Up and Adam Adventures

This wolf was killed by Scott Richards near Rock Springs, WY. That's Pilot Butte in the background. This wolf was taken well outside the areas wolves have been previously documented in and goes to show the endless expansion of these animals. Several lawsuits have been filed against the state of Wyoming citing its wolf management plan as being too aggressive and not having a long term solution to maintaining a healthy population of wolves. These suits arose after several wolves wearing radio collars put on inside Yellowstone and Teton national parks were legally killed by hunters in Montana and Wyoming. Click on image to view larger. Given the success rates hunters have bad in killing wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, I wonder if hunting them is really going to affect the population enough to be concerned. I also wonder how we hunted them to the brink of extinction in the past, considering the weapons and other tools were much more primitive then. During the 2012 hunt...

Range is a traveling decoy that’s passed among a handful of water fowlers who take him hunting in different states across the country. At the end of the season he will have visited Michigan, Missouri, Georgia and Texas and he will be sold on eBay with the profit going to charity. When I was approached about participating in Range’s journey this year, I jumped at the chance. Shortly after he got to Georgia, I took Range on a couple deer hunts just to get him acclimated to Peach State. We didn’t have any success on these trips, but Range started feeling at home in the Deep South. Welcome to Atlanta, Range. Last Saturday I was finally able to take Range out for some waterfowl hunting. I got in touch with Chris Scalley and he sounded interested in taking me and Range out for some duck hunting. Chris took us to some private property with swampy flooded timber. Turns out it’s a very small world. Chris is also a fishing guide and I used to see his River Through Atlanta truck a...

I recently had an opportunity to review the HuntTrack GPS from Bushnell. This small GPS unit is based on the simple operation of Bushnell’s popular BackTrack units but it adds some hunter-friendly features like a game activity chart, sunrise/sunset times and barometric pressure. Here's what Bushnell has to say about it: Features • Logs up to 48 hours of trip data • Mark and return to up to 25 locations • View/record time in military or civilian, temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius, and altitude • Distances in yards/miles or meters/kilometers • Latitude and longitude coordinates • Weather-resistant construction • 1 year limited warranty I've found the HuntTrack very easy to use in the field an that's very important to me. If you've ever been afield with a piece of gear and forgotten how to use it with your owner's manual back at the truck or the house, you'll appreciate that too. It's built very rugged as well and on my first trip ...

My deer season at home in Georgia has been pretty slow. I've hunted some but the unfortunate part of working retail is that as the deer rut kicks in this time of year, so do holiday sales. I had this past week off but had to cancel it due to events at work. That's really put a dent in my time in the woods. I've also been hunting a lot of unfamiliar, public land, and both of those can make for a challenging season. I moved to the north side of Atlanta right as season started and haven had a chance to secure any private hunting property on this side of town. That is first on the list before next season though! I've seen deer sign in the areas I've spent the most time in, but I believe the deer are mostly nocturnal on these public tracts. But I'm not complaining! Any chance to be in the outdoors, sitting in a treestand and interacting with nature is a blessing and I'm thankful to be able to do it. My buddy Mark at Sole Adventure makes some great points a...

If you own a compound bow, at some point you're going to need a set of Allen wrenches to adjust something. Whether it's your rest, sight, quiver or the bow itself, Allen wrenches are king when it comes to bow adjustments. I've owned a few sets of these wrenches and although several of them did the job, none were as handy and easy robust as the Toolio bow tuner from Real Avid. I'm a big fan of gadgets, but they have to truly serve a purpose in order to stay in my pack or gear box. Anything that doesn't perform or doesn't perform as intended is discarded or sold on eBay. I like to be prepared, but I also like to travel light. This little Toolio replaced two Allen wrench sets and is easier to store than they were. It's also very quiet which is nice when it's in my hunting pack on the way to the stand. This wrench has hex bits in 10 different sizes and fits just about any bow, sight or rest screw out there. I love taking it on the 3D cours...

I've been spending my available hunting days here at home in the Cohutta Wilderness and Wildlife Management area just north of where I live. It's a beautiful area home to a healthy black bear population and every year more Georgia bears are killed here than anywhere else in the state. My first hunting trip here was also my first time going into the area, so this has been a "scout-as-you-hunt" proposition for me. My first two days I saw 4 bears, so things looked good right away. Those were also the only bears I saw all season here, but I was able to learn about the area and do a lot of scouting. I found plentiful sign in some areas, and others devoid of any bear activity. Resident hunters here always say to look for the acorns and you'll find the bears. The only problem was, there were acorns everywhere! The task of narrowing down a small area to concentrate on was easier said than done, so I spent a lot of time walking and scouting new ground. Bait...

A few months ago, during the last 3D shoot I did, I had a release malfunction that gave me a case of target panic. My release wasn't firing as it should and subconsciously I began to hold low and punch the release. It was bad enough that I had my worst score ever, but with hunting season approaching I didn't have any time to spare in curing the target panic or release situation. Looking for answers to both problems, I decided to stick with a wrist strap release, so I searched for a dependable fool-proof design with an open hook. I found the Wiseguy by Spot Hogg, and knowing the quality of their sights, I decided to give it a try. I chose the nylon strap connector version for two reasons. First I believe that the nylon connector would theoretically apply less torque to the string than a solid connector. And second, I have small hands and didn't feel the solid connector had enough adjustability to give me the solid finger hook around the trigger that I wanted. Throu...

Just a couple of days after I left Wyoming, my dad went out to try and fill his antelope tag. He found this buck early, passed on him once, missed him the second time he saw him, and then connected on his third encounter. I guess it's safe to say this was HIS speed goat! My dad took this goat with a Remington 700 ADL in 7mm Rem. Mag.

My friends over at Food for Hunters have some great recipes. I wonder if they have one for tag soup? I have an elk tag to eat. This will hardly be my first time eating a tag, but they don't seem to taste any better the more you eat. It's definitely not an acquired taste. But before I go on, let me tell you that this isn't going to be a "woe is me" kind d of story, and aside from the fact that my tag is still intact, I actually had a great trip. I spent some quality time with my mom, dad and sister who were able to stay at the cabin in Dubois, WY that formed my "base camp." I saw some breathtakingly beautiful paintings done by our Creator and I had some close encounters with good bulls. What more can you ask for? I know, I could ask for my tag to be wrapped around some elk antlers right now. Oh well. The first couple of days were pretty slow. The weather was hot and dry causing he elk to be mostly nocturnal and there was very little bugling a...

I don't think you can get much closer to the wire than the evening of the last day of a hunt. Thursday evening as I headed toward our hunting area with my friend J.J. Salinas, his dad Joseph, and their friend John Collins, I found myself somewhere between the finality of returning to Georgia empty-handed and the hopefulness of having one more opportunity to wrap my tag around a set of velvet-covered antlers. If I didn't tag out on this trip, my tag was still good for the January archery hunt during he rut. The locals all agreed that was the best time to kill a giant muley anyway. But I wanted one in velvet. The first morning of our hunt was pretty eventful, but not as expected. We glassed up a few does, went a little farther and climbed a hill to do some more classing. Just as we were getting settled, we spotted a 4 1/2 foot rattler, then a 4 footer, all in the span of a few minutes. Both were dispatched with a few arrows. With my good friend J.J. Salinas We t...

I just returned from a trip back to Wyoming to see my mom, dad and sister, as well as to do some "Bonsai" elk scouting for my hunt in September. Bonsai scouting is a term referring to scouting a hunting area as hard as you can in a very short amount of time, usually due to the fact that you are saving all of your vacation time for hunting season. This is certainly true in my case. After putting in some time studying topo maps of the Dubois region, I was able to narrow down a few places that I wanted to scout for signs of elk, and hopefully see some critters. I'll be hunting an area 67, which I have never hunted before, and to me nothing compares to actually putting your boots on and seeing the land with your own eyes. We got to the area on Saturday afternoon and spent most of the afternoon driving around getting the lay of the land and a general feel for the area. I hiked around a few areas and found some sign that should be a good indicator of elk activity. I found ...

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of me shooting my bow in a suit and tie. It was right after church on a Sunday afternoon, and I got home and decided to shoot a few arrows before heading to bed to get ready to work that night. Although I had already taken my coat off, standing out there in my dress clothes with a bow in hand really tickled my funny bone for some reason. So I put my jacket back on for the photo opp. Now that GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has selected Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, a picture of him in a suit and tie with his Mathews at full draw has surfaced. I'm not sure when the photo was taken, but it certainly wasn't circulating like it is now. I just thought it was pretty cool that our pics were so similar. And it's certainly nice to think of having someone in the White House who understands outdoorsmen and women because he is one of us. So there's my plug for Romney/Ryan 2012.

Hog hunting near Mershon, GA Just an update from the last few weeks! A couple of weeks ago I went hog hunting in South Georgia on a farm that belongs to some friends. They've been having some problems with hogs destroying corn so I wanted to try and help out by shooting a porker or two. Unfortunately I didn't see a live hog during the hunt, but still had a great time and it was good just to be back in the woods. It was the first time I'd been hunting anything since May, and I have managed to hunt something every month this year except for June. Hopefully I can continue my streak by hunting some hogs again in the month of August. Last Eyecon Black Widow trail camera at Bass Pro Shops in Lawrenceville, GA In the meantime I've been working at Bass Pro Shops during their Fall Classic Sale on behalf of Big Game Treestands, and attending some of the outdoor shows and expos that have been happening in Atlanta recently. One of the highlights for me was meeting Tr...

Took a few minutes after Church today to sling a few arrows. Cause September is getting close. Every little bit helps, they say, and after all, I'm hoping for just one shot on each hunting trip. I've read that Randy Ulmer has practice sessions that consist of only one shot, executed perfectly. Makes sense.

If you have children, you should teach them to hunt. It's that simple. No, I don't have kids. Yes, I'm telling you how to raise yours. I was raised in a family that hunted and fished. Born in rural Mississippi, and later living in Wyoming, we were not in the minority for those areas. In fact, it was quite difficult for me to imagine the lives of those people I later met who did not fish or hunt. For my family, there was never a question of "are we going to hunt deer this year?" The question was "when are we going again?" My First Squirrel, Age 12 Hunting is a lifestyle, and one that is often misunderstood and misrepresented by media outlets who make hunters out to be beer-guzzling Bubbas hunting from their pickups with a spotlight or blood-thirsty savages who kill poor, helpless, defenseless animals. I generally like Walt Disney movies, but the movie "Bambi" with its portrayal of a massacre of animals carried out by hunters that you ...