Ok, let me explain before I have the local conservation agent knocking on my door! I just connected with my second turkey this past Saturday, which makes the fifth turkey I’ve been a part of harvesting this spring – the other three I was calling and/or videoing. I know for many, this has been a frustrating year in the turkey woods, but I have been fortunate to have a great season this year.
This second turkey worked like a charm. He was roosted in some oaks that are surrounded by a grove of evergreen trees so I was able to get in real close. It helped that he gobbled super early giving me the cover of very low light to make my advance. My only problem was that I had a bunch of calves in the woods with me that decided I was very interesting. They ended up surrounding me, even nuzzling my boot as they checked me out. I thought for sure they were going to ruin the hunt as for 15 min I couldn’t have shot in any direction. I finally decided that my only hope was crawl on past them and get under a big evergreen that they couldn’t get under with me. Thankfully it worked and they wandered off in the other direction.
This bird gobbled his head off and finally pitched out of the tree and landed about 100yrds away out in the pasture. After some soft yelps and purring he came up to the edge of the woods to check me out at about 50 yrds. I decided I didn’t want to make another 50yrd shot this year so after a few more minutes of coaxing, he finally gave up and came on in, offering me a shot at 15yrds! He gobbled all the way in, and you fellow hunters know how awesome it is to have a bird gobbling in your face at 15-20 yrds! I was done and it was barely 6:30am. He was a beautiful bird – he weighed 22.5 lbs, had a very very thick 10inch beard, and sharp spurs that were a bit over 1 1/4 inches long.
Below I’m attaching pics of this bird along with my first bird of this spring. I’ll say it again, you just can’t hardly beat spring turkey hunting!
Turkey season has finally arrived and as always it was met with great anticipation. It started for me a few weeks ago when I was fortunate to be able to take out a teenager on the youth hunt. A few hours into the hunt and after some serious sneaking, I was standing next to a teen smiling ear to ear with his first bird! And not just any bird, it ended up having 4 beards – a true trophy!
My second success happened this Tuesday when I was able to harvest a trophy of my own. Long story short, I called in a Tom that happened to be by himself from roughly 300yrds away. I was able to get him into about 80yrds, but couldn’t get him to cross a dry creek to seal the deal. I ended up crawling, and crawling, and crawling….until I was finally able to take him at roughly 50yrds. The whole ordeal took about 2hrs so needless to say this bird was earned! He ended up weighing 24.5 lbs, had a 10 in beard, and 1 1/4″ spurs. I’ll have some pics to post shortly.
My third success happened today. I went out this morning with my cousin. I did the calling the and videoing while he did the shooting. It was an incredible morning. The birds talked great and we ended up getting a great video of his bird as it came in strutting and gobbling. Congrats Bryan on an awesome turkey! Below is the video from this morning’s hunt – Enjoy!
My cousins had an excellent year goose hunting up in north Missouri! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to accompany them much at all, but they did share some video that they captured. I don’t know if seeing all these geese I missed out on makes me feel better or worse! Great hunting guys!
If any of you guys are like me you’ll be walking around a rustic furniture store with your wife and she’ll comment “Wow, I really like that!” This is usually when I pipe up and say, “Oh yeah, I could make that really easily.” We both know that I probably couldn’t and that if I could, it wouldn’t be really easy, but it makes me feel better and I get the much anticipated eye roll which makes it all worth it 😉 Surprisingly, there are projects that I do follow through on and every once and awhile I’ll surprise myself at the results.
This last little project I wanted to share with you all was mounting my antlers (from the buck I shot bowhunting this year – scroll down for video!) on a plaque. I looked at several online and some were nice, but were either more money than I wanted to spend or just didn’t have the “look” I wanted. I wanted an arrowhead plaque to let everyone know that this was a bow kill. So I decided that I would just make it.
I started with a pattern that I printed out onto a few different sheets of copy paper and taped them together to complete the arrowhead outline. I then transposed that pattern onto a nice 1″ board that I purchased at Lowes for around $8. I then cut out the arrowhead with a jig saw. I would imagine a band saw would be faster, but when you don’t have a band saw you use a jig saw! I then took my router that I had never used and cut a 45 degree angle about 1/2″ deep giving it that true arrowhead look. I bought some wire strap from a hardware store for about $2, some 1″ sheet rock screws and some stain for $6. Of course, I could do several of these plaques with these supplies I’m listing. I also bought a nice 12″x12″ piece of leather, some decorative tacks, and mounting hardware from Hobby Lobby all for $9.
After cutting out the plaque and routing the edge I stained the face of the plaque leaving the edges the natural wood color. Then of course, I simply strapped the antlers to the plaque. Now this is my first try at this and I needed something to give me some shape for the leather to go over and I used what was handy which happened to be my kid’s play-do. This may turn out to be a mistake after this stuff dries out, but we’ll have to see. I used some felt to make myself a pattern to use to cut out the leather with. I then simply tacked the leather down around the the antlers as you can see.
This project didn’t take too long and my wife said that she thought it looked great so it must, as she is very honest when it comes to my craftmanship whether it be good or bad 😉 Plus I have that manly, “I made that” feeling and that’s worth quite a bit!! Below are some pics of the finishing steps to the process.
Happy New Year to all – I wish you the best in 2010! I love new beginnings. Whether it is springtime, the sunrise while sitting in a bow stand or a new start to the year, it’s nice to be able to let go of things from the previous year and start with the score even once again. Even though we are facing much opposition to freedom right now from Washington, we still do have the freedom to take responsibility for ourselves and make this year a great one! I’m thankful for a safe, healthy, prosperous year in o9 and for the new beginnings Christ gives us through His grace & mercy.
I had planned to do some late season bowhunting around Christmas and New Year’s, but my cousins had a bunch of geese picked out so I opted to be sociable and do some goose hunting. The -6 degree actual temp. also played a role in choosing to goose hunt rather than sit up in a cold bow stand! It’s been a few years since I did much goose hunting and I must say that I had a great time! It’s great to see a group of geese lock up and sail into your decoys. I was hoping to get some good video, but I just never could quite get things to click. I got a little video of geese locking up and falling into a cut corn field – just before we had time to get our decoys set up – talk about frustrating!! I believe that we tallied up our geese for the week at 12, that was between the 4 of us, so not too bad. Below is a pick of a few of the geese we killed New Year’s Day. Great time – now off to chase some predators!!
I had to share this with you guys. This trout was caught in my back yard down at lake Taneycomo in Branson. Lake Taneycomo is a great place to fly-fish. I’ve caught several nice trout there, but this is pretty incredible! I knew a few of you fishermen would get a kick out of this anyway!
Most of you know me as an avid outdoorsman that loves being outside in God’s great creation. Well that’s what I am through and through, so when I tell you that I also do graphic/logo design don’t freak out on me here. I’m not your typical designer. I mean, my hair isn’t spiked, I don’t wear skinny jeans, I have no highlights, and I’m married to a beautiful woman. I do wish I was a bit tougher, but hey, I guess I am a designer after all 😉
I just wanted to let you all know that I do the sort of thing that you see above (my new logo). I created this one for me of course, and could do the same for you or for someone you know. I have a link over on your left there that gives you my contact info. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to hook anyone here, my site is still devoted to all things hunting, fishing, and anything else I deem worthy to write about! This is just a side note to keep in mind. You can check out my design site @ http://www.remoledesign.com.
I’m actually a counselor (marriage & family) by degree, designer by trade, and a hunter/husband/father/christian by choice. I know I’m sort of a weird mix but that keeps life interesting.
Thanks for reading my shameless little plug here and I promise not to do this again….at least not for quite some time 😉
Now back to the important stuff – getting back into the bow stand next week! I’ve been a little busy lately, but the timber is calling my name. Hopefully I’ll have some more amateurish video for you soon!
I haven’t done this before and don’t plan to do a lot of this in the future, but I wanted to share a youtube video that I really enjoyed. These guys do a great job videoing and editing, but it’s the storyline that I believe many of us bow hunters can really relate to. I contacted bowhuntingdotcom before posting anything and of course, they didn’t mind me spreading the word by sharing this with you! Enjoy!
And no, I’m not talking about some little figurine with an oversized head! I’m talking about those moments in our lives that we experience that are truly precious. With kids we have these moments quite often, the problem is that many times we don’t have the awareness about ourselves to recognize them when they happen.
I experienced one of those memorable moments a few weeks and there was no problem recognizing it. In Missouri we have an extended doe season shortly following our regular rifle season. My son is 2yrs old now and is constantly asking to go hunting. We had a few warm days so I decided to take him out a few times. He really did great, we’ve now got the whispering thing down and we had lots of fun playing in the dirt behind our makeshift blind. This was good enough for me as it was great to have him out there with me enjoying the woods. But on the last day I had to hunt up in norh MO we went out to hunt just about an hour before dark.
We sat there for roughly 40min when what ended up being a small button buck walked out just 150yds away. It was great, I shot the deer and he was pumped! It felt like I’d shot my first deer all over again! We ran up there and checked the deer out and he thought it was the greatest thing. He was my big helper, he stayed right with me while I field dressed the deer and was very proud to tell momma that we got us a BIG deer as he called it 😉 He even made an announcement in church the next day saying we got us a BIG BUCK! Looks like he’s getting started right…already telling big deer stories!
Just wanted to share that with you all and express my feelings that THIS is what hunting is really all about. It’s about teaching responsibility, passing on tradition, and most of all spending time with those we love. Looking forward to many more of such memories and please, if you have like stories with pics feel free to share them with me, I’d love to hear them! – hunterbydesign@gmail.com
I’m really not trying to one up my little cousin here, but I decided to go ahead and share the pics of my bobcat from last year. I actually called him in with a primos “tweeter” call – which is a distress call. This cat came in to about 60 yards where I shot him. He weighed in at 30 lbs so he was really good sized for north Missouri anyway. I shot him with my remingtion R-15 VTR which is the .223 caliber – a super sweet gun that’s a blast to shoot!
