Bright Idea Outdoors Weblog

Video Footage from Our Archery Buck

Here is the edited video from our October 22 hunt. It is essentially a highlight film; Jake took about a half-hour of footage and cut it down to 8.5 minutes. He took out most of the talking, you know the standard "We're here in..." and "We're gonna back out and then go look for the deer in..." and "I smoked him!"

Actually, I didn't say that I smoked him, on or off camera. That expression really gets on my nerves when I hear it on hunting shows and, to me, is only appropriate when used in reference to meat preparation.

The footage though, fills me with pride; not so much because of the deer but more because of all the hard work my 10-year-old son put in on the video. Taping this hunt will forever preserve the memories of a great day we had together. I should warn you though, that it does contain an impact shot and some rather graphic frames of a field-dressed deer. If you're squeamish, you should hit stop about the time Cowboy fires up the tractor.

Meanwhile, Nick and I hunted the muzzleloader opener together. We saw lots of deer, including one huge buck. Nick had the crosshairs of the Thompson Center Impact on it at 91 yards.

"Do I have the green light?" he asked me. I told him to wait until it came a little closer just before the buck disappeared into the woods.

We're hoping to get a hunt or two in over the next couple days, so I'll have more on the muzzleloader hunt later this week. Hope you enjoy the video!

Muzzleloader Deer Season Begins Saturday November 5

Tomorrow begins the two-week muzzleloader deer season here in Virginia. I saw a huge buck chasing a doe near my hunting grounds at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday, and a friend killed a nice one with his bow Wednesday afternoon. The next two weeks could well be the best part of the 2011 whitetail deer season.

I had expected my kids fall sports to be over by now, but a rain out two weeks ago and the freak snowstorm last Saturday have pushed Nick's football season not only into this weekend but potentially even into the following weekend if the team advances in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Jake came down with something last night so unless he gets better quick he's not going to be able to hunt. And if what he's got spreads to the rest of us opening day could end up being one big bust!

But I'm going to hope for the best:

• 24-hour (or less) virus that skips the rest of us;
• a playoff win for Nick with the next round scheduled for a mid-day game;
• a weekend without horrible weather;
• and big bucks!

Good luck if you're huntin' this weekend. Be safe and have fun.

Guest Blogger: Kasey Werner on Teaching Kids to Hunt

Kasey from HuntAndFishGuides.com sent this guest post over on Halloween. Enjoy!

This September (2011), Michigan hunting laws were changed to allow children ten years or older to firearm deer hunt. This really excited both my son and I. Finding things that you and your children enjoy doing together creates some of the strongest bonding experiences possible. There is almost always the chance to teach them something new as well, even if it is just the new experience itself. Hunting has always facilitated some of the most long-lasting bonds that people have. The recent death of my Grandfather really brought this point home to me.

When I was a kid my Dad wasn’t around. It was my Grandfather who stepped in to fill that role. Some of my most cherished childhood memories are of my time with my Gramps, many of those revolve around hunting. I remember waking up when it was still dark, piling on layers of clothes until I looked like a bodybuilder, and tasting coffee for the first time. We would make our way across the field out back and find our spot. Once we settled in, I’d get bored. I fidgeted and sighed, daydreamed, and fell asleep a few times, none of which are desirable hunting skills. With seemingly never-ending patience my Grandfather would explain how and why these things would lessen our chances of a successful hunt. When we were hunting Gramps treated me different. Every question I asked was answered and explanations were long and thorough. I was treated like an adult.

Those hunting trips taught me how to be a responsible and effective sportsman. Recently I realized something else they taught me; how to be patient while teaching my own child how to hunt. Things that we take for granted are completely new ideas to a young mind. Concepts like staying downwind, being silent or getting to your spot before the game is moving require more explanation than you would think. Children are why machines, so be prepared. That infinite patience that most of us were given as children should be foremost on your mind.

Teaching children about hunting can be a daunting task. There are so many different aspects to the sport that you’re really only getting them started, they will spend the rest of their lives “learning”. Hunter’s safety is a great first step. This will teach them how to handle a firearm, and to just be a safe hunter in general. I’m sure anyone reading this knows what hunter’s safety entails so I won’t go into a lot of detail. One tip I would give, is to go with your child to the class. It will help them focus and show them that the material isn’t to be taken lightly. It will also give you the peace of mind of knowing what they know about being safe, so you can add anything that you feel is important.

Get your child comfortable with a firearm. In hunter’s safety class my son shot two rounds out of a .22, and two rounds out of a 12ga. This does not equate to any kind of real training. I would recommend spending several months before hunting season getting them familiar with the exact firearm that they will be using. If you have access to others, by all means teach them how those work as well, just make sure they are very capable with the firearm they will be hunting with. Most firearm accidents are a result of not knowing how to safely handle them.

Most hunters have a preferred strategy. Explain to your child what this is and why you use it. I don’t like crawling around or going for long hikes so I have a blind set up about a mile from home. This is what works for me. I made sure to let my son know why I do it this way and some other methods that are popular. Maybe later we’ll try out some new techniques together, that’s part of the fun of hunting with your child. Just explaining the different strategies and reasoning will get them pretty excited about trying to outsmart their game. Whatever hunting methods you use, show your child before opening day. If you do any work on your hunting area take them with you. If you have a set path or spot take them out and show them. The more you expose them to all of the different aspects of hunting the more positive reaction you’ll get.

Make sure they will be warm and comfortable and highly visible. This doesn’t necessarily mean spending a fortune on new gear. Just make sure they will be warm and able to move freely. If they are too cold or their clothing too restricted they will feel miserable and not enjoy the hunt. I would also highly recommend making sure that your child will be very visible, regardless of what laws are in place, to avoid any tragic accidents.

Teaching your child about hunting can be very rewarding. You will have a common interest to share, create a deeper bond than you had before, and have a lifelong hunting partner. Figure out what way your child learns best and approach it from that angle. For example, my son likes to read about things before he tries them, so I find him all the hunting literature I can. After we discuss it, we go out into the field and practice what he learned. The more care you take in ensuring your child enjoys the learning process the better. Above all, be patient, don’t rush things, and remember the acronym K.I.S.S., keep it simple stupid. Don’t bombard them with every little detail you’ve picked up over the years. Start them out slow and build on that knowledge one day at a time.

Professional Deer Processing Offered Near Leesburg: Serving Loudoun, Fairfax, Northern Virginia

My son Jake and I had the pleasure this morning of making a trip out to MG Meats, or Mark's Deer Processing in Paeonian Springs, to pick up the meat from the nine-pointer I arrowed a week ago.  We butcher a lot of our own deer, but I always get Mark to process at least one for me every year; mainly because I like going there so much, especially this time of year when there's always big deer hangin'!

Mark is a professional butcher with decades of experience as a licensed deer processor.  He runs a clean shop with state of the art equipment and offers standard and custom cuts, including some of the best venison sausage in this part of the country.  Mark is also simply a great guy to do business with!

We had a great time talking to Mark about how the next couple weeks may well be the best part of the 2011 Whitetail Deer season here in Northern Virginia.  Mark said a bunch of big deer came in last night and that he expects to be swamped when the muzzleloader season starts a week from today.

But with one week left before the .50 caliber bullets start flyin', Mark made a generous offer to readers of the Bright Idea Blog.  The first 10 hunters to bring in deer with the coupon below will receive $10 off their processing orders.

 

So print this page and clip the coupon, or click the following link Download Deer processing coupon for a printable version.

And in the meantime, don't forget that if you harvest that big buck you've been glassing, Mark can set you up with a taxidermist.  If you'd rather save money and get your mount back faster, Mark does great European mounts himself.

Again, that's Mark's Deer Processing in Loudoun County, Virginia, and the number is (540)454-4470.  Good luck on your hunt!

Whitetail Down: Archery Nine Point

My son and I had plans yesterday to do some sight-in with friends for the upcoming muzzleloader deer season. Those plans fell through.

Good thing. Because if we'd been shooting muzzleloaders, we wouldn't have gone bow hunting. And if we hadn't gone bow hunting, I wouldn't have had a chance to shoot this nine-point buck right before dark.

And if I hadn't shot the deer, my son Jake wouldn't have gotten it on film. He's working on editing the video now. Wait for that. It's some incredible footage! My other son Nick came out and took the photos this morning and got in one himself.

Getting a big deer is always a thrill, but harvesting one through a team effort with my sons is the best.

And speaking of team effort, it's a good thing the Cowboy checked in to make sure we were OK when we hadn't come back to camp until way past dark. Because that gave him the chance to offer to bring his tractor back to the upper field and help us get the buck out. The Cowboy and his tractor save us a TON of work. Thanks!

No still pictures of the tractor work, but it's on the video, which Cowboy was a big help on too. Hopefully, Jake will have the footage ready to post within a few days. Check back soon!

Book Review: The Tiger, A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

John Vaillant's The Tiger (Alfred A. Knopf 2010) is a rare book in that it could appeal equally to hunters and to those opposed to hunting.  Of course, I really don't know much about the latter, but as a hunter I can say it's probably the best non-fiction book about hunting I've ever read.

And the reason I think the book may hold some appeal to folks on the opposite side of the hunting argument is that Vaillant attributes human-like emotions and thought processes to the animal for which the book is named.  Anti-hunters will also appreciate that the tiger turns the tables and (successfully) hunts the poacher who had been hunting him.

The Tiger at its core though is not an anti-hunting book.  Virtually all of the characters in this story about a man-eating tiger on the loose in Far Eastern Russia in the late 1990's are hunters, and none of them are hunting strictly for sport.  They are poverty-stricken Russians and indigenous people who rely on the game in the wilderness area known as "the taiga" for their subsistence.   They are also the wildlife management  personnel who try to strike a balance between protecting natural resources and allowing people to make a living.

At times, it was hard to keep in mind that I was reading about the Russia of 14 years ago and not the American frontier of 140 years ago.  The Tiger reveals a fascinating aspect of Russian life that I previously knew nothing about.

It also reveals a great deal about the tiger, one of nature's super-predators.  The Tiger is as much about global conservation as it is about the horror visited upon the tiny village of Sobolonye in 1997.

Whether you love hunting, hate it or are somewhere in between, you should read this book.

Virginia Hunters: It All Comes Down to This

Yes, Christmas is just a week away, and the New Year is right around the corner.  But with the dawn of 2011 will come an early end to deer season in most of Virginia. 

Since the first Saturday of January falls on the 1st, so too does the last day of the season.  That means if you haven't bagged a buck this year, you've only got two weeks left to do it.

As for me, I've harvested three does and am pretty happy with my season.  Being a resident of Loudoun County, which has an extended antlerless-only season, I also know that I can continue to deer hunt long past January 1, even if it is for does only.

But if you're still hoping to bring down that big boy, you better get going.  Good luck!

What I've Been Up To

My old friend and hunting buddy, once a regular character on this blog known as the Captain, stopped by the other day and asked me why I don't write anymore.  I could have said that I had more to write about when we used to hunt together but instead I told him I'd been too busy with work.  I couldn't believe it when I opened the blog tonight and realized it had been nearly a month.

Here are a few of the things I've done since my last post:

• Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and started getting ready for Christmas;
• Celebrated one of my son's birthdays and started getting ready for my other son's birthday 10 days later;
• Missed my dad;
• Completed an accounting class;
• Added a local accounting firm to my list of clients and am absolutely loving doing marketing work for them;
• Got over some stuff that had been bothering me for a long time;
• Broke a window in my house;
• Harvested two deer, getting one ground up into burger for sloppy does and donating the other to Hunters for the Hungry;
• Removed several deer who had had the the misfortune of dying in Northern Virginia Homeowners' yards;
• Worked on reading this book; I have to admit, I don't like it as much as Kevin did but said I would review it and eventually will;
• Counted my blessings; and
• Thanked God every day for my wife, my kids, the rest of my family, this great country and the people who defend it.

So that's what I've been up to.  I hope to get back to writing more soon too, so please keep checking in.

Book Preview: Kingdom Under Glass by Jay Kirk

I recently received a copy of Jay Kirk's new book Kingdom Under Glass (Henry Holt and Company, 2010) and am planning a  review for sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.

Here is an excerpt from the book jacket:

"During the Golden Age of Safaris in the early twentieth century, one man set out to preserve Africa's great beasts.  In this epic account of an extraordinary life lived during remarkable times, award-winning journalist Jay Kirk follows the adventures of the brooding genius who revolutionized taxidermy and created the famed Akely Hall of African Mammals we visit today at New York's Museum of Natural History..."

While your waiting for my review, Kevin from HuntingLife.com published his thoughts on the book last week.  It sounds like Kevin really liked Kingdom Under Glass, and I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing it myself!

 

 

A Day in the Woods With Kids

Although I did not drive away from the woods this weekend with a deer in the bed of my truck, I did carry with me some memories that will last a lot longer than venison.  I can only hope the day means as much to my kids as it did to me.

It started at daybreak Saturday with my middle son Nick, who hadn't hunted with me in awhile and actually hadn't shown much interest in hunting in a couple years.  This year though, he started asking me to take him again, and Saturday he was eager to see me harvest a deer; any deer.

Nick still has a hard time sitting still, and, even though we'd seen a buck at our first spot, we was ready to move by about 7:00.  It was cold, about 30 degrees, and I figured a walk would help him stay warm, so, as quietly as we could manage, we relocated from the log we sat on at first to a clump of cedars on the edge of the field.

After about half an hour there, Nick was eager to move again, but it was then that I caught movement to our right.

"Nick, there's a buck," I whispered.  A forkhorn was heading right toward the opening where I wanted to shoot.  "Do you want me to shoot it?"

Nick nodded, as the deer disappeared behind a tree.

"It's not a very big deer," I said.

"I don't care."

When the young buck emerged, he saw us but wasn't sure what we were.  For a couple minutes that seemed like an hour, he stood in a spot where I could have shot.  I aimed but just couldn't bring myself to do it; there was just a little too much brush between us and the deer for me to feel confident with the shot.

When the deer was gone, Nick expressed his disappointment, but I hope he will remember what I told him.

"If you have any doubt in your mind about whether you should shoot, that means don't shoot."

We moved again and saw another buck, this one with a nice rack and walking with a limp but way out of range.

My three-year-old has been asking me to take him hunting since July, so at mid-day it was his turn.  Armed with toy guns, we "stalked" the deer on his grandfather's farm.  I'm pretty sure Brett enjoyed it as much as I did, and I hope it will be the first of many stalks we make together.

The day wound down with my oldest son Jake and I watching two deer cross the field out of range of his shotgun.  I too had brough along a scattergun, thinking it would give me the best chance for an effective follow-up shot.  As the deer grazed about 60 yards away I wished I had brought the muzzleloader but did not allow that thought to linger any longer than the deer.

My memories of this long day of hunting with my kids have no place for regrets.