Thanksgiving Weekend

Saturday: Dad and I went out to this spot on the King's River that we have been hunting for a while now. He asked me to come film for him while he shot a doe. So we woke up early and we were in the stand at about 6:00 AM. At about 6:45 here comes a big fat doe walking down the old loggin road that we were overlooking. Dad waits until the doe is behind a tree and stands up to get ready for a shot. Meanwhile, I get the camera turned on and begin filming. It is just enough daylight to get a good picture on the camera. The doe makes her way to 10 yards, but she is walking towards us so there is no shot. All of a sudden she looks up and we get BUSTED! The doe takes off and we just looked at eachother and laughed. At 7:15 another doe starts coming down the road. This time Dad stays sitting in his stand in hopes to not get busted again. I get the camera started again and I hear something to my right. It was two spikes coming down the road from the opposite direction of the doe. I move the camera to them and begin filming them for a few seconds. Then I notice something about twenty yards infront of dad walking straight towards us through the thick part of the woods. When I turn my head all I see are horns. He was walking fast and was getting close so I knew I had to get the camera on him because it was going to happen quickly. I got the camera on him, Dad draws and makes a great shot and we hear him crash about a 75 yards away. Both of us were in disbelief, we were just going to try to kill a doe not expecting a nice buck to come by. The buck ended up scoring 132 1/2 which is a pretty good ten point in NW Arkansas. It's ironic that we went out there to kill a doe and got busted, and if we hadn't have gotten busted we would never have seen that buck. What a hunt.

Sunday: Sarah and I had been hunting this spot overlooking a field in which the deer had been using quite a bit. We set up the Ameristep ground blind last week hoping that the deer would get used to it by the weekend. We had pictures on the Moultrie trail cam of two good bucks in the area. One is a mid 130s ten point and the other is a low 120s 8 point. We had been hunting this spot every afternoon for four days straight and had not seen the big ten or the 8. So we went out Sunday afternoon thinking we had a good chance since a cold front was coming though. The plan was she was going to video me if the ten came in but she was going to bring her crossbow in case the 8 point showed up and I would take the camera. After being in the blind for about 1/2 an hour it began to rain. It sure is nice and cozy in a ground blind when it's cold and rainy out. At about 4:30 I spot a buck coming from our right. I noticed that it was a buck that we had not seen before and that it was an 8 point. I told sarah "give me the camera and get your bow." The buck came in and after what seemed like forever but was actually a couple minutes. She squeezed off the shot and smoked him. I was so excited that I could hardly keep the camera still. She had just shot her first buck ever! I think I was more nervous than she was. We gave it a while but I knew he was hit hard. She was using a Rage 2 blade broadhead so I knew that he could not have gone very far. Since it was raining, I didn't want to wait too long incase the blood trail got washed away. We walked down to where he exited the field and saw him laying about 40 yards away. We were both so excited that she had shot her first deer. I could not have been more proud. What a great weekend!

Low Battery

Yesterday afternoon seemed promising as I was driving out to one of my hunting spots in Northwest Arkansas. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and I had already seen 4 does standing in fields before I reached my destination. The temperature was hovering right around 40 degrees and with the sky being overcast, I was very optimistic about the upcoming hunt. I arrived, changed clothes, sprayed down with dead down wind and was off to my stand with my bow and video equipment in hand. As I was walking, I saw another doe. This gave me more excitement and also quickened the pace in my step. Before I got into the tree, I sprayed Acorn Rage Blast all around my stand. It is similar to the Acorn Rage product but in a liquid form. This would be the first time I used it and I thought might as well give it a try, it couldn't hurt right? Well I got into the stand and set up the camera then pulled my bow up. This was my first time attempting to film myself from a treestand. I had done so from a ground blind before, which is a challenge in itself, but I was looking forward to trying to do it off the ground. At about 3:00 I decided to do a little rattleing and grunting. No more than 2 minutes after, here comes a nice young buck walking down the trail. He was postured up with his ears pinned back looking for a fight. I thought to myself "Man, this is perfect. He's coming in on a string and all I have to do is get the camera ready and make the shot." Of course when bowhunting, it rarely goes perfectly to plan, especially if you are filming a bow hunt. So I go to turn the camera on and nothing. No sound, no lights, just nothing. I thought "you have got to be kidding me." Here I am, the first time filming myself and I rattle in a decent buck and the camera is out of battery. I let him pass on by and needless to say, I was pretty bummed out. Then I thought "he definetely wasn't the biggest buck in the woods, in fact, there's no way that I would've shot him if I didn't have a camera with me." So maybe it was a good thing and now that deer can grow another year. Now a lesson has been learned, and I will always check the battery and tapes before going into the woods. As for the rest of the hunt, I didn't see anything other than spikes and does but they did go nuts of the acorn rage blast. I will be using that product again in the future. Just remember to always double check everything and it really is better to be safe than sorry.

Videos

Well it's official, the videos are up and running on my website. It has been a long time coming, from editing to actually getting them on the website. We are very excited and pleased with how they turned out. If you get a chance to check it out, please do so. The web address is www.theoutdoorfever.com or you can click on "my website" located on the right side of the page. I would love to hear what you guys think about them. It seems like so long ago since I blogged about the bear that I shot on video. Finally everyone else can see it now as well as the buck that was shot in Kansas. As for now, I am trying to find a place to kill a big buck fairly soon. I've been hunting around here a little bit in Arkansas, well actually I've been running the camera for my wife. It's been fun so far but we haven't had much luck. Hopefully with this cold weather moving in our luck will change.

Another Great Weekend in Kansas

We had another successful weekend in Kansas with Dad taking a great buck Friday night. It was a pretty cool story, he was letting his bow down when the deer walked up and was able to pull his bow back up and make the shot at 15 yards without being detected. He shot it right before dark and decided to let it lay over night and try not to push it. Saturday he woke up and searched all day and could not find him. There was good blood for about 50 yards then he just stopped bleeding. I was unable to get up there until Saturday night so, Sunday morning we both woke up and went out and eventually found the deer after searching for 2 1/2 hours. What a relief, it gives you an uneasy feeling when you look that long and can't find a deer or any type of game for that matter. The deer had a forked G2 and a 3" kicker off the other G2. Great character on this buck. He ended up gross scoring 148". Needless to say he was very pleased and relieved when we found the deer. We had two friends hunting up there with us this weekend and even though they didn't get to bring one home, they had some great encounters and saw some really good bucks. We all had a great time and it was an awesome weekend to be hunting and spending time with friends.

Behind the Camera

After tagging out on a great buck in Kansas last weekend, I will be running the video camera for my Dad this weekend. If it will cool off it should be a good hunt. From what I've seen and heard from other hunters the bucks should be chasing does like crazy, but you never know. They finally got a few dry days so that they could get some of the crops out. This will only help the hunting because the deer can no longer use the corn fields and milo fields for cover. Now they have to stick to the woods. When corn fields aren't cut a big deer could just live in there and have no reason to leave. So hopefully this will help. I'm excited about running the camera, I just like to be out in the woods hunting whether I get to shoot something or not. I will have my bow with me though in case I get a chance to take care of some doe management, which is always fun. Good Luck to everyone hunting this week, I think it should be a good one.

Kansas Ten Point

Finally I got a chance to take a good buck in Kansas. We have been hunting very hard every chance we could. October 31st, Halloween, we hunted this spot which we had been seeing good bucks but not able to get one to come in close enough. We hunted that morning and passed on a young 130" buck. That afternoon we went back out and the whole way to the stand I was thinking its way to hot, we won't see much. It was in the low 60s and just seemed like the kind of day when bucks don't move. We were settled in the stand at about 3:30. An hour passed when we spotted a doe about a hundred yards in front of us coming our way. My wife, who was running the camera, said there was a buck following her across the creek. He made his way towards us and for about ten minutes I couldn't tell how big he was. Eventually he made his way out of the brush so I could get a look and immediately I knew he was a shooter. I could not believe that this mature buck was up and walking around this early on a day this hot. After what seemed like forever, the buck finally made his way across the creek to where the doe was standing. He stopped broadside at 30 yards away. I just kept telling myself to relax and make the shot. When he turned his head I drew back and made the shot. When I walked up on the deer I was speechless, he was bigger than I thought. There was absolutely no ground shrinkage on this buck. After a few seconds I realized that we had a couple of trail cam pics of this buck. My wife sarah got the whole thing on video and did a great job. The buck green scored right at 160" and I could not be happier. It feels great when you put in the work and get to see it pay off.