If you've never gone to a pheasant or game bird preserve, you need to give it a try. Raised in Nebraska, it was difficult for me to pay for the opportunity to hunt pheasants, but don't allow that to keep you away.
Especially for those of you who have bird dogs, there is no better warm up for your dogs than pen raised birds. They tend to stay put for a point, your dog won't lose interest with frequent action.
You can also set your own birds for some real intense training. You'll know where the birds are and can monitor and correct your dog as he works.
Round up some friends and pool your money on birds for the best action. Put away your 5 shot and bring some 7 1/2's because these birds will be flushing close and won't be the hardened birds you'll find in the wild.
When you meet your buddies for the season opener, your dogs will be working better and you'll fill the game bag a little sooner yourself with some early season practice.
Bears Over Bait
Bears are one of the hardest animals to judge, especially if you are new to bear hunting.
Seasoned guides often have trouble distinguishing a trophy bear from an average bruin. One tip to help judge a bear is to compare him to a 55 gallon barrel. Often you or your outfitter can use a barrel to stash the bait.
What your looking for is a bear that is taller than the 2/3 ring on the barrel. Stubby looking ears, and short snout and a belly that rubs the ground often mean a great bear as well.
Tent Camping
One of the most important things to remember when ten camping is your headlamp.
You will be twice as productive without one hand tied up with a flashlight, whether cooking meals or gathering firewood.
Although we haven't added any new videos to our inventorythis month, I have found some time to add a video to the Hunting and Outdoor Clips. Several years back, Susan and I made a trip to Baranof Island in Alaska.
We fished with Baranhof Wilderness Lodge and and during the four days we were there, had numerous amazing experiences. Susan caught a 225 lb halibut, we saw numerous bald eagles, several grizzly bears, and caught plenty of fish both in fresh water and salt water.
The highlight of the trip was an experience with killer whales. As we headed for a day of freshwater fishing, we ran into a pod of orcas or killer whales. The whales were in a playful mood, and spent an hour or so swimming near the boat.
At times they would nearly hit the boat swimming under it and turning just in time to miss the boat with their fin. It was quite an experience and we captured it on video and have just added it to the website.
Once again, don't forget about the hunting albums. The albums are hand crafted with the best supplies on the market. Susan does an amazing job putting these albums together, and it is an excellent way to show off your trophy or that trip of a lifetime. Your memories will be saved forever in an album you will be proud to display. The time it takes to put together these albums is not reflected in the cost.
The Mane Event is a continuation of Marc Watt's Perfectly Shot Videos. The film is based on a 10 day hunt in Tanzania's Masailand followed by a relocation and a 3 day hunt in Tanzania's Selous Reserve.
The video begins as Marc introduces the team he has hand-picked to try to assure success on a hunt focused on big cats.
Marc heads to the field on day one, and drops a trophy wildebeest with one shot for his first animal in Tanzania. The team soon finds a 40+ inch buffalo, and Marc pulls off the shot at 157 yards, an unusually long shot for buffalo. The old bull takes two more shots with a 416 Rigby to ground him. Mark adds an huge Masailand impala and then an ostrich taken at 438 yards. Mark finishes day four with a moving shot on a hartebeest at 450 yards that is very impressive. His marksmanship continues to be amazing with his Jarrett Rifle
Day five, Mark finds another 40+ inch buffalo and the bullets find their mark on the beautiful old dagga boy. The trophies continue with a fringe eared oryx and an amazing shot on a zebra at over 500 yards. The trackers show their excellent eyesight spotting a bohor reedbuck laying in the grass while traveling at over 40 mph. Day eight, the hunters find vultures in the trees near the road and get out for a look around. As the PH climbs an anthill, he spots a monstrous full maned lion of yesteryear. Mark finishes the lion with two well placed shots and has his fourth animal of the Big 5.
The hunting then moves to the Selous where Marc holds out two days before he takes several animals on his final day of hunting including a hippo out of water and a 140 yard shot on a crocodile.
The DVD is put together extremely well and highly entertaining. You will see Marc's amazing shooting talents and live the story of his safari through his polished reporting skills.
Welcome to the October 2007 Hunting Videos Online Newsletter. It has been another busy month and we'll fill you in on some of the highlights.
At the end of September, we headed to Alaska to meet a few old friends for a late season salmon fishing and goose hunting trip.
We booked the trip with Gary LaRose of LaRose Guide Services. Gary has a week between his moose season and the fall bear season for a short cast and blast. Gary's camp is located on a pumice bed on the Alaskan Penninsula and we spent the four days ferrying with a Cessna 180 to our hunting or fishing locations.
The fishing was in a river not far off the Artic Ocean. The silvers were still running strong and we tried both fly rods and spinning reels. I brought my 6 wt. and it's hard to beat the fight of a 12-18 pound silver on a light fly rod. You can feel every move he makes and your pole is bent to the water until he wears out. The fishing was great, especially when the sun when appeared.
The goose hunting was right on the coast, in the mud flats where they were feeding on short grass. The honkers were lesser Canadians, and grouped up in big flocks. It's difficult to carry a decent sized decoy spread in a Cessna, but after an initial sneak and a few birds down, we had small groups moving over and in several hours, killed a limit of geese.
Gary's Lab Cinder always joined us fishing and hunting and Gary's father also spent the week in camp with plenty of great stories about his 40 years of guiding. I had some luck taking a couple ptarmigan in their color phase change with white bodies and red camouflaged heads and wings.
We saw numerous monstrous bears from the air, and I understand now why the Alaskan Penninsula is know for it's big bears. We saw several good moose and a few bull caribou traveling across the soggy landscape.
Once again, we hope you enjoy the newsletter and come visit us at Hunting Videos Online.
Mark Buchanan of Big Bore Productions has recently returned from a successful trip to Africa. In the second section of the story, Mark relates:
One evening after dinner four hunters, Rob, Barry, two cameramen and a few trackers all squeezed into the land cruiser, with the intent on calling some hyenas to our bait, which was devoured the night before. The moon was full so we decided to try it, without spotlights. When we arrived at the bait site, Barry parked the truck about 60 yards away and started playing the Hyena CD in his truck stereo. For those of you who have not done this, it is a real thrill listening to the CD blare, waiting for hungry hyenas to rush in.
To my surprise nothing came in or called back. My buddies started getting restless and began to think we were playing a joke on them. All of a sudden a hyena gave out the eerie "wooaaa" sound they make and loped just 40 yards from the truck darting in and out of the shadows. I wish I could have filmed the tense and nervous excitement. Finally, the hyena presented himself and Troy shot it in the moonlight. All of a sudden I spotted another one lurking in the shadows and directed Joe to where it was. After a few tense minutes, he shot and I could see through my bino's it was a good hit. We all bailed out of the truck and collected our quarry and as we did more Hyenas began to call in the distance. We quickly loaded the Hyenas into the truck, and returned to our spot. Sure enough, in they came. This time one walked directly down the road and stopped and looked right at the truck. Mateo made a perfect shot with my .275 Rigby and the hyena ran off into the grass.
Over the next few weeks we had an excellent hunt. Everyone shot their trophies, including Buffalo, Sable, Kudo and Waterbuck. Almost every hunt was captured on video. Steve and Troy were using their .505 Gibbs, .458 Lott and .375's. It was a unique hunt to have the manufacture of the barreled actions and the rifle maker in camp at the same time. Camaraderie was great and it was a successful hunt, all the way around.
One day we spotted the tracks of a large solitary bull elephant, which had watered the night before. We loaded up and began to follow the tracks, which led us through a very large, open and grass covered savannah. There were termite mounds surrounded by mopane trees, everywhere. As we approached one of these clumps, the lead tracker stopped and pointed. Barry raised his binos and I could see movement. "It's a buffalo" I thought to myself as I could see a dark shape moving just 60 yards ahead of us.
Barry and the tracker excitedly whispered back and forth, and I heard the word "poachers". I turned to our game scout and in turn jokingly whispered "poachers". His eyes opened to the size of silver dollars. (I forgot to mention that this was his first hunt as a game scout. He had already been charged by elephant a few times, and was getting the full safari experience accompanying Bwana Style and myself). As I turned back around, Barry dashed about 10 yards to my left, pointing his rifle and yelling for them to stop.
Just then, I saw three poachers make a run for the grass. Before my brain could decide what to do, one of the poachers swung an AK47 around and unleashed a flurry of full auto fire at us, the bullets ricocheting, hitting the ground and cutting through the grass all around us.
As this was happening I saw Barry dive to the ground. I thought he had been hit. Barry unnecessarily screamed for everyone to get down. As I looked up, I had nothing but thin blades of grass between me and the AK47. I knew Barry was to my left, and Joe was somewhere behind me with the rest of the trackers. Just then Barry screamed for us to "SHOOT", and this is when I got scared. I thought the poachers were advancing in on us and I fired my .500 Jeffrey's from the prone position. Barry was also shooting. On my second shot I poked my head up, looking for a target, but couldn't see anything. Joe and Barry both took final shots as they saw the third poacher dashing for his life through the grass. This all happened in a matter of seconds.
Stunned and shocked, we were all silent. Barry began yelling to ask if any of us had been shot. I actually looked down at my body and limbs to makes sure I was not hit. Luckily we were all okay. After a few tense minutes we moved forward to where they had shot from, not more than 60 yards away.
Luckily, we had all missed. We found several of the 7.62 brass. We also found all of their backpacks, loaded with smoked porcupine, other dried meat, pots, sudsa, salt, blankets, matches and jugs of water. It turns out, they were ivory poachers from Zambia. They shoot the elephant, stash the ivory and continue poaching. They were definitely in for a rough couple of days, without their supplies.
After our adrenaline slowed down, and we all relaxed a little, we realized how lucky we were. I had thought getting charged by elephants was the biggest adrenaline rush in Africa, now I am convinced being on the wrong end of full auto fire is much worse! I will continue to hunt for elephant knowing the danger that exist, but I hope I never cross paths with another armed poacher again. The slow motion vision of the poacher running through the grass sideways and swinging his AK around at us and the sound of the full metal jacket bullets ripping through the grass is one that I will never forget.
You can see many of Mark’s earlier buffalo hunts in Death by Double Rifle which is currently on sale for one more month. We look forward to your next African hunting video Mark.
Earlier in the year, Tim Wells made a trip to New Zealand and had a great hunt on the South Island. Tim had some interesting video we thought we would share with you.
The first video is a sneak Tim put on a great New Zealand red stag. As you'll see, the stag realized something wasn't right as Tim moved in for the shot. He stood just long enough for Tim to release an arrow and take the beautiful red stag.
The second video is a tahr hunt in the mountain country of the South Island. These tahr live in some rugged country and are extremely difficult to hunt with a rifle. When you add a bow to the mix, it gets that much more difficult. Tim makes an amazing shot on a moving tahr in the video.
If you haven't seen Tim's videos, he's known for his amazing shooting skills. He has taken some great animals and even birds in flight with a bow. Don't miss Relentless Pursuit and Lethal Flight.
Hope you enjoyed the October 2007 newsletter. We sure enjoyed reliving the hunts. We'd love to hear your comments at dukatsoutfitting@yahoo.com. See you in the field!
We booked the trip with Gary LaRose of LaRose Guide Services. Gary has a week between his moose season and the fall bear season for a short cast and blast. Gary's camp is located on a pumice bed on the Alaskan Penninsula and we spent the four days ferrying with a Cessna 180 to our hunting or fishing locations.
The goose hunting was right on the coast, in the mud flats where they were feeding on short grass. The honkers were lesser Canadians, and grouped up in big flocks. It's difficult to carry a decent sized decoy spread in a Cessna, but after an initial sneak and a few birds down, we had small groups moving over and in several hours, killed a limit of geese.
To my surprise nothing came in or called back. My buddies started getting restless and began to think we were playing a joke on them. All of a sudden a hyena gave out the eerie "wooaaa" sound they make and loped just 40 yards from the truck darting in and out of the shadows. I wish I could have filmed the tense and nervous excitement. Finally, the hyena presented himself and Troy shot it in the moonlight. All of a sudden I spotted another one lurking in the shadows and directed Joe to where it was. After a few tense minutes, he shot and I could see through my bino's it was a good hit. We all bailed out of the truck and collected our quarry and as we did more Hyenas began to call in the distance. We quickly loaded the Hyenas into the truck, and returned to our spot. Sure enough, in they came. This time one walked directly down the road and stopped and looked right at the truck. Mateo made a perfect shot with my .275 Rigby and the hyena ran off into the grass.
Over the next few weeks we had an excellent hunt. Everyone shot their trophies, including Buffalo, Sable, Kudo and Waterbuck. Almost every hunt was captured on video. Steve and Troy were using their .505 Gibbs, .458 Lott and .375's. It was a unique hunt to have the manufacture of the barreled actions and the rifle maker in camp at the same time. Camaraderie was great and it was a successful hunt, all the way around.
Luckily, we had all missed. We found several of the 7.62 brass. We also found all of their backpacks, loaded with smoked porcupine, other dried meat, pots, sudsa, salt, blankets, matches and jugs of water. It turns out, they were ivory poachers from Zambia. They shoot the elephant, stash the ivory and continue poaching. They were definitely in for a rough couple of days, without their supplies.