Sept. 20th- 21st

Well after being on the road all week working all I wanted to do was see the family and get to the woods. All week the temps were maybe in the low 70's with morning temps hovering around 55. Of course by sat afternoon they were well into the upper 70's and sun was even in the low 80's. Not very enticing to go into the woods but being the die hard I am I spent a few hours in the morning and night hanging in the tree. Sunday night I even talked dad into coming into the woods with me. Boy was he regretting it. Thanks dad! We never did see a deer this weekend but did hone in a little on where they might be hanging out. The woods is still full of vegetation and lots of corn standing. The next few weeks should start picking up. I have a hunt planned on Oct.4th-5th for Wisconsin and am looking forward to filling my EAB (earn a buck) tag. I have to give my wife a lot of credit she puts up with lots of lonely nights being married to a construction worker that loves to hunt. Thanks, Ash I love you and Miles a ton.

opening weekend

Well opening weekend came and went just As fast as usual. Unfortunately we had steady rain pretty much all weekend long. I did manage to be in the woods for about 6-7 hours on sat. I sat on my favorite food plot and never did see a deer. It is very early and very green in the woods so I am going to change my tactics for the next hunt. I am going into an open area with one fence line that buts up to river bottom and corn. If I had to bet on a good location for an early season doe this is it. I have a goal this year and it is to video all my hunts at least little tidbits so i can edit it all together at the end of the year. Hopefully I can video a few kills on film too. See ya in the woods.

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor day to all. I love Labor day, not only because we all have the day off to thank all of those hard working men and women who keep this great country running, but because it brings us into the best month all, September I can't say enough great things about September but the best being hunting season. Bow opener is so close I can taste it. I was in the woods for about 3 hours on Monday hanging stands and clearing a very small amount of brush. I know some of you are wondering why I wait so long to hang my stands, I have a few reasons but number 1 I can pick the oak tree with the most acorns. I found two trees that are producing a good mast of acorns. I also played around in my tree saddle some more and actually shot out of it. I was very surprised that it is not much different than standing in your stand. I shot pretty good considering the wind blowing me around in the tree like a rag doll. I don't mind shooting when it is windy it is good to know what to expect from your equipment. Two weeks to go and it will be here way quicker than you think so if you have been procrastinating anything you better get it done now. I also picked up all of my tags for Minnesota on Monday so I am legal for another year. Good luck to all these first few days of the season and shoot strait.

Hog Hunt 08

It's finally here, hunting season 08. I started it off a tad bit early this year by booking a Russian Boar hunt in Brainerd, Mn. I did not know what to think for I had never hunted in a high fenced area before. I have to say that it was not even close to an easy hunt. I had in mind that we would do a little stalking and eventually find our hogs and pick the one we wanted, WRONG. We were on hour 5 when we came to the conclusion that there was entirely to much vegetation and area to be able to cover effectively. We had to go to plan B, what is plan B you ask well I like to call plan B the redneck way, hounds. I didn't want to do it but we needed to get a piggy on the ground like pronto, this was only a one day hunt and we were already into afternoon. Long story short we finally located two pigs and thats when the fun began. Kirk Henchen from Princeton, MN was along for the ride and we shared film duties for the day. Kurty as I like to call him won the rights to first hog with a mean game of rock, paper, scissors. Kurty's hog was thinking about putting a charge on the camera guy but an Easton Axis tipped with a G5 Striker made him change his mind. One hog down one to go. When I first located my pig she was laying under some brush well out of sight. After a grueling 30 min. of cat and mouse through quite possibly some of the thickest vegetation in central mn. I was able to make a nice clean kill at about 10yrds. This was the first hunt I was using G5's new tekkan 1.5 inch cut and man you have to see what these things can do holy cow. All in all it was a great hunt, if you would like information on Northstar ranch get a hold of me via email. Less than a month till archery opener in Mn. I can not wait. Stay tuned for video

Food Plots

Well I have been in the woods quite a bit the last few days basically I have made some quick trips in to check and mow a few food plots. My plots look real good we had good rain early on and it seems that the ground has held good moisture for all my grasses and clovers thus far. There is plenty of browse for the deer in the woods so I don't expect for my "secret Spots" to get real hot till the end of Sept. or mid Oct. I drove around last night and glassed a bunch of fields, I did see a few does and fawns but no Freak Nasty's. I can definetly till it is countdown time to opener because it is the only thing that I can think about. 2 weeks till my hog hunt I had to make some changes to my archery equip. this week but I am back to shooting Dead Nuts at 50 + yrds with my g5 broadheads. I have been using my rinehart 18-1 target that is guarenteed for a year and I am bound and determined to give it my best to wear it out. Shoot strait and I will talk at you soon.

The Lull

Well that time of the year is among us once again. That time I am talking about is the time between spring hunts and fall hunts here in the Midwest. I try not to dwell on it because I know opening morning will be here all to soon and I am sure I won't be 100% ready. I have been shooting on a regular basis and when I say shooting I don't mean just standing in the back yard I mean practicing angles that you will see in the woods shooting from your knees and practicing from the tree saddle. I love my tree saddle this thing is going to help me kill some deer this year guaranteed. Well hopefully everyone else is getting ready also there is nothing worse than going in the woods unprepared. I will stay in touch I have a Russian boar hunt coming up in Aug so hopefully I can put up some pics.

Busy

Sorry once again I have been extremely busy and haven't had any time to get on the computer. Well Ashley and I are proud parents of a beautiful little girl named Miley Maria she is definitely a princess, but I have a good feeling I will be able to get her out in the woods with her dad in the fall. She is for the most part a very good kid she definitely has her moments but don't they all. Work is extremely busy now that we have almost all of the segments poured they want the rest of them done overnight it seems. Working over 60 hours a week and trying to spend as much time with the family and also taking care of the things around the house I was surprised I even made it into the woods turkey hunting this spring. I basically had 2 days to try filling my tag. Day 1 had some gobbling early 3-5 toms I am figuring and also the hens were extremely vocal which as you all know is not a good thing. I never did call any of them off those hens that morning. Day 2 same as the first morning lots of gobbling hens making as much noise as they could so I figured I was just going to out call the hens. I would cut every hen off anytime she tried cutting I would cut louder and harder, eventually they kind of quited down and so did I. A half hour went by and I no birds had shown up and I was starting to get that bad feeling when you think you may have done to much calling but low and behold 5 birds popped out of the woods and started strutting right where I was sitting the day before. I had one young tom start filtering my direction and he got to about 30 yards and was coming in good so I was going to wait for the close shot, this is where it gets crazy! all of a sudden something cracked a branch behind me in the woods and I wasn't the only one who herd it so all the birds start heading back into the brush my bird had stopped broadside so I ranged him quickly at 34 yards drew back settled on his wing butt and pulled the trigger. My arrow flew beautifully hit right where I was aiming the bird tea kettled over got up tried to fly but he couldn't and he just ran to the edge of the brush behind me I just sat there and then I heard his wings beating on the ground. I took my time packing up and figured he would be laying right where I had seen him last. Once I got there all that was there was blood and a bunch of feathers. I have only been this disappointed once before in my hunting career. I looked for 2 hours for that bird under every piece of brush and clumps of grass. I have know idea what happened to him. We do have a lot of coyotes in that piece of woods and with all the calling going on I don't know if there is a chance that a yote got to my birds before me? very unlikely but I really have know idea where he went. I hate losing animals it leaves a very sick feeling in your gut for a long time. That was my bird hunting for 08 hopefully next year I can make it over to Nebraska and Wisconsin to chase some birds.