Well it is finally October and that means that it is bow season. I honestly truly love bow hunting and after all the practicing, preparation and anticipation it seems nice to finally be able to get out in the woods hunting. Here in Michigan the opening day of bow season is October 1^st which fell on a Friday this year but unfortunately I wasn’t able to hunt on the opening day nor the opening weekend. That was just as well since it was raining pretty much all weekend. So I made plans to hunt the next weekend. My wife had to work on Saturday so the plan was to head out after she got home at 3:30. Now I am fortunate enough to have two different places to hunt. One is about an hour away from house and has some really nice deer on it. The other place is about 15 to 20 minutes from my house. So I decided to hunt at the property that was closest to my house since I wouldn’t have much time if I went to the other place. I have never hunting this property so I really don’t know what deer are on the property although I did scout it out last April so I do know that there are deer on it. Saturday morning I grabbed my PSE Vendetta XS and shot a few broadheads just to make sure that everything was good to go and as I expected I was hitting right where I wanted them to and then loaded my gear in the truck so that I would be ready when my wife got home. When she got home I jumped in my truck and headed out. I got to the property a little after 4, told the land owner that I was there, got dressed to go, painted my face up with Dead Down Wind facepaint and sprayed down with Dead Down Wind field spray. It was a warm day so I just wore my light weight Mossy Oak Treestand camo and put on my LaCrosse Alphaburly rubber boats. By the time I got out there I was sweating. Then by the time I had my Tree Saddle setup I was really sweating so I sprayed down again with field spray and climbed up in my tree.

Man it was nice to finally be out hunting. I don’t know what it is about hunting but I can really relax when I am in the woods. It was a beautiful day to be out. Other than being a little warm it was just about a perfect day. I settled in and started scanning the woods and getting a feel for the area. As I always do when I am out hunting I start playing scenarios in my head about which way the deer might come and how to react. Then all of a sudden I realized something. My mind started shifting away for getting a deer and to just sitting back and enjoy natures beauty. All of a sudden it didn’t matter if I got a deer anymore because I was just loving being out in the woods watching the squirrels, birds and other animals play in their natural habitat. As my hunt progressed I didn’t see any deer although I did see plenty of squirrels but that didn’t matter because I was just happy to be able to once again experience Gods great work. As I walked back to my truck after the hunt I was thankful for the opportunity that I had experience another great hunt. I’m not exactly sure when I will be getting out next but hopefully it won’t be too long. So until my next blog good luck and happy hunting to everyone.

Ups and downs! It seems like there is a lot of them in life. Well today was another set of ups and downs for me. It all started last fall when my oldest son Paul passed hunter safety and got his certificate. Now there was nothing holding him back from going on his first real turkey hunt. He had been turkey hunting with me before, as a matter of fact he was there with me when I got my first turkey, but hasn’t been able to carry a gun and do the shooting himself. Now he could.

So we made our plans to go turkey hunting today, Saturday May 8th. My daughter had a soccer game at 9:00 and my wife said that she would take her to the game so that Paul and I could hunting, of which I want to thank her. Our schedule was going to be tight because Paul had a soccer game at 12:00 and our hunting spot was 45 minutes away but we would make it work. Last Saturday I took Paul to the gun range so that he could get used to shooting my Remington 870 Wingmaster 20 gauge. He took to it like a duck to water. I did have to chuckle a little because the next day he told me his shoulder was sore. I told him it happens to all of us. Next over the course of the week I got everything packed and ready and we counted the days until it was time to go. Come Friday I was starting to get a little worried because the weather didn’t appear to be cooperating. It was suppose to rain, be very windy and cold. The cold we could deal with but the rain and wind could pose a problem. I wanted to tape Paul’s hunt for the Up North Journal but if it was raining that might pose a problem since I didn’t want to get the camera wet and ruin it. We were planning on hunting out of a popup blind but where we hunting the land is low and wet. I would have a hard time staking the blind down and having it hold if the wind was really strong. Anyways everything was all laid out in the garage ready to go into the truck and our clothes were laid out so that we could quickly and quietly get dressed without waking the rest of the house. So the alarm was set for 4:00 am and we both went to bed early. I honestly didn’t sleep very well at all. I don’t know if it was the excitement of taking Paul on his first hunt or the fact that I was worried about the weather.

Anyways the alarm went off at 4:00 am and I got up. I could hear the wind just a whipping outside, actually I had been laying there for hours listening to it so it wasn’t a surprise. Next I grabbed my phone and check the weather report on it. There was a wind advisory with sustained winds of 30 mph and gusts over 40 mph. It cautioned about falling limbs from trees, which could be a problem where we were hunting. I then checked the radar and there was some rain moving in but not a whole lot. So I sat there thinking what to do. Well I had two goals in mind that I wanted to accomplish on this hunt. One was to take Paul on his first hunt. The other was to tape the hunt for the Up North Journal’s vidcast Beyond The Wild. Well we could go hunting, that was true, but how much fun would it be for Paul. If it was just me hunting and no taping was involved I would have went whatever the weather did, but it wasn’t. I knew that Paul would get cold and most likely wet and that is not fun. Then there was the taping aspect. If was raining then I would not be taping since I don’t want to destroy my camera. Next was the wind. First off we would have problem with the popup blind staying put and there was a lot of dead limbs up in the trees where we hunt that could fall down on us. Well as much as I wanted to hunt and had been looking forward to it my gut was telling me that we would be better off to go another day. So that is what I decided to do. I never woke Paul and crawled back in bed. Then at about 6:30 Paul came busting into our room saying “Dad turkey hunting!” I told him to keep it down so he didn’t wake everyone and that because of the weather we wouldn’t be going hunting so just go back to bed. He said okay and went back to bed. Later in the day he asked if we would be going next weekend and I said if at all possible you bet. I could tell that he was bummed and so was I but that is the way it goes. Since we can’t go on Sunday the plan is to go next Saturday. I just hope that Mother Nature got the memo that I sent her and gives us good weather. I will let you know how it goes and hopefully I will also have some pictures to share with you..

It seems like good customer service is harder and harder to find these day and when I do find a company that has good customer service I will be a loyal customer to that company. Well I have found a company that has outstanding customer service. That company is Ripcord who makes the Ripcord drop way arrow rest. I had been shooting a Whisker Biscuit arrow rest for years but really wanted to give a drop away rest a try. Well as luck would have I knew somebody that had a Ripcord drop away rest that they wanted to sell. So we struck a deal and I bought it. For those of you that don’t know the Ripcord is a drop away rest that is also a full containment rest. The rest has a bar that bolts to the top of it to help contain the arrow. The person that I bought this rest from didn’t have that bar on it and at the time didn’t know where it was. So I emailed Rip Cord and told them that I have bought a Rip Cord rest from a buddy but he didn’t know where the containment bar was and wanted to know if I could purchase one from them. Well I got an email back from Rip Cord and they said that they would send me one for free which they did. I though wow this is a pretty good company.

Then this last bow season one of the days that I went bow hunting I ended up hunting in the rain. Not only did it rain but it poured it like crazy. After I got done hunting I dried off my bow and put it in my bow case for the drive home. Once I got home I took my bow out of the case and hung it up to dry. A couple of days later I went to shoot my bow and to my surprise all of the bolts on my Rip Cord rest had rusted. Now this didn’t affect the function of the rest at all but it drove me crazy looking at it. I emailed Ripcord telling them exactly what had happened and asked them if it would be possible to purchase a set of bolts for the rest so that I could replace them. Well once again I was surprised by the email that I got back from Ripcord. They said that if I sent my rest back to them they would replace the bolts, give it a tune up and replace anything that needed to be replaced for free. So I sent my rest in on Saturday and then on the following Thursday I received a box from Ripcord in the mail. I knew it had to be my rest and to my surprise when I opened it up there was a brand new rest in there. I couldn’t believe it. Man now that is what I call customer service. So if you are considering getting a drop away rest I would seriously recommend giving the Ripcord rest a look. Not only do they have great customer service but they make a great product. You won’t be disappointed.

Tim
Up North Journal
http://www.upnorthjournal.com/

Well I wish I could say that it was a great deer season and I put down a nice buck but unfortunately I can’t. From the standpoint of being out in the woods enjoying nature it was a good season but from a seeing deer standpoint it was the worst one I can remember. I didn’t get out as much as I wanted to but to be honest unless I was out there every day I wouldn’t be out there as much I would like. The first two times that I went out for a bow hunt it was raining. Not just raining but absolutely pouring cats and dogs. I never even saw a deer either time. There were moments where I was really starting to wonder about my sanity sitting out there in a tree while it was down pouring not seeing anything but I toughed it out. I had taken vacation days off at work to go hunting and there was no way I was going to sit home and not hunt. Then when it wasn’t raining it was really windy and in my experience I have never had much luck with the wind blowing. So during all of bow season I only saw a couple of does way on the other side of the bean field that I was hunting. With the weather being so crummy while I was bow hunting I was looking forward to gun season because weather wise my luck had to change. My plan was to hunt from dusk until dawn on opening day, which is November 15^th here in Michigan. Weather wise it was warm on opening day, actually the warmest one I can remember in years, but my biggest problem that almost none of the corn fields had been cut around where I was hunting. There had been so much rain in October that the farmers couldn’t cut the crops so there deer had plenty of places to hide with lots of food. I sat out all day on opening and only saw 3 deer. Two of them were a long ways away and the other one was a small yearling doe that I could have shot but decided to let her walk since she was so small. I could have just thrown her over my shoulder to carry her out. I went out two more times during gun season and did even see a deer. I have to admit from a stand point of seeing deer this year was very disappointing year. Overall though it was a great deer season because I just love to be out in the woods. So now it is on to the ice fishing season and then before we know it turkey season will be here. Turkey season is going to be special for me this year but more about that in another journal entry.