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!

Keep the fort down while I’m gone!!! I’ll be up in Manitoba for 9 days of bear hunting. We’re going after them with the bow so hopefully I’ll have some good stories and photos!

Take Care!

Had to go down to Georgia and T-bone’s brand new Casa and do some behind the scenes filming. Man what an awesome guy. I enjoy getting to know these guys personally. T-bone just got finished building a beautiful house for his beautiful family. My friend Chris Douglas had to do the shoot with me and we decided to drive instead of flying. It was a fun trip and we even went over to Waddell’s Casa and hung out for a couple of hours!

Recently I was in Illinois doing a shoot and I had the best help a guy could get.

Meet Dani! She’s 6 years old and loves the outdoors. Her Dad, Joe, works for Archer’s Choice Media and I was in town getting some behind the scenes footage. After school she came and helped me tote my gear around while I was filming. Thanks for the help Dani!!!! I don’t think I could have gotten all my work done without you!

By the way, Dani loves to hunt. She took her first hog down in Florida last summer with a crossbow and will headed back next month to try it again. Good luck this year with the hogs!

Well after the close call earlier that morning in Kansas we decided to go get some lunch and come back to the same ground blind we had set up on public land. We got to the stand about 2:30 and got our camera gear set up. With all the turkeys we had heard that morning, we were hoping for a quick afternoon hunt.  Since it had quit raining, Allen decided to put out a hen decoy.We sat for about an hour and waited. Allen got up to stretch his legs. When he leaned down to look out the blind he froze!!  He told us to get ready because there were turkeys less than 30 yards from the blind. Once again we turned the cameras on and sprang into action while Allen eased back down and grabbed his bow!One of the big gobblers saw the decoy and came in for a closer look. It came within 13 yards of the blind and Allen once again drew his bow and let his arrow fly!  He hit his target and he had his second Kansas gobbler on the ground within 24 hours.    Not bad to be hunting with a bow!!!!   

Rebecca, from Bass Pro’s Next Generation, and I went to Winchester, Virginia last Saturday morning for a turkey hunt. Our host was Mr. Jim Clay, the founder of Perfection Turkey Calls.  Rebecca and I went hunting with Mr. Clay last year, but we didn’t have any luck. We saw some birds,  but we just couldn’t get them close enough for a shot.This year Jim wanted to take Rebecca to his “Honey Hole”! He set up a ground blind 3 weeks prior to our arrival and had been keeping an eye on their movement. He had been seeing and hearing plenty of Gobblers and had high hopes of Rebecca being able to get her first turkey.We met him before light last Saturday and headed to the blind. He said he had seen 4 different gobblers around the blind the afternoon before.  We snuck up the mountain in the dark and settled into our blind. Jim put some decoys out and Rebecca and I got settled into the blind. Once Jim finished setting up the decoys he joined us in the blind. We started hearing some gobbles at 5:50. In all we counted 7 different birds that we heard. As the sun started to rise we could see the birds flying off the roost down below us. We had a gobbler close in on the blind, but we never could see him because of the thick brush.We had 3 hens come into the blind, but we never  could get a gobbler to come check out the decoys. Due to Virginia law we had to quit hunting at 12:00. We are planning to get her back in the woods and try to get her a bird this spring! Rebecca and I have had some terrible luck the past 3 years. Hopefully we can get rid of our curse and have some luck in the field thisspring!   This picture below is about the only luck Rebecca and I have had together!  This fish was caught in the Albemarle Sound in Eastern North Carolina.  

Bass Pro Shops has hit the air waves this year with a new format for their hunting show on the Versus Network.  They have gone to 100% Real Hunting!!!! What you see is what you get. There will be no reinactments!!!! You will have one camera focused on the hunter and one camera focused on the animal to give you a real time encounter!!!! 

I was fortunate enough to be in on the ground floor of this concept! Personally I like running the camera that follows the animal. That way I know what’s going on and I get to see all the action. The person that runs the camera that films the hunter is basically in the “dark”. Yes he can see the hunter, but he has no idea how close the animal is and he doesn’t get to see all the action!

Now we are adding another factor into hunting. Yes a hunter and a camera man have to be good to harvest a wild animal, but now we are throwing a third person and sometimes a fourth person in the mix if there is a guide with us. But it’s all in the name of bringing you guys a quality TV show that you will enjoy!!! Check out the show and let me know how you guys like it!!!!

Here’s a link to watch the commercial for the new format!!!

http://www.versus.com/nw/article/mdview/?tf=TonightOnVersus_show.tpl&Limit=1&mt=3&f1=UserDef3&UserDef=true&d1=REAL%20HUNTING

Well my streak has come to an end in Saskatchewan. I’ve been having an awesome year and knew I would come back empty handed sooner or later. In all it was a long, very cold week. We were hunting near Pierceland, Saskatchewan and we saw plenty of deer. The problem was that they had a large winter kill last year and the deer we were seeing were 2 & 3 year old deer. My hunter was looking for a mature buck.

We had 2 mature bucks show up this week. One came up beside our blind and stopped behind some brush not giving us a shot and the other was a giant 8 pointer that had half of his right main beam broke off.

The best part about the trip is that for the first time in about 3 years I got to share hunt camp with my best friend and fellow videographer Chris Douglas. We put in some long, cold hours but we managed to get in a movie every night trying to wind down. Needless to say we only got about 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep a night! By the way, Congrats Chris and getting that fine harvest on film the last day of the hunt!!!!! Boy did we work hard on this hunt!

The worst part of the trip was an hour drive by 4-wheeler (Quad in Canada) to the stand every morning. The warmest morning it was -4 F and the coldest morning was -27 F. Boy do those people have long, cold winters up there. The funny thing is that when I got back to Raleigh Saturday it was 69 degrees. I went through a 96 degree temperature change within 12 hours. Now that’s crazy!

The following are a few photos from the trip:

The Camper Chris & I stayed in

The area I was hunting

Chris & I the last night of the hunt, Can you see the joy in our face!!!!!!!!

Me outside of our ground blind we hunted, Check out the suit and moon boots!

All of the hunters in camp shot except us. Here are a couple of bucks from the hunt!

Hunting season is a very busy time of year for me. Out of the past 7 Thanksgivings I have been home for 2! I have spent the other 5 in Canada sitting in a box blind eating frozen Roast Beef Sandwiches.

This year once again I was on the road, but this time was different. I got to stay in the States. While on the hunt in Wisconsin we were invited to eat Thanksgiving lunch with a local family and then we watched the Packers play the Lions.

I was not home with my family, but atleast I got the Thanksgiving feast and got to watch some football!

I think I will schedule Thanksgiving week off next fall so I can spend it with my family!

Well sorry this took so long, but here it goes!

 We go back to hunt where we hunted the first afternoon. We had seen plenty of deer and a very nice shooter, but that buck got into the cornfield before I could get the camera on him and Allen did not get a shot. We arrived at 1:00 p.m.

Instead of sitting in the shooting house like we did the evening before, we sat on the ground against some trees on top of the hill so we could have a good field of vision of the valley below.

We had not been there 10 minutes before a young 4 pointer came bouncing down the hill not 30 yards from us. Once he got to the bottom of the hill it started to rain. I quickly got out my rain gear and covered up my camera to try and keep it from getting “vapor locked”!

We sat there another 10 minutes in the rain and then it changed over to large fluffy white snow flakes. It was getting colder by the minute, but I was warm and dry since I had my Gortex bibs and jacket on.

The snow got harder and harder and it was getting hard to see the valley below. Allen tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out some deer coming out to our left. I get the camera on them as they are coming out of the woods. I film them (15 deer) feeding towards the cornfield when I hear Allen say, “There’s a shooter!”  I tell him I don’t see the buck. I listen through my headphones as he directs me to the center of the group. Then I say, “I’m on him, the wide 8-pointer with his head up right?” Allen confirms and then asks am I ready - We had already talked about if we saw a shooter we were going to try not to let it get to the standing corn.  Once I told him, “I’m on him,” he pulled the trigger on his .270 wsm and the deer scattered.

“Did I hit him, I couldn’t tell with the snow and the deer going everywhere if I got him or not,” Allen said. I told him he had made a good hit and that we needed to hurry down there and start tracking because we were loosing light and the snow was starting to accumulate.

We made the slippery walk down the hill (I only fell once) to where the deer was standing. At first glance it was obvious that Allen made a perfect shot, but we were getting worried because as we had feared the snow was washing away the blood trail and the deer ran into a very thick valley.

After a 15 minute tracking job we found his deer! It was a 19.5″ wide heavy beamed 8-pointer!