After killing the first one a few weeks ago, I took a break from San Diego county hunting for a couple weeks then have been back at it lately.  With my second tag I was thinking I’d try to hold out as long as I could for a buck.  That ended up not being very long.  As I was driving up the mountain last night, Katie called and said her contractions had started.  I about crashed and started veering over to get off the highway and turn around.  Then she said she just got off the phone with her doc and she had some time.  These were just minor preliminary contractions and unless several were happening within an hour, birth was not imminent, but getting close.  Any day now. 

So that changed my mind about holding out.  I knew that filled tag or not, my local deer season would be ending very shortly.  I got into my stand about 4:30pm and when this lone doe came walking down the hill my mind was made up.  I set my book down and grabbed my bow.  She walked down and stopped almost directly underneath my stand, blocked by some brush.  She stayed there for several minutes racking my nerves.  I drew and had to let down several times.  It was like she knew she was safe under that screen of arrow deflecting twigs.  Then she cautiously stepped out into a clear lane, slightly quartering away and walking down hill.  I was already drawn as she hesitated between steps.  Then the arrow was gone, buried into her chest.  It zipped right through.  She ran out of sight and I thought I heard some stumbling and then a crash.

I got down and checked my trail camera, changed the batteries and waited about 10 additional minutes.  Then I went to go find my arrow.  I was expecting to see the bright green fletching sticking out of the earth.  When I didn’t I got a bit nervous. Then I found it, camouflaged by the crimson coating it had just received.  I looked down the trail and saw a copious blood trail.  I followed it for a few steps and it was so heavy I decided to keep going instead of waiting longer.  She went over a log, rounded a bend in the trail and was laying there already expired.  She didn’t go 30 yards.  The broadhead centered the on-side lung, drove down through the top of the heart and came out her off-side armpit. 

This one was a fatty and a bit bigger than the first one.  I packed the last one (only about a mile hike) out whole and it hurt.  I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.  Getting to work I had her quartered and in the pack in short order.  I’ll never get quite used to working on meat in the dark by myself in this cougar infested area.  If anybody saw or heard me they would have thought I lost my mind.  I was alternately whistling, yelling unintelligible sounds, and singing whatever song came to mind, hoping the lions only liked to eat tree huggers and not lunatic bowhunters.  Tell you what though, you sure can pack meat out fast when you are envisioning a mountain lion hot on your tail.  The mind can play some cruel tricks in the dark solitude of a silent forest. 

Now both my deer tags are filled and I’m a bit sad.  I have no other hunts planned until February (NM oryx and Tejon hogs).  Until then, I suppose I’ll have to entertain myself learning to be a poopy diaper changing machine.  

Just got back from a cow hunt with my dad and brother in Utah.  This was supposed to be a relaxing and fun hunt with family.   It was much tougher than we expected.  The elk were way more pressured and the country was much more open than we anticipated, wide open actually.  I’ve hunted antelope in more cover.  Unfortunately my dad and bro never had any good opportunites.  We saw a lot of beautiful country with big bucks, a bear, and some nice bulls.  We also had some awesome trout fishing. 

I tried to make it happen with the bow it was futile given the conditions and terrain.  Late one eveing I glassed up a distant herd right at last light.  Wanting my dad to get a shot I looked at him and he gave me the “no way” look.  We would of had to move hard to close the distance before it got dark.  He handed over his .270 and I took off running.  I had just barely enough light to make the shot.   

I also happened upon an unfortunate coyote on the way back to camp on the last day.  Too bad for him.

The highlight of the trip was watching a nice bull put on a killer rut show right in front of us.  I got some video of all the bugling, splashing, thrashing, wallowing, mud flying etc.  Sure wish we’d had a bull tag!  Definitely a good time and I have lots of good eatin’ to come.

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

Well, after a bit of frustration due to learning a new area. I finally put all the pieces together and smacked another good Roosevelt. That makes 17 straight years of taking a bull over here. Been messing with a few bulls the last couple nights and after being winded and blowing a very good opportunity, i slipped into where i thought the bulls were bedding and happened to guess right. Ended up calling this guy in in the big timber and putting a good arrow in him. Not sure how well he was hit and other bulls roaming around i left him over night and found him not twenty yards from where i shot him the evening before. Happy hunting to everyone and its sure nice to get this tag filled…

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 was visiting my parents, leafing thru one of my father’s magazines…I thought it was an odd place to find Sitka Gear…but not that odd. Sitka is very technical.

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.

There is little doubt that discriminating mountain hunters, the spot and stalkers, and other high country athletes are finding the unique qualities of Sitka Gear to be right up their alley. And rightfully so.

So why should the bowhunter who primarily pursues whitetails from a tree stand buy into the Sitka Gear system? When I first began my association with the gear, I had the same questions. But as time has gone on, I’ve realized the benefits of Sitka’s forward thinking benefits the whitetail stand hunter in many ways as well.

The first is the camouflage patterns.  Archery hunters not only usually seal the deal at close range, but they must usually fool the senses of many other deer before that big old buck makes a mistake.  From the outset, Sitka picked the more ‘open’ patterns of camo which I feel are way more effective in the whitetail woods.  With the Mountain Mimicry and the new Opti-Fade first and foremost in the Sitka lineup, they have you covered with two of the most versatile patterns I’ve ever seen.

Another base that Sitka has covered is that of the serious bowhunter who literally plays chess with big bucks all season.  That means moving stands frequently, or in some cases carrying a stand in and back out each and every hunt.  And often hunting out of the stand moments after putting it in.  Honestly, that requires a little of the same technical clothing needs that the mountain man needs; namely, clothing that will keep the hunter dry while exerting, whether that be climbing a steep rise in the elk country pre-dawn, or walking a solid mile with a tree stand and steps on your back.   And then once reaching the destination, it must offer warmth without excessive wait, and Sitka Gear does this equally well whether that means an hour or two glassing a high basin for a mountain hunter or sitting for a couple hours without movement in prime deer country. 

It accomplishes this using a variety of technical features not usually found in other garments.  Pit zips help the hunter on the move dump heat from his or her person without taking that particular layer off.  The next-to-skin layers move moisture from one’s skin to the outer surface of that layer, keeping you dry (which means warm in cold weather, and cool in warm weather).  The Core line also features Silver Scent Elimination which does just as advertised.  One of my favorites is the Core Zip-T which features a deep center-front zipper to dump add’l heat in hot weather, yet is substantial enough to be an outer layer in the early season.  Check the archives here from December 2008 for my early season Nebraska whitetail killed in 80-plus temps in mid-September when most hunters balked at the conditions.  I was comfortable and confident.

The layering ’system’ benefits the whitetail assassin immensely.  In years past, I’d first try to figure out where I’d be hunting, then match the camouflage to the conditions, and then pick my outer layer.  Then, depending on the insulative value of that, I’d work my way to the middle and then inner layers.  Honestly, that process proves tiring to a guy who normally hunts some 90-degree days all the way through zero degrees and below.  You’ll appreciate the lack of bulk not only when trying to draw a bow from an uncomfortable position, but when packing for a trip and trying to trim your load into what’s acceptable for the airlines these days.

With Sitka, I do just the opposite.  Starting with Core basics, I then add layers until I’m equipped for whatever conditions await me.  Since Sitka’s clothing articles are designed to layer, and do so with a minimum of bulk, I can still have dexterity enough to shoot a longbow in the coldest weather.  And picking a camo isn’t necessary anymore because with Opti-Fade or Mountain Mimicry, I’ve never felt out of place.  All of this makes packing for a weekend or weeklong trip a cinch; there’s no need to double up items.  You will find your load to be greatly lightened.

As earlier mentioned, whitetail encounters are often at intimate ranges and a stray sound will betray the best set-up.  Sitka Gear is silent.  It also picks up fewer burrs than my past experience with other clothing, and those that do adhere are easily removed.  And the same stretch in the material (the Ascent Pants are just awesome in this regard) which makes hiking up a mountain simpler, accomplishes the same task for the whitetail man who must scale a tree stand or trudge out of the timber back to his rig after a long day. 

And while the mountain hunter may go HARD for a week or more in his quest for elk or other western game, the serious whitetail hunter like myself may put in 80 to 100 hunt in his addiction.  Sitka Gear will last, and last, and last.  This makes if far more cost-effective than cheaper options over the long haul.

In sum, almost everything that makes Sitka Gear the cadillac for the mountain hunter, have equal application in the eastern and midwestern whitetail haunts.  And that’s why you’ll see me wearing it whether I’m matching wits with my hometown deer along the Platte River in eastern Nebraska, or trying to outfox those monsters in Iowa when I’m fortunate enough to draw a tag there.

I find many of the same features that benefit mountain hunters to have equal application for the whitetail stand hunter.

I’ve got four primary properties that I bowhunt whitetails on in Nebraska.  Each is quite unique from the others and in the long run I am glad for that variety.  One is being squeezed on both sides by development and while the housing and sandpit developments have funneled deer traffic some, they have also made it more nocturnal and roughly half of my old stand sites have been rendered useless over the past decade due to all the changes. 

Property two is a classic riverbottom timber with the Platte River on one side and corn on the outside.  But until the corn is cut, there is no ‘lane’ to the woods and it makes access difficult.  But that helps keep trespassers at bay in the early season and I’ll take the tradeoff.  It, like the first piece of ground, is in Dodge County.

Property three is a very wild set of oak and cedar bluffs in the hill country of Saunders County.  There is some corn and/or beans on the bottom, but the majority of the property is pastured.  Wind swirls like nobody’s business in these hills where locals have found numerous Indian artifacts over the years.  And if there’s any place where mountain lions could hide in eastern NE, this is it.

Property four is in Butler County and totally different from the others.  Over a square mile in size, it is probably 80% corn/beans, 15% CRP-like grasses, and 5% scrubby cottonwood and willow saplings.

So what do these four properties have in common?  All have some deer that keep me interested, and all have some outstanding stand sites that are prime only in certain times of year or when the wind is blowing just so.  But many of these stand sites are difficult to access.  And therein lies the rub (and usually there are ‘rubs’ there as well!).  You need to have a way to get to these remote locations undetected if you are going to hunt them.  And I think a lot of guys don’t keep that in mind when they find these honeyholes, invest a lot of time and effort in putting in a set there, and then either find themselves hamstrung because they can’t access the area in a stealthy matter, or they try to anyway and end up boogering the site up.

There is no one size fits all answer to this problem.  And if I read another story about using a creek to access my area, I think I’m gonna puke.  Not because it doesn’t work, but because it only works if there is such a creek on your property and on mine it doesn’t apply.  I don’t have the all the answers but I will allow a couple of my strategies regarding this.  But in the end, you must be your own problem-solver and deal with the circumstances you face.

On Property A, my hunting partner and I simply have conceded that the best part of our property is darn near impossible to hunt without blowing game out.  Our property is definitely less attractive and subordinate to the much larger and thicker property to the east, and we know if we pressure deer in their bedding areas on our property, we can say goodbye to most opportunities during legal shooting hours.  So we carefully hunt the edges, as well as probing deeper along the logging lane which allows quiet access if things are windy or wet/dewy.   We leave the sanctuary alone until shed antler season.

On Property B, my brother and I first cut all the leaves out of one row of of corn for one-quarter of a mile along with a secret(!) entry from the center pivot area.  It’s a jungle and no fun whatsoever.  But when done, it creates a stealthy way to access the property. 

Before trimming (top, above), and after (immediately above). 

This property also has some great rut action but the action is deep when the corn has been cut.  To access these stands during the dryer days of autumn, I will literally ‘gallop’ like a deer to my stand, quickly scale the tree, and then get ready.  This works two ways:  1-if you blow out a deer out by galloping, you would’ve spooked that deer anyway and usually this deer will bolt out of there but not “snort” or “blow” which saves your nearby deer; and, 2-if a nearby deer hears the galloping, there is a good chance he will think a chase is on (I often include grunting as well), and come over for a look-see.  On the other hand, if I tiptoe in, the deer blown out often snort and those that hear it know it sounds unnatural.  Literally, galloping in has given me many opportunities in the ten minutes after reaching my tree.  It may look silly, but…

On property C, I used to enter my deepest stand sites from another property which we also had permission to hunt, a ruse that worked great.  That ended when the second landowner decided to get into the leasing game.  So now I need a windy or wet day to cover my approach and I stick to the rancher’s lane which meanders through open areas to get to the back side of the ground.  Totally still day?  I can’t and won’t hunt it.

On property D, the only access is down an abandoned, condemned old road that has reverted back to the adjoining property owners (one which hunts himself, and the other which doesn’t hunt at all).  To get to the turnoff onto my property, I end up driving a long way in alongside my property, in the process screwing up half the property which sees little human traffic.  So I got to know the non-hunting property owner and he not only gave me the go-ahead to use the lane (previously a gray area) but will now also let me park on his property, and walk down the lane (his lane) to the edge of my ground where I can quietly access the corner of it and begin my hunting in earnest.  Four problems, largely solved with entirely different strategies.  Put on your thinking cap (I think the Sitka models are especially conducive to this) and figure out how to get to a stand before you even put it up.  And then you have to figure a way out too!  Good luck.

Been a pretty decent season so far. Between buying a new house and getting married yesterday (youdon’t even have to say it) been pretty busy around here. I’ve managed to get out a few times though. Took my wifes cousin opening day and called in a great Roosie bull to 22 yds of him. Inexperience got the best of the situation and the bull is still wandering around. Next set up, a bear came to investigate the calls. 4yds was a little too close.

Last weekend, i headed over to call for a buddy that drew one of Oregons better tags. Ended up calling in 12 bulls in two days. He ended up sending an arrow through this guy..Great fun!! Back to the Brush Bulls now.