Black Hills' elk population sees increase


 


The state Game, Fish & Parks Department is increasing its population estimate for elk in the Black Hills.



RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) _ The state Game, Fish & Parks Department is increasing its population estimate for elk in the Black Hills.


[url=http://bit.ly/124aKNy]The Rapid City Journal reports[/url] that a recently completed helicopter survey of South Dakota's portion of the Black Hills showed an estimate of slightly more than 6,000 elk. This is up from an estimate of 4,000 a year ago.


GF&P regional wildlife manager John Kanta says the survey included aerial work and is more comprehensive than previous surveys. He says that is why the estimate went up.


But other people aren't so sure. John Wrede is a retired GF&P conservation officer and regional wildlife manager. Wrede believes the survey counted some elk more than once, which is leading to inaccurate estimate

STEDI STOCK is announcing the NEW IMPROVED STEDI STOCK II


  The new model had to sacfrifice some weight but it is Steadier,  Stronger, has more mass and the greatest thing is you no longer have to Remove the Optics Device from the Stock to adjust your eye relief!   It will handle the Large Swarovski and Howa Scope and the large heavy Video cameras and it is amazing what it will do with a DSLR mounted on it!  Check it out today @ http://www.stedistock.com or on Face book at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stedi-Stock/298790096115


 


This product will handle all your Camera, Range Finder, Spotting Scope and Video Camer stabilization needs!

Backyard Bow Pro is a charitable, member based organization whose mission is to connect non-hunting landowners with hunters who then work together for the betterment of their community with local food relief agencies such as Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry and others to provide food for the needy. BYBP has only been around for one year but it has gotten the attention of a lot of industry insiders, sponsors and media outlets. If you haven't heard about them yet, you will soon. Go to [url=http://www.backyardbowpro.com]www.backyardbowpro.com[/url] or check them out on facebook at Team Backyard Bow Pro

[b][size= small]I saw this Tree Blind at the Shot Show this year. It actually looks like a giant tree stump! It has alot of room inslide 7 I think that it is a great idea but it is a little to pricey for me. I believe that they were asking $3200 for this.[/size][/b]

Kjell -thanks for the comment. Our web site should assist in ordering, but if you need help, send me an e-mail and I'll get you going. Rick

Nice! It's raining 200 days a year here,so this is welcome!!! Sending you an order soon....

Hello.  My name is Rick Hoggan and I'm new to SeeMeHunt.com  I look forward to all the good things that we hunters can share with each other to improve on the sport we love.  As a dedicated multi-species hunter of over 40 years, I have had the misfortune of seeing my quarry bound away, as I attempted to make my shot, due to fogged, wet or dirty lenses.  I attempted my own remedy with stretched innertubes or drying the lenses with a cloth, but to no avail.  I then bought commercial products named after a thin woman's two-piece bathing suite, flip open caps and anti-fogging solutions.  Again, they just didn't perform.  They were either to slow to remove, wouldn't flip open (or had flipped long before needed) or would only keep the fog away but not the water.   They say necessity is the mother of invention.  My long-time hunting partner, Jon Stram, invented the ScopeShield custom neoprene scope cover.  I now have the perfect scope protection.  Covering the entire scope (tube, turrets and lenses), the ScopeShield protects your valuable optics in storage, transit and in the field.  It is so quickly and easily removed from the scope for shooting situations that it can be left on the optic right up to the moment of the shot.  Go to www.scopeshieldcover.com and see the short opening video for yourself.  Offered in 8 sizes and 11 colors/patterns, we have a ScopeShield to fit almost any scope.  We even do special orders and custom printing on the covers to advertise your name, club, organization, company or ????.  Did I mention that our front keeper loop keeps the ScopeShield on the weapon when released from the scope?  You won't have to find a pocket to stuff it into or go back looking for it.  Were were recently member tested by the NAHC with positive feedback.  We are in the 2011 RMEF Banquet Catalog and recently seen on the tv program Sarah Palin's Alaska.  Don't miss another shot because of wet, fogged or dirty optics.  Contact us and see the difference soon.  Thank you. 

Alligator hunting season is almost herePosted:

Jul 06, 2010 6:25 PM EDT

By LeiLani Golden -

LAKE SEMINOLE, GA (WALB) –Alligator hunting season is approaching.

Registration is underway now, but only a limited number of applicants get the chance to legally hunt the gators.

Lake Seminole is known for its great fishing. But more than fish lurk in these waters.

"Every time we go fishing. They're everywhere," says Joey Sloan, the son of an alligator hunting guide.

He's talking about alligators. And so many gators live here that people from all across the country visit for the chance to catch one during the fall's alligator hunting season.

"I think they could double our permits and no one would notice the difference," says Mike Sloan, Wingate's alligator guide.

But the southwest Georgia region only gets a limited number of permits each year. Most people entering the quota lottery don't win until their third year. But if you have a friend lucky enough to snag a permit, all you need is a license to ride out with them to snag your own gator.

Alligator hunting is definitely a team sport requiring at least two people.

"It's a 3-4 man job," explains Sloan. "I've seen people that come with just a couple and said they would never do that again. It's a lot of work. The 12 1/2 foot we got last year we hooked at about 9 PM and came back at 3 in the morning. It took that long to fight him."

And much like fish, hunters tend to have better luck catching gators during certain times of the day.

"Most people want to go at night. I guess for the added fear factor," explains Sloan. "It's a little spooky at night when it looks like an airport runway with all the eyes looking at you. you want to keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times."

Hunters must be at least sixteen years old before they get in on the action.

"As soon as I'm old enough, we're gonna go," Joey says enthusiastically.

Catching one of these tremendous reptiles will earn bragging rights for a lifetime.

"The big one from last year, the two gentlemen who got that wanted to have it mounted," says Sloan. "I don't know where you'd put a 12-foot gator in your house, but I guess they did."

Because few things top a gator trophy in your living room.

Alligator season opens in September. To learn more, visit the Department of Natural Resources website here.

More details on alligators:

There are alligator farms that raise the reptiles commercially for their meat and skin. There's one in Camilla called Glass Enterprises.

The meat is high in protein, low in fat, and cholesterol free and is a million dollar industry.

The skin is mostly used for bags, shoes, and other luxury accessories. Alligator farms are found mostly in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana.

Those states combined produce 45,000 alligator hides every year.

©2010 WALB News.

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Body Language
Many predator hunters today use the spotlight to hunt predators at night. Using this technique, as you luer the animals in you use their eyes to read the animal, and to make educated predictions on what move the animal will make next. This is the same technique I used for years and years, and it served it's purpose fairly well. As in all things in the world today, technology changes the way that people operate on a daily basis. This change happens in virtually every facit of life, from the way we do business, communicate, and you guessed it, even the way we predator hunt. The advancement and growing availability of night vision technology has changed the way that we (or at least I believe we should) predator hunt. Watching the animal's eyes gives the seasoned hunter a lot of hints as to what the animal will do (as stated before), which aids significantly in the success of hunts, is no longer the all we have to rely on, yet many people seem to think that this is "The" way to hunt. The night vision technology available today allows the hunter to see the entire animal, not just the eyes. Imagine being able to read the animal's entire body to anticipate the next move and you are imagining my reality. With the use of 3rd generation night vision, I can read the body language of the animal. Over the years of doing this I have gotten a knack for reading the body language, much like many hunters today have a knack for reading the eyes of the predators. The results have been amazing. I have hacked into a whole new world of predator hunting! The eyes are only a portion of the animal, and since I can see the entire animal I have that much more to base my anticipations off of. The technology is here, it just has to be exposed and then accepted. I am not here to bash anyone's techniques, I am simply here to spread the word on an amazing new technique. Take it or leave it, but this change has made a substantial difference in my success as a predator hunter.

Calling wolves in Canada and getting fox
When we are calling wolves in Canada, we get in a lot of fox and lynx coming into the call. Usually if they come in, you will not get a wolf in. They know when there is a wolf in the vicinity and refrain from coming in. There are some great color variations of fox in Ontario, silver, red and cross fox, that all make great mounts. The lynx cannot be taken while calling, the trappers are in control of all the lynx permits, and can only be taken by trap. It is real tough to get one in and just have to watch it until it decides to leave.

Calling cats as opposed to coyotes in daytime.
When I am calling bobcats I have a completely different Set than I do with coyotes. On my bobcat Sets I will look for a brushy draw or creek bed and try to get some elevation and good cover when I sit down. It is good to be thirty to fifty feet above the bottom of the creek bed. I only want to see at the most 100 yards. I want the wind in my face and to see clearly for forty to fifty yards over my right and left shoulders. I have a lot of bobcats try to sneak up on me, need to see them in advance. Bobcats just seem to appear out of the air, and be in shooting range without me seeing them coming in. It is much easier to hunt bobcats at night because the reflection of their eyes from the light.

The calling boxes have really taken off in sales. And there are some really good ones, but I prefer the mouth calls for calling bobcats and coyotes. There are reasons for this. I used 8 track tapes we had produced ourselves and played them on the player in my truck and had a speaker that I placed on the top of the truck in 1968. This was when the first cassette players came out but did not have enough volume for me. On a windy night you not use the cassette tapes. At this time in my teens, I used Weems calls made in Cleburne, Texas, just 15 miles away and got to meet Mr. Weems. One of the guys I played football with high school, father worked with him at Sante Fe Railways, and I met him and bought calls from him for my coyote calling. I also at the time was using Burnham Brothers calls in the early and mid 60’s. All of these were closed reed calls, and worked very well, and called in a lot of coyotes and foxes with them. I still use the same types of calls with great success. To me the best closed reed calls on the market are the Dan Thompson Calls, they are styled off of the old Weems calls, in fact we have talked about that many times. I also use the open reed howler calls, but use them to make jack rabbit sounds with great success. I use the hand calls because I can control the animal coming in better. If the tape keeps rolling when a predator shows up, if he has been called before, he will hold up at a distance and watch to see what is going on. If I see him coming in the distance, I will stop calling completely and only coax him if he stops coming in. He will tell me by his body language what he is going to do.

The five mistakes commonly made calling at night.
1. Most callers will be calling and get a set of eyes at long distance and have the animal coming in and take the light off for seconds to look in other directions for additional eyes and the predator coming in will see them in the back of the truck or in the high rack and go off.
2. As the animal is located with the light you can make no noise, the sound of metal against metal, or whispering will give your location away and turn the animal back in the bush.
3. A lot of predator hunters keep the mechanical call going once the animal is located, it is my experience that as soon as the animal eyes are located, shut the call off and make the animal come on in and find where the thinks the sounds is coming from.
4. An animal will give away his intentions on coming in or hanging up by his body language and movements . Most hunters get an animal coming in and it hangs up and moves back and forth sideways, at this point he is done and has decided it is not his game. Your only shot will be then, and you have to take it.
5. I find one of the most important mistakes is using the light, I always move slowly in circles, if you move fast and the predator has any elevation coming in he can see you as you make the fast turns with you hand and light, and will hang up, or leave.
I have had the opportunity to observe all of this first hand through 3rd Generation Night Vision. In the last ten years I have called in at least 750 to 1000 predators each winter and watched the whole animal not just the eyes and the body language on every set. I have called in Javelina's, lions, fox, bobcats, coons, coyotes, wolves and been able to observe all there behavior coming in.

1. I use a helmet used by Special Ops that I sell, and attach the NOD’s and a small coon hunter light to. The coon hunter light is above and behind the NOD’s. The coon hunter light has a battery that is mounted on a belt, and comes with different colored lenses.
2. I will find the set that I am going to call at and turn the light down so low that I can barely see on the ground with the naked eye. This is one of the advantages of my style of hunting. Most night callers use 500 to million candle power spotlights to locate eyes. All of these hunters know what happens when you burn an animal coming in with these spotlights, they will wince or turn and either walk off or run away. With the light turned down so low, you can see with the night vision as if you were shining the more powerful lights without making the animal move off.
3. As soon I pick up eyes, and this can be as much as a half a mile away in the open, I never take my light off the animal coming in. The small light completely blinds them and they usually come in to within 40 yards to get a shot at them. You can also turn the light up slowly as they are approaching and you will have a very good view them for the shot. On a bobcat I can see the spots at 80 yards if they are in the open. I usually can tell you the species at from 80 to 150 yards.
4. The small light source is a great advantage in calling, if you have an area the has been called a lot at night, I can usually do very well with the small light, for they have seen the other and will stay out at a distance and never come in. With the small light they have no fear, and have had them sit down within 20 feet of my van.
5. One of the distinct advantages of NOD’s, is watching the whole animal coming in and not the eyes. Some will look around a lot coming in and others come in totally focused on the call. The ones that look around a lot usually have to be shot at a distance for they come in thinking something is not right.
6. I do not use NOD scopes, I use NOD’s that attach to the back of the scope, and can be taken off and the rifle used during the day.

Night Night vision has the capability of changing the way we predator hunt entirely, and over the years I have learned to utilize night vision on my hunts in an exceptional way. Trial and error has lead to my developed hunting technique, which has given me excellent results. With the use of night vision we are able to hunt the predator more like the predator hunts it's prey, in the dark, allowing for the majority of our kills to be made with shots taken an average of 35 yards out! Hunters' odds of killing their desired animal greatly increases at this distance, therefore my technique has lead to a higher percentage of kills per hunt than several of our competitors. Utilizing night vision headgear, as well as on our scopes, gives us near daytime visibility without disturbing the wild life. There is no rocket science here, just simple facts, when the animal can't see us it is far more vulnerable; the use of night vision allows us to capitalize on this very fact, and gives us a tremendous advantage over many of the other predator hunting styles. Our fine tuned style of night predator hunting has often allowed us to kill the animal without it ever knowing we were there. There have even been instances where the predator has approached, and even made contact with the hunting vehicle! If you haven't thought about trying night vision on your predator hunts, you definitely should. Night vision headgear, as well as night vision set ups for guns, are available out there, you just have to utilize them. It seems that there are very few people out the there hunting with my methods. Night vision can change the hunt, even if you don't use a hunting guide service, so go out and see for yourself. You may just be surprised at the difference it makes. Night vision makes for unforgettable predator hunting experience. Experience the difference at www.cowboypredatorhunts.com
The Night Vision Advantage Over the years I have learned to utilize night vision on my hunts, through trial and error I have developed my hunting technique, and have seen excellent results. With the use of night vision we are able to hunt the predator more like the predator hunts its prey, in the dark, allowing for the majority of my kills to be made with shots taken an average of 35 yards out! Hunters odds of killing their desired animal greatly increases at this distance, therefore my technique has lead to a higher percentage of kills per hunt than several of our competitors. Our fine tuned style of night predator hunting has often allowed us to kill the animal without ever knowing we were there. There have even been some instances where the predator has approached, and even made contact with the hunting vehicle! Cowboy Predator Hunts' technique has left every customer a satisfied one, and at this rate it we will continue to provide an unforgettable night predator hunting experience.

Thought i would show you all this all new shooting product i have designed and had made over here in the UK. Launched at the start of our shooting season in 2009. Made from high quality English leather and made by hand by our chosen leather craftsman. Recently reviewed in one of our top shooting magazines "Shooting Times" which they gave it a 9/10 rating and product of the week. They said of the Stock Aid."A well made and clever solution to a tiring problem" "Field and Moor has come up with this ingenious and simple device" "Beautifully made using high-quality leather" Designed to use when out walking with either a shotgun or rifle allowing you to get onto your quarry quicker and not getting tiring arms from carrying your gun over your arm. Fits around your waist which keeps the barrels of your gun pointing up and safe away from others.

Whilst i appreciate shooting is different over in the US it would be good to get some feed back from you guys and girls.

O.K., 3 years ago i put the hind site system on ALL of my bows. And I can honestly tell you my shotting improved 1,000 percent. I never could get used to peep sites and missed a couple good deer b/c of it!

So, with the hind site, you can actually shoot with both eyes open and have target acquisition instantaneously..as soon as you get to full draw you can touch off the release and drill bull everytime.

Anybody else use them, and if you do not...why not?