An absolutely wonderful piece in the NY Times today about bowhunting Tule elk and bowhunting in general. This is precisely the image people should get in their head when they think of bowhunters, as opposed to some rich schmuck shooting a tame elk in a pen. Read the whole thing here.

Actually it seems like most people can’t think for themselves these days. Perhaps this type exercise should be required for all Americans. Regardless, the Think-Off of 2009 is this question:

Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?

I’ve been thinking about it since reading the topic in today’s newspaper. A little brain exercise never hurt anyone. Check out the details here.

Friday I left the courthouse in time for an afternoon goose hunt. I was invited back to the farm where I had this hunt. If you remember we had geese light in the cut corn field that night while we were deer hunting. My friend whose family owns the ground apparently watched as several flocks of geese lit in front of him during a late season doe hunt Thursday. Unfortunately it was not to be for us the next day. Geese poured into a swamp on the adjacent property but never gave us a serious look.

Saturday we regrouped with a new plan. A new place, huge spread, and an additional caller made all the difference in the world.

Unfortunately the duck season closed last week or we would have added several of those. For now we just have to hope it doesn’t freeze up again before the late duck season which opens in two weeks.

Wildlife Pro Network To Host Live Podcast: Night Predator Hunting &
Calling

Nick Pallo was involved in a tragic accidental shooting while
conducting a night fox hunt on Dec 17, 2008. In short he needs
extensive surgeries and most of a chance to regain eyesight in his
left eye.

The Wildlife Pro Network is doing a benefit Auction Online. Any
vendors who want visibility for their products are encouraged to make
a donation and allow us to auction off your item, presently we have 17
items for sale that may interest anyone here. The auction will start
Sunday at 12 Pm and run through Jan 11, 2009. You can view what we
already have on hand now at the auction site at
http://www.wildlifepro.net/group/wpnauctiontobenefitnickpallo

On Sunday, January 4th, at 8pm EST, The Wildlife Pro Network will
again host its Live PodCast called Night Predator Hunting & Calling.

The PodCast can be heard at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/16456/ and you

can join in by calling 724-444-7444 and entering the pin “1 #”.

Nick Pallo, will have a chance to explain his story in his own words
and talk about how the accident affected him, surgeries he expects to
have in the next few months, and get an update on the efforts made and
amounts raised to date.Nick will also take part in the main show.

Brent Saxton of Kees Productions and Ron Jones of Redneck Pride, Calls
& Scents. are two well spoken speakers in the trapping & game calling
industry and always put on a well informative show. They will join in
on Nick on Night Hunting safety and cover all topics related to Hunter
Safety,the proper use of calling techniques and the use of scents.The
show will last from 8 PM-10:00 PM and is definitely a show not want to
be missed. Sponsors: Kees Productions , Rednecks Pride Call and
Scents, & Skinny Moose Media.

[So far I have raised $803.33 for Nick pallo and have a goal of $5000
by 12 PM, Jan 11, 2009]

Robb Russell
www.wildlifepro.net

This is an interesting piece on a park just a few miles from my house. An adjacent landowner is organizing a trial bowhunt for this weekend. Hopefully he will show that controlled bowhunting is a great solution to the population control as well as providing a source of food and recreation. I’ll keep you updated on the results.

In the last few days the weather has warmed up dramatically. It hit 65 degrees Friday and melted most of the ice around this part of the Midwest. As a result the inaccessible geese on the rivers and power plants have dispersed back out into the marshes. We were able to find a few this morning.

This hunt involves an incredible amount of work. The boat was full of 8 bags of decoys, 4 guns, 3 bags, a heater, my dog, and the three of us. We had to contend with a thin layer of ice and a very light wind. Setting up is about a 1 hour proposition plus it’s an hour from my house so it was just after 4:00 when my alarm went off this morning.

All that work was worth it to have a chance at geese that are unpressured. Each one we killed had his feet down over the decoys when we stood up. We also worked several after we got a limit and were trying to kill some more ducks. It was one of the most picturesque goose hunts for me in the last few years.

Friend and blogging inspiration Fountain Shots has a nice piece on the BCS up. Take a gander, and let me know if you can leave comments because I could not

Today’s examination is about what prompted K-State to name their stadium “Bill Snyder Family Stadium.”

Frankly, I thought it was weird before they re-hired him. Now it’s beyond bizarre. Can you name another coach who goes to work in a building named after him? So how’d KSU come to this arrangement? Insecurity? A pathological desire to have a “history”? Epic levels of hero worship fueled by a lack of real world knowledge? A weak AD? Lets take a look:

Could it be that Mr. Snyder strung together an incredible streak of Big 12 championships? Well let’s put it this way: Bill Self has won 3 times as many titles in the last 3 years as Bill Snyder won during his entire career. Colorado, Nebraska, and Texas A&M have each fired a coach with the same number of titles.

Perhaps Mr. Snyder stacked up BCS Bowl game wins in such a historic way that KSU felt they had to immortalize him in some fashion? Nope. 0-1 in his only trip to a BCS game, which was notable only because the star quarterback raped someone before the game. Icons such as Dennis Erickson, Jeff Wiessinger, Chris Pertersen, and Lawrence’s own BF Mangino have all won more BCS games. Nebraska won more under Frank Solich and they fired him. None have stadiums named after them to my knowledge.

National championships? Try not to laugh. A perfect season? Nope. Charming personality? Bob Knight is more cuddly. Incredible graduation rate? Something like half his players can read at a third grade level.

In 17 years at K-State Bill Snyder won less conference titles than the law of averages would predict.

Wow.

So what’s the deal then? Well, it’s really quite simple. K-State sucks. K-State has sucked for decades. It’s a land grant school with 60% dudes and an incoming average ACT that unbelievably is nearly 2 points lower than its, “We take anyone” in-state rival. Each year, there are about the same number of attractive women at K-State (20), as American Indians and non-athlete blacks — combined. “Diversity” at K-State is considered to be the guys who plant cotton or sunflowers. With crack academic courses such as goat breeding and field cultivating you can assume that nothing but the best and brightest Western Kansas farm boys will spend four to seven years drinking beer and delaying an inevitable return to the combine.

So who can blame them if they want to memorialize their pseudo-success, they’ve got nothing else in their history that doesn’t completely suck.

I do hope that we’ve conclusively destroyed the moronic, nearly incomprehensible myth that K-State has some level of football tradition that can be compared with KU basketball.

Well the tremendous bull killed by Denny Austad in Utah has been officially scored by Boone and Crockett. After the 60 day drying period the bull grossed 501-0/8 and had a net non-typical score of 480-1/8 B&C. Obviously that annihilates the previous world record non-typical of 465-2/8 from the bull that was found dead in British Columbia in 1994.

Check out the Boone and Crockett website for more details.

So you’re not down with the whole penned sheep killing thing we talked about yesterday? What are your other choices? Well, if you have regular-American type money you’re stuck with long odds in the general draws of the various states. That’s not good news. Sometimes the odds are 1 in 100, sometimes they’re 1 in 3000. Most of the time you’ll be lucky to draw before you die, even if you’re young.

So what’s the good news? New Mexico changed their rules this year to require that applicants put up the entire amount of the tag to apply. For non-residents that’s a bit more than $3100.00 when historically you could apply for almost nothing. This change should dramatically reduce the number of applicants and improve the draw odds. If you don’t draw you get the tag money back anyway so it doesn’t really cost you much.

Here’s the New Mexico website for more info.