Hog Hunting in Sarasota, Florida

After our charter fishing trip off the coast, it was time to do some holiday hunting in Sarasota with my good buddy Eric Johnson. He leases 350 acres just about 40 miles from my parents’ house here in Florida. It’s a very cool set up, maybe 6 miles back off a public road road where an easement through the swamp takes you back to this nasty yet beautiful gem of a piece.

The state controls a nice bit of property in these parts, helping to ensure a healthy wildlife population and land preservation for the area. We are hunting pigs and whitetail. Today, I’m just along for the ride and Eric is on the trigger. That said I’m planning to get the iPhone camera working a bit!

The weather is perfect! It’s been unseasonably warm as of late, so the cold air today will no doubt fire things up. I’m pumped for what the day may bring. The sky is almost surreal and I feel a certain awesome spiritual energy come on as I stare through the cypress trees and palms that fill this wooded area. I am in a totally present state of mind. I am out of body and my consciousness is peaking. This is the way I feel in the outdoors as the morning approaches. The sky is an orange-ish pink that belongs almost exclusively to west Florida sunrises.

At about 8:15 am we see three pigs standing at about 75 yards out. Eric looks fired up and seriously ready to rock. The biggest boar appears to be in his crosshairs now, his safety is off, and boooom! Head shot baby, he racks another shell in his .300 Winchester Model 70 Mag, boom he smokes a second boar and boom then down he drops on the spot! All perfect kill shots, freaking awesome!

Okay so here’s the deal y’all, we’ve dropped three pigs, passed on two young bucks and now have seen maybe 75 turkeys! Who says Florida isn’t a riot? The bucks were acting a bit excited, like there actually is a second rut! Just kidding, but in Michigan the second rut is a bit suspect and takes serious determination to sit through and weather. Typically I always thought of Florida as a place for my wife Nadine and young sons Hunter and River to lounge about with the rest of our family. Now I view Sarasota as a bit of a sportsman’s paradise too.

At about 9 am along comes a pretty nice 6 pointer and Eric fires and “down goes Frazier”. Five minutes pass and along comes a massive sow pig and blam! Down goes another pig! Wow, this is a killing morning in Florida y’all!

Sometimes I think positive people have a massive advantage in the woods. Guys like Eric and I, we always expect that it will happen at any moment. Often good fortune comes first to those who know how and expect to receive it. What a morning it has been and now we are about to barbeque some back straps and open a cold beer. Man I love the outdoors.

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SCI Plans Biggest Convention Yet, No Matter That Hunting Numbers Are Declining

Forty years ago, Safari Club International’s first annual hunter’s convention seemed more like a gathering between 20 hunting enthusiasts in someone’s garage. At the next convention in February 2012, SCI Chief Communications Officer (and former President) Dr. Larry Rudolph expects 15,000 to 20,000 attendees; a record high number.

“Over this forty year period we’ve grown from a very tiny, little – we’ll just call it friends getting together for the weekend – to what is now literally the most celebrated hunting show on earth,” said Dr. Rudolph.

There will be about 2,500 booths present from exhibitors like Realtree, Cabela’s, Yamaha, Remington, Winchester and just a plethora of top gun, clothing and accessories manufacturers at the convention in Arizona, February 1st to 4th, 2012.

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre will be the keynote speaker, focusing his discussion on the protection of hunter’s rights and the importance of introducing youth to hunting. Musicians Martina McBride, Trace Adkins, Brit Beat and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons will also be there.

I was intrigued to hear that SCI is expecting record attendance at the 2012 event when hunter research points to a declining hunter population. Dr. Rudolph thinks the decline is mostly due to the bad economy. “Hunting is not a cheap sport. But, SCI members are a demographic of hunters from all over the world who are passionate about SCI’s mission to conserve wildlife worldwide and protect hunter’s right.”

Part of the money raised at the hunter’s convention goes toward worldwide wildlife conservation. “They want to come there – support hunter advocacy, protect our hunting rights. And they know that hunters are protectors of our true wildlife treasures,” Dr. Rudolph said. “They know conservation begins with hunters. So they not only are supporting it as a show, as a venue, but they have a passion for that mission. And I believe that’s why our numbers are growing.”

Last year, SCI efforts helped to take the gray wolf off of the list of endangered species. Now the wolf is able to be hunted with regulation and that is a big accomplishment to Dr. Rudolph.

This year, SCI will focus its efforts on raising the lion population in southeast and south Africa. Dr. Rudolph said lion population is declining where there is no legal hunting, because that means there are also no conservation actions in place. “Lions haven’t been hunted there since 1975. Now, instead of lions being conserved for the value of their species, they are being poisoned. If they kill a cow or goat in Kenya, the local people will take that animal and they put poison in the carcass…. and they’re decimating the animal population, particularly the lion.”

Dr. Rudolph said restricted lion hunting is a big issue for SCI because with restricted hunting, the lion population could be wiped out without conservation efforts in place.

Find out more about SCI’s Annual Hunter’s Convention here and check out SCI’s website for more information about the organization.

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California DFG Offers One-day Turkey Hunting Clinic in February

The Department of Fish and Game’s (DFG) Advanced Hunter Education Program is offering a turkey hunting clinic Feb. 18 at Tejon Ranch in Kern County. Jointly sponsored by DFG, the Hunter Education Instructor Association of Southern California and Tejon

Ranch, this clinic is open to hunters of all ages and skill levels.

Experienced instructor and longtime turkey hunter Dave Holbrock will lead this exciting clinic. Topics to be covered include decoy placement, blind design, ballistics, calling, equipment, game care and cleaning, cooking tips and safety.

The clinic starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. The cost is $45 and space is limited. Youths 16 years and younger are free but must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. DFG’s Advanced Hunter Education Program will provide all necessary class equipment.

Registration forms are available online at www.dfg.ca.gov/huntered/advanced/index.aspx. After registering, participants will receive an e-mail with a map to the facility and a list of items to bring.

Tejon Ranch is located along Interstate 5, approximately 30 miles south of Bakersfield and 60 miles north of Los Angeles.

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Bear Hunting 101: The Training Season

“Daylight in the swamp!”  The world-wide morning wake-up call for hunters everywhere.  Whether it be upland birds, ducks, deer, or bear, this call jolts sleepy-headed sportsmen and women out of the sack and into a world of adventure.  But for bear hunters during the annual bear-training season, which runs from early July to about a week before the September Bear Season opener, the morning alarm has a whole new ring to it, so to speak.  On this writer’s first ever bear-training session, the morning alarm sounded at 4:00 A.M.  But it wasn’t a regular alarm clock by any means.  It was the deep, booming voices of a dozen bear hounds howling in my ear to get up and get moving.  I was lucky enough to be a guest of my son and his Newberry Unit Michigan bear hunting group, for the 2011 bear training season opener which began on the weekend of July 9^th.

I am certainly not joking about the 4:00 a.m. wake-up call from the concierge services of messieurs Plott, Blue Tick, and Walker, all pure-bred bear hounds of the finest bloodlines and training.  Their voices boomed at me to get over to the fire pit and get that first cup of coffee poured into my cup.  There would be a breakfast bar waiting in the truck—a true breakfast bar, that is, either granola or the cereal grain type.  If I wanted to be a part of this chase, then I had better be in the passenger’s seat when the truck pulled away from camp.  Being new to the sport of bear hunting, and hoping to be invited back to Bear Camp again sometime soon, you can bet your season’s bear tag I was ready to go when the truck pulled out of camp.  In fact, my son, and George, the camp’s main dog caretaker, had the dogs loaded up into four bear-dog trucks and ready for the chase—long before daylight even touched that old blueberry and tag alder swamp.  We took the legal limit of six dogs into the woods on this training morning.

Group guidelines and the day’s action plan had been all set the night before.  Hunters and their dogs all knew which way to go in search of bear tracks.  My son and I headed north at a snail’s pace as we turned out of camp and drove along the dry and sandy county road.  “You’re looking for tracks along the banks and then down into the road.  Pay attention!  And if you see anything that even remotely looks like a bear track, holler out and we’ll stop to check it out.”  Almost immediately a call came over the two-way radio.  It was George, one of our trainers, with the day’s first sign of good luck.  “Driving along east on the Blue Road here and the dogs rigged a little.  Both Old Sparky and Hopper had something to say.”  (“rigged” means the dogs caught a bear scent and barked.)  “Roger” was my son’s only reply.  Fact is, you don’t dare say too much over the airwaves so other trainer/hunters don’t move into your area.  Especially if the sign looks hot and might lead to a good chase.  This particular hunting group code names all the roads and earthly landmarks.  I was up there for three days and still have no idea where the Blue Road is located.  All I know is we were on the main road that took us to and from Bear Camp.

I was lucky enough to spot an old track, and the kid was pretty impressed with my attention to our scouting efforts.  But then just another 100 yards down the road he saw something that caused some serious interest: it was a nice track crossing from right to left.  The bear had crossed the road from my side of the truck, so  I scoured the bank and found where the animal had lumbered down.  Then it made a clean, visible track right in the middle of the road.  My son marked the tracks which headed up the bank and into the woods.  I was instructed to stay in the middle of the road and keep an eye on the bear’s line of movement.  Then he put out the call over the airwaves and said the magic words, “they look pretty good.”  Within a matter of minutes the other hunters were on us like bears after a honey.

The dogs were wild with excitement, their voices bellowing loud enough to impair my hearing and thinking.   But my job was to keep a pair of dogs quiet while the best trackers were put down on the track.  The extra dogs must be kept quiet as to not over excite the main trackers and to keep from calling these dogs back to the truck.  The next thing we knew one dog handler unleashed his dog.  It was the Plott hound, Old Sparky, and the dog took off like a rocket and just a-howling, his deep voice booming far into the dense jackpine forest.  After about another minute, the second dog was unleashed and it all became official:  the 2011 bear training season was off and running.

All trainers and bear chasers got back into the trucks and fanned out in every direction to set up a perimeter.  These dogs were being tracked by both high tech and traditional methods.  Some of these hunters used GPS tracking devices and some used the traditional tried-and-true gear:  just their own ears trained to the voices of baying hounds, good vision, past experience and common sense.  This combination of old and new techniques was a new approach for our bear-dog training group.  And the end result was destined to produce an amazing experience on this bear chase.

In hot pursuit of the dogs and bear, it seemed as though we raced up and down the county road and two tracks much too fast for personal safety.  However, the guy behind the wheel of this truck told me to “just relax”—because this would be his third year of chasing bears and he was getting to know every bump, rut, rock and curve in these roads.  Although the trip was a lightning fast and bumpy ride, I managed to stay seat-belted into my place as co-pilot.  Unfortunately, I had the dubious position of map reader.  And now the joke was on me.  It’s simply not easy to read a county road map while bouncing along a two track at over 50 miles an hour.  I was chided a number of times for giving out bad information by those who responded to my radio reports.

“Sounds like your map reader needs to go back to school there,” a voice teased over the radio.   (I am a former school teacher and took the razzing in stride.)  The next thing I knew two trucks converged on a narrow tree-and-brush lined road.  Both trucks raced about a half mile into who knows where.  (I had ditched the map into a corner on the floor.)  We came to a small clearing and our other trucks were already in position.  We were on a ridge which led down to a creek bottom.  Then two other dogs were cut loose to track the bear.

After a short wait the two younger dogs still in training were walked into chase.  Or I should say these dogs dragged their leash masters toward the baying hounds?  Now all the dogs were in pursuit of this bruin.  From the sounds of their voices I could tell the dogs probably had the bear treed.  A quick glance at the GPS unit confirmed this as the dogs with tracking collars were clustered in a group on the GPS screen.

On the way into the tree I fell far behind the group.  The cover was as thick as any I have ever tried to walk though.  During a bear chase this is not a leisurely walk in the park with your sunglasses and a bottle of ice water.  It is, in fact, more like a race to the finish with a ‘you just try to stop me’ attitude.  I fell more than once and soon looked like I was wearing the designer outfit of U.P. black spruce.  After each stumble I pulled myself up and continued on a line toward the deafening sounds of barking and howling dogs.

Finally I came upon the treed bear.  From about 50 yards back I watched the tree swaying back and forth could hear the hunters’ shouting directions to each other. Clearly I could see the black silhouette of the bear in the tree.  The dogs’ baying was frantic now and the noise level was deafening.  OSHA would have cited this entire group for not wearing approved ear protection.  After about 30 minutes at the tree, this training session came to an abrupt end.  Each of us took a leashed dog back through the thick cover and up to the truck.   It had been a very successful run.  From the sight of the first fresh track to the bear in the tree, a mere 90 minutes had passed.  Now it was time to break into the coolers and get out the icy cold bottles of waters.  And I got to eat a second morning breakfast bar.

When we got back to camp and the dogs were settled around, someone asked me how I liked my first successful bear-training session.  “Nothing to it,” was my off- the-cuff reply.  “I think it was pretty easy, really.”  To which my own flesh-and-blood, replied, “Dad, you now have a genuine false sense of reality.”  Then as we ate lunch, stories of past bear chases were told.  Stories about chases that lasted all day, all night, two days or longer, and of the dozens of bruins that eluded both dogs and hunters.  Many, many of those bears were never treed.  And I had better not forget it.  But for the record, the 2011 bear training season opener was a huge success for this hunting group.  Complete with my false sense of reality, to boot!

Russ Fimbinger is a freelance outdoor writer and photographer and new to bear hunting.

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Outdoor Recreation Group Expands Offering in Hunting Market with Purchase of Timber Hawk Packs

Los Angeles, CA – As a leading supplier of soft goods in the hunting, hiking and camping industries for over forty years, The Outdoor Recreation Group has claimed another chunk of marketshare with its acquisition of Timber Hawk, a backpack startup out of Salt Lake City. “We’re thrilled to take ownership of a brand that already had a strong reputation,” said Outdoor Recreations’ Brad Ottomeyer. “It’s always a challenge to meet the equipment needs of hunters, who demand such high quality and performance. These are men and women who really know what they want in a pack, and it feels good to know we can provide it.”

Outdoor Recreation’s team has redesigned and expanded the Timber Hawk line for 2012 to include five backpacks and two waist packs, offering hunters their choice between Realtree AP or Mossy Oak Breakup camo patterns. Most models are outfitted with hydration bladders, and all are stuffed to the zippers with nifty features to compliment the hi-tech gear toted by the modern hunter. The “Hawkeye” binocular system is just one of the innovations that comes standard — something so simple it’s amazing no other pack company has thought of it.

Over the last six years Timber Hawk has developed a strong reputation for creative and deceptively simple designs, while building a loyal base of hardcore hunters — all right in the backyard of some pretty stiff competition. “Anyone who’s dabbled in this industry knows that hunters are pretty tough to impress,” said Timber Hawk’s founder, Mike O’Reilly. “It’s even harder to do it in Utah where hunters really use their packs, and where there’s already a few good brands to choose from.”

Yet even as more hunters began to choose Timber Hawk, and as photos of trophy kills and positive testimonials clogged his inbox, O’Reilly couldn’t figure out a way to expand the business by himself in a tough economic climate. “I knew the brand had traction,” he said, “especially at the level of small archery stores and pro shops, but it was tough to find the [financial] backing to take the ‘Hawk to the next level.”

Not long after O’Reilly put the word out, offers for the company started coming in but there was more at stake than just dollars. “Obviously it was important for me to strike a good deal,” he said. “But it was equally important that I sold the company to someone I knew could really make something out of it, so it would really flourish the way I had hoped. Most of the potential buyers didn’t have a clue about the hunting industry, let alone the manufacturing process. After all, when you create your own company from scratch, it’s almost like raising a kid — you wouldn’t just give it away to anyone.”

When Outdoor Recreation came knocking, O’Reilly knew he’d found a good match. The California company had already built a complete portfolio of successful sporting goods brands including Fieldline and Outdoor Products, not to mention O.E.M. work for several names owned by Pure Fishing Inc. The Timber Hawk brand represents another tier of quality items Outdoor Recreation can offer the serious outdoor enthusiast. “They’ve proved they know their way around a sewing machine,” O’Reilly said. “They’ve got good business sense, they’re nice guys and, most importantly, they’re hunters!”

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Secrets to Hunting Geese: Part Five

Using Goose Stuffers and Scarecrows for Geese

Some goose hunters are very creative in their tactics for taking geese. On one hunt Mitch Sanchotena of Middleton, Idaho, pulled a horse trailer out in the middle of a cut cornfield before daylight. All the hunters had dressed in camouflage and carried their 3 inch Magnums to hopefully shoot Canada geese that morning. So, why bring the horse trailer? Then they started unloading mounted geese – real birds that Sanchotena had stuffed in a wide variety of positions – from the horse trailer and arranging them in a decoy-like spread in the field. According to Sanchotena, “After about two-thirds of the goose season, there aren’t too many decoys the local population of geese hasn’t seen,” Sanchotena explains. “As the popularity of goose hunting has increased, so have the numbers of decoys hunters put out in their spreads. After awhile, the plastic decoys no longer fool the geese. Since I had a small taxidermy business, in the off season I mounted 18 geese in various lifelike poses. After reading articles, I knew I wasn’t the first to try smaller spreads. But I was experimenting, and that’s what I came up with that worked best for me.”

Sanchotena explained that when he started using mounted geese for decoys no one else in his area did, although many of the hunters where he lived had begun to use smaller decoy spreads in the late season. The smaller spreads of decoys seemed to lure in the older, smarter birds quicker than the big spreads that most hunters utilized and that the geese had grown accustomed to seeing. Instead of leaving support wires coming out of the mounted geese’s feet, Sanchotena had the geese mounted on wooden planks. He explained that, “In our region, frost and frozen ground are big problems. If we were hunting where the ground didn’t freeze, then we could use just the wires coming off the bottom of the geese’s feet to stick the mounted geese into the ground. However, here, our frost level during goose season is probably 12 to 18 inches in the ground. So, a hunter must have something that’s fairly substantial to keep the goose decoy standing up in the wind and the freezing weather. We’re attaching a 14 by 14 inch, 5/8 inch thick piece of plywood to each to birds to keep them erect. Today, we’re hunting in a cornfield. So, we’ll put the cornstalks over the edges of the boards to hide them.”

Sanchotena has hunted geese for four decades in the Snake River Valley in southern Idaho. The local population of geese numbers about 5,500 birds. This section of Idaho gets a small migration of Canada geese during the winter months that pushes the goose population in the region up to 12,000 to 14,000 birds. These geese will weigh about 9 to 10 pounds each. Sanchotena had to come up with a better method of harvesting geese, especially in the late season, because of the small population of geese there, the intense hunting pressure and the long season. By combining his love for goose hunting and his skill as a taxidermist, Sanchotena created his stuffers.

Talking Goose:

According to Sanchotena, to bag the geese once they’ve spotted the decoys, you must decide what to say to the geese, when to say it and how much to talk. “I let the geese dictate what my calling strategies will be. If the birds are vocal and doing a lot of calling, they’re looking for responses to their calls. Then I’d better be prepared to give them some. Yet if the geese are coming in on silent wings and are committed, little guttural sounds and single honks may be all that are necessary for me to make to bring in the birds to within gun range. As the birds see the decoys, they get excited and make the double-cluck call. I got in touch with Harold Knight back 30 years ago. I had come across a little tube that read, ‘Harold Knight, Cadiz, Kentucky’ that Harold had made with a diaphragm across the front of it. Since I was always looking for something different to call geese with, I called information in Cadiz, Kentucky, and asked for Harold Knight. I got Harold on the phone, and we chatted for probably an hour and a half. He sent me a couple of calls. From that time on, I’ve been fairly loyal to Knight and Hale Game Calls, because I’ve had success with them, and the company is good about keeping reeds available for the calls. I can’t think of anything more frustrating than to have a call you really like, and in 3 years you can’t get a replacement reed for it. Then that call becomes useless to you.”

Sanchotena mentions that some hunters use their calls only sparingly – especially during the late season. They assume that hunters have called to the geese so much earlier in the season and believe that the more they call to the geese the more likely that they will spook the birds. But, Sanchotena has a completely different philosophy of calling. He explains that, “Live geese never quit calling when the birds are approaching. I think often hunters don’t have confidence in their abilities to call. Once the goose makes a commitment to come in at 100 yards, often the hunters quit calling. That works fine the first 2 weeks of the season when you’re hunting all the young, dumb birds. However, when hunting more towards the end of Idaho’s goose season, I think quitting your calling early is bad, because you alarm the birds that something isn’t real, and something’s wrong. Of course all goose hunters have a hard time reading the geese, because these birds don’t flare like ducks do when they see a person or movement within the blind. Geese simply lose interest and leave. If you’re not calling, then you’re not making the scenario real enough for them to make the final commitment and get within the critical 30 or 35 yards you need them to be to kill them.”

Using Scarecrows for More Geese:

Sanchotena puts out scarecrows in the fields where he doesn’t want the geese to light. He says, “We want to try to manipulate the geese for a few hours in the mornings. To keep them from landing in some of the other cut corn fields yet make them move around until they see this small spread of stuffed decoys we’re using, we’ll strategically place some scarecrows in those other fields. No matter how effective we get as goose hunters, we’re never going to be able to decoy ducks and geese like live birds can. There’s just something about live birds, the movement and the activity and everything that goes on, that once live birds start gathering up in the field, every bird that comes along will want to land in with those live birds. If we can keep the geese stirred up with a scarecrow, they eventually will give up on that field and move to the next field that has birds in it – hopefully the field where we have our stuffers.”

This article is part of a series on hunting geese. Click here to go back to part four, more advice for hunting geese.

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Hog Hunting: The Cure-All for Off-Season Blues

Your appointment with destiny is upon you. It’s unavoidable and unfortunately, brings with it the feeling of abandonment. One way or another, your deer season is about to end. With that daunting thought casting a doom-and-gloom blanket across the deer woods, what on earth is a hunter to do?

Hit the hog woods! The hog “prob-ulation” continues to escalate. In Texas, home to as much as 50 percent of the nation’s hog population, we face a catastrophic problem. Annual reported damages now top $400 million dollars and pesky pigs are now found in at least 39 states and four Canadian provinces with a population estimated at over 5 million and growing.

Rabbits aside, wild hogs offer quite the reproductive conundrum. With a gestational period of 115 days, feral hogs can breed as often as twice per year, birthing litter averages of 6 – 8 with a 1:1 boar to sow ratio. Sitting down and doing some simple math does much to furl the brow of anyone interested in preserving habitat and conserving indigenous wildlife, of which, wild hogs are not; in fact, they present quite the competition or outright defeat of various native animals. Consider their unruly omnivorous appetites, reproductive rate, aggression and complete lack of natural predators (they have zero!) and you have the quintessential prey for those of us who appreciate living at the top of the food chain.

Experienced hog hunters agree, hog hunting is basically deer hunting in the off season. Strategies for hunting hogs parallel proven methods of successful deer hunting. Scouting for sign, as you would for deer, is key to establishing that your hunting has some uninvited guests. Scan your hunting area for rooting, hoof prints, scat, wallows and mud on trees. Use a trail camera to catch them in action. Ensure your camera boasts great night surveillance capabilities. I currently use a SpyPoint Pro-X because of its all-around day and night capabilities including high resolution infrared photos and video with clear audio; a lot can be learned from trail camera photos and video. Although patterning can be downright maddening, a trail camera also helps bridge that gap. HOT TIP: Hogs do what they want, when they want to do it. If you’ve patterned hogs two days in a row, be in the stand on the third day… they generally do not keep a long term routine, especially with any human activity.

If you find hog activity, it’s time to plan your ambush. Will you spot and stalk or still hunt? Will you hunt from a tree stand, tripod or ground blind? Hogs possess one of the greatest noses in the woods, if not THE greatest. Some reports claim hogs can pick up your scent on the wind as far as seven miles away!

Hogs also are incredibly intelligent. They know their environment and recognize changes quickly. Placing a ground blind means brushing it in and leaving it up to ensure that if they do pick up it up, they become comfortable with it. Many blinds also use scent eliminating technology. This year’s blind, my Ameristep Carnivore, not only uses carbon technology in the wall of the blind, it has a ground skirt to improve scent suppression while I hunt. Scent control is critical. Ensure your blind or stand setup is downwind from where you expect hogs to be located and follow a disciplined scent elimination and control routine.

Spot and stalk hunting is also effective but don’t believe the hype on a hog’s eyesight. They do not see well, but much better than most people think. They’ll spot you every time on open ground; within bow range they will also spot your movement in good cover. Approach from downwind and never expose your silhouette. Make sure the area behind you continues to break up your outline as you close the distance. Once in range pick your spot! Remember that a hog’s vitals are more forward and lower than vitals on a deer; more on shot placement later. Until then, leave your blanket of off-season doom and gloom draped over the couch and get back outdoors. Wild hogs are coming to your neck of the woods!

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A Lesson in ATV Safety Can Mean Happy Trails

With 16 million Americans, including many hunters, riding all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), safety can’t take a back seat.

Like hunting, riding an ATV takes training and practice to build your skills and knowledge of how to stay safe. It’s also important to be realistic about your current skill level.

“ATV riders’ inexperience combined with an overestimation of their skills can spell trouble,” said Ed Huntsman, OHV education program manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “People never expect to be on the evening news when they start out in the morning. However, if riders don’t take basic precautions, they are vulnerable to accidents.”

From 1982 to 2009, more than 10,000 people using an ATV died, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Of that number, 26 percent were youths under 16 years of age. In 2009 alone, there were an estimated 131,900 ATV-related injuries, with children under the age of 16 making up 25 percent of those injured.

Fortunately, most accidents are avoidable. Huntsman advises that new and experienced riders heed the following recommendations.

• Use your head by covering it with a helmet that has a sticker confirming it complies with the U.S. Department of Transportation or Snell regulations. In addition, always wear goggles or a face shield when you ride.
• Protect yourself with a sturdy pair of gloves and over-the-ankle boots. Also, wear long-sleeve shirts, jackets and pants that offer padding for knees, shoulders and chest.
• When riding on unfamiliar or rough terrain, slow down to a speed that allows you to control your machine. In addition, be on the lookout for rocks, logs, ditches, mud and other conditions that could cause an accident.
• Riding to your hunting spot in low light conditions also can present challenges. Make sure your headlights are working and clean. Wear reflective gear so you’re more easily seen. Plus, keep a good distance from other riders, and don’t overdrive your headlight. You should be able to stop within the length of the headlight beam.
• If you’re transporting gear or game, make sure you follow the manufacturer’s guidelines and don’t overload your ATV. Make sure your headlights aren’t covered and that you can move around unrestricted. In addition, all firearms should be unloaded and fully enclosed in a gun boot or scabbard.
• Ride on designated trails, and be safe and considerate when you stop. Avoid stopping side-by-side, in the middle of the trail, at the crest of a hill, or around a corner on the trail. Also, never block an intersection. Don’t forget to shut off your engine when you take a break.
• ATVs are designed for off-road use and can be difficult to handle on paved surfaces. Riding on or crossing a road illegally or improperly is a leading cause of ATV rider fatalities. If you must cross a road, pick a spot where you can see oncoming traffic from both directions. Drive straight across when the coast is clear. Take it nice and slow and stand up for maximum visibility.
• Be weather wary. Rain, ice and snow can change trail conditions, making the ride more difficult.
• Accidents are more likely to happen at the end of the day when you’re tired. Fatigue impairs judgment and slows reaction time. Counteract that by making sure you dress for the weather, take regular breaks and stay hydrated.
• Get official training to learn how to safely and responsibly operate an ATV as well as laws and rules regulating ATV use. Many states require new riders to receive training. You can take a state-approved off-road vehicle safety course at www.offroad-ed.com.

Don’t forget these additional tips to ensure you stay safe.

• Don’t ride alone.
• Leave your travel plan and a map with a trusted family member or friend.
• Never carry a passenger on a single-rider ATV.
• Ride an ATV that’s right for your age, size, strength and skill level.
• Supervise riders younger than 16 years of age.
• Never ride under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

ATVs are not only fun, they can be a great tool for planting food plots, traveling to your hunting area and transporting harvested game out of the woods. Taking a course at www.offroad-ed.com and then practicing your new skills is your ticket to a safe ride.

About Kalkomey

Kalkomey, parent company of www.offroad-ed.com, is the official provider of recreational safety education materials for all 50 states. Our print and Internet courses have been providing official safety certification since 1995. We provide safety courses in boating, hunting, bowhunting, and off-road vehicle (ORV) and snowmobile operation. For more information, visit http://www.kalkomey.com/.

Outdoor Hub, The Outdoor Information Engine - A Lesson in ATV Safety Can Mean Happy Trails

Secrets to Hunting Geese: Part Four

More Goose Hunting Tips with Steve Bierle

Author’s Note: Steve Bierle of Canton, South Dakota, has hunted geese in various areas of Canada and the northwestern United States his entire life. He’s won several state championships and has competed-in and judged many regional and national goose calling championships.

Don’t Shoot Too High:

When geese pass over my blind too high to shoot, I’ll use a moan that you’ll hear geese give when they’re gliding onto water in a field. You can use this note with a few clucks to trigger that landing response and convince the birds to get low and come on in to light. This note sounds like, caaa, caaa, caaa, with a little grunt to it. You make this note by blowing the goose call to get a moan, allowing the reed to stick and then releasing it. When you release the reed, the call produces an almost two-dimensional sound. You get a high and low vibration from the reed at the same time. Although this note is somewhat more difficult to make than an everyday moan, it sounds really goosey, since it has that hollow reedy sound that you hear real geese make.

Another call that I use to get the geese down and convince them to land is what sounds like a low feeding murmur. But instead of completing the murmur, I’ll give a sound that I’ve heard geese on the ground give that sounds like a beginning of a cluck, but they don’t quite put enough air through their larynxes to complete the clucks. The sounds they make come out much like grunts. Geese do this call a lot when they hit the ground, wag their tails and stretch their wings. They seem to make this sound when they’re completing their transition from landing and just before they start feeding. You’ll hear them growl and barely get a cluck out. The sound is much like the sound that a human makes when he’s clearing his throat. I’ve heard geese when they’re down low and on the back side of the blind before they come to light give this grunting type of sound. On calm days and when the geese aren’t talking much, knowing how to give this sound can be deadly effective.

Know When to Call the Shot:

I believe that the closer the bird is to the blind, and the slower he’s moving, the better your odds are for getting a lethal shot. So, I continue to call until either the geese have hit the ground, or I know they’ll pass over the blind. Let’s say we have a flock of 10 birds coming into the blind. I typically won’t call the shot until the first goose has its feet about 10 inches above the ground. When I call the shot, I want my shooters to take the geese that are about 6 or 8 feet off the ground first. Then when the lower birds start to try and climb, we’ll have time to shoot the birds almost on the ground with our second or third shots. If you wait until the first goose almost touches the ground to call the shot, generally you’ll get much cleaner kills, and often the hunters can double or triple on one flight of birds.

I think many hunters call the shot too soon, especially when hunting Canadas. The main reason for this is those Canadas look so big. You get so excited when they start coming in that when they get close, you lose your depth perception. You’ll often take a shot at a goose you think is only at 15 yards, when it’s really at 30 yards. When you take that 30 yard shot, the geese usually will flare, and you’ll take marginal shots instead of certain kill shots. That’s why I let the geese come all the way into the blind and begin shooting just before the first bird has its toes on the ground. If the geese are coming from your right to the left and not straight in, remember to take the shot sooner than you think you should, rather than later like you do when the birds are straight up overhead. If you take the shot as the geese are approaching, then when they flare to the side after the first shot, or they flare when you first pop up out of the blind, the geese still will be in the pocket where you’ve hoped they’ll land. So, you can take your second and third shots straight out over the decoys. If you wait until the geese are right over the center of the pocket, your second and third shots will be at geese going away from you and flaring – a much more difficult shot than a shot at birds flaring right in the pocket.

This article is part of a series on hunting geese. Click here to go back to part three and click here for part five, using goose stuffers and scarecrows.

Outdoor Hub, The Outdoor Information Engine - Secrets to Hunting Geese: Part Four

Attending “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” Workshop for All the Right Reasons

“It’s like going back to girl scouts or campfire girls, but with a much more adult environment. You get to do all those things from camp as a kid, but with pear margaritas,” jokes Becoming an Outdoors Woman workshop attendant Valerie Morrill from Yuma, Arizona.

Morrill has attended five weekend workshop retreats offered by her state’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) program since her first experience in 2010. BOW has only been around since 1991, created as a gateway for any woman who wants to experience the outdoors in a safe, comfortable setting. At various BOW classes, and events such as the three-day “deluxe” retreat at Saguaro Lake Ranch in Arizona, women learn outdoors skills varying from making their own tea to shooting guns and bows.

When many people think of hunters, their first thought is not “women”. Morrill pointed out that there’s a deep rift between the genders that participate in the outdoors and that’s part of the reason why the BOW program exists. “The overarching logic of why these programs are available is [because] our society used to be rural, these sorts of life lessons were just very common because people were in a rural setting on a farm,” explains Morrill. “But, as we’ve moved into this much more urban type of population, all of these little life lessons are kind of lost. There’s a real gap between hands-on knowledge of the outdoors. You get it now from Disney Channel and Discovery Channel instead of having that real ability in the outdoors.”

As a retired biologist who worked for the federal government on conservation management, Morrill was often in the outdoors, but never got to be a participant in what the outdoors offered. Through BOW, she’s surprised herself with many of the things she’s learned. “Each time I go I’m learning something new,” Morrill said. “I think I’m such a smarty pants and I go ‘Whoa! I didn’t know that.’” The charm of BOW retreats is that they offer a plethora of classes that one woman couldn’t possibly do in one weekend.

Just like most children’s camps or family camps, BOW weekend workshops offer classes in horseback riding, photography, high ropes, rock climbing, shooting, archery, edible and medicinal plants, and even a class titled Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Javelina. Morrill was especially intrigued by her archery classes and by the caliber of her instructor who was a professional, tournament-competing archer. “There she is, teaching you, I was so, I don’t know… It really did something to me,” said Morrill. “I got nuts about it. I went a bought a bow and I went and tried archery [bow] hunting. There’s just something about it. It’s a quiet sport.”

Morrill is just one of hundreds of women between 18 and 87 whom BOW organizers have seen repeatedly attend the BOW workshop in the 15 years of the workshops in Arizona. Kim Kreuzer, the office manager for the Arizona Wildlife Federation and co-organizer of the workshops in her state said it’s very rare not to see a woman come back for another workshop. “We have such a variety of personalities come,” Kreuzer said. “Sometimes you get the girls afraid to touch worms when out fishing. Then they get really excited and bait their own hook. They go from one personality to another – they become more adventurous…. It’s always the first one that’s hardest.”

The BOW workshops, held a few times a year in most states and in Canada as well, draw all sorts of women for reasons that vary even more than the women’s personalities. Morrill wanted to see the other side of the coin and participate in everything she was working to conserve as a federal biologist. The first time she attended, she came alone. Following her great experience, she encouraged her sister to come out. As a school principal, Morrill’s sister wanted to learn to be comfortable in the outdoors, but never really had the opportunity.

Kreuzer said she’s constantly blown away by the women who show up and for what reason. “We’ll have really shy people and really outgoing ones that come. Women who come maybe because they’ve lost loved ones and come to get their life back on track. Some come so they can meet new friends and get out and do things.”

She recounted a particularly touching story that made a woman come out because of unfortunate circumstances.

“I think it was the first BOW workshop I went to, there was a woman, part of her face was missing. Her eye had been replaced and she had one hand.” Kreuzer said. “You hate to ask, what happened to you? I didn’t say anything. On the car ride to the shooting class, she opened up and told us that one night coming home from shopping she got out of her car and a man had followed her and approached her. She dropped everything and ran as fast as she could, quite a distance, but the guy finally caught up with her and shot her in the face and arm. She got robbed, and now she’s taking shooting classes to get over her fear of handguns. You can just never tell how many different women come and for all the different reasons.” The woman attended more BOW workshops and is now an instructor there who comes to help out in the evenings.

The BOW “Deluxe” retreat coming up in Arizona is a smaller retreat designed for those 35 participating women who may not yet be very comfortable in a primitive outdoor setting. The program is housed in a bed-and-breakfast type of suite with fewer room mates, while the other weekend workshops in Friendly Pines Camp offered by the Arizona Wildlife Federation has 100 women who camp in primitive cabins and are a little bit more comfortable with the outdoors already.

To find out more about the BOW “Deluxe” workshop in Arizona click here, or go to the BOW national website here to find out about workshops in your state.

Outdoor Hub, The Outdoor Information Engine - Attending “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” Workshop for All the Right Reasons

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