Uncle & Cousin Harvest 2 Great Mule Deer in Montana

My little cousin Kristin and my uncle, her dad, Mike just completed a deer hunt near Miles City, MT.  They both harvested great Muleys. Kris' was 28 1/4" wide and she made a 200 yard one shot kill.  I didn't get any info on Mike's deer but it looks like a good non-typical. 

Kansas State Wildcats vs. Texas Longhorns (39-14)

I got my hands on a couple extra tickets to the KSU v. Texas football game, so I invited two of my good friends to drive over from Kansas City to go to the game with me.  I met John and Matt while a student at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.  John is currently a medical student at KCUMB and Matt is staying with him while he completes one of his pharmacy rotations at a county hospital in Kansas City.  They arrived at my apartment at about 9am and we made pancakes, bacon and sausage and then went to one of the K-State apparel stores over in Aggieville and picked up a couple purple sweatshirts so they would blend in in the student section.  After that I took them on a quick tour of the vet school.  Then we started to enjoy some beers and grilled some brats on the grill.  My apartment is within view of Bill Snyder Stadium so about an hour before game time we headed over to the stadium and stopped to do a little tailgating where my girlfriend was hanging out with some of our classmates.  The game was packed with an estimated 46,000 people attendance.  It was John and Matt's first experience with a big division one football game and I think KSU did a great job of welcoming them with a 39 to 14 victory that included 5 interceptions of the Texas QB Gilbert. 

A Guy I Look Up To

Today I received an email with an attached hunting photo, my favorite kind of email.  It was of a person who I look up to and has been a great role model and friend to me for the past dozen years or so.  His name is Jerry.  I first met him when he accompanied my dad and I on a Quebec Caribou hunt.  Our bush plane hit the tundra the day I turned 13, which marks the beginning of what has been and hopefully will continue to be a great hunting career.  On that trip, I shot two very nice caribou before I had even harvested my first whitetail buck.  As you can imagine a kid like me was walking on air for a long time.  During that trip I learned a lot, and the relationship formed with Jerry would lead to many more days afield hunting together but also introduce me to the game of trapshooting.  Jerry is the manager/chief/president of the Mitchell Gun Club and while other kids my age were golfing I was shooting trap.  I came to love the sport and with the guidance and teaching of Jerry and the other guys that took me under their wings' I prospered.  Just this past summer, I ended the league season with the highest overall average for the entire league. 

Anyway, he drew a South Dakota Black Hills Elk tag this year for the southern unit and the picture above is the result of 5 days of tough hunting.  Congrats Jerry!

Nice Whitetail Buck Found Dead on Our Farm

Every year while pheasant hunting we find the bodies and skeletons of deer that have died on our farm over the summer months. This past weekend my dad found this buck in our CRP field. It has 6 inch bases and 10 inch G2s, I'm not going to guess what it scores but I will put a tape on it over the Thanksgiving break.  Around our area, we usually think poaching before we think disease, but I guess that is just our paranoid nature as some of our neighbors have proved to be less than ethical.  Also, they would probably not miss a chance just to get under our skin by killing a deer on our land and just leaving it lay for us to find.  I guess they succeed because my heart always sinks when I find a buck dead that would've been a great trophy someday or a shooter that fall.  Alternatively it could've died from of a disease such as EHD or predators.  Either way this was a nice buck that is now out of the gene pool and we can only hope that he has sired some offspring for future seasons. Our rifle deer season opens on November 20th and I can't wait. 

 

One of Dad's "Camp Meat" Gemsbok

Well I just got back to my apartment after putting in a full day of studying my cadaver dog for a whopper of a gross anatomy test that we have on Friday, and I wanted to mess around with adding more videos to my blog.  This is a video that I took of my dad hunting a cull, non-trophy gemsbok that our guide Kamati wanted to shoot for camp meat.  We saw it from the road and made the stalk that you will watch. He finishes it off with a great spinal shot from his .340 Weatherby with 250 grain trophy bonded bullet.  The great part of hunting in Africa is the opportunity for trigger time for camp meat, culling, and bait procurement.  It is great experience for when you run into Mr. Big on a hunting trip like this.  This video was taken in Namibia while hunting on the Eden Wildlife Trust.  A 70,000 acre ranch in the northern part of the country.  It is home to several species of plains game, elephants, cheetah, black rhinos, and all kinds of other wildlife.  Eden is truly a place that is awesome for anyone looking for a first safari or going on there 20th safari.   Hope you enjoy the video (May 2009).