Last night my wife and I attended our 20th High School Class Reunion! It seems like yesterday I was graduating and getting ready to attend East Carolina University! Now I have a beautiful wife and two awesome kids! 

It’s just making me feel a little old today!

Class of 1988

The wife looking good as always with yours truely!!!

Back in 2004 I went on a Mule deer hunt with Bill. For those of you that don’t have the background informations on Bill’s hunting style, please read Shoot the Deer Bill!

We were hunting outside of Sundance, Wyoming!  Bill had a Mule Deer tag and an Antelope tag in his pocket. With a little coaching by your’s truely Bill, with a little belly-aching, went ahead and shot his antelope. That left him 5 days to chase a quality Mule Deer.

Once again on the next to the last day of the hunt I find myself having to beg Bill to shoot another trophy.

This hunt was fun and in beautiful country. Yes, we had a 2 1/2 hour drive from camp to get to our hunting grounds, but they were full of game and the landscape was gorgeous!! We had been glassing some hills and we spotted a mule deer laying in the shade. The guide said he was one of the bigger mule deer he had seen on the lease and we were running out of time and if Bill wanted to harvest a deer we should put on a stalk for this deer.

Bill took a long look at the deer and said he didn’t think the deer was quite big enough!!!! I reminded Bill that the guide said that the guide said the deer was one of the bigger ones left on the lease. Once again he started whining about he didn’t know if he wanted to shoot the deer or not!

Finally after several minutes of arguing, Bill finally agreed to shoot the deer. We made the 1 1/2 hour walk to the back side of the hill he was sitting on and set up within 100 yards of where we thought he would come down the hill.

We were there about 20 minutes when I heard the guide say, “there he is!”

I got a few seconds of pre-roll and told Bill, “shoot the deer!”

I was a little nervous that Bill would not shoot, but as soon as I gave the command he shot without hesitation!!!!

Below is the deer Bill did not want to shoot until we talked him into it! 

Back in 2002 I made my first trip to Mexico. I would be hunting with one of the owners of an Outfitting service called Whitetail Adventures. His name was Bill and I had been on several hunting trips with him.

A little background Information to help this story:

Two weeks earlier we had been hunting in Saskatchewan for whitetail. We were hunting on an Indian Reservation so Bill had several tags he could use on this trip. The weather was very warm for October in Canada, it was in the mid 40s for highs. You just don’t get much deer movement when it is that warm. The next to the last afternoon we spotted an HUGE black bear in a cut oat field. I talked Bill into checking the bear out since we had a bear tag. The wind was perfect and we stalked to within 75 yards of the bear. 

Living in Eastern North Carolina I get to see plenty of world class Black Bears and this one was right up there with the ones we had back home so I tell Bill to get his rifle ready. I wanted to get some good, steady footage of the bear and then I wanted to get Bill to harvest the bear. Well, one problem, Bill didn’t want to harvest the bear. After a long drawn out conversation I could not get him to harvest the bear.

Long story short, when I got back to the lodge I showed the other owners of the outfitting business the footage of the bear Bill would not shoot and they were a little upset. One even told me if it happened again for me to grab the rifle and shoot the animal!!  By the way, the bear that Bill would not shoot ended up weighing 632 pounds and made Boone & Crockett. 

Back to the story in Mexico:

Like I said, it was my first trip to Mexico and it was our first afternoon to hunt. We were sitting in a couple of tower stands and had been watching several young bucks come in and out of the brush, when I looked up and all I could see were tines coming out of the brush! The deer came out at 325 yards and began to graze. 

Well as the old saying goes, you’ll know a good one when you see it!

I got Bill’s attention and he glassed the deer with his binoculars while I was getting some footage of the buck. The deer actually fed to within 80 yards of us while I was filming. Without looking at Bill, I told him “Shoot The Deer!” A few seconds went by there was no shot! Once again I said, “Shoot The Deer Bill!” Once again no shot!

I look over my shoulder to see Bill with his binoculars still in his hands! I asked, “Did you hear me Bill, SHOOT THE DEER!”  I was getting angry with him and I was raising my voice. I was scared we were going to scare the deer off, but once again Bill was not cooperating. 

He told me he wasn’t going to shoot the deer because he did not have any brow tines! Once he said that, I about blew a gasket. I told Bill that the chances of us seeing another deer that big on the trip was slim to none! Once again Bill said he won’t shooting the deer because he didn’t have any brow tines!

Finally I said, “Give me your rifle!”

Bill said, “Are you serious?”

I said, “Yes I’m serious, I will shoot that Buck in a NY second, GIVE ME THE RIFLE.”

Bill said, “Nope I’m going to shoot him.”

BANG!!!!!

Long story short, the deer scored 157″ as a 7 pointer and the next closest deer shot that year on the ranch scored 141″.  Bill told me he would have never guessed that deer would be that big! I told him he needed to take up picture taking, because he sure wasn’t a hunter!!!!

Here’s a photo of the deer Bill didn’t want to shoot!

Take a look at the Jim Shockey’s blog and see what happened to his cameraman on a recent trip to Peru! Thank goodness he is still alive, it could have turned out much worse!!!

Click on his Peru stories to see what happens!

http://www.jimshockey.com/Blog/

Since the new hunting shows started this past week I’ve been getting a few inquiries as to where they can see my work on TV. The following is a schedule of Shows to keep up with.

Bass Pro Next Generation - The Outdoor Channel - This week Ben’s Hog Hunt

                                             Sat.  1:30 p.m.    -      Sun.   1:00 p.m.

Muzzy Bad To The Bone Bowhunting TV - The Outdoor Channel - Yukon Moose (PART 1 of 2) Had loads of fun on this trip!!!                              Today 1:30 p.m.

Prohunter Journal - ESPN Outdoors        Saturday  8:00 a.m.

Whitetail Country - ESPN Outdoors         Sunday  8:00 a.m.

Tom Miranda’s Territories Wild   - ESPN Outdoors  Sunday 8:30 a.m.

Watch these shows and tell me what you think!!!!!

Your input is always welcomed!!!

Kenneth

My 5 year old son, Kolby, has been asking for a bow the past few weeks! Yesterday we went and got him a Bear Scout! When we got home we shot it for 2 hours, most of which was in the pouring rain!!!

This morning he got up early and shot it before his swimming lessons. After swimming lessons the first thing he grabbed when he walked in the door was the bow!!!

The kid loves that thing and I’m going to make sure he shoots it all he wants!

Check out his form!!!  :)

Back in 2004 I went to Alaska to film a Spot & Stalk Grizzly hunt with a bow. We stayed 3 weeks, but did not have any success. It was a fun trip, but I one of my career goals is to film a successful bear hunt with a bow!

I was pleased to find out a few weeks back that I would be going to Manitoba with Vicki Cianciarulo to film a bear hunt. This was my chance to get back in the bear woods to have another crack at the bears! 

We were hunting with Adrenaline Outfitters and they did a top notch job with the hunt. The accommodations were first class and they had excellent hunting.

We were hunting outside the Duck Mountain Provincial Park and we were putting in a lot of hours in the stand! We were trying to get to the stand between 1 and 3 and we were not coming down until 10. The bears would start showing up around 5, but if things got slow we always had the squirrels to keep us entertained. 

The neat thing for me was getting to see color-phased bears. For the first time in my life I got to see some chocolate colored bears. To me they looked like miniature Grizzly bears! The other neat thing was being able to share hunt camp with Ralph and Vicki. I have always been a fan of Archer’s Choice and it was a pleasure being in camp with them.

As for the hunt, Vicki shot a beautiful black bear. The bear came in to 16 yards and she made an excellent shot. The bear only took 7 steps after the shot!!! Needless to say I would rather fight Vicki than have her shoot at me with her bow!!! 

Here is a picture I took of Vicki with her bear shortly after the harvest!