I have been on the calls for about a week now. I work in a plant and walk around all night calling. It comes and goes in the car too. I am excited, this will be new to me. I can only guess how out of controll I will be when that bird tells me he is coming!!

Howdy Teammates,

Good to hear from everyone. Ar, good luck hunting those birds, sounds like your getting plenty of practice! I am also looking forward to seeing what kind of shirts we come up with.

Mike, I can't imagine how busy you are this time of year with your line of work! Speaking of taxes, I need to get off my arse and get mine in. Good to hear your turkey population is alive and healthy! Do you guys do anything to enhance their habitat? Plots or what not?

Ryan, Hey bud, best of luck with the new job. Glad to hear it is going well and that your getting used to the schedule, you gotta love having 5 days off! Man that would be sweet.

Quick, my bear spot, I have a couple but one really awesome one. They are located in the higher country, elevations of 5000, roughly and higher. With that being said on a snow filled year like this, I may not get into my spot until mid to late May. My good spot is loaded with that skunk cabbage looking plant. I hunt an awesome drainage that has 5 natural glades in it. During the spring those glades are full of fresh grass and either the plant you posted or a plant very like it. I will take some photos the first time I head in there. I really enjoy hunting bear, almost to the point where I would place it a close tie for second with hunting bull elk. Bears have always mistified me in their stealth. I do all spot and stalk hunts on natural feed either with my bow or rifle. I am after a huge color phase bear that has eluded my brother and I for 4 years now. The big black got it last year, not the blonde if he is still alive is going to get hunted hard this year. Speak of the black, I get my bear rug back real soon, I willl post some picstures when I do. I can't wait to see the rug.

Shed hunting has been good, I am gonna keep hard after it. That shed in the picture above is of a buck my brother and I hunted hard last year. I really wanted my brother to get him! Rob came very close one day as he watched him for about 30 minutes. He just never offered a good broadside bowshot. That shed scores just shy of 72 ... its a very thick main beamed 5. He'll be a toad next fall.

Here is a pretty decent buck shed I found back in Jan, one that lives pretty close to my house.

Be pretty neat if you can find highrack or old Yeller's sheds out there, assuming they made if through the season. I think I will go out and shed hunt a bit in a bit. need to go check on calves (Almost done with the heifers, had to pull one during a thunderstorm on Monday in the middle of the field.. Now that was entertainment..) The dogs need some exercise and it is always good for me to make me presence known in the woods this time of year. Who knows, maybe I will see something interesting.

One of these years I will go bear hunting... I don't know where and I don't know when but I think it is something I need to do at least once in my life. Got a few more years ahead of me but I would like to get it out of the way...

WE have skunk cabbage out here. WEll, I am not so sure about this farm but back where I grew up there were huge bottoms of it every spring around the creeks in the woods. Stank to all high heaven if something had kicked it up recently.. Is a sure sighn of spring, as are the May Apples peaking through the forest floor. Things are starting to green up around here but we have ben darn cold of late.. Oh well, it will get warm soon enough and than soon after that I will be complaining that it is too dang freaking hot.

Quick,
I ended up out in monroeville friday night, I bet the south side was crazy, seemed everywhere was crazy on friday.

Thanks for the well wishes on the job guys, although for now it's going good, I'm hoping this partucular position is just a stepping stone to something better. Regardless of where my job path ends up, I am better off than where I was.

Finally broke away from march madness and spent some time in the woods today. Had to walkoff the frustration of Pitt going down to Bradley....Bradley?!!?! Didn't find any shedsBut got to assess much of the property since it was logged this past season. Normally I like to see the loggers come in, but they put a lot of roads thru some areas that were real nice. finding trees to get up was already tough, and got eventougher and some of the nicer thickets got sliced and diced with roads, we'll see how the green up goes this spring. Also didn't put out any deer for the longest time, then came upon this back field and found 10 out feeding early. I was getting worried.

IL, I hope all is going well with the little one and all the duties you have on the ranch. Are you finished calving yet? I have spring break coming up here in a week, last year at this time while in Saskatchewan, Hiawathas (from this site) his dad was very busy calving, the entire time I was up there. If you ever wanna come back and see the Northwest IL for a black bear hunt, keep me in mind, I will take you.

Ryan, good to hear you got some time out in the woods. As with your hunting area, the country I hunt here gets logged heavily in some areas. The logging does wonders for opening up the canopy and adding quality vegetation, yet sometimes it can disrupta bucks bedding area. I have always re-scouted areas after they get logged to see how the deer change....One of the largest bucks I have ever hunted this happened too he and I.I hadwatched him all summer, set up 3 stands to hunt him from and just prior to the opening of the early archery season, a logging company came in and completely clearcutted the entire mountain! We will actually be elk hunting that same spot when you come out. Luckily my friend called me and told me about the loggin' job and I got my stands pulled just in time. I never saw a sign of that buck again. I hope your area isn't overly disrupted and that the logging adds even better feeding for the deer there.

Well, guys I better jam, I took my boys to the big horn show today, didn't find any new sheds this morning either...might get to go tomorrow though. We finally had some sunshine here.

Are we done calving.. Yeah, sure... I wish.. Not even close Troy. We bought 180 heifers this past fall. Almost done with them, maybe 40 left or so but the 180 cows haven''t even strated. We pushed our calving season back to April 1st for our cows because I am sick of the winter calving BS. Unfortunatly, I didn't buy hefiers that fit the same scheduale.. I will be calving into MAy but the hard part of calving should be done in the next 15 days or so, that is when the heifers should be just about done... Luckily this second group of heifers has beend own right cooperative when it comes to calving.. Hope they keep it up, lol.

Ryan - We were on the Southside on Friday night for a little while, and it was a zoo. The girls started whining about it being too crowded, so we took the hint and left around 10:30. It was definitely a pretty good time though.

Since I got in early Saturday, I headed over to Greene County to scout for turkeys and shed hunt. I actually did pretty well - I saw piles of turkeys, and found four sheds(4 point, 2 - 3 pointers, and a fork) - I also found a dead spike tucked away in a thicket. The biggest shed would probably not score over 30". I'll take a picture and post it eventually- I was pretty proud of myself. Troy, I have new respect for you, because I really had to put some mileage on to find what I did. I know there are nicer bucks in the area, but the only antlers laying around were smallish, and I found those in odd places. I think somebody beat me to the fields and good feeding areas already.

That Bradley game almost put me into psycho ward. There goes my bracket - I should've known not to pick them past the sweet 16. I guess I'm stuck rooting for the Mountaineers again.

Troy - good luck with those bears - I think that's why I'd prefer a spring hunt over a fall hunt. In the spring, they seem more predictable. You can find a good drain with lush forage early on, and the bears seem to be congregated there. In the fall, it's a little more of a crapshoot, with piles of food everywhere. It's all tough to gauge, though, because around here, bear season is total mayhem. Post some pics of that bear rug when you get 'em. You're gonna need a bigger house if you keep bringing home all these mountedanimals.

Bradley is getting a lot of press around here with them being 45 minutes away. That and with al the other Illinois and Iowa teams bounced early they have to cover something with the local angle during sports so Bradley it is..

My Shed hunting went ofor naught yesterday. I think I need to brn off the bedding areas if I want to find anything/ the grass and crap is so thick in there that it would have to be a 140 class buck to find anything. All I know are my legs are a little tired after all the walking.. Will try again a bit later in a different location. The one I have found this year was in a real strange location, middle of a pasture. Wasn't even looking and there it was. Okay shed.

Hey guys,

Go Zags! gotta get that in. My wife and I are big Zags (GonzagaBulldogs)fans. Spokane only being a 20 minutes from work here. We attend at least one home game a year. Its a hard seat to get, since they are the biggest show in town.

Sheds, you know guys I can't explain how much walking I do to find just one shed some days. Quick great job bud on the finds and your right, a person really has to cover some ground to find them. I use three basic techniques, the grid method...and the instinctive method and finally if I have snow the backtracking method. But to start it all off, I target obvious wintering grounds, then employ the methods once I get in and get a feel for the area. I need to get my pix of the latest two I found last week.

Mike I absolutely loved the video clips. You guys really have a special place there that you hunt. Very good looking younger bucks anda few that aregonna be hammersand wow, the turkeys are incredible. I rarely see gobblers with beards like that in this country. Our birds beards get hammered in this terrain. The only place I see the 10+ inch beards are in the valleys on the farm country here. Turkeys here live up to 4000 to 5000feet. I have found them that high anyway.

I have 4 days of work this week guys, then I am off for 11 days!!!!!! I can't wait I am going to really hit the moutains hard for elk and deer sheds. I also plan on doing some ground work with my dozer for spring food plots. I also have a few mineral licks still to get in. Spring break is going to be BUSY!

Have a good one mates!

Hello guys. I had a day off yesterday so I took the dog out for a walk in the timber yesterday to look for turkey sign and sheds ....we both needed some exercise LOL. I found a dead buck yesterday behind my house, just a basket rack 4 pointer, but he was a foot wide and looked to have potential to be a good one in the future. I am gearing up for turkey season here in IL, been seeing lots of birds in the fields. April can't get here soon enough for me.....after 4 inches of snow/sleet last night.....i am soooo ready for warm weather. I gotta get some work done....later guys.