My kid brother up in AK just killed a 700 lb sow up brown bear up in AK.

I cant wait to get the trail cam out!

Im headed out next weekend to hang a bunch of stands and put out some mineral licks and put cameras over them. Hopefully they are growin fast! Can not wait..

If you mean his pants its Enigma. I own a set. GREAT stuff! PM dwd2001 for info and prices. You can see more at www.enigmacamo.com

On a thread already. Newest one we have.

So you want hunting postings:
I started turkey hunting in 1988. Iowa has a spring and fall season. I shot a fall jake in '88, a spring jake in '89 and another fall jake later that year. About this time, life got busy for me. I got married, bought a farm (farmed evening and weekends around my day job) and shortly there after, found myself back in graduate school. After getting my masters as a non-traditional student (read older), it hit me that I was missing something very important in my life: HUNTING! So for the last 3 years, I've been trying to make up for lost time.

Last spring I decided my next turkey HAD to be with a bow. I had my chances and choked way too many times.

This year work has been crazy, both with travel and a work load that won't let me take any time off. The afternoon of Saturday, April 21 was the first time I was able to get out and that was after a 6 hour drive home from Indianapolis that morning. I had a pretty uneventful afternoon and decided to leave before it got dark. On the way back to the car, I spotted a Tom in strut. I quickly ducked down so I wouldn't spook him. I watched him and his entourage walk across a cow pasture, flush and fly over a pond to roost in the trees on the far side. I waited until it got dark so I wouldn't spook them, then went back out Sunday morning. After flying down, the Tom decide to strut a little for my hen decoy, but he didn't come any closer than 56 paces, well outside of what I consider my bow range. I stuck around awhile hoping that something else might show, but when the wind blew the Matrix blind off of me, I bagged it.

The week at work dragged by: I thought a lot about the Tom's hesitancy to come in to my hen decoy. I figured I needed to spice things up a little with some color. We used to raise Bronze turkeys and they would attack anything blue or red. One thing that really set them off was a Kingsford charcoal bag: it won the lotto with it's white, blue and red. They would stomp on an empty bag for hours. So off I went in search of a colorful decoy. I found a cheap ($13) jake decoy at a local sporting goods store. I had high hopes for Saturday morning.

I decided to try a property I have never turkey hunted before. Actually, I think I have only been on the property six times total. There is a finger of a hay field that divides two heavily wooded draws. I figured if I got down in that finger, I should potentially have birds roosted in front and behind me. I was all set up and in the Matrix at 5:15 am. At 5:20, the gobblers started sounding off and I was surrounded. I didn't hear any birds fly down, but the gobblers were gobbling when they hit the ground. Unfortunately, it sounded like they were all headed away from me. I didn't call very much, figuring that I would call later after they left the hens. Calling about every half hour, I was answered at about 8:45. We talked back and forth and it sounded like he was coming in. I saw him come into the hay field, but I don't think he saw the decoys. I put down the slate and striker so I could pick up my bow and started calling with the diaphragm call. A couple of yelps and he was on a rope. Just before he reached the jake decoy, he pulled up to strut. I was getting kind of jacked and rushed the shot. Everything worked out in the end, though.
4/28/07
23 lbs
10.5 inch beard
13/16 inch spurs
View of the set up from the blind:

Harvest photo:

November 24, 2006

I got out to my standpretty early, considering I hit the snooze button 3X. It was set for 4:30 am and I knew I had some “fudge time”. I wasn’t feeling all that well this morning, maybe too much holiday cheer yesterday, it being Thanksgiving and all. Since breakfast didn’t sound all that appealing, I just went with the normal half pot of coffee. It was rather dark this morning. I was able to walk in without a light, but when I started to get the Lone Wolf set up, I thought it best to put the headlamp on. This was a very familiar tree to get set up in, as it is the tree I shot last years bow buck from and I have hunted it numerous times this year. I’m set up well before legal shooting so as usual, it is only a matter of the waiting game. Things start happening around 7:30 am. I see a small buck coming from the south east. He is headed for the thicket that I am set up next to, hoping for a return of the buck I saw last Sunday. He enters the thicket and disappears. Around 7:45 am., there is a huge commotion in the thicket. I watch the tops of the shrubs sway while something I can’t see plows it’s way through the under story. Deer come scrambling out and run away. At 8:11 am, an older doe and three fawns come out of the thicket and follow the trail past my stand. Things get very quiet and I start to “meditate”. I have spent lots of hours in the stand this year and take occasional breaks where I close my eyes. Any sound out of the ordinary has snapped me back to reality. Today, I opened my eyes to see antler tines in the thicket in front of me at roughly 40 yards. I recognized this buck from last Sunday. He was the reason I was in this stand. He worked over a couple of bushes inside the thicket. I tried to get my grunt call out. I had placed it between my camo sweatshirt and my thermal underwear. After getting my Lone Wolf stand hung, I had put on a camo hooded sweat jacket and now the grunt call is two layers deep. The zipper was up to high to allow me to get the grunt call out, which in hindsight is a blessing. A doe exits the thicket and he is guarding her, just like last Sunday. The grunt call would have only made matters worse so I’m thankful I had difficulty getting it out. The doe makes a big loop to the east, then starts heading back west on one of the trails this stand covers. I keep her in the corner of my eye while watching him. I pray she doesn’t bust me when I draw down. The buck is headed down a trail that couldn’t be better. I have cut a shooting lane to a scrape that is twenty yards away from my tree on this trail. There is a large locust tree right before the scrape. When his head is behind the tree I draw back. He stands there for what seems like an eternity, then starts walking over the scrape. I put the 20 yard pin on his heart and pull the trigger of the release. I watch the arrow zip through him. He sprints off, blood pouring from his chest. At 40 yards, he falters, back step 5 yards and falls down within sight! Buck fever: elation: what ever you want to call it sets in! I grab my cell phone and call a friend! I need to spend a few minutes to compose myself.

When I think it is safe (the shakes have subsided somewhat), I tear down. I lower the bow and then start to do the reverse action of putting up the Lone Wolf. It might seem strange that I didn’t sprint down and run look, but I knew there was time for that later. I did walk over and look at the buck before “packing up” the LW as I normally do forcarrying in/out.

Final post, out of order since this was my 2005 hunt, but you just wanted to read stories, right?

Well, the last time I seriously bow hunted was 1991. Then I got busy with a family, a day job and farming. Graduate school in the evenings for a MBA was the last piece to the burn out puzzle. I figured I was missing the fun things in life working so hard. I made some adjustments so that I can hunt now, can't wait until retirement.
I've been hunting pretty hard since last Saturday. My average daily buck sightings were right at 4, with usually one within range. Most of these were small bucks and I passed.
This morning, I returned to a piece I have hunted a couple of times. I got the Lone Wolf way up a tree on a low ridge next to a creek. The deer had been coming under a huge cedar close by (next year I'm trimming the cedar so the Lone wolf can fit in it). I was sitting down about 6 am, thinking that everybody has been screaming for cold weather and it was brisk out there. At 9:20 am, I'm thinking, yeah right, cold weather really has them moving, I haven't seen a thing yet. Right on cue, I hear something behind my tree. I stand up and slowly pivot around (I always hold my bow, can't drop that antique!) I see a doe and two fawns coming up off the creek bottom, looking to pass right under my tree. I have an antlerless only tag and today was to be the day. I let the doe get just by my stand and draw back. I hit the button on the Crackshot (another fine piece of hunting equipment) and due to poor shooting form, the arrow zings over her back. It was almost straight down, poor shot selection. She runs ten yards and stands there looking back, so I nock another arrow. I figure if she doesn't come back, the fawns will be tasty. While waiting for them to get past my tree, I hear something down on the creek bottom. I see this buck working the lip of the ridge, but he is past where the doe and fawns came up. I'm figuring he's going to keep moving off. He went on out of sight, but circled up to the thicket where the doe I had missed earlier was standing. He runs her in a tight circle, then he hears some activity down in the creek. He heads that way on a path that brought him by my stand. I drew as he was about to get in the clear, then let out baaaaaa. He stops and I hit the button on the Crackshot at 9:36 am. I watched the arrow fly (one of those slow motion moments) and hear it smack him. I could see some of my arrow still sticking out of him as he spun a 180 and headed for the thicket. He stumbled once at about 30 yards (about the time I saw my arrow bounce out of him, but I never did find it) and he went down at 60. I was able to watch it all from my stand. I still set up in the stand for a half hour before getting down. I took down the Lone Wolf and packed things up before walking over to him. It was a good thing that he went down so fast because he left NO blood trail. I did not get a pass through and the angle of the shot caused his lung cavity to fill up. Maybe the old bow is getting weak
While I did see bigger deer the past couple of days, he was the biggest buck that offered a shot. I'm a sucker for long tines and when I first saw him I decided I would take him if he offered a shot.
While field dressing him, I noticed he only had one testicle. The Lone Wolf scores the Lone Nut

Oh, I almost forgot that you wanted something to get excited about.

I think this is the non-typical I saw last year that was in the 180 class. I had to watch him jog away since I had already filled my buck tag andonlyhad antlerless tags in my pocket. He should go 200 this year.