I once had a professional upland guide and very accomplished clay shooter debate with me the topic of pointing his turkey gun instead of aiming it because it was a shotgun. He claimed that the only proper way to shoot a shotgun was to “point it”. I will discuss all of the ways that statement
Well as sad as it is for me to say this; my turkey season has now come to a close. The 2014 Turkey Season was a successful one and added many new stories that I will treasure for years to come. From successful youth hunts, some first time gobblers, and s
This past weekend I spent some time putting away my turkey gear now that the season is over. I cleaned my guns that were used, washed all of my clothes, and emptied all of the contents of my turkey vest. As I stared at all of my calls laid out on my ben
As we look ahead to the next season, most people grow anxious for the warmth of spring. Although I share in this enthusiasm I know that there is work to be done before the flowers start to bloom. This is the optimum time of the year to make habitat improvements on your land or hunting
Years ago when I started guiding in West Central Illinois I decided that the status quo of the properties that I hunted was not good enough for my hunts. I wanted to not only keep more turkeys on the grounds that I guided, but I also wanted more places t
I have long been a fan of the late season pursuit of trophy whitetail bucks. As the snow and mercury falls the chances of putting your tag on a mature buck rises. Many whitetail hunters pack up their gear for the season after the rut is over. This is a
If you want to grab the attention of any deer hunter in America all you need to do is start a sentence with, ”The best way to improve your odds of killing a big buck is ___________”. Mission accomplished; they are hanging on your every last word. Some
Every deer camp has the conversation as to what drives deer movement. Moon phases, rut timing, weather patterns, etc., are all popular subjects. Ten deer hunters in a given deer camp will offer up ten different reasons for why deer do what they do. Give
Well here we are… mid-November. Like many of you I have been chasing the whitetails pretty hard over the last few weeks trying to capitalize on the splendor of the rut. I have had several unbelievable days along with some extremely slow days. The one t
Controlling the Controllable…in the deer woods
In the sport of deer hunting there are many things that are out of our control. Many of these uncontrollable elements of the hunt receive our blame for the lack of our success. Examples of this may inclu
