Articles
From time to time we will post articles that we feel contain information that will help you to improve your hunting skills. Hal writes a monthly column in the Northwoods Sporting Journal. Click here to go the NWSJ's website if you would like to subscribe. We think it is a worthwhile read.
THE BUCK HUNTER
By Hal Blood
May 2008
Preserving the memories of your hunt with quality photos in the field
As I write this column at the beginning of April, the weather is showing signs that spring is finally coming to the North Country. Yesterday I was outside in a tee shirt washing the road salt off from the vehicles. It was fifty degrees and sunny, a welcomed break from winter. We’ll still have some cold days, but hopefully there will be a lot more warm ones to come. The deer seem to be doing better around here. We got a hard crust on the snow in early March that allowed the deer to walk on top of the snow. It was a blessing for the deer as they have been able to wander around and get at food that they hadn’t been able to get at all winter. I’m still seeing quite a few of last year’s fawns and they look to be in pretty good shape. I’ll be praying that the snow disappears in a hurry.
This month, I’d like to talk about a subject that may seem a little mundane to some hunters, but I think is very important and that is taking good photo’s. A good photograph of your game will preserve the memories of the hunt forever. You may not choose to have your deer, bear, moose etc. mounted, but a good framed photo is the next best thing to be able to show family, friends and other hunters your trophy. I think back to when I first started hunting and the deer my father and I shot. We do not have one single picture of them. I never took a picture of one of our deer until I was eighteen years old. Then when I started taking a few pictures, they were just quick snapshots in a truck or hanging on a game pole. They are not pictures I would want to frame.
Since I was always crazy about hunting, I started looking at old hunting and historic books about the North Woods. I was always intrigued buy the pictures of all the deer hanging on the game poles or on a wagon. Everything in the past becomes history and thankfully there were some people with enough foresight to record it on film, for generations to enjoy. If you take good photos of your game, your family will be able to enjoy its history.
My business partner and cameraman, Chris thought it might be a good to give people a few tips on taking photographs as some of our buck of the month submissions to our website do not have the best photos. Not to put these hunter down in any way, it’s just a learning curve. In this day and age of technology, there is no reason to have bad photos. I think digital cameras are the best choice to take afield with you. These camera’s are made to be about the size of a deck of cards. I like the ones with a big display screen on them. That’s probably the fifty year old eyes! With these cameras, you can see what the photo looks like as soon as you take it. I f you don’t like it, delete it and take another. What I prefer to do is take a lot of photos. I take them at different angles and with the animals head turned in different directions. Then when I get home I download them into the computer and look at all of them. The ones that don’t come out good for one reason or another get deleted. Now on the computer, I can edit the photos to make them even better. Some may need to be zoomed in, cropped or maybe brighten or darken. There really is no reason to have bad photos, unless you don’t take the time to take them properly.
Game pole pictures are great, but the really best photos are the one taken immediately after your game is down. This is when the hair is still standing up and has the sleekest look. Do not field dress the animal first. You will not have the full roundness and true size. Also field dressing first will bloody up the animal and the area. When taking the photo, make sure the animal and hunter fill the frame. You don’t need the trees in the background. Take your photos from eye level. This usually means that the photographer kneels down. Try to get the whole animal in the photo. Take some photos broadside and some head on, then you can decide which ones you like the best. Put the animals tongue in its mouth and wipe off any blood. Bend the legs of deer or moose up under the body as if the animal is bedded. This gives it almost a lifelike look. If you’re alone use the self-timer on your camera. I’ve taken quite a few photos of myself using the sef-timer. It will take a little more time to set up, but it will be worth the effort. Find a stump, rock, or blow down nearby to place your camera on. Now move your animal to the spot where the frame is filled. You’ll have to keep going back and forth looking at your screen to make sure it’s right. Snap a photo to make sure of the setup then keep taking them. You can never have too many photos. Someday you’ll want to show your photos to your grandchildren and tell them all the stories that go with them.
THE BUCK HUNTER
By Hal Blood
March 2008
Last fall I started writing about points to make us all better deer hunters. I had the most comments on persistence. Many of you agreed that it was the most important thing to have and also agreed that it was the hardest thing to do. This month I'm going to talk about the one thing that will help you have more persistence and that is, practice. There are lots of thing to practice, to help in becoming a better hunter as well as making persistence a lot easier to have. Many hunters just grab there gun and head into the woods on opening day in hopes of shooting that monster buck, without any thought given to what it might take other than luck. If you rely on pure luck when you after the old moss horns, you'll never be a regular at the tagging station.
There are things you can practice year round to make you a better hunter when you step into the woods and not have to rely on just luck. Practice walking in the woods to stay in shape. Most hunters think that if they walk a few miles a day down the road, that they are getting in shape. Walk in the woods. By walking in the woods you are going to have to go up and down the ridges as well as over blow downs. By doing this you will learn how to be quiet. There are lots of things in the woods that make noise. Learn what they are by trial and error. Try sneaking up on different animals when you're out there. Use the wind and the cover. If you practice walking ahead of time it will become second nature, when you take to the deer woods this fall.
If there is one thing I've learned in all my years of guiding is that there are very few hunters that are ready to make a shot count when the time comes. The reason is that most of them practice their shooting from a bench rest. This means absolutely nothing when it comes to shooting a buck in the woods. Once you know that your gun is sighted in, get off the rest and practice. When you're hunting in the woods, odds are you are not going to get a standing shot at a buck all the time. If he's not running he may be walking or trotting. If you practice, you can consistently make these shots. I've talk before about rolling a tire with a cardboard target in the center, down a hill and shooting at it. Another good way to practice is to tie a milk jug, with some sand in it for weight, on a string and swing it from a tree limb. Always make sure you have a good back stop when doing either of these things.
The worst habit most hunters have when shooting is that they take too long to pull the trigger. I've watched hunters put up their gun to shoot, and wait so long that, the barrel starts to wander all over the place. Once this happens, they usually miss. You have to pull the trigger as soon as your bead or crosshair touches the point you want to hit. Practice this by putting you gun up and firing a quick shot, then bring your gun down and do it again. DO NOT SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER SLOWLY! That technique is for target or long range shooting and does not apply to hunting in the woods. Snap the trigger when it's on target. You'll be amazed at how well you can shoot offhand by doing this.
Another thing to practice and this is a good time to do it is, aging tracks. Aging tracks is probably the hardest thing for most hunters, but it boils down to experience or practice. Throughout the winter we have different temperatures and snow conditions, making it a perfect time to practice aging tracks. They do not have to be deer tracks. They can be yours, your dogs or anything. The important thing is that you know when the track is made and keep an eye on what happens to it over time. Take note of the temperature and type of snow. Write it down if you need too, as your practicing. If you do this enough, you will start to see a pattern in the way tracks change. With all this practice, when you hit the snowy woods next fall, you won't have to rely entirely on lady luck, to put your tag on that big buck you've been dreaming all year about. Practice won't make you perfect, but it will make you better.
THE BUCK HUNTER
By Hal Blood
September 2007
Last month I said that I was going to start covering some deer hunting topics, to hopefully help you get zeroed in on a good buck. I thought I'd start out with what I consider the most important thing a deer hunter needs to understand and commit to in order to be consistent at tagging a buck and that is “persistence”. I've written about it before but I feel so strongly that this is the key to success that I'm going to really try and get you to understand the importance of it. Without persistence you are leaving a lot to chance or luck. Webster's defines persistence as: to refuse to give up, especially in the face of opposition. To continue insistently, to endure, remain. Of all the successful deer hunters I know, this is the trait that they all have in common. Whether they are stand hunters, still hunters, or trackers these hunters persist when other hunters would have given up.
There is a lot of opposition to face in the deer woods. It might be the weather, with bitter cold temperatures, wind rain snow. It might be that a buck you are tracking crosses a river or goes into a swamp or heads for the top of the mountain. Maybe you're hungry, thirty or just plain tired. All these things become an opposing force to be reckoned with. These are the things that most hunters use as an excuse to give up. And that is why most hunters are not consistent at tagging a buck. It's easy to give up or quit. It's not easy to be persistent. It's also not easy to consistently kill good bucks. If you will just grasp the importance of persistence and practice it I guarantee you will become a more successful deer hunter.
Persistence is giving 100%, and being satisfied that you did everything you could that day to get a chance at a buck. The biggest racked buck I ever guided a hunter to was taken by a hunter who committed to staying in that stand all day for the week if need be. As it turned out he shot the buck at 11:00am the first day. The point is he committed to it after I told him that a guy sat there the week before but came out for lunch in the middle of every day. Several times I've had hunters shoot a buck on Saturday after sitting on the same stand all week.
We have hunters that stay in our cabins and go on there own without a guide. For these hunters I will show them a couple places on a map where there are deer, to get them started. I'm amazed at how many with tell me they couldn't find any deer sign there. I know why they didn't, it's because they never went into the woods enough to find it. They go out for a couple hours and then go back to the truck for coffee, lunch or whatever. They don't have the persistence to keep going until they find some sign. Then they will go the next piece of woods and do the same thing. They're trying to make it as easy as possible and therefore there tag will probably go unfilled. You have to keep going. Spend all day in that piece of woods and you just might find the sign that is made by the biggest buck you ever shoot.
When it comes to tracking, it is going to take persistence and a lot of it to become consistent at tagging bucks this way. The old mossy horn bucks of the north didn't get that way for no reason. Some of these bucks live in the nastiest out of the way places and will take you through some of the thickest roughest terrain to get there. If you don't persist on these bucks, your chances of killing one are slim. Sometimes you have to press along at a fast pace on a track for hours, just to catch up to a buck. The track might take you through a swamp where you have to struggle not to have water go over your boots. Maybe he goes up over a mountain that is so thick on top that you have to crawl on your hands and knees in places to get through it. Maybe the track takes you into a lot of other deer tracks and it takes a while to sort it all out. Are you willing to do those things? That's where persistence really comes in.
I have hunters tell me all the time that while tracking a buck they lost the track. To me there is no such thing as losing a track. Sure you can misplace it but it is still there and you can find it if you have the persistence. One of my better bucks that I like to call Fat Horns, I shot after four hours of sorting tracks in a fir thicket that he and a doe had used for a playground all night. That buck and doe had raced and chased in and out of head high fir trees covered with snow and I eventually went everywhere they did as I missed their tracks where they jumped across a brook in the middle of some other tracks. Anyway through process of elimination I knew I had missed where they came out and made a bigger circle and found the tracks. Five minutes later I jumped the buck and doe from their beds. An hour after that I shot the buck standing in the hardwoods when I peeked over a knoll. It would have been easy to give up on the tracks as I was soaked through to the skin from all the snow that went down my neck while crawling through the firs. Instead I have that buck laying in my living room as a full body mount.
Well I hope I haven't beaten you over the head to much about persistence, but I hope some of you will catch on to the concept and it will help you fill many more tags.
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