Something To Be Thankfull

A trip to the woods this time of year starts with layers. Bundling up is not just about being comfortable it’s about staying alive. The wind blowing 10- 20 mph and raw temps dipping into the single digits, hypothermia can set in in less than 10 minutes. With your focus on the deer and hunting it’s not likely that you would even notice.

My best fried and I took one evening and sat over the patio patch. The setup could not have been better, the wind in our faces, a haystack to stand behind and steady off of and the end of the coldest week yet this year. When it’s this cold the deer were bound to move it was just a matter of time.

I was all out of tags but he had just one doe tag left. I was simply showing him where to sit for maximum opportunity. A phew does scatter in the field, way out of range and stat to feed. Their was no hop of any kind of stalk and daylight was drifting away when the rut helped us out. A beautiful main frame 5point jumped the fence and chased the does all the way across the field to about 170 yds from us and they all stop and get a bite to eat and my fried drops the hammer on the lead doe. Since their was so much snow on the haystack, when he shot I lost sight of the deer due to the cloud of snow hovering around us. Just after the shot this huge KerWaaaap! Comes back to us. This noise is characteristic of a solid bone crushing shot. Then my hopes was confirmed when the snow cleared, he had broke both front shoulders and she had traveled only 30 yds. 3 feet above me, slowwitted against the frosty sky I see the look of pure joy. No hoopin’ and hallerin’ no jumping around but pure joy!

We get out to where the deer had been standing and we see 35 deer on the edge of the field that had come in in the time that it took us to get off the haystack. We get to the scene of the crime and what a scene it is! A perfect red mist cone on the snow on the far side of the tracks where the deer was standing, chunks of jelly lung on the path to the doe, and the icing on the cake, a grape fruit sized hole where the shoulder socket was supposed to be! From the hunt to the kill to seeing him so happy their truly was a lot to be thankful for that Thanks giving night.

Good luck and good hunting.

Opening Weekend of Prairie Deer, AKA “Christmas”

Opening morning on the river is like a battle field, deer running all over, shots going off left and right, you can see orange in every direction. Your first plan should be not to get shot; it sounds simple but I know people who have got shot, and I’ll tell you that nothing will ruin a hunting trip faster than a bullet wound.  

And if you want to see lots of good deer the thing to do is to set in a spot where the deer feel comfortable and safe. The smart deer will run there as soon as the shooting starts, but the experienced deer will already be there, so be alert and never stop moving your eyes. Opening morning I shot a little buck with my .44mag at 15 paces, he came in and felt safe he never even looked for me; he looked from where he came from to see if he was being fallowed. When I gutted him I found fresh corn in his gullet, the nearest corn is over 8 miles away. The deer travel and anyone has a shot on any deer. Sitting still and keeping your eyes up and moving are the tickets to opening weekend.

I have noticed some pre rut activity, aggressive sparing, bucks running with their head down and their nose up, bucks chasing does in circles. A buck running with three does in a heard instead of the bucks traveling together. Any of this can be signs that the rut is near or is happening. This is when you pull out the can and bleat, and my favorite the roar; All this and more next week.

Good luck and good hunting 

How to Prepare Your Riffle for the Big Weekend

Is cleaner really better? When it comes to the inside of your riffle boar, the answer is almost. Almost clean is the best way to go into hunting season. This is the procedure by witch you will have the best accuracy and reliability come opening weekend.

First go out and sight in just like you would before hunting season. I sight in or, “Zero”, my rifle to 200yds. I prefer to sight in at 100yds and 1.5 inches high, this allows my bullet to drop in to my cross hairs at 200yds. Then go test it at 200 yards.

After sighting in I go home and clean my riffle just like everyone. But the secret to this whole prosses is I go out and re fowl my barrel. Fowling a barrel is simply shooting the riffle once or twice to clear the whole riffle of cleaning chemicals and not too much that you have to go clean again. Fowling is important because the chemicals used to clean a riffle are still present even if you run 100 dry patches you can never get it all out. These chemicals take up a certan amount of volume wich can cause the riffle to over pressure in some cases. These chemicals also attract dust and dirt witch can also do nasty stuff to your riffle, such as send brass back through the bolt and into your eye. 

This is no joke, my grandpa was on an elk hunt, and in South Dakota we know how rare that is, and his riffle over pressured and put a ton of brass in his eye. He was hospitalized for a week and he still killed the bull. This ritual of refowling  will keep you from such miss haps in the upcoming moment of truth. It’s the big weekend get time to leve the deer to themselves and wate for opening weekend.  I will glady post any pictures of your hunting season thus far and any future success.

Good luck and good hunting.

How to Prepare Your Riffle for the Big Weekend

Is cleaner really better? When it comes to the inside of your riffle boar, the answer is almost. Almost clean is the best way to go into hunting season. This is the procedure by witch you will have the best accuracy and reliability come opening weekend.

First go out and sight in just like you would before hunting season. I sight in or, “Zero”, my rifle to 200yds. I prefer to sight in at 100yds and 1.5 inches high, this allows my bullet to drop in to my cross hairs at 200yds. Then go test it at 200 yards.

After sighting in I go home and clean my riffle just like everyone. But the secret to this whole prosses is I go out and re fowl my barrel. Fowling a barrel is simply shooting the riffle once or twice to clear the whole riffle of cleaning chemicals and not too much that you have to go clean again. Fowling is important because the chemicals used to clean a riffle are still present even if you run 100 dry patches you can never get it all out. These chemicals take up a certan amount of volume wich can cause the riffle to over pressure in some cases. These chemicals also attract dust and dirt witch can also do nasty stuff to your riffle, such as send brass back through the bolt and into your eye. 

This is no joke, my grandpa was on an elk hunt, and in South Dakota we know how rare that is, and his riffle over pressured and put a ton of brass in his eye. He was hospitalized for a week and he still killed the bull. This ritual of refowling  will keep you from such miss haps in the upcoming moment of truth. It’s the big weekend get time to leve the deer to themselves and wate for opening weekend.  I will glady post any pictures of your hunting season thus far and any future success.

Good luck and good hunting.

How to Prepare Your Riffle for the Big Weekend

Is cleaner really better? When it comes to the inside of your riffle boar, the answer is almost. Almost clean is the best way to go into hunting season. This is the procedure by witch you will have the best accuracy and reliability come opening weekend.

First go out and sight in just like you would before hunting season. I sight in or, “Zero”, my rifle to 200yds. I prefer to sight in at 100yds and 1.5 inches high, this allows my bullet to drop in to my cross hairs at 200yds. Then go test it at 200 yards.

After sighting in I go home and clean my riffle just like everyone. But the secret to this whole prosses is I go out and re fowl my barrel. Fowling a barrel is simply shooting the riffle once or twice to clear the whole riffle of cleaning chemicals and not too much that you have to go clean again. Fowling is important because the chemicals used to clean a riffle are still present even if you run 100 dry patches you can never get it all out. These chemicals take up a certan amount of volume wich can cause the riffle to over pressure in some cases. These chemicals also attract dust and dirt witch can also do nasty stuff to your riffle, such as send brass back through the bolt and into your eye. 

This is no joke, my grandpa was on an elk hunt, and in South Dakota we know how rare that is, and his riffle over pressured and put a ton of brass in his eye. He was hospitalized for a week and he still killed the bull. This ritual of refowling  will keep you from such miss haps in the upcoming moment of truth. It’s the big weekend get time to leve the deer to themselves and wate for opening weekend.  I will glady post any pictures of your hunting season thus far and any future success.

Good luck and good hunting.

How to Pattern Your Big Buck Withot Disturbing His Patterns

Imagine you are a mature buck... You stay up all nite feeding; you are the last one into the field and the first to leve. Your company is constantly changing from groups of bucks to a few does to no one. When these bucks go out on their own, just before the rut, they start to change their paterns almost on a weekly basis. This means that you need to be out researching reguarly. Your presance however can change his paterns defeating the perpose of being out their. Durring the day the bucks will be beaded, they dont care if you say go hunt ducks. I personally have never seen paterns change because of duck hunting, they feel safe and not threatened by you because you arent nessarly presureing them. This not only alowws you to be out there gatering information but this also lets them get used to seeing you and their by feel less startled by you when they actually should be!

This is a tatic used by my grandpa and my dad and now me to make a presance whiout to much presure. Plus  duck hunting on a river is prime! the twists and turns alow the tall grass to hide you untill you want to be seen. Also take your field glasses, I know I know, their just ducks; but if you can gain the uper hand and spot conflicting riples you will determin where you need to strike. I used this method this fall with doves to pattern deer for bow season, works like a charm, every time.

Good luck and good hnting.

Just Passing the Time

since I was not able to make it out to the field, I have no updates or stories for you this week. So I will pass on the story of my fathers hunt this weekend as it was told to me. Between prong horn rifle season and rifle deer season their isn't much to do so he go duck hunting to pass the time. Just east of town is Orman rec area and he stumbled onto a "honey hole". Honey hole: place of continous hunting and or fishing action. This island on the north end is litered with ducks of verios asortments from widgen to the beautiful wood duck and buffle head, and all day action. I fouund this place when I was trolling around fishing for wallie. Yesterday I probibly spent 7 hours and never a dull moment!

When I had my limet I pulled into my  inpromptto boat ramp and a covy of hunns jumped up and took off up the hill. How could I resist such an opertunity? I had my lab with and we fallowd this group of hunns around this hillside and got 4 flushes out of it. you have to love limeting out on two kinds of birds in one day. This next week I'll be out scouting a river bottom, and I'll show you how to get info on deer movements without making an impact on their movement.

Good luck and good hunting.

Phesent Heven

Nothing can compair to this experince. Wild, free range, phesents flushing anywhere and everywhere all at once. Thousands of birds filling the sky symeltaniously! This is the story of the most fantastic hunting experance of my life!

Getting off work at 9:30, I jump in my truck and fly down to Winner. I get there at about 3:15 and the land owner left me a camper in his "shead", wich seemed to be more of a barn to me. From head to toe this hunt was first class, the camper was more like a house with wheels, the chow was all home cooked, they did my laundry and suplied me with the best shells I could ask for. I wasn't paying for this hunt, I was invited by the land owner just because, well he needed someone that could shoot I guess. I wake up after about 3 hours of sleep and frends of his start pulling up in camarows and vets and super stacked Dodge 3500's. They start talking to me like they knew me and it wasn't too long untill they actully did. We all kinda wonder into the house and there's a huge stack of eggs and probibly 8lbs of bacon and sausage and tons of frute and juce. They serve themselfs and sit down and I'm still awe struck by the feast before me. for some strange reason the law says no hunting before noon.

After a relaxing morning and an amazing breakfast we all hopped onto a traylor and the land owner drove us out behind his house about 200 yards and we started walkin away from the house. Birds just start flushing left and right, the sky blackend with birds and all I can hear is the cackle of birds tacking wing like a bunch of collage kids at a frat party! I downed my three birds right off and sling my shotgun over my shoulder because I had shot my limmet right? NO! becaust we were "group hunting" everyone in the group had a limet of three birds and they all get put in a pile and everyone takes home three birds. Everyone is yelling keep shooting! Well at this point I'm out of shells, I figuted 5 shells would be more than enough for me to kill 3 birds.

franticly people start giving me shells because I was one of the few that was sober enough to hit anytheing. I'd down two more birds with my over under and people would hand me shells and so on. I generally try to stay away from people when I hunt just as a rule, but this group huntng thistng I can get used to. The best part is when you get to the end of the walk and thousands of birds fly at once, this sight is unimaginable and unbelivable even being there and wittnessing it I still have trouble beliving it. Then once we are all the way through this milo patch we turn around and walk it back the way we came with the same result, thousands of birds and nonstop shooting all the way. At this point I have shot something like 10x my personal limet in a 20min walk and saw more birds in 30sec than I've seen the rest of my life combind! All the old guys want to go watch the game the game and dreink so they say they'll pay us $3/ bird to clean their birds. This was little inconvinance at $3/bird and in two hours I had made plenty to go to town and buy the 4 boxes of shells i would shout the next day. Wounderfully this shedgal continued through the next three days. I was trully in phesant heven!

Good luck and good hunting.

New Hope and a new Beginning

My best friend and I went on his first big game hunt. Last year he started to gain interest in what I was doing all winter and all my stories about hunting and killing. I helped him pick out a rifle and soon we were mounting a scope and reloading. This long wait kept a lot of his excitement bottled up.

I took him to NewlLake just north of Newl because there is a ton of walk in ground and reclamation land out there. I personally have never been out there but on the topo map it was clear that debatably two fantastic spots to go in this 13 square mile chunk. We parked at the boat ramp and walked down behind the dam and found a huge march and a low crick bottom.  Out at the 900 yard mark I spot three does working their way from a hay yard down one of the forks of the river coming out of the dam. Working the low spots and staying out of sight we worked our way into 200 yards and settled on a small rise. Nervous he starts breathing heavy. I explain to him how important breath control is when taking the shot, “take 3 full breathes each one slower and deeper and on the 4^th only exhale half. This makes it so that your heartbeat will not move your sights and yet you still have enough breath to not starve your eyes”. The first place to suffer when you hold your breath is your occipital lobe, this is the portion of your brain that interprets your vision.

He folds out his bipod and I hear him breathe, he wispers, “middle”, meaning he was going to take the middle one. He lets drive and this doe didn’t even fidget, he dropped her like a bad habit on a Sunday, so fast infact that he didn’t even see where she went. He ejects his shell and looks at me and says, “well, you’re turn”. So I settled down and pulled a little lead on the lead doe and smoke her right through the bread basket. Later I ranged it and found she was at 290, and running like that, ya I was happy with it.

This kid went nuts! He was pumped out of his mind! He jumps up and asks the same questions time and time again, this quiet kid turned into a bundle of energy; and talkative! We walk up and words cannot express the joy in this new hunters face, everything came together and a year of preparation came to a head in this moment. I couldn’t be more proud.

We went back to the top of the lake and fallowed the crick that feeds the lake uphill. This gave way to a deer haven! There were willows and cotton woods and tullys with green crick bottom, and the tracks were all over! Deer must trample this area frequently in the low light times and go out on the prarie during the day because the tracks from a few hours before covered every square mile of that place but not one deer was there when we arrived. We walked probably 12-13 miles by 1:00 and figured we had hunted all there was to hunt there so we went home and hung the does in my garage and he went to work. I went in the house and crashed.

 My boss woke me up with a call, he wanted to know if I could come shoot one of the deer that frequented his ranch house and eating his lawn. He assured me that I would be more than satisfied with him as a trophy and man was he right! This buck is a STUD! From a distance he looks like an elk, he ‘s twice as wide as his ears and almost a foot and a half tall and plenty’o mass to go around.

I’m hooked I only saw him once and he ‘s the deer I want to put my archery tag on this year. I sat on the edge of his house pasture on a rim rock and watched his does filter in across the ravine and feed in the lush river bottom, just as I was getting ready to leave I glassed once more and saw him at last light. This gargantuan of a mule deer waddle over the mountain and to the top of the ravine on the opacte side. It was too dark and I decided that I couldn’t shoot him now and in the hour it would take him to get to me it wouldn’t get any lighter so I backed out and found myself surrounded by his 30 does they were all around my truck and his house. As I drove off I know I scared them but I hope they didn’t change their patterns because this guy is worth chancing all year!

However this next weekend I will be traveling to Winner to hunt pheasant in the pheasant capital of the world, eastern South Dakota! This will be my first pheasant hunt since I moved here from Oregon and after 5 years it’s about time!

Good luck and good hunting.

Meet In The Freezer

Finally a hint of success! My goat hunt couldn’t have gone better! I’ve been shooting all summer on the prairie at thousands of prairie dogs, and this time everything falls into place.

 I get out to the place I’m going to hunt and just as daylight brakes I see this guy driving down the road towards me. I was told that I had the west half of the ranch to myself. This guy was all lost and he came from a town about 20 miles away through fences and gates to find that he thought he was traveling west not east. So I directed him back to the highway and he found his way just fine now that it was light. I wasn’t mad that he had spooked all the goats from the last 20 miles to my ranch. That was actually pretty dang sweet!

So with 45 goats in a pasture that only holds about half that on a good day, I was pretty excited. I drove on further west into a deep drainage and parked. The plan was to walk down the drainage and take a look around. Now remember the rut is still in full swing and with this meany goats in one pasture there’s going to be some fights! There’s bucks chasing all over the pasture and does watching, I could’ve been wearing a clown suit and they wouldn’t have paid any attention to me, I had my pick of any buck I could see, it was out of this world!

I finally find the buck I want and he’s beaded all by himself, so I pop up to the top of the ridge and steady up on my bipod. I decided just to chill and wait for him to get up and stretch. Finally he stands up and he’s facing away from me and just slightly to the left. I’m steady, I got the wind figured, and I’m squeezing and nothing. Ya I had my safety on, amused by my silliness I settle down and shoot for his far shoulder and let drive. Through the recoil I saw him take the hit and stumble. He runs off to 200 yards and stops facing away.  I see 6 other goats pop up and run toward him and he turns broad side so I center punched his right shoulder and hamburger the off shoulder. He falls like a bowling pin and when the others reach him they stand around him like they didn’t know where they were going to go. So I figure I got a buck and a doe tag my buck is down right there why not a doe? The lead doe is usually the biggest and most mature, they also start to separate themselves from the heard first. This makes the lead doe not only the prime target but she also gives you a clear shooting lane by separating herself. I stand up and swing on the lead doe and she’s half way between a full run and a trot so I swung out in front of her and shot her in what I call the bread basket. The bread basket is hi on the shoulder; this shocks the spinal cord thusly dropping them like a bad habit wile also sending massive injury to the lungs and shatters the shoulders. The cool thing is at her current speed instead of simply dropping she rolls ace over teakettle! When I got down there I found that both of them were on a road going through a cut.

Hunts that go perfectly like this don’t happen, so when you get a victory, even if it didn’t go just how you planed, cherish the moment because you never know when your last hunt will be. I had a killer riffle antelope season and I hope you did also. But if you still have tags to fill there’s still time so go get’r done this weekend. This next weekend I’m taking my best friend out for his first deer hunt.

Good luck and good hunting. 

Meet In The Freezer

Finally a hint of success! My goat hunt couldn’t have gone better! I’ve been shooting all summer on the prairie at thousands of prairie dogs, and this time everything falls into place.

 I get out to the place I’m going to hunt and just as daylight brakes I see this guy driving down the road towards me. I was told that I had the west half of the ranch to myself. This guy was all lost and he came from a town about 20 miles away through fences and gates to find that he thought he was traveling west not east. So I directed him back to the highway and he found his way just fine now that it was light. I wasn’t mad that he had spooked all the goats from the last 20 miles to my ranch. That was actually pretty dang sweet!

So with 45 goats in a pasture that only holds about half that on a good day, I was pretty excited. I drove on further west into a deep drainage and parked. The plan was to walk down the drainage and take a look around. Now remember the rut is still in full swing and with this meany goats in one pasture there’s going to be some fights! There’s bucks chasing all over the pasture and does watching, I could’ve been wearing a clown suit and they wouldn’t have paid any attention to me, I had my pick of any buck I could see, it was out of this world!

I finally find the buck I want and he’s beaded all by himself, so I pop up to the top of the ridge and steady up on my bipod. I decided just to chill and wait for him to get up and stretch. Finally he stands up and he’s facing away from me and just slightly to the left. I’m steady, I got the wind figured, and I’m squeezing and nothing. Ya I had my safety on, amused by my silliness I settle down and shoot for his far shoulder and let drive. Through the recoil I saw him take the it and stumble. He runs off to 200 yards and stops facing away.  I see 6 other goats pop up and run toward him and he turns broad side so I center punched his right shoulder and hamburger the off shoulder. He falls like a bowling pin and when the others reach him they stand around him like they didn’t know where they were going to go. So I figure I got a buck and a doe tag my buck is down right there why not a doe? The lead doe is usually the biggest and most mature, they also start to separate themselves from the heard first. This makes the lead doe not only the prime target but she also gives you a clear shooting lane by separating herself. I stand up and swing on the lead doe and she’s half way between a full run and a trot so I swung out in front of her and shot her in what I call the bread basket. The bread basket is hi on the shoulder; this shocks the spinal cord thusly dropping them like a bad habit wile also sending massive injury to the lungs and shatters the shoulders. The cool thing is at her current speed instead of simply dropping she rolls ace over teakettle! When I got down there I found that both of them were on a road going through a cut.  Hunts that go perfectly like this don’t happen, so when you get a victory, even if it didn’t go just how you planed, cherish the moment because you never know when your last hunt will be. I had a killer riffle antelope season and I hope you did also. But if you still have tags to fill there’s still time so go get’r done this weekend. This next weekend I’m taking my best friend out for his first deer hunt.

Good luck and good hunting. 

Opening Archrey Deer

The moon is waxing and almost full the river is almost deeper than I am tall and the deer are running a stretch across the river from my property to the nabors place. These conditions are not the best for getting that pope and young of your dreams. The difference between getting a shot at that buck of a life-time and settling for a fork-horn are three simple things, timing, timing and timing. The conditions are simply just something to overcome and show us who we are as a sportsman and to test why we are really out here. The answer is simple; we choose to spend our free time and every spare moment thinking about this ridiculous is because it’s in our blood, hardwired into our DNA somewhere is the deep need to hunt, kill, eat and survive. This is the hunting fuel that drives every sportsman.  

I started my season with a coon kill. Walking down to the river in the early twilight was a coon at 35 yards staring me down from a tree, how could I let that fly? I poped him in the head with my 22 revolver. Proceeding to the river I find that the deer were bedded in the fallow alfalfa. I kept moving down the river to get an angle and gain the wind. This would lead to the discovery that the river had jumped 4 feet seemingly overnight. Then without warning every deer within a mile jumped up and ran, not jogged, ran across the river through the flood plain infront of me at 87 yards and off the property. It’s still just getting light enough to see and every deer I know of on this property is across the river and on the next door place without any influence from me. Now I had done some homework by dove hunting I had noticed some things for my evening hunt. They came right off the end of a hay stack every night and a tree had fallen over last spring on the hay stack and I decided to sit on the haystack behind the tree. Although they did not come within range of my stand the hight of my position gave me an exalent view of their exact movemet paterns across the river.

The next morning i still couldn't get across the river so i went to a place on the river where the deer came to a "bottle neck" and kept their habitual fence crossing within range. Just as light broke, I could see that the deer were on the move, running, just like the morning before. I felt that all famillar warm chill overcome me, it would've seemed that they were going to come right through the hole in the fence just across the river. knowing exactly how far each sage was i checked all of them again just out of nervousness. They were all still on the move from 120 yards to 100 yards to 85 yards, and they halt! Dead in their tracks they stop and stair at the fence. They weren't looking at me they were looking to far to my right to be looking at me; and out of the sage right on the fence i can see this bluejay. just minding his own busness, then poof! into a clowd of blue and white feathers. The deer saw this and bolted. I was to bewildered to really care, I wanted to know what just happened.What i had just witnessed was a bobcat distroying a bluejay in fractions of a second! I could just barly cetch a glimps of him halling away his breakfast.

later that day i finally got across the river! i was so excited, I set up an ambush closer to a corner on the river where i could pick my range and instead of all the deer bing in a huge bundle they would come through single file. Deer martchin in single file line are good for several reasons. First they aren't piled so you can look at them all and identifi the one you plan to shoot. Seccond one deer can't get in the way of the other when it comes down to shootin, and finally there is almost no danger of getting caut. The leed doe is the only one really paying any attention, the rest of them are kinda zombies, they just fallow the deer infront of them. So you can draw and shoot really without them knowing, this keeps them from jumping the string and misplacing a good shot.

I really love when a plan comes togeather, and it did holly cow there was a huge 4point in the middle of the line and 20 min before sundown he steps out at 37 yards and stops to pee. I gave little mercy, my 470grain arow drove through his sholders at 340 fps and he bolted like he was shot out of a cannon. usually when they take off like this it can only mean one thing, hart shot. He ran down the hill and through the river on to a point and tries to cross again and he falls in the middle of the 6ft raging river. He is swept away with no chance of recovery. I have a mix of dissapointing emotions and the sight of him floating down the last bend in the river at dark is imprinted in my mind.

I can't tell you how sick I feel, or how everything can go perfect and you make a perfect shot and it strike the bread basket and despite all of that you did't get your deer. A wise man once told me,"If bows and arrows were so grate why did the indans fight so hard to get Winchesters!" He was right, bows are siveraly outclassed by modern rifeles. Next weekend is the opening weekend for rifle antlope, this also means that rifle doe is also open. So go get your doe tags filled and your goats hung up you only have 2 weeks till opening rifle deer, the gratest mack season of them all!

Good luck and good hunting

A New Beginning

This weekend I wasn’t feeling the best so I didn’t want to go all the way to the ranch and spend the weekend in the back of a truck and everything that goes with it. Fortunately I have another option. Hunting just outside of town is a great way to keep you out and actively hunting and pursuing when you don’t feel the best. This also allows you to go home and eat good hot meals and sleep in your own bed to recover quicker. Also it provides you with a prime opportunity to meet new land owners and hunt smaller select herds of goats. Smaller herds of goats are more venerable to stalking and decoying. Large groups make things harder, harder to hide behind a decoy, harder to keep your sent controlled. Also when one doe decides something isn’t quite rite they all run. Sr. Isack Newton wrote laws of physics and one of his laws was that an object in motion wants to stay in motion. Goats are no different once they start moving they keep moving.  Unless something gets in the way, that something is a fence. Goats are not like deer they hate to cross fences and when they do, they go through them not over them like a deer. This means that goats would rather walk along side a fence than cross.

When hunting in town fences gives you an advantage when hunting as a team. You and your partner can “bounce” goats from one another giving you both several opportunities. My antelope season came and went with several opportunities and I failed to close the deal. That’s just how it goes when you’re bow hunting, if everything isn’t perfect it’s not going to happen when it comes to goats. This Saturday is the marking of my favorite season, archery deer.
Now I can get down to business and apply everything I’ve learned over the last few weeks of goat hunting and stick a deer. I personally can’t set in a blind all day over a waterhole and twiddle my thumbs, however on the flip side I can spend all day on the river just watching and listing. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that there’s always something happing on the river, not just deer but turkeys and coons and skunks and rabbets and ducks and geese. This makes every trip to the river an interesting experience.

With all of this going on carrying a pistol for pretention and extermination is always a good idea. Tonight I shot 5 coons one after the other these rodents need taken care of whenever possible they spread disease and can be very dangerous. These aren’t even the worst thing you can run into on the river though, last year I got busted by a doe and she ran right to a mountain lion, that will get your attention! So when it comes to picking a pistol bring something that will kill a lion.
Good luck and good hunting.

Failure and Frustation

My weekend was exactly the oppisit of what i expected to be. I lerned a copple things this weekend that really would've saved me alot of walking and a ton of frustration. Not because I was not successful but because in the area where i was hunting the goats were not rutting yet. This makes for a whole lot of goats looking at you from 2-3 miles away and running away. This will defiantly make anyone feel like a complete fool all day long. The simple fact that you came out in the pasture with a life-sized plastic goat makes you feel odd then when they run from a ridiculous away from you to double that you just plain feel ridiculous.

Even when every group of goats has run away tho don't give up hope. That feeling of retardedness can be changed in a matter of seconds. The line between hero and bum is just over the hill as i would discover. I did get one loan buck to come "buddy" up with me and my decoy. He was tacking a nap when the rest of his heard ran off without him. I had been fallowing this heard all day and i knew there was three bucks in this group but i only saw 2 run out. I figured I just couldn't spot the horns from that far away and he was in there somewhere amongst the 25 others. I had gone all the way around this heard to get the wind and the sun in my favor so the truck was right past where they were. This would be an excellent time for a buck to see my decoy just over the hill except i was replaying the whole day in my head trying to find something i did wrong. This buck decides he wants to come join up with me to wherever i might be going. Long story short he ran up on me on a trot and got to about 20 yards before i noticed him walking right behind me. I stop and turn the decoy side ways to him and he knows somethings up. This ends up with a ten minute stalemate at 20 yards and I can't move, that sucks.

Now how could i have done this differently? First off I could've watched the weather a bit more and noticed that the low for the week has been 65 and it needs to be cooler than that to kick off the rut. The rut is never the same date or anything it's strictly a season, and where i hunt the season had not changed from summer to fall yet. Witch is deceiving because where i live the bucks are rutting already. Secondly when i saw that the bucks are running away from the decoy instead of towards the decoy i probably should have just walked back to the truck and put it away and hunted without it. the decoy draws attention to you and depending on the season that attention is ether in your favor or not. Third never assume the hunt is over just because you can't see anything. The hunt isn't over until you leave and you drive away, until then keep sharp and expect that anything can happen.

I would like to remind you that riffle season is only a few weeks away and you can hunt with a bow during riffle season, but DO NOT use a decoy during riffle season! This will most likely result in a blown to bits decoy and a hole in you that will kill you instantly or shortly there after!

Good luck and good hunting.

Archery Antlope

Okay enough with preparing for hunting season, cuz i have news for ya, it's here! And it's about time. This season is my favorite firstly because it's the first one of my tags to open and secondly because it's the most challenging. Archery antelope can be ether the most boring or the most exciting, the hardest or just down right simple. Now you can go out and try to beat them at their game and spot and stock for days on end, witch is effective once in a grate wile. However if you want to take a nap and set over a waterhole you can do that also. I don't find this to be effective because in resent years where i hunt all of the waterholes are full. Giving them the choice of choosing from upwards of 25 waterholes in an easy travel distance, and if they happen to stop and drink at the waterhole you are at the odds of them bing in range is slim at best. these waterholes have been here so long that they've expanded and there by making more distance from one edge to another making the odds of the possible shot being on the edge of your comfortable range tempting you to make a risky shot.

My personal favorite is to not hunt the first or second week in the season and start hunting the second week in September. This is when the bucks are really starting to rut, or breed. The bucks become excessively territorial and protective of their does, or harem. This two or three week span is when these bucks are most vulnerable. I take a 3D "carry light" decoy out with me on my shoulder and walk down wind of a heard with a nice buck in a Zig-Zag pattern. This mimics the actions of a real buck. Don't worry about the fact that it looks like the decoy has 4 legs or that the decoy is floating. From the bucks point of view he sees an invader. Also if possible try to make it so that your face is in the sun and your back is in the shadows, this will keep you from looking like a black blob. Remove all jewelery and nonsense as this gives off a shiny glow that WILL make them run! And lastly get ready to shoot, if a buck breaks away from the heard and comes on a trot kneel down slowly and knock an arrow because the odds are he very well could try to plow over your decoy. This is the most fun you can have hunting antelope, they are aggressive and really drop their guard. My father shot a goat using this technique and was kneeling behind the decoy had a buck at 5 yards, he drew back and put his sights on the buck and did't pay attention to the clearance between the his arrow and the decoy. Needles to say he shot the decoy directly off his bow, it sounded like a pitcher threw a base ball at a base drum. The decoy fell over and all the buck did was turn broadside, my dad knocked another arrow and stuck him. So practice your shorter shooting and what you'll find is that inside of 10 yards you start to use longer range pins. This is because your arrow needs distance to get up to where your sight plane is. An extreme case of this was my dad looking on one plane and the arrow hitting the decoy. One last thing do NOT try ANY decoying during riffle season! this will at a minimum cost you a decoy and could very well cost you your life! No hunt is worth that.

I'll see you next week hopefully with a success story using this very technique.
Good luck and good hunting.

Hunt Prep

Shooting, hunting, reloading is what i do. This passion is much more than a weekend hobby from September to December, i prepare for hunting season all year. depending on what u like to hunt year-round practice is ether easy or hard. Me, i shoot my bow almost all year but in the winter monthes in South Dakota alota times i'm snowed in with tempitures below negitive ten with therty to fourty mph winds, not the best condions for quality practice. I take this opertunity to simply practice my form. i set my target up in the hall, make sure everyone in the house knows not to just run through. Then i can close my eyes and feel the clean release and not worry about where i hit or if i'm grouping or anything. i remember it as push and pull, push your front hand to the target, just place your finger on the trigger and pull your shoulderblades together untill the bow goes off. To minimize damage to your home, set your target only about 7-8 yards away, also avoid any windows.

After a few hours of that a week you'll be more than ready to get out of the house and start aiming. But be cautious about going back and rushing the shot once you can see the target. fight the urge to "jump" on the trigger. I also ocupy my time all winter by reloding for my pistols and rifles. It's a grate opertunity to take care of distracting yardwork and home inpruvement projects. This will keep you from rushing your loading prosses later in the year and give you plenty of time to make surpus. Surplus is extreamly inportant when it comes to summer. Thats when it gets fun.