Leaves were rustling 30 yards ahead of me.  It wasn’t the sound of the wind nor mongoose, it was the sound of a hog nudging leaves and dirt in search of  food.  Instantly, I nocked an arrow and stood motionless. He popped his head from the brush.  Out appeared a little thirty-pounder, not big enough to shoot so I decided to take a few pics.  I slipped my hand into my pocket to grab my cell phone.  Just as I set my phone to the camera setting,  I heard a twig snap to the left me.  I figured that it was only another small hog, but just to be sure I dropped the phone, slowly turning to the sounds of the noisy hog.  Then I placed my tab on my string and focused my attention to the trail below me.  The noise grew louder and louder, out stepped a shooter hog fifteen yards away and unaware of my presence.  I drew back my longbow, hit anchor and off it went.  The hog took off like a rocket.  It ran about ten yards, U-turned and headed straight back on the same trail.  I’m just glad that I wasn’t on that trail.  After a short blood trail,  I recoverd the hog and headed home. 

Shot with new Bob Lee Longbow

“What do you do with those goats?”  It’s a common question that I get from my friends.  I have about five different ways that I like to prepare goat, but my favorite has to be jerky.  A good friend of mine makes tons of jerky for us from the goats that we shoot.  It’s rather simple too.  All he uses is the pre made jerky cures from Cabelas, and he dehydrates the meat in one of those Cabelas dehydrators.  Simple as cut, mix and dry.

I’ve written about this pack before, but given the positive results, I cant stop praising this ultimate day pack. I’ve been trying my best to put this pack to the torture test.  In the past four months, I’ve packed a bunch of deboned meat in this thing without a sign of wear.  Here is another pic of a goat that’s going to be deboned then hauled by my flash 20.

I just returned from helping a friend, Bob Heddy, chase elk in Nevada.  This was his 1st archery kill, although he’s been shooting archery for years and is a die hard PSE fan. Over the last couple years we have been shooting a little 3D together.  I caught Bob’s first archery kill all on HD video tape, we got some incredible footage!!  Bob has guided sheep hunters for years and hunted in Nevada all his life.  His comment to me was ”That was the most exciting thing I have ever done, not even my desert sheep can compare to what just happened!!”  Bob was shooting PSE’s X-Force, Carbon Force arrows and a 2 bladed Rage broadhead which turned a marginal hit into an absolutely incredible blood trail.

Bob Heddy’s NV elk 

There’s nothing better than helping a friend!

Tony Mudd

Late in the afternoon, my friend Ryan decided to glass from a ridge high above one of his “honey holes”.  It wasn’t long before we spotted a few sheep.  I was more than willing to try and put a stalk on those animals, but Ryan knew that the specific area held better caliber animals.  Ten minutes passed as we glassed the landscape.  Ryan spotted a lone ram feeding in the distance.  After pointing him out to me, a second, larger ram popped into view.  At that point we decided to try and put a stalk on these rams.  We visually marked where we last spotted the rams, and then we made our move.  

Conditions were perfect, the rams were slowly feeding towards our right and the fifteen miles per hour winds were blowing in our face.  The sun was going down and the sheep were on the move, so we had to scamble quietly towards our ambush location.

Ryan made an educated guess as to where we could ambush them.  We made visual contact of the lead ewe.  She was about seventy-five yards in front of us but heading to our right.  We needed to cut them off, so we backed out and scrambled carefully to our right to establish our location without ever letting them out of our sight. 

Again we coudn’t ask for more, we got in front of them, still with the wind in our face. The lead ewe fed into a dry river bed twenty yards below us.  She fed with her head down unkowing of our presence.  One of the two rams that we spotted earlier grazed thirty yards above her, slowly making his way towards her.  This was the smaller of the two rams, but I was going to take a shot at him if the opportunity presented itself.  Thirty yards away and turning broadside, I drew my bow.  Right before I settled my pin, Ryan told me to let down.  A second and a third ram popped out from the brush above the two sheep. The third ram was the one we were after!

Our set up was textbook,  the wind was in our face, the sheep had no clue that we were there, we were hidden under a tree in the shade, and the sun was setting into the eyes of the sheep!  The other two rams ended up feeding with the first ram in the dry river bed thirty yards away.  Ryan whispered, “as soon as you get a shot take it”.  He ranged the feeding sheep one last time.  “Thirty-one” he confirmed.

Finally the biggest ram stepped out and gave me a broadside shot. I drew, and with the thirty yard pin fixed on his vitals, I sent the arrow on its way.  Hitting its mark, the ram bucked and all four sheep took off.  They all ran up the river bed. Watching their every move, we saw three of the four climb over the bank, and good sign but not guaranteed sign. 

After some time, we decided to take up the trail.  We found the broken arrow and started looking for blood.  The blood trail started off poorly, but after only walking a few yards from the arrow, we spotted a white patch in the bushes not sixty yards ahead of us in the dry river bed.  We glassed and confirmed that it was the ram. Bellied up and expired, it lay motionless in the bushes. I thanked my friend and we ended the celebration with high fives!

I owe the harvest to my good friend Ryan. Everything that could have gone  right  did!  Stalks like these come far and few for me.  I love it when a plan comes together!  I’m just glad that I was able to seal the deal!

I’ll never be able to go back to my old military bdu style hunting pants. Restricting, heavy and hot are a few words to describe my old hunting pants.  Two things that bothered me the most was when they got wet and when I tried to climb.  If my pants were to get wet, they would remain wet and heavy all day long, which also led to the dreadful chaffing of the legs!  Everytime, I climbed over fallen trees, boulders or up hills, I would have to tug my pants a little so that they wouldn’t get hung up on my knees. 

My ascent pants has fixed every one of those problems that I have faced in the past.  They are lightweight, it breathes well and dries fast.  It also flexes with body movement effortlessly.  Not to mention all the cool pockets.  So far, it seems pretty tough.  I haven’t torn one yet.  I’m currently giving one pair of my newest ascent pants a torture test on lava rocks.  I’ll let you guys know how it goes.  I must admit it took me a few trips to get used to the light stretchy feeling of the pants,  but now I refuse to hunt with anything else.

Scaling this cliff to get to this nanny was a breeze with my ascent pants.  Not sure if you can tell how steep it is.  I had a hard time just trying not to slide down while taking this picture.