Seven lucky hunters will win over $1,500 in prizes just by hunting at Michigan’s seven Managed Waterfowl Hunt Areas this fall and winter. A new Wetland Wonders Challenge, sponsored by Consumers Energy, will begin Oct. 11 and continue through Jan. 31, 2015.
Seven winners will be chosen to win ultimate waterfowl hunting prize packages valued at $1,500, including a “golden ticket” for one first-choice pick at a Managed Waterfowl Hunt Area (MWHA) for the 2015-16 season (non-reserved). Other prizes include a Mossberg 835 camo waterfowl and turkey combo 12-gauge shotgun, Zink custom duck and goose calls, Avian X mallard and goose decoys, and waterfowl hunting gear. Contest partner Michigan United Conservation Clubs will select winners Feb. 9, 2015. Read more
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) is pleased to report that hemorrhagic disease (HD), including EHD and bluetongue virus, seems to have taken a summer vacation in 2014, and the danger of a serious outbreak this year has now passed. Transmitted by biting gnats, the disease usually hits deer hardest in late summer and early fall, especially in unusually hot, dry years.
“A small number of reports are trickling in from scattered states, but we’re not seeing any nationwide trends or large outbreaks this year,” said Dr. David Stallknecht with the Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) at the University of Georgia. “This year is definitely below average so far.” Read more
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) is pleased to report that hemorrhagic disease (HD), including EHD and bluetongue virus, seems to have taken a summer vacation in 2014, and the danger of a serious outbreak this year has now passed. Transmitted by biting gnats, the disease usually hits deer hardest in late summer and early fall, especially in unusually hot, dry years.
“A small number of reports are trickling in from scattered states, but we’re not seeing any nationwide trends or large outbreaks this year,” said Dr. David Stallknecht with the Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) at the University of Georgia. “This year is definitely below average so far.” Read more
The DeadShot ChairPod provides true benchrest accuracy from a single shooting unit. No need to bother with carrying chairs and separate rests out to the ground blind or the range to sight-in your weapon. The ChairPod provides all of that in one package; it has a comfortable heavy duty chair with a built in post and swing arm assembly that fully supports your weapon front and rear. Extend your effective shooting range by stabilizing the entire weight of your gun or crossbow with this convenient package.
The ChairPod holds your weapon securely in the ready position while freeing up hands for binoculars, rangefinder or warm pockets. The innovative multi bearing swing arm system provides smooth and stable movement from extreme angles left to right with minimal body movement and the chair silently spins 360
An extended choke tube like the Precision Hunter offers a better pattern with fewer “holes” than a flush-mounted tube. The extended choke tube from Trulock also does a better job handling heavier payloads of shot and larger shot sizes. Pattern your shotgun with a Precision Hunter extended choke, and you will see that this choke tube will increase your effective barrel length while increasing muzzle velocity.
NEW BERLIN, WI – Sportsman Channel, the leader in outdoor television for American sportsmen and women, has announced a unique partnership with Bear Archery to promote and give away the new “Arena” bow. The sweepstakes will begin Wednesday, September 24 and run through Sunday, October 12. Participants are eligible by visiting www.thesportsmanchannel.com to enter for a chance to win. Bear Archery will offer an exclusive first look at the “Arena” bow at www.beararchery.com on Thursday, September 25. Read more
We’ve launched a new site: BoycottHSUS.com. And we have our first campaign. The credit card company Discover recently started a new affinity card to benefit the deceptively named Humane Society of the United States. For every $100 someone with one of these cards spends, Discover will donate between 1 and 20 cents to HSUS. That may not seem like much, but Discover expects it will add up to slightly over $1 million. In fact, according to the contract, Discover paid HSUS $150,000 up front in advance royalty payments. And HSUS gets $100 from Discover for every person that signs up for the program from an HSUS communication and spends $100 within the first three months.
But where will that money go? Discover may not like the answer, and the company’s decision-makers should know the following:
Please visit BoycottHSUS.com and pledge to boycott Discover until it cancels its support for one of America’s most deceptive charities. And please share on Discover’s Facebook page to reach out to its 1.5 million followers. Until Discover affirms that it will either end (or not renew) its partnership with HSUS, it’s time to find another credit card company.
There are several great reasons to add a Redhead® Pit Stop Layout Blind to your waterfowl hunting arsenal. One reason is you want to disappear when ducks or geese approach. It sounds simple. Yet the birds’ eyes are so keen, and pressured waterfowl become so wary, invisibility is a tall order. Besides blending flawlessly with the background, a good layout blind must be comfortable, rugged, lightweight, easily hidden, and versatile.
The Pit Stop Blind meets every demand. At its core is a lightweight, collapsible steel frame. It deploys in seconds and folds to packable size just as quickly with no nuts, bolts, or pins to lose in the dark, and no tools required.
The shell is 600 D fabric in Realtree Max-5 camouflage for maximum versatility in the field, among the cattails, or on a mid-river sandbar. Brushing blinds is tedious and stressful as the morning’s first birds buzz the decoys, but the PitStop’s brush straps are ample in both quantity and size so you can get the job done fast. Once you’re inside, a padded headrest and precisely angled back support allow you to wait in comfort, ready for instant “bust ‘em” action. The large size allows easy movement inside the blind, and there are flagging ports for both your hands. Mesh pockets keep shells, calls, dog collar controller, and more conveniently in reach. Read more
Small game hunting’s popularity has waned over the years, while the focus of most sportsmen in the Midwest has centered on whitetail deer. At the same time, however, there remains an under-utilized bonanza amid the woodlots and forests: squirrels.
Pursuing these acrobatic rodents has a way of making a hunter out of anyone – even youngsters. But, sportsmen must be able to wrap their minds around consuming them. I’ll not attempt to persuade anyone to like their delicate, sweet meat’s flavor, and frankly, if the concept is not for you, it’ll be more for me. So be it.
I decided rather spontaneously to visit a familiar site not far from home replete with the nutty tree dwellers. At dawn, I settled into my pre-planned location with a relatively open view of surrounding mixed hardwoods in the heavily foliaged mid-September forest with the rising sun at my back. A lightweight chair was set up next to two trees only 30 inches apart with one forming an impromptu rest. The ground was cleared of debris for silence afoot.
Squirrels and Coyote Taken with .22 Rimfire
The full-size Marlin lever-action Original Golden model 39A in .22 rimfire caliber, complete with a Leupold fixed 4 power rimfire scope and a piggy-back movie camera, could be maneuvered into resting position in any direction. The beauty of using a tree for a rest is that the shooter’s hand can be placed anywhere naturally found to be comfortable – unlike bipods that must be carried and manipulated.
Although the seemingly never ending absence of .22 rimfire ammo is still with us, some of the high-end cartridges are readily available. The “trouble” with much of it in the eyes of some shooters is that it is sub-sonic and it costs much more than other production high velocity brands. Some may perceive it to be inadequate for humane kills; however, because of its inherent accuracy through strict quality control, it will certainly do the job, if first the operator does his.
My choice has long been 40-grain solid Lapua Center X for one reason: consistent accuracy. As a quick check, I weighed about 10 random cartridges and found them to be the same weight. On the contrary, a well-known big manufacturer’s typical high-velocity product was weighed, as well, and the variance was eye opening. Is it any wonder that sometimes there are unexplained fliers?
If standard-velocity trajectory is a concern, I have found that if sighted in at 50 yards, the difference at 25 yards is inconsequential in terms of hunting, but it’s still worth the time and effort to see how your firearm will print on paper at various ranges.
Next worth considering is the lack of noise emitted by any sub-sonic ammo. Because it does not break the sound barrier, like high or hyper velocity ammo, not only will it help to save your hearing, it will not startle surrounding wildlife to the extent faster fodder will. I’ll get to that part later.
And, as is the case with any sub-sonic ammo, the velocity of the bullet is maintained better as a percentage over distance, than its hotter cousins, which shed velocity faster after the sonic boom is created.
The setup should be such that the hunter gains some advantage of a rest. Offhand shooting should be avoided, unless one is honestly good enough. And, that can be defined by answering in the affirmative that a given shot is a 9 out of 10 proposition. I’ll take a rest any day, and fortunately, Mother Nature has generously placed them everywhere.
It’s not run and gun or stomping around with a scattergun. It’s sit still, be quiet and wait for things to develop. And, if the killing power of standard-velocity target ammo is still questioned, consider the fact that it dropped an unsuspecting coyote in its tracks at 30 yards. And, the only reason it came that close to me was because of the ammo I had used to take 3 squirrels from the same chair that morning. Finally, I took one more bushytail that was barking its head off over the coyote incident and called it a morning at 9:05am.
Even though the .22 rimfire ammo hoarding continues, you may want to look twice at some of the top-shelf varieties, such as Eley, RWS, or my favorite, Lapua. No doubt you’ll pay more, but the higher cost is what makes it less desirable to the average shooter and there for you.
Seven winners will be chosen to win ultimate waterfowl hunting prize packages valued at $1,500, including a “golden ticket” for one first-choice pick at a Managed Waterfowl Hunt Area (MWHA) for the 2015-16 season (non-reserved). Other prizes include a Mossberg 835 camo waterfowl and turkey combo 12-gauge shotgun, Zink custom duck and goose calls, Avian X mallard and goose decoys, and waterfowl hunting gear. Contest partner Michigan United Conservation Clubs will select winners Feb. 9, 2015. Read more
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) is pleased to report that hemorrhagic disease (HD), including EHD and bluetongue virus, seems to have taken a summer vacation in 2014, and the danger of a serious outbreak this year has now passed. Transmitted by biting gnats, the disease usually hits deer hardest in late summer and early fall, especially in unusually hot, dry years.
