More Fun With Our Trail Camera

I knew I would be laid up a while from an upcoming surgery so at the end of deer season I took a bag of persimmons, from a Japanese persimmon tree in our back yard, up to the ranch. We just put them out in a big pile and put the trail cam on them to see what would show up. I have been cooped up in the house after surgery for almost a week so yesterday my wife got me out of the house and drove me up to the place to get some sun and fresh air. While we there we pulled the memory card from the trail cam monitoring the persimmon pile and were surprised by the visitors. Besides the usual cows and deer we had some other visitors. I thought you might enjoy the pictures. If you have any unique visitors to any of your trail cams send us the pictures and we will pass them on if possible. May your trail cams go off timely, Wild Ed

Here are few shots of a Great Horned Owl and the rare Texas Pasture Monster I was able to capture with my camera on the trip.

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Good Guy Gone Too Soon

There is no excuse for hunting and shooting accidents. I have seen people mishandle firearms in my 55 years on this earth and in the past I have put up with it because of who someone was or who they were with at the time. I was wrong to do so and decided several years ago to come down hard on anyone I see doing any unsafe practice with a firearm. I will not hunt or shoot again with someone that does so and does not care to learn better. I will repeat again there is NO EXCUSE for any unsafe practice with a firearm. I have a dear friend that lost a nephew this last week. He was one of the good guys and will be missed by family and friends. He leaves a six week old daughter that will never know her father. He leaves a wife that will miss his voice and touch. I received notice of Matt’s death from his Uncle, Tom Jansen. Reading the original email brought tears to my face as I could feel the pain being felt by the one sending it out. I feel the pain as I write this and I am going to publish, at Tom’s request, the obituary here in hopes that someone reading this might become a safer shooter. May we all make an effort to never point a gun at anything we do not want to shoot. In the excitement of the hunt no trophy on this earth is worth losing control or not knowing where your buddies are located. Never set up in a group hunt where anyone could be in anyone else’s line of fire. Never take a shot that you are unsure of your background. I am not preaching here I am praying along with Tom that this might save someone’s life.

Here is the notice about Matt.

Matt, you will be missed.

Matt called his dad Saturday afternoon and said he was so proud of his young Chocolate Lab who had just retrieved 3 ducks. Sunday Morning he was shot in the back of the head as he stood up in front of his buddy as he was tracking the same group of Ducks Matt was. Matt left a Wife and 6 week old Girl at home over the excitement of a Damn Duck. PLEASE keep perspective and set some ground rules. Lanes of shooting. Safe/ no shoot zones. I have attached an obituary for a life ended MUCH too soon. Do not follow in these footsteps. Beaumont, Texas.


HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- It is with great sadness that the Alabama-Huntsville athletics department announces that former Charger baseball standout pitcher Matt Jansen was killed in a tragic accident while hunting in his home state of Texas on Sunday morning.

"Matt's death has shaken the entire UAH Baseball family," said UAH head coach Lowell Mooneyham. "Matt Jansen was a great teammate, friend and even greater person. We will be there for the family during this tragic time. He will be dearly missed by all that knew him and our prayers go out to his entire family.

"A former All-Region, All-Conference and Academic All-America, Jansen married his college sweetheart, former UAH volleyballer Whitney Mock, and the couple recently had their first daughter, Avery. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Whitney, Avery and all of Matt's family," noted director of athletics Jim Harris. "Matt was a tremendous student-athlete in every sense of the word here at UAH. He set a high standard of excellence both on the field and in the classroom that all of our athletes should strive to attain.

"Possessing what most consider the best changeup in the history of the UAH baseball program, Jansen, 30, helped lead the Chargers to three NCAA regional appearances and a Gulf South Conference crown in 2001. Among the leaders in a number of statistical categories, Jansen owns one of two no hitters in school history having thrown his gem in 2000 against GSC for West Georgia.

Matthew graduated from Thomasville High School in Thomasville as the salutatorian of his class in 1997. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. While at UAH he was awarded All-Conference, All-Region, and Academic All American honors. He also took great pride working as an engineer for Bigler Corp. on the Houston Ship Channel. Matthew was an avid outdoorsman, a loving and doting father, and a beloved husband, brother and son. Matthew was a dedicated Christian and loved his Lord Jesus Christ.

With Great sadness
Tommy Jansen
Uncle

Ultimate Predator, Rulers of the Night DVD Review

Photo by Ultimate Predator




I have been sitting around the house trying to recoup from a heart procedure that made me feel like some body just beat me up and pushed me down the stairs. I was not feeling like doing anything and then the postman drops off a package. It was a new DVD on predator hunting that I had ordered before I went in for surgery on the say so of the producer Chris Robinson. I was looking for a DVD with some more good bobcat footage and he sent me a note plugging his video. I decided to buy it and see if Chris and team knew what they were doing. I just finished watching this new DVD Ultimate Predator produced by Chris Robinson and am going through it again as I write this article. This video is done in typical Texas night hunting style spotlighting from the back of a pickup truck with both electronic and hand calls to bring in the predators. Chris does not go into the type of calls, lights or firearms used on the hunt. He does give you no nonsense hunts as they happen right in your face. The fact that technique and equipment are not discussed does not mean the Chris is not teaching lessons to those that pay attention. Several important lessons are shown as they happen. One of the most important was to keep calling after you shoot and you may pick up additional animals as many predators are not effected by the sound of gun fire. Another important lesson is when you start calling and turn the light on leave it on until you are finished, none of this flipping the light on and off. Several of the hunts show you how to stop animals for the shot and when to do so along with giving you a chance to understand the body language of your quarry. One Bobcat sequence drives in the importance of being absolutely quite as predators can hear better than you think. There are quite a few hunts with Bobcats, Coyotes, Grey Fox, Red Fox and even a Ring-tailed cat thrown in to keep your interest up. The filming is of above average quality and the narration clear.



All in all Chris has a winning DVD in my opinion and I give it a strong thumbs up. If you enjoy predator hunting this DVD makes you feel like you are right there in the back of the truck with the guys. I just wish they would hurry up and let me take my turn to shoot!



If you would like to watch a trailer on the DVD, order your own copy or just learn more about Chris and the team you can find a lot of information at the following link.

http://www.ultimatepredatortv.com/

Another thing I need to mention but I am not pointing this out to embarrass the shooter. Those of us that hunt will miss sooner or later. If you have not missed you have not hunted much or you stretch the truth some. In a couple of sequences you see a shooter miss what looks like a sure kill with a shotgun. In one sequence the shooter misses multiple shots with a shotgun. Remember that your eye is the rear sight on a shotgun and if you lift your head up to look at the target you are trying to shoot you will miss. It also points out the importance of having your shotgun fitted to shoot where you look. For more information read the article at the following link.

http://wildedtx.blogspot.com/2010/01/effective-shotgunning-techniques-for.html

Have a great time in the Outdoors. I wish you all good health, Wild Ed

Texas Wildlife and Birding Trails

The older I get the more hunting I seem to do with my camera instead of a gun. One reason is dressing out game is work, so unless I have a true trophy in my sights I would rather take a picture than a shot. The cleanup of a photo is much quicker, cleaner and easier to accomplish. The only problem is you can't eat a photo, but my daughter and wife keep the freezer full so I don't have to figure that into the equation. Another reason that effects how much I hunt is the cost of leases and trophy fees for some hunts. In reality hunting in Texas is becoming more and more expensive. I have discovered that I can hunt Wildlife Management Areas, Refuges and State Parks with a camera for minimal fees. Another advantage to hunting with a camera is that I can hunt all year round and not pay attention to State Seasons.



Being such a large State Texas has a very diverse population of wildlife and birds. You can find such species as the Mule Deer, Mountain Lion, Bear and Javelina of the Big Bend Country to the Bobcats, Beaver and Otter of the East Texas Marsh. South Texas brush country has special things like the last Ocelots in the State and it's own special hawk the Harris Hawk. The very southern tip of Texas even has neo-tropical birds for the birder. The northern plains have Pheasant, Prairie Chicken and Prairie Dogs to add to the list. No matter what area of Texas you choose you will find a diverse wildlife and bird population for your viewing and picture taking.


Texas Parks and Wildlife has come up with a trail system and maps to point you in the right direction and lead you to special places to see Texas wildlife. No matter what area of Texas or the species you want to see there is a Texas Wildlife or Birding Trail to get you there. There are maps of each trail and information available to make your trip all it can be. The following link will take you to all the information and tell you where to get your own maps of the great Texas Wildlife and Birding Trails.


http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/wildlife_trails/


Get your maps, cameras and gear together, load up the family and hit the trail. I bet you will find some neat places, see some great wildlife and make some great memories. Don't forget the camera, Wild Ed

PS: I wanted to tell you guys that I may not be posting for a little while as I am having a heart procedure done this week and am not sure how long I will be away from the blog. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated and I look forward to again posting for the many friends I have made with this blog. Thanks, Ed

Becoming a Real Photographer

I have been taking pictures of animals since I was a kid in college but I hate to say all were done with point and shoot cameras. I finally got a film SLR Canon AE1 but I put it on auto and off I went. I have taken lots of good pictures of animals acting like animals in the wild. I never captured the depth of field or exposure other than what the camera took on auto. I recently passed the Canon AE1 on to my daughter for her use in college biology classes and I moved up to one of the new Canon SLR digital cameras. I placed it on automatic and off I went into the woods. You have seen many of those pictures on this blog and it does a real good job of turning out good pictures.


Last week I took my first Photography class at the Dougherty Arts School and placed my camera on manual. I also put on a 150-500 telephoto lens and went into the wilds of a park near here to get some wildlife pictures. I finally found a Great Blue Heron right at sunset. He was sitting on the entrance pond of a major subdivision in my area and I stalked to where I could get a shot before he flew off. I was not able to set up a tripod and handheld the telephoto which I should not do for clear pictures. I only got four shots before the heron flew for parts unknown and only one with his head held high. It may not be an award winning shot but I took it with my camera, my new lens and did it all manually. I hope to take many more. Wild Ed

Mounted Cowboy Shooting Champ is a Cowgirl

Photo Brian Anthony

I remember as a kid growing up in West Texas my friends and I all had our heroes on TV. We would sit around and watch them jump on their horses and chase the bad guys in living black and white television. Most of the times they would draw their colt 45 revolvers and shoot the guns out of the bad guys hands and save the day. Sometimes they actually shot the bad guys but most of those shots just winged them and they would go off to jail. To make a long story short we dreamed of riding around on our horses and shooting off our guns. For a long time it was just riding around on our bicycles and shooting our daisy BB guns. Later in life I got the horses and the guns and found out how difficult it really was to shoot off a horse. It took a lot of training to have a horse even put up with the loud firearms reports over or around it's head. I soon discovered it was more useful to dismount and just shoot near the horse when hunting.

There is a sport growing by leaps and bounds in this country called Cowboy Action Shooting. Thousands of Americans are stepping back in history by wearing the old time clothes and shooting firearms straight out of the Old West. One division of this sport is mounted shooting. It is kind of like barrel racing but you have to draw two different revolvers and shoot 10 balloons while racing the clock with your horse. The embedded video will show Champion Kenda Lenseigne and her horse perform the feat in an 11 second run much better than I can explain.

Congrats Kenda my daughters are proud of you. They have always believed that girls can shoot better than boys anyways. Wild Ed


http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100103/NEWS01/701039925

Effective Shotgunning Techniques for Predators

Photo and Pattern by Gary Carver
http://www.predatormastersforums.com/

The Johnny Stewart Grey Fox Pup in Distress tape echoed across the pasture in the cold night air. A pair of eerie bouncing eyes came out of a cedar thicket and started cutting across the edge of a grassy cactus flat to the downwind side of the truck. I kept the eyes just inside the lower glow of the red beam of light and asked my calling partner if he was ready. I heard a faint guttural “drop it” which told me to drop the beam on the grey fox to illuminate it for the shot. I dropped the beam full on the fox at about 40 yards and was amazed to see dust from the shot kick up under and behind the bouncing fox. The second shot rolled the grey but was still too far back and the animal had to be subdued when we ran out to pick it up. I have seen this happen too many times before and have come to realize that many hunters are not prepared to hunt predators with shotguns. Hunting after dark or in low light conditions just multiplies the problems of hitting your target with a shotgun. My calling partner that night was an experienced hunter and is not a bad wing shot when we go bird hunting, yet the fox he had problems hitting was much larger than a dove and it almost got away. I would bet that in a year of hunting he only takes a few shots at night with a shotgun in the type situation in which he shot the fox. Some of us use a shotgun for predators much more than that but few practice to be an effective predator shotgunner.



There are tons of articles out there that will help you pick shotguns, chokes, shells and shot sizes to use for predator hunting with a shotgun. Just like anyone else I have my favorites, but it is not my goal to convince you to use the same equipment as me. All sorts of companies now market special predator ammo and chokes for shotguns, most are excellent. We are even seeing special models of shotguns marketed for the predator hunter. Many of these products are as good as it gets, but none will work if you can not hit your target. I want to enable you to hit your target at any reasonable range, in the brush, in the dark, with minimal light or in other adverse conditions. Most predator hunters shoot shotguns with magnum loads and very tight choke patterns with large sizes of shot. This fact alone makes shooting the shotgun effectively much more difficult in predator hunting than shooting birds on the wing with open chokes and large dense patterns. Have you every wondered why many turkey hunters use scopes and special sights on specialized shotguns for hunting turkey? They do that because it is very easy to miss a turkey’s head with such tight chokes and the dense patterns they shoot. The same is true of predator hunting yet we shoot in conditions where the shot must be made instinctively without time to take careful aim, often in poor light and without special sighting systems. Our targets are not slowly strutting around a decoy but are often running full out, bouncing and turning at every step. If you can miss a strutting turkey at forty yards imagine how much easier it would be to miss a fox or coyotes vital kill area on the run at forty yards. This is farther complicated by the fact that most predators are moving much faster than their gait appears to propel them across the ground.



Very few of us go out and practice shooting clay birds with a super full choke yet that is exactly what kind of practice is needed to become deadly on predators. The sporting clays shooters have a perfect target for practicing predator shooting. It is a super tough hard clay target called the rabbit that is thrown from a high powered trap along the ground at speeds up to fifty miles an hour. If you have a sporting clays range near you, go out and get them to let you practice shooting rabbits with your predator hunting shotgun. I always get strange looks for shooting a camo shotgun with a strap and a twenty two inch barrel on the sporting clays course, but I can hit predators on the run better than most because of such practice. One can learn more while spending an hour shooting bouncing clay rabbits than in years of shooting running targets while hunting, it will open your eyes and make you a better hunter.



In order to become a good predator shotgunner the first thing you must do is establish that your shotgun shoots where you look. Draw a three inch bullseye on a large piece of cardboard and place about fifteen steps away. Put in a tight choke and quickly shoot several shots without taking careful aim by simply mounting the gun and shooting while keeping your eyes focused only on the bullseye. Again focus only on the bullseye, do not look at the front bead on the shotgun. The shotguns front bead should be visible only in your peripheral vision. Do not readjust the gun position to line up the bead or this exercise will not tell you where your shotgun shoots. The goal of this test is to find out where your shotgun prints the center of the pattern when you don’t have the time to take a bead or adjust your hold. After four or five shots you should begin to see where the center of your pattern is striking on the cardboard. If after shooting, the center of your pattern is not mostly on the bull or just to the top of the bull you will need to adjust your shotgun until it shoots to the center or just a tad high. Many shotguns have shims in the stock to make these adjustments, just follow the manufacturer’s instructions to adjust the stock. I won’t go into shotgun fit here as it would take another article to cover it, but you will never shoot well instinctively unless your shotgun fits you. With a shotgun that shoots where you look, you will only need to see your target to hit it. You will also become much more efficient at night shooting and those shots where you only have a moment to fire.



The next thing you need to do is learn an efficient method of shooting and practice until it becomes a habit. The method I use is called Pull Away or Move, Mount, Shoot. What this means is you will swing the shotgun along with your target at the same speed as the target in the ready position, but not mounted to the shoulder. When the target is in position to shoot you simply mount the shotgun on the FRONT of the target, pull away or out in front of the target and fire. The gun should go off only a heartbeat after touching your cheek. At night you focus only on the animal’s eyes, not the whole animal, not the fluffy tail of a fox or coyote. In daylight or under good lighting conditions focus only on the head of the animal so that if it is running you can simply go to the front, pull away and drop your quarry. You must concentrate your focus on the head of the animal as it is easy to look at the whole animal and not the head. Remember the goal of shooting moving targets is to shoot where the target will be when the shot gets there. Unless the target is standing still you will have to lead your quarry thus the pull away or pull to the front to fire. If your shotgun fits or you have adjusted the stock to fit, you will not have to worry about shooting over or under the animal or where your front bead is at the moment of firing. Everything will be where it is supposed to be and you will not be wondering why you missed or end up trying to track a wounded animal at night.



I have seen a hunter stand in the back of a truck, with marginal lighting, engage multiple running coyotes busting into a brush clearing and make a kill with each shot of the shotgun while a screaming predator call was blaring in his ears the whole time. We have all had those moments when everything works just like it is supposed to work. It just seems to happen a whole lot more when your shotgun shoots where you look and you have practiced sufficiently to be able to shoot well when those special opportunities come around. A good predator shotgunner is an amazing thing to watch and it is a very efficient way to take predators. With a little practice it may become your favorite way to hunt. Good gunning, Wild Ed

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Burris Tactical Rings and Bases get a Thumbs Up

Every once in awhile you buy a product that meets or even exceeds your expectations for what money you paid out for the product. Burris Xtreme Tactical Rings and bases are such a product. I have used several brand name tactical rings and have been pleased with the performance. Burris falls in that category also, so what is different? The price is about half or less expensive than other brands and the performance seems to be as good as or even better than the higher priced brands. I won’t go into the specs but will include the wording below from the manufacturer. Since like you I buy my own gear it is so nice to have a product exceed my expectations. Now if the rest of the shooting world would step up to the plate. Have a great new year and enjoy the Texas Outdoors, Wild Ed



XTR Xtreme Tactical Rings
One look and you know Xtreme Tactical Rings are all about point-of-aim security and durability. The super-strong yet surprisingly lightweight, six-screw aluminum rings anchor scopes in place on any Picatinny rail or Weaver-style base to deliver unfailing return-to-zero. Available in 1” and 30mm sizes, a choice of four ring heights accommodates the installation of any sight from red-dots to large objective target scopes. The 1” height is perfect for all scopes on AR15/M16 flattop receivers, providing proper cheek weld.Designed and built for the rigors of tactical shooting and massive recoil, Xtreme Tactical Rings are not out of place on varmint rifles or big game rifles that may be exposed to the abuses of hard hunting and magnum recoils.


XTB Weaver-style Solid Steel BasesXtreme Tactical Bases are crafted from solid steel and engineered for maximum mounting flexibility and minimal height and weight. Mil-spec cross slots guarantee rock-solid attachment with any and all Weaver-style, Picatinny-style or mil-spec rings. Front base is reversible to provide multiple ring positions to accommodate various scope lengths.