A Dual Purpose

Over the weekend, I had a chance to take my nephew Joey hunting during the Ohio Youth Gun Season. The weather was cool, but very windy which is never good for deer movement. We ended up only seeing a couple of button bucks, but still had a great time together. I get people all the time trying to commend me for taking my children, relatives, and others fishing and hunting. Yes, it is my goal to give them a taste of the outdoors and hopefully they'll develop as hunters and anglers as they get older. But truthfully, my other reason for doing it kinda selfish.... I like going just as much as they do and if I can kill two birds with one rock....

Joey is ready for action!

A Great Idea?

"Hey, I've got a great idea,"  I told my producer, Jim Kramer, last week. My idea was to hook up with my long time friend and Lake Erie expert Mike Traumbly and head up to the big pond for some late fall largemouth fishing. Mike has always told me stories about certain canals along the Michigan shoreline that load up with wintering largemouth bass. Sounds great right? It was great! All except for the daytime high temperature of 38 degrees coupled with 20-30 mph winds and, oh yeah, snow flurries...

It has been a long time since I have been so cold, but it was definitely worth it! We caught about 30 bass in the 2 to 4 pound range and action was fairly steady. The best bait for the bigger fish was my go-to 3/8 oz. Arkie Jig in black and blue with a black/blue crawfish trailer tail. The key was to fish the sea walls very slowly, just crawling the bait across the bottom in the 45 degree water. Surprisingly enough, the strikes were very aggressive for such cold conditions.

The other bait that worked very well for Mike was casting a Blade Bait into the center of the canal when we would start to mark the fish on the Humminbird Graph. The Blade Bait didn't produce fish as big, but definitely accounted for good numbers.

Chalk up one episode for next years Stihl's Reel in the Outdoors!

Shooting with a Camera

I've been hunting near Lewisburg, Kentucky for the past several days with Drop Tine Outfitters trying to get a nice whitetail on camera for the Scent Loks High Places Show. Saw lots of deer, but no bucks big enough to shoot. One morning was very foggy as you can see in the picture. I plan to hit it a couple more days before Kentucky's rifle season opens on Saturday.

A Treat

It is very rare when one of my blogs my blogs has nothing to do with fishing, hunting or the business thereof, but a guy has to have a little fun! Last night we went to our friends house in Terrace Park, Ohio for Trick or Treat with the kids. The live in a beautiful neighborhood where the folks really get into Halloween. When you live on a farm at the end of a dead end street, you don't get very many trick or treaters.... like zero and the houses are so far apart that the kids would have to hike several miles to fill a ziplock baggie with candy. Terrace Park on the other hand is a target rich environment!

The girls looked real cute in their costumes and a good time was had by all. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.... Oh, yeah it is nice to be home for a change!

Little Red Riding Hood

Dorothy and Toto

Trying to steal candy from Red

Bonding

I guess just about every guy who has a little girl ends up taking one of those father-daughter trips when they reach their early teens. It's great time to bond before she gets a little older and get too cool to hang with her daddy. My bet is that most of those trips are to the beach, maybe an art gallery, symphony or heaven forbid and extended shopping trip to the Mall of America in Minnesota! Oh yeah, my buddy had to do that and it darn near broke him.

But no, my 14 year old baby girl made me proud when she announced that she would like to go out west on an antelope hunt.... I could handle that. Man, was I glad she didn't want to hunt kudu in Africa!

Our little get away took place last week in Montana with my good friend Jammin Krebs of Western Timberline Outfitters.  To say the least, he and his number one guide, Kyle, treated her like gold. Even though it was a rifle hunt, it was extremely challenging as the terrain was very open and the antelope were herding up in fairly large groups with lots of eyes to catch every movement.

She took her buck late in the second day of the hunt at 243 yards in a 30 mile per hour crosswind. That's a very tough shot even for an experienced hunter but she made a perfect shot on a beautiful mature antelope. I don't know what made me happier, the fact that she made a great shot or the fact that I didn't have to go to Macy's to see her smile!

New World Record?

When you travel to hunt and fish as much as I do, you learn to prepare for each trip the best you can, then take whatever comes in stride, good or bad! As most of you know, I have a tremendous passion for bow hunting, and over the past several years hosting various hunting shows on Outdoor Channel has provided me the opportunity to travel and hunt in places I could have only dreamed of growing up.

Last week I traveled to Newfoundland to hunt Woodland Caribou with River Run Outfitting for Scent Lok's High Places. I had been there this time last year and had lots if opportunities, but couldn't close the deal. I honestly left there very disappointed in myself. That being said, I traveled there this year with cautious optimism trying not to get my hopes too high. My realistic goal with to take a good representative Woodland (the smallest antlered of all caribou species), get a good TV show and move one step closer to taking all 29 North American big game species with a bow.

On the first day of the hunt I got very close to a nice bull but high winds kept me from taking the shot. We quickly located more caribou in the distance. In this group was the largest Woodland Caribou any of us had ever seen! We closed the gap to within 100 yards. Then to 50 where I took the shot, which did the job. I couldn't contain myself (you'll see in the show) when I finally put my hands on what unofficially will be...the new archery world record eclipsing the old record set back in 1966 by 20 inches!

Record or not he is an amazing creature and I was truly blessed to to have this opportunity. When I was growing up reading Outdoor Life and Sports Afield, I could only dream of incredible hunting adventures and world record animals, and now unbelievably, I may have lived the dream!

Packing him out

Perfect Shot

The past couple of days of whitetail hunting in Ohio have been amazing! Three days ago on our property near our home, my daughter Reanna took a beautiful eight point buck with her crossbow. It was so exciting for me to be right there and watch her make a perfect shot on her biggest deer ever!

As if that wasn't enough, I then headed out to Adams County to hunt with my friend Pat DeCastro of Kerry Automotive Group. He ran the camera for me as I took a big mature eight point. We estimated the buck to be around 5 1/2 years old! It will be hard to top this week, but I'm sure gonna try. I'm off to Newfoundland tomorrow to chase woodland caribou for another Scent Loks High Places episode.