Archive for the 'Hunting' Category

Hey Erik, nice high shoulder shot. Perfect! I see that you used a 6.5 PRC, hopefully the next rifle I get.

Nice buck too. although I see that place is expensive. Wish I could afford a trip there.

Wow. It looks like great training – something that would benefit any one of us. And it sure would be nice to be given a Kestrel and Eberlestock backpack to use.

When he talks about pre-loading the rifle bipod, I wonder if the instructors (and shooters) took into account POI shifting? The problem is basically that the guard is connected to the barrel at the barrel nut. The authors of this video show a very good free body diagram of the problem.

Outdoor Life.

Kuiu’s sale to a private equity group seemed like typical outdoor industry news, at least until it was revealed that one person linked to the group has a mixed track record on public-land conservation.

The sale of the popular California-based ultralight hunting brand was largely overlooked by the hunting community when it was announced on Dec. 8 in a series of press releases, including one issued by partial investor Cox Enterprises. Cox is an Atlanta-based conglomerate that includes the cable and internet provider Cox Communications.

But on Wednesday the popular social media account Rack Junkies raised concerns over the sale in a Facebook post and no small controversy ensued. Without listing names, Rack Junkies drew a connection between Cox Enterprises chair emeritus, James C. Kennedy, and his attempts to privatize stream access in Montana a decade ago (more on this in a minute).

“Now that this same billionaire conservation money [sic] owns a major hunting brand, it’s fair to ask the uncomfortable question,” wrote Rack Junkies operator Stephen Ziegler, who also owns DeLong Lures and Killshot Coffee. “Is it really a good idea for a ‘conservationist’ who uses his money to kick people off public land to own a hunting brand as big as KUIU?”

Members of the hunting community weighed in in the comments, with some requesting more details and others swearing off Kuiu forever. To be clear, Cox Outdoors does not own KUIU.

Kuiu has been “acquired by an investor group comprising conservation-driven families and businesses, including Cox Enterprises,” according to a press release. The company’s investment in Kuiu is nested under a new division of Cox Enterprises, known as Cox Outdoors, alongside Loop Tackle. Cox acquired the Scandinavian fishing company last year.

Kennedy is no longer the chairman or CEO of Cox Enterprises, and it’s unclear what his involvement with Kuiu will look like, if any. Kuiu CEO Melissa Woolf declined to name specific investors since the company is privately held.

Oh my. Another great company gets sold. To be fair, the founder and visionary passed away and now someone else runs the company.

But I’ll keep my eye on KUIU – I don’t want to see the quality of their products go down. I’ll say something about it if that happens.

We in this community still have raw memories of what Cerberus Capital did to the industry.

Outdoor Life.

For years now we’ve heard from rifle and ammo manufacturers that the 6.5 Creedmoor is their most popular cartridge. It’s an excellent round for open country, and it’s found its way into plenty of Midwestern and Eastern deer camps, too. But there’s one consideration that’s become a head scratcher. A whole bunch of deer hunters are reporting sub-par blood trails — even on well-hit deer — shot with their 6.5 Creeds.

Just ask full-time Wisconsin blood-tracker Dean Muthig. When I spoke with Muthig a few years back, he had put his Bavarian mountain scent hounds on 230 deer tracks so far that season. Many of his calls over the years have been from parents who need help recovering deer during the youth rifle season. Not because their kids are making poor shots, though. Muthig says younger hunters seem to shoot just as accurately as adults. Instead, it’s because they tend to use smaller calibers like a .243 — and the 6.5 Creedmoor. In other words, it’s not that these kids aren’t killing deer. They just can’t find them.

Consider the 9-year-old boy who shot a nice buck on a Wisconsin food plot. The 8-pointer fled into a stand of pines, which his family searched without finding a speck of blood. When Muthig arrived, his hound lead him directly to the buck. It had run 175 yards before piling up from the double-lung shot. The bullet had not exited, and there was no visible blood on the entire track.

Stop saying that a lung shot is a good shot on deer. It’s not. If you want to put the deer down in a immediate, ethical shot, aim for a high shoulder shot.

Source.

A hunter is dead after being shot in Juniata County on Tuesday morning, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The Game Commission said a hunting party of 24 people was doing a “deer drive” …

Eventually, a buck jumped up and broke back through the drivers who were about 100 to 200 yards into the drive, according to the PGC.

With the idiots in the woods, public land hunting is very unsafe, not to mention that other hunters may bust your hunt by walking underneath your stand or beside your blind.

Drives are the worst kind of unsafe hunting.

Thanks for the patience waiting for posts. I had a successful hunting trip, at least by my estimation. For what it’s worth, I am profoundly impressed with the 7mm PRC.

Parody, but still amusing.

@waynecountylyfe

Stop Texting Me Pictures of Your Deer!

♬ original sound – waynecountylyfe

Outdoor Life.

Going over the timeline in his head, Harakal figured it had only been a few hours between the time the pheasant hunter found the deer and when he walked up on it. Unsure of what to do, he called back one of his friends, who encouraged him to report it to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Harakal tried calling but didn’t get an answer as he walked back to his truck.

“I was just going home at that point. And I decided my season’s done. I’m not hunting for the rest of the year.”

Back at home, Harakal was about to hop in the shower when he got a call back from a PGC game warden. He shared the full story with the warden and agreed to meet him at the deer, and then he drove back to Shenango Lake for a fourth time.

Harakal still had the bone fragments in his pocket, and when they got to where the deer was still laying, he showed the game warden the missing puzzle piece. He said he still couldn’t believe someone had robbed him of the biggest buck he’d ever killed.

“The game warden tells me, ‘This is like one-in-a-million chances, but that is definitely your deer. And I don’t even know how to tell you this. But it’s our policy that when something like this happens, we cut the rack off.’”

The game warden then led Harakal back to his own truck, where he pulled the two antlers off his backseat and handed them over. He explained how the pheasant hunter had called the agency after finding the 8-point buck, and that he was just following standard procedure when he confiscated the antlers. Then he helped Harakal drag the buck out of the field.

Why is it your standard procedure to confiscate the antlers? Why do you believe they belong to you? How do you know “fair chase” is over at the point you ruin the game with a saw?

Source.

Hunters in Florida were killed in a freak accident after they were struck by lightning while hunting with their dogs.

Two hunters, 38 and 31, from Miami were struck dead after being hit by lightning while hunting in Floridian wetlands.

Responding law enforcement were called to Rucks Dairy Road around 1.30pm on Wednesday September 24 and began searching for the men who hadn’t returned from their hunt.

Their abandoned car was discovered parked in the area before their bodies were found along with their two hunting dogs.

While the initial investigation determined the hunters and their dogs to have died from a lightning strike, the Medical Examiner’s Office is yet to rule an official cause of death.

Sheriff Paul Blackman said in a release from the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office: ‘Our area gets more lightning than just about anywhere else in the country, especially in the summer. If you can hear thunder, that means lightning is close enough to strike, even if the sky doesn’t look too bad yet.’

‘It is essential to pay attention and plan ahead when storms approach.’

Source.

A teen who did not return after going hunting in northern Louisiana was likely killed by a lightning strike, according to investigators.

The grim discovery was made around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, near the town of Bernice, the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office reported in an Oct. 19 news release.

“Upon arrival of first responders, they were directed to a remote wooded area where 17-year-old Colton Gauge Honeycutt, of Monroe, was located inside of an elevated deer stand. Family members had become concerned when Honeycutt did not return from deer hunting earlier in the evening,” the sheriff’s office said.

“Investigators believe Honeycutt was killed by a lightning strike when thunderstorms moved through the area, just before sunset Saturday evening. Honeycutt was pronounced deceased at the scene by the Union Parish Coroner’s Office.”

The incident is the nation’s 20th lightning fatality of 2025 and the first in Louisiana, according to John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Lightning Safety Council.

“Since 2006, there have now been a total of 8 lightning fatalities linked to hunting, 5 of which have occurred in the last two months,” Jensenius said in a news release.

Great. It’s not just predatory animals, or dummies failing to tether to the tree and falling asleep, or hypothermia, or getting lost and breaking bones or dying of starvation, but now lightning. What are we supposed to do? Carry an electrical safety pad with us on hunts? I doubt that would suffice anyway.

Oh well. You drop your dime and pay your time to do what you love. The rest is up to the Almighty.

Outdoor Life.

Lone Star lawmakers recently added aoudads to the list of animals hunters can shoot from helicopters in Texas as part of a management tool to aid in the ongoing fight against the invasive sheep.

Senate Bill 1245, which passed both state legislative chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, will go into effect Sept. 1. The bill expands Texas’ aerial wildlife management permit system, which previously only listed feral hogs and coyotes, to include aoudad. Aerial culling efforts have helped Texas with its burgeoning feral swine population. A 2019 USDA study found that helicopter hog hunting, also called “porkchopping,” has successfully reduced hog numbers by at least 31 percent.

Gross. Well, whatever. That’s just my reaction. Do as you wish – I see value in hunting hogs any way you can.

As for Aoudad, I think I’d rather stalk them.