Saturday The Old Man and I hung tree stands and did various other chores to get ready for the season. I was headed home after dark when I caught a flash of whitetail-brown in the headlights off in a ditch along a fence. I turned around thinking it might be a poached or traffic injured deer. What I found was this:

A 60 pound fawn had somehow managed to get her back foot stuck in a fence. She wasn’t worn out and the leg wasn’t broken so I went back and grabbed a pair of wire cutters (and my camera). A simple snip and she was on her way, unfortunately at a speed I couldn’t get my camera to catch up with.

Honestly, it didn’t really make much sense. This deer was in an area that has too many deer, but I just couldn’t handle the idea of leaving her to suffer.

This little guy wandered into the house when I let the dogs in a while back. He tried to find refuge in my carbon express CX-300s.

Unfortunately this story is about all the average American will know about coyotes.

Simpson’s dog, Daisy a maltese-poodle mix, was taken by a coyote yesterday, reports MSNBC.com. The 29-year-old singer tweeted about the incident last night. “My heart is broken because a coyote took my precious Daisy right in front of our eyes. HORROR! We are searching. Hoping. Please help!” she wrote on her Twitter page.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this motivated people to take a closer look to predator control and wildlife management in general? We can dream…

So I’m toeing the line yesterday at the local law library when I get an email from a guy who says he likes my pictures. I thank him for the compliment and a discussion ensues. He says:

Unfortunately I’m gonna have to do my hunting vicariously through guys like you this season. I’m stuck in Iraq with my National Guard Unit. This is the 3rd Hunting Season I’ve missed due to deployments now.

As best I can tell he mostly runs pointers on pheasants. He’s from Pennsylvania but travels to South Dakota to chase wild birds each year. I was inspired by both his sacrifice for our country and the quality of some of his upland pictures so I asked if he would allow me to bring them to you. He was generous enough to say yes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Fellow Skinny Moose blogger Chesson brought back some great pictures from his trip to New Zealand. Take a look at scenery here and the hunt pictures here. Go check them out.

Just a photo I snapped on last month’s bear hunt:

I ran across this moose swimming the lake I’m currently fishing at in 2006.

I ran across these loons with their baby chick that couldn’t have been more than a few hours old:

The chick was actually hidden in the grass near where we were fishing. We could hear something chirping so we investigated and found him hidden there:

The parents were nervous so we cleared out and let the family reunite and swim off. The Wife wanted to keep him for a pet…