More Turkey Scouting

Sunday afternoon found me out on the hunt for many things. Being spring I was hoping to find some sheds, turkeys, glass up some elk, and maybe some of springs first flowers.

I had returned to a ridge to which I had seen some turkeys last year, and had some luck glassing up some elk here last spring as well. I was pretty much skunked on all accounts of my scouting. No, elk, sheds, or turkeys.

Finn and the first buttercups of spring.

Montana Big Game Regulations Posting Online Soon!

For those looking to get a jump on the 2009 big game season here in Montana, the Montana the FWP will be posting its big game regulations online hopefully tomorrow, or sometime this upcoming week. http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/regulations.html. Look for the booklet version of the regulations to be available in early April.

Neal Ranch Land Acquistion

I was pleased to find an email from the Montana FWP in my in box on Friday.

http://fwp.mt.gov/news/article_7850.aspx


It appears that after the environmental assessment, and public comment period, the FWP will move forward with the purchase of the Neal Ranch property, pending available funds.


This is good news for the Rocky Mountain Front, its wildlife, communities and hunters. The property will be spared from the potential of development. This will effectively increase the size of the Sun River Game Range, and potentially will mean less elk grazing on private property, and the depredation of crops. An increase in winter range for the game range's elk heard, means more surviving elk, and more opportunity for hunters during those few magical months in the Fall.

Turkey Scouting the Woods of Western Montana

First off, I have to say that I have never turkey hunted before and I have never scouted for them before, so I wasn't too sure what to look for. But a few weeks ago I spotted a flock of turkeys on private land, but near some public land that I frequent, so I figured this would be a good starting point for turkey scouting. I was able to head back to this area on Thursday, and do some scouting. I somehow managed to stumble upon what I believe is a roost, right on the border of public and private land.














A few years of fly tying has led me to believe that the feather pictured belongs to a turkey along with these droppings.

The area that I scouted is in a permit only area so if I draw tag here I definitely plan on hunting this area, but I need to scout some over the counter tag areas, just in case my tag drawing doesn't pan out. Just three weeks to till the opener of turkey season!

Review: Camofire.com

I thought that I would do a review for camofire.com. I first heard about camofire from the community over at Bowcast. After checking out the website I quickly added their RSS feed to my iGoogle page. Every day a new deal of the day related to hunting gear is posted, and let me tell you the prices can't be beat, and I have almost pulled the trigger several times, on items listed. Well finally last Friday I saw that they had two Primos stake out blinds and a turkey hunting DVD for an excellnet price so I decided to make the purchase. Now some of you may be wondering what qualifies me to write this review. Aside from being someone who enjoys getting hunting gear at a great price, I have worked for many years in retail and specifically in an internet based store where I perfomed the shipping for all orders.

Ordering

This was a breeze the shopping cart was easy to navigate, and I never had any hang ups while placing the order.

Confirmation

I received a confirmation email that my order had been recieved, on the day I placed the order.

Shipping

I placed the order on Friday, the order was shipped on Monday, and being only to UPS days away recieved the order on Wednesday. I received a delivery confirmation email with the UPS tracking number, the day that the order shipped.

Product

The product arrived to my house as adverstised, in a timely fashion. What more could you ask for.

I hope to take out the blind and shoot from inside it soon, and then use and abuse it during turkey season. Be on the lookout for a review of the ground blind in the future.

A New Season Begins, Training for Archery Season

Here in my chunk of Montana the weather and the calendar are battling to decide what season it should be. Even though we are still a few days away from Spring, the weather as of late has been Spring like with temps tipping the 50 degree mark. Except for this morning when I was greeted to an inch of snow and temps in the mid 20s. Admist this change in seasons I started mine. Sunday March 1st marked the beggining of archery season for me.

After not shooting my bow for two months I have picked it back up and begun shooting blank bale in my basement. While I strongly agree with the mindset of year round practice, I felt I needed to take a break from constant shooting. And I hoped to start strength training and up my poundage this year. While I started off strong on the strength training, I have slacked off for the last month due to the burden of school.

I'm lucky enough to have a basement in which I can shoot and it happens to be just about 10 yrds long. Aside from blank bale shooting I can step back a bit and target shoot. This setup is perfect when I'm pressed for time or it is too dark to shoot outside at my local range or the proshop is closed.

Here are a few shots of my practice space. As you can see I manage to squeeze in 10 yrd shots. You can also see my crudely fashion paper tuner. It gets the job done, however, for a good paper tuner check out this Bowcast Blog, by Matthew Burrows.