Poor Sportsmanship Don't Pay, Another Hunter tries to Muscle in on My Hot Spot!

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Have you ever caught another hunter hunting your favorite hot spot while you weren’t there?

Well, I decided to run out and sit my tri-pod stand on a mowed opening along a marsh for a quick afternoon bow hunt. The stand is bounded to the west by waste to chest high grass and a creek drain. The hole area is a wildlife meca and anything that walks or crawls can be found there.

I was quietly slipping along the edge of the high grass when I walked up on a hunter lying in wait not more than 25 yds from my stand!

The bad thing is he’s a free loader that won’t even help pay his share of the lease. He gets to hunt 24/7, while I am work. You can imagine I wasn’t to happy to see this guy hunting practically in my stand!

I decided I would take him out! I sized him up. He was pretty big and not without weapons. It came to me that jumping on him might not be the best idea, I’d better just shoot um.

I had just happened to come up on the back side of his hide and he didn’t have a clue I was there. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good set of broadhead blades, I quietly slipped the set out of one of my Muzzy missiles. I knocked the shaft, drew, put my first pin on his neck and let him have it!

Perfect shot! I pinned him to the ground right where he sat!

Here’s a picture of the sorry sucker in case you run into one of his kind.

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This place has some big snakes! You better keep one eye on the ground around here!

Good Hunting,

Larry

How to Incorporate Digital Trail Cameras in your Turkey Scouting!

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It's time to start thinking about Spring turkey hunting!

If you have not already done it, its time to start working your trail cameras for scouting the turkey woods. Most hunters are familiar with using trail cameras for deer hunting but it seems that few are utilizing them for scouting for turkey.



The Gobblers have been gobbling and strutting here in Florida for several weeks now and its time to start your recon to gather all the information you can to put you in the right spot to harvest a trophy gobbler come opening morning.

Of course all information you can gather with your cameras will be helpful when hunting season actually starts but the main info you will be learning is the number and type of turkeys using the area, where the roosting and feeding areas are and most importantly, where gobbler strutting zones are!



The digital scouting camera is ideal for this. This can minimize your time spent scouting and eliminate spooking turkeys. Your camera does not need to be an infrared camera but if it is, you can gather some interesting pictures of other game at night when they are most active. The more cameras you have the better and the more information you can gather in a shorter period of time.

Most of the attached photo's were taken over a three day time frame with a "Bushnell Trophy Cam". They are excellent trail cameras and take a pretty good photo. This camera is one of the smallest on the market but as you can see in the photo's it does not go un-noticed! Hogs are pretty well oblivious to the presents of the camera but almost every deer and turkey that walks by will pick it out, even if you try to hide it. I don't really recommend trying to over hide it as the material you use can get blown in front of the lens and trigger the camera or block the photo's. I have even had hogs rub the camera and push sticks in front of the lens. Be careful not to have hanging vegetation such as Spanish moss or high grasses such as broomsedge in the sensors range that can wave in the wind and trigger the camera. I recently ended up with over 2000 photo's of Spanish moss waving in the wind that filled the camera card.

Cameras should be set up on woods roads where gobblers might want to strut. Usually, this will be on a slight rise on a long straight grade. You should look for strut sign and set your camera trap accordingly to try to pattern when he is showing up at this location. Other areas to set you cameras up are open hammocks where turkeys like to feed and mill around when the sun pushes them off the fields in the morning. Pinch points in small fields can be another great spot ad well as gaps in fences, bottoms, fire trails, burns and new chops.

Where legal, you can even concentrate them at your cameras with some corn or cow peas. Here in Florida you cannot hunt around the corn but you can feed them and it can get you a lot of great pictures. Notice the times on the turkey photo's. They were there off and on 7-8 times on the 14th., pretty unusual. Note, the camera time is set incorrectly but you can see how often they kept stopping by.

I will be posting some more pictures as I have time but here are a few to get you started.

Good Hunting,
Larry Stephens

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NOTE: If you would like to receive an email note when I make future postings, just click on the follow button in the upper left corner! thanks, L.S.

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Muzzy vs Deer Spine!

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I promised to post these pictures of a section of whitetail deer spinal column.

I think it makes for a strong case for quality, well engineered broadheads of fixed or replacement blade design.

You will not see an expandable blade broadhead do this!

You can see in the picture above that the blades have been bent together a little bit but the did not break. They are shaped more like an "X" rather than a "+". Completely severed the spine!

The Following is a post I made to "Kisky's Whitetail Freaks Forum" http://www.kisky.com/forum/default.aspx?f=11&p=2&m=151307

“A lot of guys won't like this but do yourself a favor and steer clear of expandables. a pile of deer have been killed with them but a pile more have been lost. More often than not, you will not get a pass thru. without a low exit hole your blood trail can be weak to non existent. Quartering shots can be a problem with many expandables. i have heard of many instances of broken parts and structural failure with these also. If you have a perfect broadside shot and punch him square in the ribs, most any broadhead will do but that is not the real world.
A friend of mine owns an archery shop in Illinois and he shoots expandables buts admits he don't get a lot of pass throughs. His reasoning for overlooking this important factor was that the woods there are open and you can usually fan out your search and find him. I want a blood trail and the best trail comes from a pass thru. Besides that, ask an expandable fan what happens when heavy bone is encountered. I have shot completely thru several deer spines, you'll never see and expandable do that.

If you want some more convincing, take a piece of fresh deer hide and try to push an expandable, a cut on contact and a replaceable blade style head thru it.

I have taken 74 deer with a bow and untold # of hogs. I shoot a muzzy (4) blade 100 gr.. You will never see one of these fail! You might get a crack in a blade once in a blue moon but it will be in tact. I have only seen (1) or (2) bent ferrules.

"G5-Montec" and Snuffers are great also! you won't go wrong with them but you have to develop a method to sharpen them and they have to be absolutely as sharp as possible. This is a mistake many make. They don't realize just how sharp the blades need to be. If not razor sharp the head has more of a tendency to push everything out of the way rather than cut it's way thru. I also recommend staying away from heads with blade configurations that are not swept back with enough angle. In other words, the less the angle between the cutting edge and the target, the more the blade is pressed thru rather than cut it's way thru.

There are many other good heads but if you stick to models like the three i mentioned, it will be the best you can do.

Have a look at my site, http://trophy-hunting.blogspot.com/ , I'll post a great picture of one of my Muzzy's sticking clean thru the spinal column of an Illinois buck!

Good Luck! Larrysdd"

Choose your broadhead carefully, its one of the most important choices in gear that you can make!

Best of Luck, Larry