Successful Hunting

I got my beetles and placed my grizzly bear skull into the colony. I will post progress of how the cleaning goes. You can read this article I wrote about skull cleaning here:

http://www.huntingtipsandtricks.com/a/Cleaning_With_Beetles

I just got an email from a few hunters that were successful black bear hunting and they claimed that the Black Bear Hunting Encyclopedia Book and DVD was a major contributing factor to their success:

Hey Justin,

 

I wanted to personally say thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences on black bear hunting.  I bought your book, The Black Bear Hunting Encyclopedia, and your DVD just a couple of weeks ago prior to my black bear hunt.  I found they were excellent sources of solid information and your teaching style was wonderful.  As a whitetail deer hunter, I did not know anything about hunting black bear.  With what I learned from your book and your DVD, I was able to successfully take my 1st black bear.  I found that your book was a quick and interesting read and to the point; exactly what I needed to learn more about my upcoming my hunt.  And the DVD helped visualize it and really helped with skinning among other things.  I want to share with you an incredible hunt I had this last Saturday on an early Spring Bear hunt. 

Dr. David Richey

 

 

"I just wanted to say thanks for putting out an informative DVD…" "This is my first year hunting and I tagged my first bear yesterday. Your DVD was really helpful to find where to look for bears and what to do after the kill." -Jeff Bordignon Delta, BC, Canada

Since the recent harvest of my potential Boone and Crockett Grizzly Bear I have been debating how to clean my skull. I am hesitant to boil the skull in case I would shrink it and I dont really want to be picking off rotting flesh over the next few weeks so I am considering getting a colony of beetles to clean this skull as well as others in the future. I found this website that sells beetles and tells you how to raise them and care for them. Check it out:

http://www.bonesandbugs.com/

Next time you hunters think of buying yellow tail wine, think of this article. I usually buy Yellow Tail but not anymore.

http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/2010/02/yellow-tail-donates-to-hsus.html

Yellow Tail Wine Gives Money to HSUS
Sportsmen Urged to Voice Protest
From US Sportsmen’s Alliance

The Australian maker of Yellow Tail Wine has pledged $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation’s largest anti-hunting organization. This partnership offers further proof of HSUS’ work to spin its animal rights message in a way as to seem mainstream.

As HSUS states on its website:

“… the HSUS has paired with [yellow tail] for the "tails for tails" program. Through the end of March, you’ll see special [yellow tail] displays bearing The HSUS name and logo in stores across the country.

Through "tails for tails," [yellow tail] is donating $100,000 to support us and our programs to help animals, including our Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest.”

Alerted to this relationship, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) immediately contacted the American distributor of the wine, W.J. Deutsch and Sons Ltd., and urged them to ask Yellow Tail to sever its relationship with HSUS.

A copy of the letter the USSA sent to management can be found by clicking here. Thus far, the USSA has not heard from W.J. Deutsch regarding our request.

“This wine maker has fallen into the same trap as other companies who donate money to HSUS,” said Bud Pidgeon, president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance. “They believe they are helping animals in shelters when in fact they are funding an agenda from an animal rights group that is largely divergent from the vast majority of Americans.” Link

Yesterday morning I became aware of Yellow Tail Wines plan to donate $100,000 to HSUS. As an amateur wine enthusiast, I was very familiar with the Yellow Tail name. They are an Australian wine company that sells many different varieties of wine at a very reasonable price. The good value you get with this wine has made it quite popular in the United States and readily available almost anywhere. Unfortunately they were somehow convinced that donating money to the HSUS would be a great way to help needy dogs and cats. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m sure their heart was in the right place, but their money is headed to the wrong one.

According to the HSUS tax returns, chances are that if Yellow Tail does give them the full $100,000, only $500 would end up going to a hands-on pet shelter. Historically, only one-half of one percent of their $200,000,000 budget does.

In order to let Yellow Tail know how I felt about this, I looked up their Facebook fan page and left a comment. In addition to that, I put it out on Twitter and our Advocates for Ag Facebook fan page, and asked everyone else to do the same. And boy did they ever! In the last 24 hours, several hundred comments have been left by people from all over the country voicing their frustrations. This same scene is being played out on their Twitter page. So far, one single response has been offered by Yellow Tail, only stating that they will be announcing something soon. That’s PR speak for “Uh oh, what do we do now?”

By not doing the necessary research and having an entire industry, one of which they are part of, calling them out, Yellow Tail is now in a near no-win situation. The high paid lawyers from HSUS will no doubt put the pressure on them to fulfill their previous commitment, but if they do, it will be at the expense of thousands of upset customers. It’s not impossible for them save face though. My guess is that not many of the executives over at HSUS (where more than 40 of them make greater than $100,000) drink much Yellow Tail. I’m sure it’s beneath their standards. However, Yellow Tail has become wine that hard working Americans, many of whom are involved in agriculture, do enjoy. If they care about their customers, they will stop this from happening.

If you haven’t left your comments on Yellow Tail’s Facebook page, please do so. You can also contact them through Twitter at @YellowTail_USA . Thanks for everyone’s help. Yesterday was a great example of what can happen when Team Agriculture suits up together to make it’s voice be heard! ~Troy

I was reading a very helpful post for sheep hunters today on huntingbc.ca, check it out some great sheep hunting information:

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=50330

You are welcome to check out this article on sheep hunting as well:

http://www.huntingtipsandtricks.com/a/Mountain_Sheep_Hunting_

The story of a Bella Coola, British Columbia, Boone and Crockett? Grizzly Bear.
http://www.huntingtipsandtricks.com/a/Grizzly_Bear_Hunt

Last weekend at the cabin I plugged in one of Jim Shockey’s bear hunting DVD’s filmed in his Vancouver Island territory-

Pacific Rim Guide Outfitters.  The DVD featured good sized bruins being harvested on Vancouver Island (only a ferry ride away from my home) Island bears are genetically larger than mainland bears and as Jim Shockey explains in the DVD " Monster Black Bears" that Van Isle bears are called cave bears and have been isolated from the mainland bears for thousands of years. The DVD features 11 hunts and there are mostly rifle hunts but there was one bow hunt. The bears seen on this video are truley big bears but the thing that bothered me is that no specific measurements of nose to tail length or skull size. A few times Jim arbitrarily throws out a number saying this bear squares 7′2" with no measuring tape. All in all a good entertaining film but it would be more valuable in my opinion if there were even some time spent on hunting tactics, gear choices, calibers, equipment, and specific size measurements especially since the DVD boast "Monster Bears". That is why I give this film 3/5 stars. Dont get me wrong I am a Jim Shockey fan and I like his relaxed layed back approach. He talks very natural to the camera and is intertaining with a dry sense of humour. Why does’nt he wear camo? I guess he has done well hunting in tight 80’s rocker jeans so why change what works.

If you would like a bear hunting DVD that has more specific information on hunting bears, tactics, field care,  and equipment check out:

The Black Bear Hunting Encyclopedia

.

Today we went to the range to sight in our rifles with our grizzly medicine. 200 grain Barnes TSX bullets loaded with 65 grains of IMR 7828 SSC in a .300 WInchester Magnum cartridge.

At 100 yards I am 1" high and at 220 yards I am 5" low. This is not the most flat shooting load but I will be shooting at 150 yards or less. The enrgy and bone crushing penetration of the 200 grain bullet is more important than finding the flattest possible trajectories out to 600 yards.

I like to keep the targets I last shot when I go on hunts just to look at and have the confidence that I am sighted in and ready to go.

Today I was driving home from a weekend get away trip in the BC interior. As we drove through Manning Park towards Hope, B.C. we spotted this nice sized black bear so we pulled over and took some pictures.

This boar actually had a decent sized melon on him.

He looks well fed, I guess living in a park makes life a little bit easier.

I just talked to my sources out where I will be going grizzly hunting soon and appearantly the grizzly bears are coming out. One guy said the skunk cabbage is out and you can see bear scat and trails all around. Another guy I know was telling me he sent a few friends out to scout an area and a 9′ grizzly bear came out right where they were instructed to sit. It looks like the timing is correct and coming together perfectly. I hope to see that 9′ grizzly myself when I go up there. I am getting pretty excited.