Happy
New Year one and all! Welcome to the first RTO Newsletter of the New
Year. Can you believe another year has flown by? It seems that every
year passes faster than the one before it -- all the more reason to
make every minute count.
Homecoming Deer Hunt
In
November 2008, I made a nostalgic trip to the 30,000-acre Majestic
Ranch in southeastern Alberta to hunt whitetails and film a show for
Buckmasters. I spent years outfitting on the Majestic Ranch back in
the 80s but hadn’t been back for almost 20 years. I was amazed at how
little it had changed. The deer still followed the same trails as they
did all those years ago. It was déjà vu when I found the remains of an
old wooden treestand I made and attached to an ancient cottonwood tree
more than 20 years ago, back in the infancy of the trophy whitetail
craze. Who could have guessed what was about to happen?
I
hunted from a box blind out in the cornfield and watched the whitetails
streaming out of the timber in the evening. A buck caught my eye right
at the edge of the timber. He looked good, but he was engrossed in
grinding his antler against a fence post.
As
deer after deer filtered into the cut corn, the object of my attention
continued rubbing the fence post. After 45 minutes he finally
abandoned the post and headed into the cornfield. The sun was dropping
fast and it looked like he would pass in front of me at about 150 yards
– and he did with the setting sun directly behind him. The sun blazed
through my scope so brightly that I was virtually blinded by the
glare. As the buck continued south, two other bucks joined him.
Although the glare was subsiding, I couldn’t keep track of which buck
was which. I was exasperated to think this plan was not going to come
together after all that. Heck, I could have shot him when he was
rubbing the fence post, but I wanted to let him get closer. As the
last rays of evening light dwindled, I asked cameraman Chris Chastain,
“Which one is he?”
“The
one on the right,” he said. I pulled the trigger and the buck folded.
It was a grand finale for my homecoming trip to the Majestic Ranch.
Look for the complete hunt to be televised in 2009 on Buckmasters TV.
Hunting with Ivy
My travel and hunting/filming year ended in mid December with a trip to southwest Texas to the Live Oak Hunting Lodge www.liveoakhuntinglodge.com with my 9-year-old granddaughter, Ivy Patterson. It was her first deer hunt and we had a wonderful time. I had a little Remington .22-250 cut down to just her size and considering she had never shot anything larger than a BB gun, she was an amazing shot. She put 3 shots into 1 inch at 100 yards! I doubt that I could improve on that.
In addition to being a crack shot, she set records for sitting still for hours in a blind without a complaint. That trait might have been handed down from her Gramps. When a doe presented herself about 60 yards in front of our ground blind, Ivy sat steady as a rock and made a perfect shot. To say I was proud of her would be an understatement. Meanwhile, back at the lodge, she turned out to be a pretty fair hand at the pool table as well. It was a wonderful end to my hunting season – deer hunting with my granddaughter. As the cliché goes, “It just doesn’t get any better than that.”
Changing Horses
After 24 years as the Editor in Chief of Buckmasters, Rack and GunHunter
magazines, it is retirement time for me. Don’t get me wrong; the word
“retirement” really just means switching horses. It also means that Sharleen and I will spend the winters in Woodland Park, Colo., near my daughter Michelle and
her family, and summers in central Alberta, Canada, west of Rocky
Mountain House, where the brown trout rise to dry flies and make my
heart leap for joy! Sharleen and I will be involved in ministry on a
full time basis after our move, which we plan for early March. I will
continue to organize men’s retreats and outings as well as hunting and
fishing opportunities, all of which I will be posting in this
newsletter. So, while our mailing address will change, we’ll still be
easy to find. My website will remain the same.
Sprint B.C. Bear Hunt (May 2010)
If
a huge black bear rug is an itch you have not yet scratched, and
you’re, well, itchy, take note of the trip I have planned for May of
2010 with Fawnie Mountain Outfitters, operated by my old friend John
Blackwell, who has been in the area for 39 years. John has a great
bear area in the Chilcotin region. In fact, it was there that I killed
the British Columbia No. 1 black bear taken by bow and arrow a few
years back. It was chocolate brown, 8 feet from nose to tail, and
weighed an estimated 650-700 pounds. It truly was a giant.
Blackwell’s
area has a very good reputation for large black bears, and his hunts
are similar to the Vancouver Island black bear hunts, producing similar
sized bears with excellent coats due to colder winter and a variety of
colors including black, brown, and blond.
Guides
drive 4x4 pickup trucks to feeding areas, glassing, spotting and
stalking bears that are just emerging from hibernation where they feed
intensely on green shoots, clover and dandelions. Some hunts are
located on fly-in lakes, but with float lanes on hand, hides are flown out to freezers to ensure that they do not spoil.
Rainbow
trout are plentiful at camps and at the lodge. Blackwell also offers
fishing packages for trout, steelhead and salmon in the summer months.
2009
prices for 7-day hunts are $3,800 U.S. per person for a 2x1guided hunt
and $4,950 for a 1x1 guided hunt. Should you choose to shoot a second
bear (you can be licensed for 2 bears), there is an $800 trophy fee
charged for the second bear. No trophy fee is charged for the first
bear. The prices include the floatplane flight from Anahim Lake B.C.
and the delivery of your bear trophies to a local taxidermist. Hunting
licenses cost $180 Canadian, plus a black bear tag price of $180 each.
You can purchase 1 or 2 bear tags. Blackwell’s guides all have from
10-12 years of experience, and they have a keen sense of competition
between them to produce the best bears, which serves their hunters well.
I
have hunted with and guided for John Blackwell. I know his territory
and his character and would gladly take my mother hunting with him, but
she’s not into bears! I’m planning about a year ahead here so we have
plenty of time to get organized. Let me know if this hunt is for you
and I’ll save you a spot. Bookings are available on a first-come-first
serve basis.
I
have hunted with John Blackwell, and on occasions, and I have guided
for him, as well. I know his territory and his character and would
gladly take my mother hunting with him, but she’s not into bears! I’m
planning about a year ahead here so we have plenty of time to get
organized. Let me know if this hunt is for you and I’ll save you a
spot. Booking are available on a first-come-first serve basis. There
are 6 places available in total for this hunt
Arrival date in Anahim Lake B.C. (accessed from Vancouver B.C.) is May 21,
Departure Date is May 28, 2010
The deposit for a 2x1 hunt is $1,900 US per person
Call for information and availability: (334) 409-0574
This Month’s Feature: “A British Columbia Bear and a Half” chronicles the hunt in which I took the B.C. record black bear while hunting with John Blackwell in the Fawnie Mountain region.
Coming in the February Newsletter: Highlights of the 2009 Archery Trade Association Show in Indianapolis covering what's new in archery for 09, as well as field test of some of the hottest new bows!



















