra set of Millet rings so I swapped the whole thing out for them (I just need to paint them black to match up) and they lock up a lot better than the original ones.

One important lesson that I learned with crossbows… they have a completely different shock/vibration oscillation than guns and compound bows… treat them accordingly. You need to add a little dab of loctite to all the connecting bolts and screws!

I certainly don’t want to see disappointment on her face…..

Setting up the Tree Stands.

2009-09-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve been putting off setting up my treestands because I’m not supposed to be putting that kind of strain on my foot (which is another story…). I decided that the weather on Sunday was nice enough that I could take my time and get my stands set up and not over due it. Right. I put on my rubber knee boots, made sure I had my Rocky Scent IQ shirt on and a good coating of scent killing spray, including a pair of light gloves. I then packed up the truck with the Gorilla ladder stand that my daughter will be using, my hang on stand, the climbing sticks, cable locks (it’s on public land), my video camera and some water and headed over to my hunting location. I unloaded everything at the trail head and got set to go. I’ve got the 3 sections of the ladder stand tied together with my hang on stand and chains, cables and ropes holding it all together. I positioned a couple shoulder straps to carry it all… My climbing sticks are bundled together with one of the straps set up to carry them in a sling. I’ve probably got about 100 lbs strapped together on my back so I plan on taking a couple breaks on the hike in. It’s about half a mile in, up and down hills and through a bit of swamp to boot. I’ve also decided to video my setup so I’m carrying my video camera and a mono pod. What I didn’t realize was that to video my walking to and from the camera, I would need to walk and set it up, go back and then return…repeat… carrying everything…So, I just added quite a bit of walking to my work. There is one other vehicle at the trail head so I’ll be paying close attention on the walk in to make sure I don’t walk into some body else’s hunt. Then again, it is a hiking, riding trail so it just might be a mountain biker or walker.

After what feels like way too much exercise, I make it to the swamp portion of my hike in. I’ll have to make this in several trips because I won’t be able to carry the ladder stand on my back and I will have to only carry one thing at a time to make sure I don’t end up head first in the mud. It proves an excellent idea to wear the rubber knee boots, as the mud and water was just about up to the tops. It’s always fun trying to carry a 100 lbs worth of ladder stand while having to pull your feet out of each step and not fall over… but, I made it. The last part of my hike is through a trail that is narrow and tight. So, I’ll have to carry the ladder stand and the climbing sticks in each hand an maneuver them around trees and shrubs for about 150 yards. After talking with John Eberhart last weekend, I can see I’m going to have to look into the Tree saddle for next years swamp hunt. I can’t believe that when my girls first started going out with me I actually got a double tree ladder through all this stuff! Whew!

I’ve finally made it. There are a few more trees down but this year I’ve lucked out and they did not change any of the funnel paths, they might even help. I quietly set up my daughter’s ladder stand, keeping in mind her early crossbow hunt. I do not trim any new branches this year as the shooting lanes are all fairly clear. I then set up my hang on. I scouted the area to make sure that my placement is optimal since last year (I do this each time as the best sign happens after last season on deer movement). All the sign confirms my post season scouting so I hang the stand only about 30 yards from my daughters location and in clear sight, about 16 feet up and 120 degrees from her left. This should also give me an excellent opportunity to catch her hunts on video.

Once I’m done I make sure everything I brought in is picked up and nothing with my scent is left behind. Then, I have one more thing to do, I spray a cover scent over everything I’ve touched, including any brush or trees I may have bumped on the way in. This time, I’m using a young buck spray from Buck Bombs. I did a product test for them a couple years ago and was impressed at the delivery method of the scent. I did verify with a company representative that since the scent was package as it was in a pressurized can that it would have a shelf life of several years. Yup, I could tell it was still good…

Well, the heavy work is done and we just have to be patient for a short while more and my girls and I will be looking to fill the freezer with some wonderful venison! Plus, you never know, I’ve seen coyotes, turkeys and foxes from the same spot….

And I might even post some video of this adventure...as soon as I look at it first! LOL

Cobra, a nice Snake...

2009-09-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, back when we had the Talk Hunting Anniversary Northern Campout, when CamoGirl was getting ready to shoot her competition she found that her sight was broken. She pulled her bow out of her case and it was minus the sight! Upon inspection, we found that the lower jaw on the main arm was broken off! A little (a lot) electrical tape and a little luck…and CamoGirl’s skill with her bow… and she was on target and actually won! I usually carry a spare sight in my bow kit (identical to her sight) but another shooter had recently run into problems and I had given him my sight then promptly forgot I was short a backup…

Well, her bow sight was a Cobra Archery Bantam. Since she now needed a new sight and I was working at Bass Pro for Mossy Oak the next weekend, I picked her up a new Cobra Sniper sight which she really liked. I liked the all metal arms and the small details (like vertical/horizontal adjustment marks) in an very affordable sight. However, while I was setting up the new sight and adjusting the first pin, the fiber optic broke at the glue point of the pin. At this point I’m thinking a black cloud is following me around with getting a sight working for her. I figured, no problem right now, she’s not going to be hunting past 30 yards and she can do just fine with 2 pins. I’ll order a new pin later. I get the other two pins set and start to tune the sight to her previous specs for a starting point when I notice the vertical adjustment clamp is not tight and doesn’t seem to want to tighten…hmmmm. I pulled the sight apart and found that the nut is only being held on by the locking ring built into it. The bolt threads are not contacting the matching threads in the nut. ….The cloud is getting darker… Easy fix, I grab a new nut out of my tool box and a new bolt and we’re good. I hope.

The cloud has left the area! The sight is working great and the Sniper design gets more light to the pins with longer fibers and CamoGirl is stacking arrows in no time!

Now, it’s time to get a hold of Cobra Archery and find out if there is a warrantee (wish) on the Bantam sight and if I can buy a new pin for the Sniper sight. I gave them a call and spoke to Marie Higgins in their warrantee customer service department. When I explained what the problem was to Marie she immediately told me that she would get a new support arm out to me and a new pin. She even talked to a service manager while I was on the phone about the problem with the bolt/nut and found that they had one other complaint of the same problem. They would include a new bolt/nut if I wanted (I declined). She even threw in a new hat for CamoGirl. I called Marie just before the holiday break so imagine my surprise to find a package from Cobra Archery at my door when we got back from up north. A new arm, a new pin and a very nice waxed canvas Cobra Hat! That is the type of service we all hope for.

So, thanks to Cobra Archery and Marie, CamoGirl is back out practicing for deer season. I could only wish all service calls ended so well.

http://www.cobraarchery.com

Talking to the Kids...

2009-08-26T12:28:00.001-07:00

Last year, working for Mossy Oak, I did a seminar at Cabelas for their Fall Classic show. I spoke about getting kids into the outdoors hunting and the changes that have taken place since we were that age. It’s been almost a year and I’m still getting folks asking questions and once again I’m giving a seminar on that subject. This year it will be for a local sportsman’s club gathering. If you would have asked me a few years ago if I could imagine myself talking to others about how to get their kids into hunting, I would have said you were nuts. Today, I wish I had been doing this years ago.

With the changes in our economy and the changes in attitudes on hunting and firearms in general, getting our kids involved is more important than ever and more endangered. When I was a kid, if I wanted to take grandpa’s old muzzle loader in for show-n-tell, no problem. Today, if our kids want to use a gun “shaped” prop for a play or presentation they get arrested and removed from school. The pressure is on to move our children away from our outdoors and hunting heritage and we need to understand what it takes to steer them back successfully.

Not to long ago, it was mostly the “boys” that had an interest in hunting that was approved of by their parents. It was grandpa’s gun or dad’s old bow that was our first introduction into the sport. This was great if grandpa’s gun was a .22 or a 20 gauge. At that time we bucked up and learned how to shoot to make our dad’s proud… no mater if we had to shoot that old 30-06 or try to draw back dad’s 55lb bow. We’re lucky we have the number of hunters today that we do based on those experiences. Today, we have computers and video games, texting and “networking” to contend with. We also, I’m happy to say, have a lot more young ladies interested in the sport. Grandpa’s old gun and dad’s old bow are now the wrong answer. They are great to hand down, when the time is right, but they’re more liable to push the child into those “other” entertainments than draw them in. Hard hitting rifles and shotguns, heavy draw weights on bows and the wrong equipment are quick deciding factors our children will experience to go back to those computers and video games. However, unlike when we were young, there are now products in the marked designed for children interested in the hunting and shooting sports that can grow with them and help encourage them to continue. Moms and dad’s can be happy that they will not have to buy new equipment every year.

Most gun manufactures produce firearms designed for shorter arms and lighter frames. They can be easier to use and less painful in the recoil department if parents do a little research before they spend any money. Now that there are firearms designed for children, parents need to pay attention to a few details before making any decisions. Look for those firearms designed to grow with your child. They will have changeable or adjustable stocks and fore arms of one design or another. Remember, lighter is not always better… the lighter the gun the harder it kicks. Look for firearms that have recoil reducing parts and are just light enough for your youth to handle without being awkward. Muzzle breaks and recoil pads, semi-auto versus pump (load one round at a time if you have to) and wood versus synthetic to keep the recoil absorbed. A bad recoil experience will shut down interest faster than anything else. If it hurts, why do it.

With archery manufactures, most companies have seen the need for lighter bows that have more value and useful life than the old fiberglass “kiddies” bow. Kids want a bow that looks like dads (or moms). Most of these companies now have models of bows that have draw length adjustments of 10 or 11 inches and draw weight adjustments up to 30lbs on a single set of limbs. There are even programs that allow for limb changes for vary little cost to move the bow up in weight as the child develops. This lowers the cost by keeping the child in a modern, working and proficient bow for many years, growing with them and not against them. They even have “Pink” bows to appeal to the young female crowd that is growing in interest of archery as a sport and hunting activity.

If you’re a parent that didn’t know about these products, salvation at last! If you already knew, great, but don’t forget the rest!

The Rest:
It’s not just about the gun or the bow; it’s about paying attention to what your child needs. They need to be warm and comfortable too. A proper set of clothing for the season is a must. You may need to change your hunting tactics from tree stands to ground blinds for example. While we can tough it out in the cold, kids will think your nuts and next time… back to the computer instead. For just the shooting sports, maybe a marathon 4 hour practice should be changed to 30 minutes and snack time. Maybe you should make a game out of it with small rewards for goals met, realistic goals based on the ability and age of the child. Make it Fun; you have a lot to compete against. Back to hunting; if they’re getting cold in the blind don’t push it, there is always next time. Next time take a heater. Best idea is to leave your gun or bow at home. Concentrate on your child and what they need. Show them what it means to be out in the wild and to watch game and listen to the wind. A lot of things we take for granted, they will be enthralled with… watching squirrels packing in nuts or birds looking for seeds and bugs. How the animals around you interact with the woods and the fields or how the trees grow and what types there are. Treat this as an opportunity to expand their knowledge and show them all the neat things. Make a game out of it. NEVER be critical. Learn how to communicate and build on that communication. There is always time to change and ways to make that change. Children are by definition not a hunter that can sit still for long periods of time. Prepare yourself. You need to change your Attitude more than they do. Patience. You won’t succeed unless you can be more patient than the trees you’re surrounded by. Learn to give. You are giving your time for Them.

The rewards are boundless if you succeed. Pride, Love and a better Relationship.

Some day, you will think as you’re heading out to the hunt with your child…” I’d rather be….” Then you’ll really know you’ve succeeded. Congratulations, you’ve passed on a heritage that will always be yours and gained more than you’ll ever know.

And for you dads out there…. NEVER forget mom. Whether she hunts or not, she’s as much a part of this experience as anything.

Relaoding : Fun and Saves Money!

2009-08-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Reloading:

Many years ago, I bought a handgun chambered in .454 Casull. After buying several boxes of ammunition and realizing how expensive this gun was going to be after the purchase, I decided to try reloading. As with anything else, there were several good choices I could make in reloading equipment. Being new, I looked at what was offered as a package that would cover almost all of my needs and with little extra to buy. I stayed with popular, established companies and finally decided to go with a Lee Anniversary Kit. The Lee kit contained everything I would need except for the dies themselves and the case prep equipment. I purchase the Lee 454 carbide dies including the separate crimp die (all the manuals I had been reading strongly suggested a “solid” crimp on the 454 loadings). I also purchased a case polishing kit for my used cases. A couple hundred cases from Starline, several boxes of 454 bullets from Hornady, a couple boxes of CCI Small Rifle primers (again as researched) and several pounds of Hodgdon H110 powder…I’m ready to go. Just to note, all my choices on brass, primers, bullets and powder were just that, my choices. There are many different combinations of all these ingredients available, I chose these based on my research for what I wanted to achieve from my reloads. As you can already tell, Research is the #1 step in deciding to reload. Included in my research was the information on what pressures were safe and allowable for my specific firearm, what type of velocities, trajectories and kinetic energy I wanted to achieve and what types and weights of projectiles I wanted for the type of use I would be putting my .454 through… Deer hunting.

Another bit of advice, and it’s the most important….buy a couple reloading manuals…

Even with all of my research, there were many stops and starts my first few times reloading. One advantage of using the Lee kit was that it was a single press/single stage kit. I had to change the dies out at each stage and could only work on one cartridge at a time. This is the best way for a new reloader to start. Jumping in right away with a multistage or turret press can lead to mistakes and this is one process you do not want to make mistakes in. I learned how to “feel” the status of the case as I maneuvered the press and to visually inspect each cartridge as it was “worked”. I also learned a very important rule, work in a quiet and uncluttered area and work on only one caliber at a time to prevent mixing up process and causing rounds to be built with the wrong components or volumes. Measure and re-measure often.

Current .454 prices range from $28 a box to over $80 a box… 20 rounds in a box. My reloading expense is down to about 11 cents a round or $2.20 for a box of 20. That’s a savings of at least $25 a box, which quickly paid for all the equipment.

It’s fun, it saves money and there is a satisfaction gained when you start shooting ammunition that you created.

Give it a try.

Alone in the Woods

2009-06-15T07:45:00.001-07:00

A number of years ago, I would have said that Hunting is My time. I never really thought that my children would become involved as much as they have. See, I have two beautiful daughters, I figured they’d never want to hunt with their dad. I figured I’d grow old hunting by myself, filling that “missing” spot with my hunting buddies and their boys on occasion. I’ve found over the years that I really don’t like hunting alone. I like having someone to share stories with and spend time enjoying the secrets of the outdoors with. When you’re sitting in blind or in a tree stand, when you’re stalking or walking a fence row, there’s all sorts of wonders going on around you. Things you’ll enjoy seeing or hearing but never dwelling on long yet become a part of who you are. Things you’d enjoy pointing out to your child or your hunting buddy. I have never been in the woods or fields were something did not catch my attention with wonder. I’ve felt that those wonders were lost in the thoughts of just one…what a blessing that I was wrong.

Now, don’t misunderstand me… I would never be disappointed if my girls just liked to shoot targets. I’d even understand if they didn’t want to shoot at all. I’d never force them to do something they really don’t have an interest in. Everyone "just knows" that boys will follow their dads into hunting, trying to be just like him… but girls? I’ll be honest, I’ve thought a few times of what it would be like to have a son… Then I think of how blessed I am to have the daughters I have. I wouldn’t trade them for the world and I don’t want them to be “boys”. They just need to be themselves.

My oldest seems to just like to target shoot and I respect her for that. I think she goes hunting with me just to spend time with her dad, and I love her for that. She’s in college now and our time together is very limited, I’m trying to make those times as cherished as possible. Soon, she’ll really be on her own and time with Dad may be a fleeting thing…never caught and rarely seen… I’ll cherish those times together even more.

My youngest shows a genuine interest in hunting. I’ve tried to make sure she understands what it means to harvest an animal. I’ve had her research how to clean and skin squirrels to see how she reacts and I’ve involved her with processing the animals I’ve taken so she can experience the “other” side of hunting. Most of all, I’ve tried to teach her about Respect. Respect for the outdoors and Respect for the animals we hunt. I’ve not been disappointed, she shows a genuine maturity many would be surprised to see and many others never achieve.

I’ve learned a few things too. Patience is one. Explaining about sitting quiet and moving slowly was a tough one. About, paying attention and using your senses. Patience has been a teacher to me. I struggled at first but have since graduated and now, Patience is another tool this ol’hunter uses like a well worn knife or a comfortable pair of boots. Pride is something I’ve learned more about. I used to think that pride in my children was for doing good in school or winning a competition. Now I know that Pride is watching my girls Respect the outdoors and the animals that live there. Pride is watching my girls enjoy, really enjoy the time spent exploring the wonders they see and hear. Pride is watching them grow and learn. Pride will stay in my breast pocket were it’s easy to get to, bring out and show. I’ve learned about communication. Communicating with a child needs to change and grow just like her. Understanding how that communication works lets you bond even closer. Communicating is more than just a 2-way road, it’s a stream, a river, an ocean. It’s everything that moves between us. It can move us further away or it can bring us closer. Having a child does not teach you about communication, your child teaches you. It’s a lesson you can not afford to miss for it’s the building blocks of everything else you learn. And the foundation for communication is Love. I love my girls and I know they love me back.

Now, even if it’s just My time, I’ll never be alone in the woods.

Way Behind!

2009-02-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I'm way behind in posting some blogs..... been swamped. I've got the youth bow review to write now that the season is done. We want all the readers to learn what we learned and the manufacturers to get some feedback too. I'll update you on how my deer hunting season went and what made it one of the best I've ever had. Lots of info coming soon....

Colorado Trip - The Last Part.

2008-10-24T07:06:00.001-07:00

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Well, it’s Sunday. We’ll be home tonight. The adventure has been the greatest but it’ll be nice to be home with family. Mike was really tired last night so I let him go back to sleep and I keep driving through the next tank of gas (about 8 hours). Once we’ve traded off again and I’ve had a quick nap we start talking about our trip. I spend a little time putting all the pictures I’ve taken together and use my laptop to burn them onto a DVD for Mike to take home (all 782 of them). He’ll do the same with the video he’s taken once he has some time to put them all together. After another round of switching drivers, Mike gets out his gear and we start taping a segment for his Podcast on the http://www.upnorthjournal.com/ It’s a lot to talk about, our whole trip and our experiences, so he has to change tapes half way through it. Unknown to us, the second tape is bad and we don’t have it later when he’s getting it ready for his show (episode #77). Even with all the pictures and video we have, one of the things we wished we done was take a lot more. As we’re discussing each day, we remember little things that we’ve forgotten and wished we’d taken a picture of some video of it. So just a note to anyone thinking of taking a trip like this, or just a trip with the family…take lots and lots of pictures and video. You’ll only get one chance.

We get to the Michigan border around 2 pm. It’s like crossing a magical line into your home country… This is our home turf and familiar things are recognized as we get closer to home. We first drive to my nephew’s to drop of his quad with my many thanks… Paul, without your quad my hunt would have been a nightmare at times and much, much more difficult. Huge Thanks. We then head up to Mikes house to unload and get my stuff loaded into my Bronco for my final leg of the trip. At Mike’s house the unpacking and re-packing goes fairly quickly. For a couple of guys, we were pretty organized in loading our stuff. Mike’s wife and kids drive up as we’re unpacking and you can see the excitement in everyone that he’s home. I’m looking forward to the same when I get home.

One thing I’m really excited about (and Mike was too) is that while we were in Colorado our new bows showed up. They were both shipped to Mike’s house because we were hoping that we’d have them in time for the trip. Unfortunately, they showed up Monday after we left. While my Hoyt Trykon did its job and did it well, I was really hoping that I could have had my new Bowtech Guardian to use in Colorado or at least set it up and “play” with it during the day. Bowtech has been a huge contributor to our youth bow review and when Mike and I joined the Mossy Oak Pro Staff they stepped up and helped get us into the Guardians. (Both of our Hoyt’s are in the Real Tree pattern and not offered in Mossy Oak…so…). I guess we’ll just have to plan another big hunt so we can do a story with the Bowtech Guardians (in Mossy Oak Obsession pattern). You know, just to make sure they’re good for say….maybe Alaskan big game…maybe even a trip back to Colorado to make sure they’re good for Elk even… hmmmm… yup, I think that’s gonna be a requirement for testing them out. I’ll write a post later on how the Guardian shoots; let’s just say for now that… I Like IT!
Anyways, it’s one more farewell to my “brother” Mike (although my spouse calls him my second “wife” cause we talk so much) and I’m on the road. We made good time so I’m about an hour ahead of schedule and I’m looking forward to surprising the “girls” when I get home. I pull in the drive and before I can get to the door, TJ is running towards me… (TJ is my 2 year old Australian Cattle Dog)… Geezzzz, let me get in the house you crazy thing! Then it’s hugs and kisses from my girls (Mindy, who just turned 12 (happy Bday!) and (Ka)Trina my “first” wife). Unfortunately, Megan (my oldest daughter) is at college so I’ll have to call her later. Trina has made my favorite roast and potatoes…yum! After all the greetings and hugs and kisses and hugs…and diner, I call my mom to come over and give me a hand finishing up processing my venison (Trina does NOT process venison…Mindy helped though). Since my vacuum sealer was broken, Trina bought a new one…which only worked for the first couple of packages before it quit working… so it was back to freezer bags. Steaks, roasts and the rest are now in the freezer (thanks Mom), a sure sign of a successful hunt!

Back to work on Monday.

Writing this blog has let me remember and re-live a lot of our trip and experiences. From the long drives to the license fiasco and seeing the beauty of the Colorado Rockies. Meeting new people, hunting in a new and exciting environment and learning about different ways of doing things outdoors. Getting to finally hunt in Colorado, which is something that I had been wanting to do for as long as I can remember, and getting to experience the hunt with my best friend and “brother” Mike. It’s been great. Thanks to Aneal from Bowcast for meeting with us. A special thanks to Bill (Insane Willy) for providing the hunt! WOW! Big Thanks to Mike for asking me to go! A very dear thanks to my wife Katrina, for supporting me in going. I also want to thank my Dad. Without his help this last minute trip would not have been possible. Thanks Dad!

And thank you, for sharing my hunt all over again with me.

October 1st is Deer Archery opener in Michigan…oh boy!

Colorado Trip - Part 8

2008-10-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Saturday morning, Mike’s in a funk but we’ve got work to do. First, we need to get my deer quartered up and in the coolers. We get the camera out first because it was dark last night when we finally had a chance to look her over. Unfortunately, with the cold last night, she has stiffened up in such a way as that it was very difficult to take a decent picture.

Now, it’s been 20 years since I cut up my own deer. With my hectic schedule I usually just take my deer into the butchers and pick it up when it’s done. Mike is the teacher here. We get the doe hanging in the barn and Mike helps me get her skinned. Once skinned out, Mike points out the different muscle groups that will provide the “guides” for cutting out the various different sections of meat. Cutting out the back straps we observe that this doe was in perfect health, the meat looks clean and we see no indications of disease. I had brought a vacuum sealer to process any meat we harvested but unfortunately it was damaged on the “Insane Willy” drive. We decided to cut out the back straps and loins and then quarter out the shoulders and hind quarters. We wrapped them all up in plastic bags and got them in the cooler with ice. After we clean up we jump on the quads for the last time and head down to see if we can pick up the trail of Mikes doe. We locate the last spot were we found an indication of blood and canvas the area. No luck. This doe is long gone and running around some place. We spend about an hour looking and then head back to the camp. It’s time to load up.

We get my quad loaded into the back of Mike’s truck and then hook the trailer up and start loading all our gear. After we’re done we grab quick showers and clean up the cabin. One long last look around, our thoughts quietly reminiscing about what we’ve experienced here and then we get in the truck and reluctantly pull away from an Adventure we’ll never forget.

We’ve got a long drive in front of us but we’ve got a plan. We’re going to head north to Wyoming and then across to Nebraska, stop at Cabelas in Sydney to return some of the items we purchased for elk hunting that we didn’t need and then it’s homeward bound.

We get into Wyoming and get on highway 70. We stop in Encampment, a little sneeze of a town, population 100. A couple restaurants, a gas station and a party store. In the party store we pickup some snacks for the road… Imagine the late 60’s early 70’s, the owner is a weathered, long hair in a pony tail, beret and denim vest wearing fellow whom we’d guess grew his own medicinals…polite and easy mannered. After a short conversation about local hunting and fishing we get on the road again. As we head towards the mountains we start seeing herds and herds of pronghorns. They are everywhere.

When we get to 130 we’ve got a choice of staying on 70/130 north until we get to interstate 80 or we can turn East on 130 and go through Medicine Bow National Park and get to I-80 at Laramie… I told Mike to flip a coin. Heads we turn and tails we continue north…Heads. I think that coin was exactly what Mike needed. We head into the National Park. We notice that it seems like every turn off has trucks and campers parked in them. It’s the start of Elk gun season on Monday and hunters are packing in to the park in droves.

We also note that we’re still in the free ranging cattle area…they are all over the place, including right next to the highway with no fences…careful driving is required since our cooler is full.

Our first stop in the National Park is at The Continental Divide. Another photo opportunity. Mike has to call his mom from the top of the Divide…she’s not home so he leaves a message. We’re standing on the top of the Divide, In the Rockies, what a view.

We continue driving through the beautiful and winding roads until Mike sees a park stopping area and decides to stop. It’s Lake St. Marie and if you ever get a chance to go through Medicine Bow National Park you need to stop and look around at Lake St. Marie…It’s inspirational and can provide a little peace for your soul.

We walk down to the lake and simply stare at the sight of the water and the immense mountain cliff on the other side. Snow can be seen on the peaks. The water is crystal clear and cold. Fish are surfacing all across the lake making ripples, moving the water. Unfortunately, it’s overcast. You can imagine what the view would be like if the sun was shining down on the lake and reflecting from the snow. Reluctantly, we climb back into the truck and continue on our journey.

After we stop for gas our next major stop is at the Sydney Nebraska Cabelas. We return some stuff and pick some goodies up for the kids. We gas up again and we’re on the road. Now if we didn’t mention it before, as we’re coming down in elevation from over 10,000 feet in Medicine Bow National Park to 4000 feet in Eastern Nebraska…it’s nothing but corn fields and corn fields and corn… and corn. We run into rain again but it’s short lived and the sun puts in an entrance for the rest of the afternoon.

It’s been a busy, stressful, aggravating, exciting, emotional and wonderful trip. The drive home is a long one but helps us put into perspective our thoughts and feelings we’re experiencing. Tomorrow, we’ll try and put together a podcast for the UpNorthJournal. Tonight we’ll take turns driving and putting our thoughts together on what this trip has meant to each of us and what we’re taking home from it.

Next – Sunday, Home and Final Thoughts.

BTW : HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE... you caught up to me again!

Colorado Trip - Part 7

2008-10-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 19, 2008

The last day of our hunt.

Mike and I wake up this morning with the understanding that this is it. It’s the last day of hunting. Tomorrow morning we’re going to have to load up and start our 25+ hour drive home and work starts on Monday.

This morning Mike and I decide that since I’ve not been seeing any deer I’ll follow Mike in and head to the other side of the valley. Mike’s at least been seeing deer. So, we load up and head down towards his water crossing. The only difference with Mike’s water crossing is that we have to do this one on foot. The quads get parked on the trail and we hike down to the water. We’re hoping that our boots are tall enough that the water won’t be soaking our feet… We made it across, in the dark and stayed dry. I walk with Mike to his stand and then continue on until I get to the edge of the valley and the mountain. I follow the valley line until I come across a stand of old pines that are on the slope but spaced about 4 feet apart in a circle. It’s perfect. The ground is bare and I can lean up against one tree with two trees in front that are slightly apart. The side trees provide cover to keep me concealed. After getting all arranged and my gear set out within easy reach it’s time to sit quiet… within a few minutes I can hear some scratching sounds… I watch a large field mouse to my left. He’s come out of his hole and is thinking about heading my way… Every time he starts towards me (he’s only about 2 feet away) I move my hand a little and he dashes back to his hole. We keep this up for quite awhile. He’s getting bolder and bolder each time. Eventually, he dodges around my hand and behind my back. Guess I didn’t see his other hole in the tree I’m leaning against. Now I can hear him running around just behind the bark. Getting ready for winter I guess. Well, it was a perfect hunting morning, cold after last nights rain but clear with almost no wind. Unfortunately, 10 am rolled around and no deer. I packed up and slowly made my way to Mikes stand. He didn’t see anything either. He only heard the coyotes calling but they’ve been calling almost every day and in several packs too. We didn’t see any though except for that one I missed on Monday night. Back to camp we go.

Since this is the last day I want Mike to see the view from the High blind. So we pack up (never know if you might get a chance at a shot) and get the quads heading towards the peak.

We make sure we’ve got plenty of pictures of crossing the river and Mike films me crossing and vise versa (even though each time I go across I hope I don’t get stuck or stall out!).

We park about 100 yards from the high blind. Mike spotted a doe between us and the blind when we had to stop and cross under a fence line just before we parked. She watched us pull up so there is no chance of a stalk and shot on this one. Once at the blind Mike can now understand what I was talking about when I discussed the difficulty of using the blind as an archery blind and what a nice snack shelf it makes for the bears… Some video and a few pictures later we’re standing there wondering how we can ever leave, it’s incredible up here!

Being from Michigan, we’re pretty much flat landers and we rarely get to experience this type of beauty. Eventually, we head back down and get the quads moving.

Since this is the last day, Mike and I need to get some fishing in. So after lunch we load up some fishing gear and drive down to the creek, past where I hunted my first night. The river is running cold and high, the weather is perfect with only a few storm clouds off in the distance and the sun high and warm. We can see the fish along the banks…and they’re huge! Now comes the interesting part…

Mike has a fly rod, which he’s never fly fished before and I have an ultra light spinning rod… spinning rods are just not made for using flies! I have to wade into the water and let my bail stay open until the fly is down river among the fish and then play it across the top. After doing this for almost an hour I hook one! Hot Diggity Dog! I finally get the monster towards shore and we realize that we don’t have a net! I let him back out to tire him out some more and that was a mistake… within a few minutes he’d had enough and busted the line…spiderwire 8lb test! Dog gone it! …Mike still hasn’t hooked up yet. They’re just teasing us under the surface. Even the eagle that flew by seemed to be laughing at us. Finally, we load back up and head back to the trout pond by the cabin. Surely we can hook up with some nice rainbows from the trout pond… right. After a few minutes at the trout pond, I hook a monster again! Again Snap! What do we need, steel leaders!?! Mike finally hooks up with a beauty after another hour of fishing and just drags it up the muddy banks.

Good thing there was all those rocks in the way when he washed it off…it sure was a lively bugger.

Mike graciously loans me his fly rod (which I’ve never used either) and before long I’ve hooked another rainbow.

This time, I follow Mikes lead and drag the silly thing through the mud instead of letting him break the line. If nothing else, we’ve got something on this trip… a couple large rainbows (and they were only about middle size from what we could see in the water!). We clean them and ice them up back at the cabin.

It’s time. The last Hunt. Mike and I load up our packs and with a few final words we head the quads down towards the water. Crossing on foot sure is easier when the sun is up. I wait while Mike gets up into his stand, wish him good luck and head for the final time out to my hidden tree ground blind. No mice tonight. I make sure my gear is set and my camera is ready just in case. Around 5:30 I hear Mike shoot and I hear the arrow impact! I never would have thought that you could hear a bow from over 200 yards away! I watch in his direction and quickly see a nice doe moving briskly but confidently towards the mountain. My guess is that Mike got a shot at his little buck again and that was the doe that he was following around. Since we forgot to bring out the radios (they’re at the cabin) I know that Mike will sit still until my hunt is done. Boy, am I excited for him. At least one of us will be taking home a deer. I think about how loud his bow was and how easily I heard not only the bow but also the impact with the deer’s body. I range find his group of trees and it’s easily 225 yards + away. While I’m thinking about that I glass the valley in front of me and to the sides. While I’m glassing to my right, through the trees, I see a shape that doesn’t look quite right. Sure enough, it’s a deer body (can’t see the head), browsing on the bank of the river about 150 yards away. I watch “her” browse and head down out of sight. I’ve seen another deer!!

Shortly after, I’m glassing straight in front of me and see a doe and young one following the edge of the river away from Mike’s location. I get to watch mom and young one browsing for almost an hour. As they’re making their way towards where I saw the other deer heading towards the water, I glass through the trees to my right and immediately spot a deer 40 yards away right at the edge of the field and the mountain! It looks like the same deer that I earlier saw disappear towards the river. She, I can see her head now, must have came back up and was following the edge of the valley right towards me. I shift my position and get my bow ready, turn on the risercam and wait. I think she heard me move because she suddenly moved away from the tree line and back out into the field strait away from me. While she’s spooked from some noise, she can’t see me and soon calms down again. However, instead of walking 5 yards in front of me she is now almost 40 yards out.

She starts walking from my right towards my left, strait away. I range her at 36.5 yards and get ready. She stops, looking towards me (still can’t see me) in a perfect broad side position. I calmly (I don’t know how I was…) draw back and anchor. I pick my pin and a spot over her heart… exhale… WHAM! The release lets go and the arrow is away… THWACK! Solid hit! She squats, kicks and bounces off… She’s not bouncing all out (Mule deer seem to bounce more than run) and starts to walk soon… At about 100 yards I watch her just fold up and collapse!

I have just got my very first Mule Deer! Not only that, but this is my very first Archery Harvest ever! Ever! WOW!!! Talk about excited! I know Mike has shot a deer and now this! Ok, no twigs on its head but I’m cool with that. Sure, it would have been nice to score on a buck but that’s not why I hunt. I m grateful for being able to harvest venison and I have no problems harvesting a doe when it’s available. And this is my FIRST ever with a bow! I know to let her lie for awhile just in case I didn’t make as good a shot as I think I made but I just can’t sit still. I get up and slowly walk out of my hide to see if I can spot her were she fell. I look around and see the other doe (with the little one) watching me… So I freeze. I stand still for almost 10 minutes hoping that the doe will stop staring… and staring… and staring… nope. I decide to slowly walk backwards back into my hide. When I get back the doe is still staring at me (or more likely where I disappeared). After what seems like hours, she starts walking towards me! What a silly deer! She ends up following the same path that I shot the doe on right in front of me. If I had 2 tags and she didn’t have a little one with her, she would have added to the cooler. I took some pictures and finally stood up.

She bounced off directly towards the other doe. I walked out and she bounced up the ridge. That took about 30 minutes. Time enough and it the other doe was not down for the count I think she would have been back up and gone with all the action. I walk out to where the doe stood when I shot and very easily find my arrow a few yards past that point… completely coated in red! I decide to play it safe and start following the blood trail instead of just walking to where I saw her go down… A blind man could have followed that blood trail. Sure enough, when I got to her she had bled out from a perfect pass through heart shot! It’s about dusk time so I drop my pack and start walking towards Mike’s stand. I get to Mike only to find out that yup, he shot, looked like a complete pass through but there is only a little spec of blood on the arrow. I tell him that I’ve got a doe down half way between us and that I heard his shot. He heard mine too and was fairly sure that I’d gotten something because he could hear the impact sound as well. We decide to not try and track his doe yet, let her lie down and relax. We’ll go back and grab my gear and head back to the cabin to unload stuff. Then we’ll come back with the quads and load up my deer and start looking for his.

It’s dark now, so we pack up what we’ll need to get my deer loaded and track Mikes. We have bottle of Bluestar (http://www.bluestar-hunting.com/) which is a blood revealing agent for tracking. Looks like a great chance to see if it really works. We also have some samples from illumitacks from elusive wildlife (http://www.elusivewildlife.com/) that we can try out for marking our trails. In addition to those, we’ve got our GPS units and our sidearms, just in case. Now, getting the quads over is a chore in itself. Earlier in the week we had to do some repairs to Mikes stand and to get the tools over we had to cross the creek up stream on a barely visible trail (had to turn around a couple times trying to find it). This crossing is even tougher on my 2 wheel drive quad than were I was normally crossing, talk about crossing my fingers! Now, we had to cross in the dark and find the trail!

We got across and found our way through the slashings to the valley. Mike stopped to tack the first illumitack to the tree by the trail (very smart move) before we continued on to my doe. We parked the quads around my doe to help discourage coyotes and such while we tracked his doe. Mike placed the next illumitack on the grip of his quad (another smart move). We mixed up the bottle of bluestar and sprayed it on the tall grass around my doe to test it…. You have to use this stuff in the dark so we turned our lights off and WOW! It looked like I’d shot an alien! Glowing all over the place! I think you could read by all the light. Ok, we’ve verified the stuff works so we walk over to where Mike shot his doe and turn off our lights… Mike sprays a little in the air and within seconds there are glowing spots on the ground and leaves. It’s obvious that it’s a pass through, the glow is from both sides of the trail she took out. We start following the glowing spots… to the edge of the valley were I saw her… up the mountain… across the mountain… down the mountain (only a 150 yards from were she went up)… through the thickest bunch of slashings you could find… found were she bedded down… to the river. Now, up until this point we’ve been finding blood with the Bluestar spray fairly easily. It’s not been much but it’s allowed us to track her…to the river. Mike crosses first, then I cross (I don’t have my rubber boots on this time…) only getting mildly wet. Within a couple of minutes, Mike has found blood with the spray, on the rocks coming out of the water. We spray the trails heading into the slashings but can’t find any more blood. The spray runs out. I look at the GPS and we realize that we’ve gone in almost a complete circle from when Mike took the shot. We decide to call it a night on tracking and try to find the trail tomorrow if she’s gone down. Personally, I think the amount of blood we’ve been following is the same as if you’ve cut your finger. Sure, the arrow did a pass through but it went over the lungs and didn’t hit anything but skin. A little blood, a scar and she’ll be back next year.
After crossing the river again, we head back to my doe. She was easy to find with the illumitack blinking like mad. We load her up on Mike’s quad and strap her down. We can see the first tack Mike placed which worked out well since we wouldn’t have been able to find the trail back to the water in the dark. Back across the water we drive and head back to camp. I dress her out on the back of the quad and then we put her in the back of Mike’s truck for the night. It’s in the 30’s so its cold enough and we don’t want the coyotes getting to her.

Back in the cabin, Mike is certainly depressed. I can understand how he feels, it’s a hunter’s worst fear that he’ll wound game and not be able to recover it. We talk about the shot and the amount of blood. How it was probably just over the lungs and really didn’t do any damage. She’ll scar and be fine. We’ll go out again in the morning to look on this side of the river just to make sure, it’s the ethical thing to do, but I’m sure she’s running around someplace eating and looking for a place to sleep. Deer are tough critters.

I could almost forget that I took my very first archery deer. Mike is worrying about his shot and I’m worrying about Mike (in 25 years I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen him this depressed). There’s not much I can do but be there. I call him a few nasty names, because that’s what friends are for.

It’s a long and restless night for both of us.

Next – Saturday, We Look, We Load, We Leave and New Discoveries

Colorado Trip - Part 6

2008-10-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Well, hopefully, this morning’s hunt will be exciting, but not like last nights…

I’m back in the ridge blind this morning. Things are looking a little overcast, clouds in the sky so no full moon lighting up the hills. It’s quiet and cold. One thing we haven’t talked about is the weather changes here. At night the temperatures are in the 30’s and very low 40’s but during the day the temps have been in the 80’s! Talk about a temperature swing! It’s all about layering your hunting cloths so you’re not too hot or too cold. Anyways, it’s below 40 degrees out but the sun is coming up on an overcast day. It’s one of those mornings that you just feel like everything is going to connect for a perfect hunt… Guess my feelings got hurt. Nothing. No deer, just one small Rabbit.

(You'll have to look hard to find the little guy).

Even overcast it’s a wonderful place to be in the morning…no cars, no desk, and no phone (in the stand). Oh well, I pack up and head down the mountain. On the way I decide to do stalk on this side of the creek, we kicked up a deer on the “Bill” tour and there are lots of deer sign. I slow walk the ridge edge of the open field (by where I parked the quad) and head down the 2 track that leads to the high blind.

Where it cuts up the ridge I turn towards the water and move slowly out… Nothing.

I do have a nice size Hawk circling overhead letting me know he sees me. I head back along the water, walking quietly and looking for movement…Nothing. Seems like today is going to be the “Nothing” day. I’m almost back to the quad when I realize that the broadhead is missing from my arrow! It was on tight when I was sitting in the blind… I took the picture with my bow just before I started my last stalk heading towards the quad. I did have to push through some fairly heavy slashings on the way to the quad while I was stalking. I held my bow behind me to keep it from being caught.

I guess that the broadhead must have run up against a couple of limbs and spun off. I tried to find it but talk about a needle in a hay stack! I’m more upset about leaving a sharp broadhead on the ground or stuck in a limb than I am about losing it. Not looking to be a good day so far… On the quad, over the river (through it), through the woods and back to “grandma’s” house we go…

After meeting up with Mike, who didn’t see anything either, we decided that we’d take a drive down the road the other way on the quads. While we were driving, we watched a storm coming across the mountains. After a couple miles and seeing lightning, we decided it would be smart to turn around and head back (we don’t always do the smart thing…).

We got back to camp and within a couple minutes it began to pour…hail! It started dumping marble sized hail! …and I had left my gear on the back of the truck… After running out and being pelted to no end I realized I left the keys (with the remote for the truck) on the quad…here we go again… ouch. I should have worn a helmet. Mike and I watched it hail for a good 30 minutes then it turned into straight rain for another 2 hours. Thunder! You have got to experience thunder in the Rockies!

(The sunny spot on the mountain is about were my blind is... now to get to it...)

Talk about sticking your head in a cannon barrel! Now, we figured that we could still have an opportunity to hunt. A couple of the blinds even have roofs over them. Our biggest concern was for the level of the water in the river… We picked out 3 rocks we could see from the cabin window and as they quickly disappeared under water we realized that crossing was going to be out of the question. Lunch was Venison hamburgers, might as well sit and enjoy the weather… The rain stopped around 3 o’clock so I convinced Mike that we should take the quads down to the crossing I have to use to see how bad it was. A bit of information… Quads are a requirement (or at least a life saver) in this type of hunting. The right kind of quad makes a difference… Mike’s work horse style quad works great, especially in the mud and getting through the river… My nephew’s racer style quad is a different story… It’s a 2 wheel drive manual transmit ion, high sprung suspension speed machine, great for the sand dunes and Michigan’s trails. When we picked it up it was completely coated in mud. I should have used that as a clue. I don’t have mud flaps. That’s what the body on top is for…to stop the flying mud… get the clue now… yup. It was an interesting drive down to the water. A mile of mud. Flying mud. Good thing we were just checking and I didn’t have all my gear on! Did you know that small tires with neat little “H” symbols are excellent for throwing mud up over 8 feet in the air? .. me neither. How about that mud from the rear tires can fly forward over the back of the quad and hit you in the face? … me neither. At least I had my Gortex coat on and could just turn the hose on that to clean it. My hat was another story. Ok. We’ll be taking a break tonight. Time to catch up on some writing and looking at the pictures I’ve taken so far. (I spent an hour with the water hose getting all the mud off my quad and I was nice and rinsed off Mikes too)

Next – Friday, the last hunt.

Colorado Trip - Part 5

2008-10-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

Day 5 – Wednesday September 17, 2008

Wednesday starts out with me heading to another location. Since I’ve not been seeing any deer from the valley I decide to head to the first blind that Bill showed us, halfway up the mountain. The cabin is at about 6300 feet and this blind sits at around 7100 feet. I had my GPS on when Bill gave his tour so I feel confident that I can find where I need to go…. I hope. I jump on the quad and drive until I get to the water (about a mile). I didn’t think about what crossing the water in the dark on the quad would be like… I remember big rocks and this quad is only 2 wheel drive. I cross my fingers, try to spot the best path to cross at and give it some gas… made it (not without some moments of, shall we say, renewed energy levels). I park the quad down a trail by the water and start hiking towards the stand on the ridge above me. Luckily, I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction and after a few minutes of huffing and puffing (I’m not used to the elevation yet either), I get to the blind. Just a note; this is were Bill was telling us not to worry about the bears, even though the blind is built in a stand of berry bushes, “it’s been a good year for them and they shouldn’t bother you, it was last year we had a problem”. Bill said that smoothly enough that you had to think about what he said or you just forgot that little bit of information. It’s a good blind though so I’m not worried. Besides, another item that Bill suggested we carry with us was our handguns. Just in case. Anyways, I settle in and watch the sun come up for another beautiful memory. Just about 7:30 while I was glassing the ridge in front of me, I spot a little bit of white that looks out of place. I steady the binocs and watch as a nice muley doe is nibbling on some leaves. I watch her for about 30 minutes as she wanders back and forth while heading towards me. That is until she disappears in the thicket and never comes out. At least I’ve seen another deer. As the morning hunt comes to a close I look around and think about how fortunate I am to be able to experience this tranquility in the outdoors. It’s quiet; there are no cars, no planes or trains and no voices. Just the sounds of nature, the birds, the wind and the sound of the water in the creek below me…

I should have brought lunch with me and a sleeping bag. Oh well, I pack up and head back to the quad for another adventure in river crossing.

Back at camp I meet up with Mike and we talk about the morning hunt. He’s seen so more deer but nothing shootable. Once again he is out like a light taking a nap… seems to be a trend here… Lunch today is venison spaghetti.

We’re now rested and fed…hmmmm, what to do? Mike wants to jump on the quads and take a ride before we have to go out for the afternoon hunt. We head up the road past Bills house looking at the mountains and following the river. We stop several times to remove the rattles from rattlers that didn’t quite make it across the road in the last hour. We watch one truck go by with a really nice elk in the back, looked to be at least a 6 x 6. I spot a mule deer down in a draw by the river and we stop to take some pictures. While we taking pictures my wife calls to see what’s going on. We’re chatting away when Mike say’s he sees what looks like sheep crossing the road down in the valley… He gets his video camera out to use the zoom and says they look like mule deer. From what I can see the color is wrong but close to what elk cows would look like… I say bye to the wife quickly and we get the quads moving quickly towards were we can see the “critters”. We arrive at were we saw them cross the road and don’t see anything until we look past the large stack of winter hay and see….

Prong Horns! A whole herd of prong horns crossed the road. Mike jumps off his quad (leaves it in the middle of the road) and tries to sneak up on them to get a better shot with his camera. Oops, big ranch rig coming so we need to move out of the way (it turned before it got near us…) so we drive past the hay and see the goats running up the hill. And then we see him… If you’ve ever been in Cabelas and seen the prong horn mounts they have…they’re not even close to the size of this monster.

Not only is he well over 15” but his horns are spread way past his ears. What a beautiful sight. We watch him move his harem over the hill so we drive around to the other side and watch him move them towards the public open lands. We haven’t even had our evening hunt and it’s already a day to remember.

Speaking of which, it’s time to head back and get ready to hunt! On the way back we stop at a couple of spots to take pictures. The views are incredible and every time we turn around we see something else that just makes you stop and stare. After a couple more stops and a little fun on the quads we get back to camp.

Tonight I’ve decided that I’ll head up to the high blind, it sits at about 7400 feet and is the highest hunting spot on Bills property. A new adventure (and boy was I gonna eat them words!), off again to cross the water. It’s about 2 miles to get to this blind, even though it is only a couple hundred yards up the mountain from the blind I was in that morning. After I park the quad about 200 yards away from the blind, I climb and get to the summit…I keep saying “what a view”...but, what a view!

Now, the blind is a bit different from the others. It’s only about 5 feet off the ground and has a low (about 2’) wall running around 3 sides. No top cover, but a large half circle of wood on the long wall to hide the silhouette of the hunter while he’s sitting. It’s sitting on a ridge that looks down a cleared path about 35 yards on one side and a short cleared path on the opposite side (short walled sides).

The front is blocked by large bushes and the back has the large half circle. Unfortunately, I realize that this is really a gun only style blind. The short walls are about 8 feet apart so you can’t get a good down shot with the bow and still cover the other clearing. There is a chair so I position it right in the middle. This allows me to see down the dropped path and also see the short clearing. I’ll just have to move to make a shot down either one. I’ve been sitting for about 20 minutes when I hear the sound of trees snapping and branches violently breaking from the upper ridge about 250 yards away. It’s either a bear or a bull elk thrashing some trees. This goes on for awhile and I can follow “it’s” progress as it moves about 150 yards parallel on the ridge. Shortly after it quiets down I hear several cow elk calling down from were I parked the quad! Shortly after that I hear bears fighting close to the cow elk… By this time I’m intensely scanning the ridge line and straining my ears to hear movement…. Any time I’m just positive that something is going to come into view… BAM! The bush 10 feet in front of me explodes! A red tailed hawk had decided that something in the bush needed eating… and hit that poor thing in full stoop at what seemed like 200 miles an hour! Talk about making a person jump! I couldn’t swallow my heart… I first had to pick it up and put it back in my mouth then swallow….whew! After it settles down for awhile and it’s getting close to perfect dusk… I’m quietly listening… SNORT! STOMP STOMP! SNORT! STOMP STOMP! Hol%* Cra*$! A bull elk! He’s gotta be 30 yards next to me just on the other side of a huge bush! …I’m busted! …..or am I? He’s carrying on like a freight train, stomping and snorting… he’s moved back a few yards but doesn’t seem to be running off. It’s more like he’s startled and pissed… yikes. But as my pulse starts to level out I realize that it’s not at me he’s making all this noise at. The wind is strong in my face so he couldn’t smell me and the bush is too thick for him to see me…hmmmm… then I hear what’s in the bush…. Did I mention bears fighting earlier…and did I mention that the bushes are berry bushes…. Did I mention that the blind is only 5 feet off the ground and open on one side…? Kinda like the food shelves at a grocery store….YIKES! I decided to become the perfect example of a statue and didn’t move! After awhile the elk has moved off, snorting all the way and the bush is calm and quiet… (maybe he walked under the blind….) and it’s now dark… I quietly get my carbon suit off and into my backpack (I always pack it in to keep odors off it). I get my arrow put in the quiver and my bow strapped to my pack. My surefire flashlight is ready and my gun strap is unsnapped…. Now to get out of the blind… it’s only 5 feet of ladder, thankfully, because halfway down it decides to tip over and dumps me on the ground…oh perfect I bet I sound just like a dinner bell... After a gold medal quality gymnastic move to get back up, I put my pack on and start carefully heading towards where I parked the quad… (it’s hard to hear anything with my pulse beating so load in my ears…). I make it to the quad and jump on, get it going and turned around… to realize that in the dark the trail is almost non existent and the grass is higher than the head light! And the moon is behind storm clouds that moved in… Yikes! All kidding aside, I don’t think I’ve ever been the type to panic, so I think about how I drove up and start looking for the little signs of passage. A bent over area of grass here and there and I finally make it back to the more worn trails heading towards the water. I can see how someone that is prone to panicking could end up heading in the wrong direction and get lost or worse yet, drive over a ravine or cliff. Always stay calm and think about what you need to do. At least now crossing the water doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back in the lower ridge blind.

Colorado Trip - Part 4

2008-10-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – Tuesday September 16, 2008

Morning comes early in the Rockies… But the Michigan Hunters are up and ready to GO! (Ok, 5am in Colorado is 7am in Michigan…means I got to sleep in). We loaded up our packs, hopped on the quads and headed out. After I parked my quad and hiked over to my tree it was wait and watch…and watch…and watch…and watch…I watched a beautiful morning in the Rockies with the sun coming up and the temperature rising. I saw some birds. Birds, but not much else. It’s really hard to complain about not seeing anything (it’s only my first full day) when I’m not in the office, I’m in the Rockies hunting and the weather is perfect… there’s still time to see deer. Before I head into camp, I head over to the river and walk its edge looking for tracks and crossings.

Lots of tracks in the slashings along the river. I even found an elk skeleton (minus the skull) along the banks. Hiking and scouting is as much part of hunting as it is getting in a stand and waiting. It certainly helped give me an idea of what was behind the row of Aspens the runs between me and the river. Anyways, I end up following the water to where I parked the quad, so I load up and drive back to camp.

Mike’s had a good morning; he’s seen a bunch of does and little ones. We set up the block for some target shooting because Roscoby Risercams has been generous and loaned both of us a cam to put on our bows to tryout. We replaced our stabilizers and turn the video on (after reading the instructions – surprise!). Re-tuning is important as the risercam is a little heavier than my stabilizer and longer. Our 20 yard shots are quickly adjusted and we move the block to 30 yards. Again, on target now without further adjustments. Since I missed the coyote at 40 yards because I wasn’t tuned yet for 40, I move the block out again and it only takes a couple shots to get it in the money. I look at Mike and decide that we need to take a few practice shots at 50 yards, so once again I move the target out. One note, we’re both using G5 Montec 100’s but I’m shooting the pre-season practice blades and Mike is shooting the actual live blades… and there is no difference! At 50 yards I take my first shot… down and left a couple inches, but that was me … next shot….dead and I mean dead center! I’m set. Mike starts out with his first shot being a couple inches off. His second shot….nothing. No target, no sound of hitting rocks…nothing…! We look and look and look and look… (don’t forget about the rattle snakes…) and look……nothing. So we decide to take a break. Mike is not feeling to well, he is still trying to get acclimated to the altitude. So he lays down and is asleep so fast it’s scary. While he’s sleeping, I continue to look for his arrow, without luck. However, my brain catches up with me and I remember that we’ve been using the risercams while we’ve been shooting… I load the video up and start looking at it frame by frame. You can see the arrow leaving the bow and another frame shows it halfway to the target. I mentally visualize the trajectory based on the frame shots and walk out to the block and find the focal point of my imaginary line…and walk up, look down and there it is, just lying in a bush. I turn around and realize that it is about 80 yards past the block and half way up the road! Between the CE Maxima arrow and the G5 Montec broadhead, there is about $23 I just found, loosing arrows is never cheap. I remember that we’ve got a rattler in the back of the truck. I was going to cook it up but forgot it was there from yesterday. So, I decide that I’ll just skin it out for Mikey (jr). since he couldn’t come with us this time. I get it skinned out and salted. It’s time to get moving so I wake Mike up to give him back his lost arrow and get some lunch… Lunch today is Venison steaks on the grill, rice and apples…yum (somehow I think I’ve ended up the chef this week). We’re now rested and fed so it’s time to hunt!

We’re feeling positive as we load up our gear and head to our stands. “Positive” slowly turns into a quiet afternoon in the stand watching the sun go down, the moon rise and the deer decided to stay home… I did see the bald eagles flying along the creek again, Cool! Just about the late prime time for hunting I watch Bill drive his truck down the middle of the field and stop in front of me….???!?? It turns out that Bill thought I would be in a different location and decided to drive the river and feed some fish…. Oh well. Let’s go back to camp and wait and see what Mike’s done. Mike shows up with a look of distain… Seems he had an opportunity at a nice little 3 pointer and it didn’t turn out the way he wanted… His first shot went just under its belly, behind its front leg. He got another chance and his 40 yard estimate turned into a deer standing at 52 yards. Darn, he’ll be back. (at least he’s seeing some deer and some action!) Well, Bill says good night and Mike and I grab some leftovers and relax for a little while. Mike had his video camera going as well as his Risercam so we review the footage. The video camera was at the wrong angle and the Risercam doesn’t show up as clearly as we’d hoped. It’s been another day of memories so we turn off the lights and head towards sleep thinking of what we’re going to see in the morning.

Next – hunting the side of the mountain.

Colorado Trip - Day 3, Continued

2008-10-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 15, 2008

(google seems to think I’m a spammer so you might not be seeing this blog as soon as I hoped…an actual person has to verify my account…)

Well, I’ve taken a mental break just in time for our story to continue with our driving break…we’ve arrived at camp! Bill tells us to get unloaded and ready to go in 30 minutes, he’ll be back to take us around the property and show us were we’ll be able to hunt. So, while Bill heads up to the house, Mike and I unload some of our gear, stretch and take a look around.

Bill’s hunters camp is a small (12 x 24) converted pole barn that now has a finished floor, a small kitchen, bathroom with a shower (very important), a small couch area and a separate bunk bed sleeping room. Very nice for roughing it… Ton’s of flies and Wasps inside though…good thing the fly swatter is handy. We unload most of the cooler into the refrigerator and get some of our hunting gear sorted out.

By the time we change into our hiking boots Bill is back and is ready to give us the “tour”. …Did I mention before that Bill is driving a rental truck… Bill starts out by driving us down a two track towards the southern mountain range on his property. We see some muley does in the brush and brambles on the way…good sign! Having already relayed Bills love of driving (like he stole it!), it comes as no surprise that he drives the same way no matter what the terrain… we soon come to the river, slowing only so that Bill can line it up in the right path to miss the boulders that are just too big…. Oops, silly me, he wasn’t aiming to miss any boulders, just checking out the views… Wham, bounce and slam …no problem, it’s a rental… We park just on the other side of the water and start hiking up the “hill” to the first higher elevation location. Did I mention that Bill may be old but he could kick our butts….guy’s hardly breathing and Mike and I sound like freight trains… It’s only a hundred yards up (up being the important word)…

What a view and we jump another Muley doe while we’re standing in the blind. Then it’s down the “hill” by another path and back to the truck… next stop, the highest elevation blind. Through the field by the river and onto another narrow two track, up… hey, a tree has fallen across the trail…no problem, we go around…the rental company must have some excellent insurance and really love this guy… About a mile (so it seems) of driving and we get within a couple hundred yards of the blind. We skip the actual walk to the blind at this time because we’re on a short time table to get everything checked out and into the hunt this afternoon… Back down the trail and we end up getting a little hung up on that tree we drove around before… just a few scratches (you can’t see in the mud later) and we’re back where we started from. Bill takes us over to the house to pick up some fish food for his stocked pond and then we’re off to check out the lower field tree stand and feed the fishes. We stop at the pond and Bill shows us how he wants his fish fed (it’s part of our agreement for staying the week – we feed the fish)… man are those Rainbow Trout huge! And they’re like piranhas with the fish food! He also feeds a section of the creek so we head that way which happens to pass right by the tree stand one of us will be using. We see another Muley doe standing directly under the blind as we drive by….excitement is starting to pump…. We stop at the creek to feed the fish and watch as two Bald Eagles fly down the creek! WOW! What a paradise to be enjoying!

Ok, we’ve seen and been instructed; now it’s time to get ready! Since I just got some new arrows and they’re heavier than my old ones, I need to re-tune my bow for them. Mike and I get our bows and set up the target 20 yards out. A few shots for Mike…right on target, he’s ready. I’ll be using the new Carbon Express Aramid KV’s with G5 Montec 100 grain heads. A few shots for me and some adjustments then a few more at 30 yards. I take a couple 40 yard shots but I’m not quite tuned in yet. I don’t have time to fine tune the 40 yard shots but since I’ll be starting out in the lower field tree stand I don’t think I’ll have anything farther away than 30 yards anyways. Mike is going to be using a tree stand that is just below the house that Bill said should be the best place to see deer. It’s Camo Time! We pack our backpacks with the necessities, get into our base camo (its 80 degrees out!) strap on our bows and hop on the quads. Mike and I look at each other and realize that our dream hunt is about to begin. I couldn’t even begin to describe the grins that spread across our faces and the excitement we both felt. With a quick “good luck buddy” we start our engines and drive in separate directions… it’s begun!

Both of our drives are fairly short but having the quads helps tremendously as we’re not yet acclimated to the altitude and it saves a hot sweaty hike. I parked my quad inside a small stand of trees (cut open specifically to hide a quad in) and start hiking towards my tree stand. Before I even get to my spot, I jump a nice doe. She stands broadside to me at about 30 yards but I decide to let her go. It’s the first hunt and I’d like a chance to take a nice buck if I can… I get into the tree stand and realize it’s more designed for gun hunters than bow hunters. It’s about 4’ x 8’ and you can’t move around because it squeaks a lot. I position myself so that I can get a shot either behind me or into the open field. There’s a metal chair but it’s a “metal” chair and not a quiet one either so I stand instead.

What a beautiful area. I stand there looking at the mountains and can hear the river. I watch the Bald Eagles flying down the middle of the field looking for dinner…just incredible. I got into the tree stand around 5:30, it’s been quiet and I’ve not seen anything at all except the Eagles. It’s now around 7:00 and dusk is starting to set in. I see movement across the field, directly in front of me… It’s a coyote! It’s a very large Coyote and its coloring is more towards a golden color as compared to the ones we see in Michigan. I watch him (or her) slowly make a bee line across in front of me. It looks like 40 yards is going to have to be the closest shot….and I’m not tuned in to 40 yards yet… I get set and adjust my aim to where I was hitting on the block, breath and release…. A hairs breathe in front of his chest! I little hop and he briskly jogs back the way he came and stops, turns and looks at me. I think the message was… this is my field, you missed and I’m now a ghost… good bye. Back into the tree line and he’s gone.

It’s time to head in. Back at camp, Mike lets me know that he’s seen 8 deer. Including a nice 3 point and a big buck that stayed too far out to count. He too let the does and the little one walk for opportunities down the line… We clean up and head to the house. Bill has steaks on the grill for us and we sit down to watch the Monday night football game, eat and chat about our first hunt. The moons well into the night sky when we make it back to the cabin and settle in for the night.

The first day’s hunt has come to the twilight of the crisp clean air in the Rockies. I’ve seen a deer, had an opportunity at a beautiful coyote, watch the Eagles soar and experienced a solitude that is hard to come by in Michigan.

Next - Day 4

Colorado Trip - Part 3

2008-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

Day Three - Monday September 15

Monday morning, the "real" start of our hunting trip. Time to get up and showered, make a final trip to the grocery store for supplies and then meet up with Bill Riley. It's a different world while you're on a trip. There is construction going in the lot next to our room but it realy doesn't bother us. It's like a background noise in our grand adventure. The sky is blue and the air clean (if a little thinner than we're used to) and the truck is re-packed and ready to go. After we grab our final supplies (food), we grab a bite to eat at the local Wendy's to await Bill. He shows up before we finish eating. He's not what I had invisioned for our elderly sponser of our great hunt.... He's gotta be close to 6'3", fairly trim and in shape with a head of white hair and an inability to either slow down or relaxe...I haven't decided which yet. We hop in the trucks and head to the Colorado DOW (Department of Wildlife) to get our licenses. Following Bill up the ramp to the building, we barely have time to look at each other in bewilderment as we almost have to run to keep up with Bill's walking... Now, the DOW has a few surprises for us as well... Bill provides the DOW with his landowner licenses to sign over to us and we supply the DOW officer with our drivers licenses and hunters safety certificates (another tidbit to make sure you don't forget!). The license system decides it doesn't want to find our information even though the DOW officer just entered it into the database....go figure... While we're waiting on the DOW system to burp up our stats, I ask the officer about the muzzleloader licenses and about the inability to purches them after the hunt starts. She looks at me and says "You can buy them, you just have to buy them from a DOW office only..." ......Mike and I look at each other...feeling distincly like the guy in the V8 comercials who gets wacked in the head... duh....WHAT? Gee, sure glad we didn't buy that muzzleloader at dealer cost to hunt Elk with..... hehehe...smack! Well, we finaly get our licenses after the system decides we realy do exist...(we heard them talking about how it issued 2007 licenses the other day....ouch) and pile back into the trucks to follow Bill to his place about an hour or so away..... and thus starts the begining of one of the most nerve racking drives of my life... It appears that Bills inability to walk slow is in no way hinderd by sitting inside of a Truck (a rental truck at that...which might have gave us a clue to what was ahead...). Nor do I think that Bill was under the impression that a truck towing a trailer should in anyway be any slower than his truck....wow, drivers ed in Colorado is just a bit different than Michigan...

We soon figured out that in Colorado, the driver must add a minimum of 20 mph to any speed limit sign, even if it's on curves... slow traffic ahead is only cause for exhuberant celebration by out of state hunters praising fate that provided such a short relief from "concentrated" driving... (it's a good thing it's Mikes truck and he's got such a ..... "sturdy" trailer....yikes)... Some place in Wild Bills (we started out calling him that...) thinking, paved roads are just too slow....and smooth... Hey Look! it's a 2 track with a gate and ...speed limit signs?...(add 20) ....oh yeah! It must be the physical properties of high elevation cause I didn't realize that driving 50 - 65 mph on a 2 track with a drop off cliffson one side and hair pin turns on the other side, would not cause our vehicle to simply fall off the face of the earth... oh, lucky us...

Since Insane Willy (as we're now calling him) has found such a nice drivable road, he realy decides to show us how good a driver he is at high speeds..... look, no brakes on the tight curves (in case we were looking for brake lights to warn us of dangerous curves....) ...see, I can get at least a mile in front of you and you can't catch me....hehehe.... I'd look at Mike to make conversation but doing so would require more than 1/10 of a secound's distraction from the road, something we deemed might be fatal...

Mike started off with his video camera in his hand, someplace soon it was returned to the seat because it interfered with Mikes ability to keep both hands locked on the dash at all times... Shortly after I mentioned..." hope we don't run into oncoming traffic around one of these blind curves"... that I realized I should have kept my mouth shut. It is interesting to note all the things that go through ones mind when you come around a hair pin turn, down hill, in sand, on a one lane road.... and run into a gravel train heading up the hill towards you. Yup, even though you could realy smell our brakes over heating for the last half hour, we were able to stop (after sliding in the sand almost to the big truck aiming at us...)

After the stare down (his looking preturbed and ours like we've seen our lives flash before us) he decided to back his rig up enough that we could drag the trailer around him.... and the next 4 rigs just like his...and the road grader.... and onto the huge pile of gravel they had just dropped in the middle of the road.... Did I mention that during this there was no sign of *^#%?! Bill (as we now started to call him). After dragging the trailer down the huge pile, litterly off it's wheels, we had to stop and dig the gravel out of the brake rotors before they melted the GRANITE chunks embedded there! We finish and guess what....that MAN shows up to see what's taking us so long...did he stop, nope, just saw us getting in the truck and turned around and started driving again (if you can call it that!). The drive does get easier, it's just turns and hills now, gee if we go 65 we might catch a glimps of the other truck....might... At least I can now take a look around, quickly!, and see the beautiful landscape....wow! BTW - I think I owe Mike a new steering wheel as his now seems to be deformed from my death grip on it...

Did I forget to mention the free range cows....

Oh look...there's.....Mr. Bill.....now... see that speck in the picture....?

At long last.....we're leveling out for landing.... hey look! it's a $1200 a day lodge/spa...in the middle of nowhere! ...

A real road: .... soon we're back on a paved road (at least for 1/2 a mile...). Mr. Bill lives off of County highway 1 .... we find out that County Highway 1 is a nice loose gravel dirt road....with Mile Markers! WOW.

...Hey!, Insane Willy has stopped...????

He ran over a snake....

Seems kinda angry....can we pet it? guess not.

Bill decides to "dispatch" it.

We keep it....lunch...later...

And at long last, the weary travelers, reached their destination......

The days not done, but reliving that drive has given me the shakes.... I'll continue on Monday's adventure... later....

Colorado Trip - Part 2

2008-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Sunday September 14, 2008

As we continue our trip to Colorado, we're now in Nebraska. We decide to stop in Kearney to visit the #2 Cabela's store. It won't be open as it's about 6am Nebraska time, but we can at least say we stopped... Just before we get to the Kearney exit, we drive under the Great Platte River Road Archway Museum (http://www.archway.org/). The silly thing crosses highway 80 like a big covered walking bridge. Anyways, we pull off at the Kearney exit and start looking for the Cabelas...and looking....and looking.... after following the directions, seeing the telltale water tower but no giant building with Cabelas written across the front, we decide to turn around... and what do we see...Cabelas! Mike says "hey, there's a sign...it's realy tiny...hey! that little factory looking building has "Cabelas" on the front...that's it! it looks like a small single story, factory building. no big signs, or statues (a small one was out front that we could have put in the truck) . The parking lot is tiny...oh well....

After we grab some breakfast a little farther down the road, we continue on...enjoying the flat, the corn and the flat... not realizing that we are gradually rising from Michigans under 1000ft mark to almost 5000 feet above sea level. The day has turned into a perfect day. We decide to continue on 80 until we get to Sydny to hit the very first Cabelas (and pick up some more stuff!). This one is open (it's about 1:30 local time) and looks like Cabelas is supposed to look, impressive. (since it's the very first Cabelas, it's obvious that it's been redone to match the new stores. We pick up our final supplies ( a Hoochie mama elk call, a new flashlight for Mike and some apple blocks). Next stop - Denver! While we're driving towards Denver, Mike doesn't see any mountains...it's cloudy... Mike, those are the mountains in the clouds...you'll see when we get to Denver. They'll seem like they just appear all of a sudden. We're heading into Denver to meet up with Aneal Roney from http://www.bowcast.com/ to talk Muleys and Elk! Aneal has been gracious enough to invite us to meet at his home so he can give us the lowdown on what to expect and some pointers on how to hunt the Colorado natives (not the Broncos fans...the Elk and Deer). As we're driving into Denver we start noticing fields that look like someone has thrown dirt every few feet....? all over the place. Then we realize that it's prarie dogs! Talk about an infestation! Mike is practicaly going nuts for his 22 Hornet....doggies beware! 4 toll booths later, we follow the GPS to Aneals house. We're treated to a video of an incredible Muley hunt and Aneal spends an hour telling us what to expect when we get to our hunting spot. He's got some excellent advice and tidbits of information on Muleys and Elk that we just didn't know. Unfortunately, we can spend all afternoon chatting (even though we could), we've got to get on the road to head up to Steamboat Springs. Aneal tells us how to get to his local Sportsmans Warehouse (http://www.sportsmanswarehouse.com/) in Littleton (I think...) so we can pick up our Elk licenses. He told us it's a little more complicated for out-of-state licenses and they would be able to help us a lot better than the regular "box" stores could. Boy are we glad he sent us there!!!! .... We got the the store, Mike picked up some binostraps and we head for the license counter... It turns out that the licenses we've been looking at, the leftover archery elk for area 4 and 5, were actually for Muzzle loaders not archery! Once the code was explained (and it is not explained on the DOW sheet) it was obvious. If the number ends in "A" it's archery, "M" is for muzzleloader and "R" is for rifle...duh... but you wouldn't know just to look at the code number and we were told they were archery licenses before we left....CALL THE DOW BEFORE YOU PLAN YOUR TRIP!!! Now, we have a dilema... there are licenses left over for muzzle loaders but we didn't pack any... the guys(and Gals!) bent over backwards to help us out. The checked on what it would cost to ship at least one gun over night from several shippers....EXPENSIVE and then offered us a nice Traditions at cost just to help us out! We decided to buy the Traditions and supporting gear and once again headed towards the license/checkout counter (after almost 2 hours)....wait, we're not done yet..... At the counter, the young lady said to let her try and purchase a license first since some licenses you can't buy once the season starts....guess what....muzzleloader was one of those and the season started SATURDAY!!! Crap! Oh well. Yes, we were very disapointed but after thinking about it we knew we had Muley licenses and that it was possible that we would not be able to get Elk licenses...so we just saved over $1200...ok, we can live with that...Muleys watch out!

Finaly, we're on the road out of Denver towards Steamboat Springs...and run smack into a traffic jam. Well, at least we get to watch the sun go down over the mountains and watch the moon come out! After we get out of the traffic jam, we start climbing...and climbing...and climbing. I've got my GPS out and we're watching our elevation increase every minute...8000, 9000, 10,000 feet...and more. I think we peaked out at around 11,200 feet. Not being used to the eleveation we were feeling it. Our jaws were aching and our joints too. It felt like we were having problems with our sinuses and the thiner air was evident. Thank goodnes we'll be hunting at a lowly lever of around 7000 feet!... We went through some cool tunnels in the mountains too (it helped to distract from the discomfort). When we we're about an hour away from Steamboat Springs we ran into a detour, onto a side road, and boy do I mean side road! it almost doubled our last leg of the drive. Did I mention that there are lots of curves and drop offs in the mountains, next to the moutain roads, that we were on.....yikes! Lights in the distance!....it's Steamboat Springs! Believe it or not, we were staying at the Bunny Ears Motel. Not the Playboy Bunny Ears...just Bunny Ears...no relation at all (maybe in the winter during skiing season....we'll have to go back just to check.) Nice place, right on the river. It's now about 10:30 Steamboat Springs time....12:30 Michigan time and we're exhausted from driving what seems like forever! Mike gets on the computer to do his last blog and podcast before we're out of touch...and promply falls asleep with his fingers still on the keys. It's a priceless picture but he wakes up before I can find the camera... darn! We finish the Podcast and sign off for the night. At least we don't have to meet Bill until noon local time so we can sleep in and try to catch up a bit on our energy!

Next: the Wild Bill turns to Insane Willey ride!

Colorado Trip - Part 1

2008-10-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I know you've been reading Mikes blog on our Colorado trip but I figured I better give you my side of the story too. (Just in case you think Mike is full of it...lol). Anyways, here it goes....

Day 1 - Saturday, September 13, 2008

After running around for a week trying to remember everything I/we would need for the trip and what I was forgetting.....it was time to leave. I had packed up my Bronco the night before with everything, and I mean everything, so I was ready to just start up and go. The girls made sure they got up at 5:30 to kiss daddy goodbye and the wife added her kisses too. 6:00 am and I'm on the road! "Anticipation", what a word undervalued to what I was feeling! Colorado, Muleys, Elk and my best buddy Mike...

It took me about 40 minutes to get up to Mikes house. I backed up the Bronco to his trailer and we started the process of loading up all our gear. You would have thought we were moving to Colorado to live by the look in the trailer. One note: we were hoping that our new Bowtech Guardians would arrive before we left so we could play with them during the week...unfortunately, while they were mailed on Monday they did not arrive in time... Ok, we're packed, Mike's kissed his wife and kids, we look at each other.....Lets GO!

It's about 7:40 and we start our trip with a drive to the gas station (first of MANY) and then a stop to pick up some items that need to be dropped off were we're picking up Mikes Quad...Curran...about 180 miles north. Did I mention it's raining...? We get up to Mike's hunting club to get his Quad at about 11:30 ...and what a good omen....deer, watching us drive in and back out again. It did stop raining just long enough for us to load Mikes Quad.

We head out and aim towards the West Branch area were we need to pick up the quad I'll be using thanks to my nephew Paul (Thanks Paul!). The only thing that has me a little concerned is that while Mikes quad is a nice 4x4 400cc work horse with nice tractor style tires, my nephews is a 400cc 2 wheel drive sport quad with small aggresive dirt/sand style tires...it don't go slow! We're not sure if we'll need them both but better safe than sorry...(what words of wisdom...!). On the way to Paul's cabin to pick up the quad, we passed an accident that looked like some guy lost control of his truck in the rain and rolled it....ouch! Funny thing, it stopped raining just long enough for us to load my quad into the back of Mikes truck, then it started again....hmmmm. Maybe it'll wash the mud off of it...since I'm fairly sure that it's white but you can't see any white through all the mud dried and "welded" to everything... I'm sure that's a story for another day if I know Paul (I've been on a couple outings with him...Quads, 4x4's, mud, sand and beer....yup, sounds right). Anyways, we've now got both quads, it's about 1 pm, we head accross the state and pickup 27 south. We need to stop at Jay's in Clare to pick up a couple of Elk decoys and get my new Carbon Express Aramid KV's cut down to size. While we're there, we bump into John Eberhard from Scent Lok and get a couple copies of his book, Precision Bowhunting, signed (thanks John! http://www.deer-john.net). Finally! it's about 2:30 pm, we've got our decoys, my arrows cut and some candy (what? it was right there by the register begging to be bought!). We grab some lunch and hit the road for (hopefully) the last leg of our trip out of Michigan. Did I mention that it's still raining?

By now I think I've asked Mike at least a dozen times if he wants me to take over driving for awhile...still no. Either he's having flashbacks to my driving during our college days or he's just to geeked up to let go of the wheel.... By the time we get near Holland he finaly relents and lets me start driving...just in time for the rain to start getting heavier... We hit the Michigan boarder around 6:30. It's like leaving the country (at least in our minds it was...). Just past Michigan City we have to detour off the highway because the highway has flooded from the storms! It sure is nice having the GPS on board. We finally make it to higway 80, the long stretch, 1000 miles of driving ahead and it's night time now. We've finally worked out the driving schedule too, every time we get gas, we switch. That's about every 220 miles or so. (I think Mike finaly trusts me driving. either that or he's not getting enough sleep). After about 12 hours, the rain finally stopped. I then got to deal with high winds for my 3 hours of driving...oh joy... gotta love Iowa and Nebraska. Lots of flat and Corn. BTW, we passed the Cabelas in Hammond Indiana...looked nice but we didn't stop...no stopping us now...it was tempting though... we know there is another one in Kerney Nebraska and Sydny Nebraska (#2 and #1 store) so we'll probably be stopping there to pick up another elk call.

NEXT: Day 2 (Sunday)