One last time...

November 11-13, 2011


As the time for our daughter to be born grows closer, I decided to sneak in one more weekend thinning the hog population. I also had to try out my new AR-15. After two long nights and early mornings watching the feeders, I took out three hogs and one raccoon.





I also received the "Hey ol' buddy ol' pal" phone call from Aaron after he filled his buck tags for the year with a spike and a nice eight. We made short work of the skinning and quartering, and I'm looking forward to the sausage I am sure is coming.



For the next few weeks, Tara and I will be anxiously awaiting Sawyer's arrival, so my hunting will probably slow down for a few weeks until around Christmas when she is ready to go quail hunting with me. Until next time...


Happy Hunting

Death at Dusk

October 21, 2011

My hopes of sticking another pig were starting to fade fast Friday evening as the sun began to set. All that had been at the feeder was my normal doe with two fawns. Once they had eaten their fill, they walked off, and I was about to start packing up when I heard them coming in. A group of eight pigs, all sizes, came jogging into the feeder.

I don't know if was some movement they sensed from me or just the windy conditions making them skiddish, but the entire group was uneasy at the feeder. As they faded into the brush, I saw my chance. There was a narrow lane to my left that one of them stopped in. I drew back and let fly, and the squeal let me know I had made a good shot.

The light was fading fast, so I hurredly packed my gear up and climbed out of the tree. We have two feeders in our little "deer trap", and as I was walking over to where I shot the pig, I glanced over and saw a big boar at the other feeder. There wasn't much light left, but I decided to put the stalk on him. I worked into about 35 yards and put my pin in the middle of the black blur that was the boar. It sounded like a good hit, but with dark coming on and no flashlight, I decided to wait unitl the morning to look for them.

It didn't take long to find the boar in the morning. He expired about 30 yards into the brush.



Once I had found him, I went on to look for the other pig. I quickly found my bloody arrow, and after a brief search, didn't find the pig. I am happy with just knowing I knocked the population down by another two.




Happy Hunting


Bow Hunt

October 8, 2011

My sisters and friends had a baby shower for Tara in Yoakum last weekend, and as a result, I got to spend a little time in the stand. I've had my trail cam out for the past few weeks and haven't seen any deer worth shooting yet, but I did get a lot of pics of a group of pigs.




As I was walking into my blind about 5:30 Saturday morning, I was shaken out of my delirious state quickly as this whole group of pigs ran from the feeder right beside me. As you might imagine, that was fastest I have ever climbed into my tree stand. I don't really remember, but I don't think I even used the steps.

It didn't take long for a few of them to come back, and at daylight there were 3 sitting under the feeder again. There were 2 very small ones and a gilt that probably went around 100 pounds. My shot was a little high, but worked out well, as it clipped part of her spine. Fresh backstrap on the pit!!

G5 Tekan, ran 10 feet

Great self photography
I went back Saturday evening hoping the big group would come back out, but no such luck. There is a doe with 2 buck fawns that never leaves the feeder unless the pigs are there, and they were there all evening.



Just before it got too dark to film, this little guy came out. The video would have been a lot better had I hit him. Fun none the less.



Happy Hunting

2nd Annual 2B Dove Hunt

October 1, 2011

Last year, my friend Aaron and I decided to start an annual dove hunting trip for our close friends to make sure we all see each other at least once a year. The problem with last year's hunt was that we decided to have this big shindig a week before we actually did it. Needless to say, Aaron and I were the only particpants.

This year we started a couple months ahead with the planning, and we ended up with 6 guys coming out for the weekend. The hunting was a bit slow, but we had plenty of good food. We stayed in the field all day Saturday, shot a couple birds in the morning, listened to the Ags fall apart, and then took out our frustrations on a few more birds in the evening. We ended the day with 26 birds in the bag.


Friday night pregame meal - Dove-k-bobs and wrapped doves

Sunrise

Piper got to retrieve a few doves and she did great. Going to make a good birddog.

Waiting on the Mojo to start working

Lori and our take, 26 doves

Victory meal, assorted meats including a little mollejas

It was good to see everyone that got to come, and Aaron and I are already planning for next year. Hopefully there will be more birds and more people will get to come out.


Happy Hunting



Los Chanares, Argentina

September 18-24, 2011

As much as I love dove hunting in Texas, nothing compares to the experience of dove hunting in Argentina. Last year we did a hunt at Los Ombues Lodge in Argentina, and I was amazed at the number of birds. This year we went to the Los Chanares Lodge outside of Cordoba, Argentina, and their bird numbers dwarfed Los Ombues. I cannot begin to describe the number of birds they had.

We had a group of 11 guys go down this year, and we ended up shooting 53,505 birds in 3 days of hunting. I personally shot 6,648 doves with 297 boxes of shells. It was a great week of good Argentine beef and lots of shooting. Here are a few pictures and a video:


Los Chanares Lodge


Yours truly in action

Dad & I

The group

 A few shells

A lot of shells

The group in front of the Pink House (Argentina's White House)

Tomb of Eva Peron

My dad shot the barrel out of his gun


Happy Hunting



Uvalde Dove Hunt

September 14, 2011

Hunting season has returned! It has been a long hot summer, but I'm glad we finally get to shoot things again. We ran out to Uvalde to shoot a few doves a couple weeks ago. We all had a great time and ended up with 9 limits of doves. Below are a few pics from the trip...



First dove of the season


First limit of the season



After some great steaks cooked by our host, we headed back home. Over the weekend I will start posting on our Argentina hunting trip that we just returned from. Following that will be the 2nd Annual 2B Dove Hunt (Taking place this weekend).

Happy Hunting,

Training: Obedience

Sorry I have been MIA over the past couple of weeks. Over the weekend I was with a big group of friends and got some really great feedback on my training post I had a couple weeks ago, so I will try and keep posting. Today’s topic is obedience.

Having a well-trained, good-mannered dog can get you invited to a lot of places and on a lot of hunts, while having a renegade, nutcase dog can have the exact opposite effect. This posting will focus on manners, i.e. obedience. This would be a great topic to cover if I had a new dog to work with, and I could post videos and photos… but I don’t. If I end up getting a puppy later this year I may cover this topic in more depth.

Obedience training is often very tedious and boring. It is what a lot of trainers refer to as “yard work,” as most of this training is done in the back yard as opposed to the hunting field. Training a dog is a lot like teaching a young boy: very short attention spans and you will have to repeat every item a thousand times. The trick is getting the dog (or boy, if you are using this post to help you train your kids, Tammy) to understand exactly what you expect when you give a command.

Two birds with one stone, working with the dogs and one of the twins.
So, if I say, “Lori, Sit,” she must understand that she must sit instantly or there are consequences. Once she understands the command, there can be punishment for noncompliance. The problem a lot of the time is the trainer punishes the dog before the dog understands the command. The trick to getting the dog understanding what you want is repetition. I don’t mean ten times, I mean thousands of times. When the dog does the correct thing, praise the dog with a few pets and kind words.

Remember the dog’s short attention span. It is hard to get a dog to focus on you for hours on end. It is better to work in five to ten minute bursts. I also like to incorporate the training into everything I do with a dog. For example, if I am working on “Sit” with a dog, give the command before the dog can eat, give the command before you allow the dog to go through a door/gate, give the command before you let the dog do anything. The dog will quickly learn that it will not be able to proceed with its life without following your instructions. And again, when the dog completes the task, praise with a few pets and kind words.

When giving a command, I start off with the dogs name as a cue that something is about to happen. So if I am telling Lori to come to me, the command would go, "Lori, Here." The same thing with heeling, "Lori, Heel." As we discussed in the last post, you give the command once, and be in a position where you can enforce the command if the dog decides not to listen. I am not a big fan of giving treats for following directions. Your dog should follow your command because you are the master and you said to, not for a reward. Like my dad used to say, “Because I said so and that’s the only reason you need.”

The last point I want to touch in this post is an obedience command that has kind of evolved with a couple dogs I have worked with. With my pointers, I like to say “Easy” before telling them to “Whoa”. This is just a little warning that they need to be careful and start slowing down. The use of “Easy” for me has been great around the house. It is almost like a, “calm down or you are going to get in a lot of trouble” command. This command may take tens of thousands of repetitions to work, but it is great. If Lori is going nuts when I let her in the house or she is being crazy outside when we have company over, I just give her a stern “Easy,” and she settles down quick.

Wyatt being "Easy" waiting to hunt.

That is all I have for this post, I hope it will help you in training your dog... or kid. If you have any questions or would like me to cover certain areas, shoot me an email and I will see what I can do. My email address can be found under my profile.

Happy Hunting - 2B

Wild Game Dinner 2011

This past weekend was the third annual Wild Game Dinner at my in-laws. It is an afternoon of friends and family coming together to taste what we have managed to harvest in all those weekends we sneak away from the house. Here are a few pictures from the event:



Basting the pig.


This pig turned out pretty good. We injected it with secret sauces and basted it with another secret sauce, and after about 12 hours, it was ready to eat.



Quail killed on a hunt I took my father-in-law on.

This is the backstrap from a buck my brother-in-law Michael shot in Laredo. We kept the ribs on it and made it into a "crown" for slow roasting over low heat for about 6 hours.

Another "crown" from a doe.

This was a new trial food for this year. The meat on the left is a venison backstrap cooked Hawaiian Style and the meat on the right is a venison backstrap cooked with a Mexican twist.

This is a fun way to wrap up the hunting seasons. We had quite a few foods I didn't get pictures of. There was fried catfish, backstrap, dove, pheasant and chukar, a couple different tenderloin recipes and a BBQ Chicken for my picky pregnant wife.

Hope ya'll have a great summer. If you are looking for a great fishing trip or a hog hunt this summer, check out my friend Daniel's website. He's really been on the fish lately, and he has access to a lot of farm land that is being torn up by hogs.

Happy Hunting - 2B