Ken Scown, 36, and friend Jeff Herbert, both from Nelson, B.C., were spending their third night camping in a tent as part of an 11-day hunting trip near Canal Flats in the East Kootenays region of B. C. when a female grizzly bear attacked them Wednesday night.

The rest here.

Honestly, please explain a factual scenario where this is possible?

Aaron J. Long, 20, of Fairfield, Ill. was killed last Thursday night when his 16-year-old friend and hunting partner mistook Long for a wild turkey and shot him in the back with an arrow.

Wayne County Sheriff Jim Hinkle said Long had been hunting near the Sam Dale Lake State Park with several friends Thursday evening. Long was pronounced dead at 7 p.m. when officers arrived on scene.

“Mr. Long was sitting on a small ridge when his 16-year-old friend walked up on him and mistook him for a wild turkey,” Hinkle said. “He was struck in the upper back and died at the scene.”

The accident is being investigated by the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Wayne County Coroner Jimmy Taylor.

From here.

Exactly what sequence of events could lead you to confuse a human adult male with a wild turkey at archery range? Horrible, for everyone involved, but such an incredible waste.

I’m aware that there is now a competition for everything. I’ve been to the World Championships of Duck Calling. I have a friend who competes exclusively in mounted practical field trials for pointers. Obviously if two guys get together with the same hobby someone is going to need to decide who is best. Even saying all of that, I was still surprised when I discovered that there was a coon hunting championship. My first thought was, “They have vehicles that can drive on the interstate?” followed closely by, “Could the World Championships of bad Orthodontia be held at the same time?”

Anyway, apparently Kentucky is being unseated as the long time location because an ice storm has left too many limbs on the ground. I can only assume the contestants are unlikely to run too many marathons in their free time.

According to The Professional Kennel Club Kentucky will lose approximately $3.5 million from the 7000 or so expected visitors. For those mathematically challenged, that’s an average economic impact of $500.00 per visitor or 6 months pay.

We can only hope that Kentucky is able to put this behind them. Maybe Ashley Judd could help?

I hit the Missouri urban season yesterday morning with the intention of killing a few does and evaluating my new 6.5 swede. Mission accomplished. I saw a pile of deer but I limited my shots after the first two because I knew I had to drag each deer a long ways by myself. I was pleasantly surprised with the rifle. Two simple one-shot kills, one at 80 yards and one at 120. Nothing especially exciting, but both deer fell within spitting distance of where they were hit and had good exit holes. The only negative is that I decided the black Ramline needs to go. Maybe a brown laminate?

I half-ass hunted last Friday afternoon. I had intended to spend the afternoon on stand before I let my visiting brother’s idiotic 4 pound guinea pig dog escape and get lost. A massive doghunt was ultimately successful before it became a tasty coyote hors d’oeuvre but I was left with 30 minutes to hunt and I stunk like a guy who’d been chasing a ridiculous squirrel sized dog in 800 gram thinsulate rubber boots.

So I’m not counting that effort. That means my first real hunt will start tomorrow as I head south to meet friend and non-resident CA-Chucky. He wanted to get an early start filling his first Kansas whitetail tag and his job keeps him busy in November so we’re going to get after it for the next few days. On Friday evening I’ll head to Southern Missouri to take part in the urban season there. I’m planning to make a dent in the doe population there with my new 6.5 swede but it’s going to take a regional record to get me to burn my Missouri buck tag this early. Regular readers will remember that I always open the Missouri rifle season on this small farm where my ancestors homesteaded generations ago. The farm has a special place in my heart but crappy trophy potential. I’m hoping a more aggressive doe harvest can help.

I’ll try to post updates as we fill the meat pole up but reception will be spotty until Saturday. Then comes the Kansas urban season, then my trip to South Dakota, then another pair of out of state visitors, then the duck opener in Kansas and Missouri… and so it begins…

Pat over at Bowsite has done another interview with Tred Barta now 4 months after he first lost feeling in his legs. Take a look and listen here. Like before, it is candid and emotional.

The big bulls are starting to roll in. This mega bull came from private ground in Western New Mexico. It was also taken on video so keep an eye on the Outdoor Channel in the coming months.

Wayne Carlton, host of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s “Elk Country Journal” TV show, has hunted and guided for elk for more than 32 years. He recently took a bull elk that unofficially scored 410 points on Boone and Crockett. This bull was the biggest he’d ever taken with his bow and the biggest bull elk ever filmed by Hunter’s Specialties “Primetime” video crew.

Read the whole story here.

Here’s the info from Whitetail Journal.

I thought it was interesting that the word, “poaching” does not appear in the story. It makes sense if you think about it. It’s not poaching to kill a neighbor’s cow. Just because this happened to be a whitetail doesn’t make it a wild animal. In fact the story says as much:

“He basically went in there and killed a pet.” Peabody was a tame deer, and Knight said it may have played a part in the animal’s death by approaching Jernigan.

But not to worry, you can still buy plenty of tame deer. After seeing this article this afternoon I spent a few minutes looking for big high fence deer you can kill. It seems like to me $86,000 isn’t even that good of a deal. Most of the time you don’t even need to go through the farce of buying a hunting license. Makes sense, since you’re not hunting.

For example, take a look at the website here. Now I don’t know the specifics of Ruttnut Hunt’s personally but I found this revealing. From their page:

All of our hunts are totally confidential…. When you are hunting with Ruttnut Guide Service our hunts are kept 100% confidential. Guaranteed.

Why are they offering the same guarantees as high priced hookers? I’ll give you a hint… Sunlight is the best disinfectant… I can see the hypothetical conversation now:

Guy Shooting Tame Deer: Why isn’t he afraid of me?
“Guide”: It’s because you’re such a stealthy and skillful hunter! Now shoot already, I’ve got $25,000 to spend.
GSTD: But we’re just standing here 50 yards away and he’s looking at us like he expects to be fed.
“Guide”: It’s that apple cover scent I sprayed on. Quick, shoot him before he gets away!
GSTD: Where would he go?
“Guide”: Look, we’ve got 200 Million acres of prime habitat he could escape into. Shoot him NOW!
GSTD: Then how could you sell me a 1 day guaranteed hunt for this exact deer?
“Guide”: If you don’t shoot now I’ll sell this deer to another GSTD!
GSTD: You promise I can make up a story so I can tell everyone about what an experience this half day hunt was?
“Guide”: You read about our confidential guarantee didn’t you?
GSTD: BOOM!

So after work I ran a ways west of town to look at the dove field I’ll be shooting tomorrow morning. I saw more than a few doves. Check back tomorrow for a report.

I was cruising through Peterson’s Bowhunting today when I ran into an article on page 28 regarding the influence moon phase has on whitetail movement. I really had no idea this was such a hot topic until I started surfing a bit in preparation for this post…

I’ve always assumed moon phase had absolutely nothing to do with deer movement for the same reason some people do. Namely, when I was learning to deer hunt my grandfather said it didn’t matter. I suspect if you take 100 average believers you’d discover than 99 of them had a father or grandfather tell them it was an important factor. Once that idea is entrenched it’s simply a matter of selective memory and a failure by the average hunter to collect a scientifically valuable set of data. I’ve never kept data of any type but I’ve also never noticed any correlation.

Anyway, a handful of researchers published a study called, “Measuring Fine-scale White-tailed Deer Movements and Environmental Influences Using GPS Collars”. In it they studied different variables in connection with deer movement. To quote them, “Moon phase had no effect on daily, nocturnal and diurnal deer movements.”

Now do you think this will dissuade believers? I somehow doubt it. For whatever reason traditional hand-me-down knowledge is very slow to change in the hunting world, particularly the deer hunting world.