A quick thank you to everyone who has visited the site this month.  We had over 12,000 unique visitors to our site and over 35,000 page views in October.  A tremendous Thank you to each of you!

Please come visit our outfitters as they are the bread and butter that keeps us live!

Saint Paul, Minn. – October 31, 2007 – Pheasants Forever (PF) national board member and outdoor writer/photographer Berdette Zastrow of Columbia, South Dakota, recently received a pair of honors in the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers (AGLOW) 2007 Awards in Craft competition.

Held at the AGLOW national conference in Niagara Falls, Zastrow received a first place award in the "Best of Hunting" newspaper category. Her story, "A 48-Year Tradition," appeared in the Hook & Bullet section of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on November 8, 2006. The story chronicled the Bowar/Halbkat family and their South Dakota west river mule deer hunts over a four decade period.

RIDGWAY, Pa. - It's furry and walks on all fours. Beyond that, about the only thing certain about the critter photographed by a hunter's camera is that some people have gotten the notion it could be a Sasquatch, or bigfoot. Others say it's just a bear with a bad skin infection.

Rick Jacobs says he got the pictures from a camera with an automatic trigger that he fastened to a tree in the Allegheny National Forest, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, hoping to photograph deer.

What do you think???? 

We have some great new pictures from Sandy River Outfitters to share with you.  A great Bear hunt with Randy DiCello and a great archery deer hunt with Michael Moore.  Please take a look at the pictures and if you want a great guide for whitetails and bears you need to check out Sandy River Outfitters.

This hunting tip was so good I wanted to highlight it right here on the blog!  Christopher Hadley is a school teacher in Indiana and a heck of a hunter.  He has been doing some writing for us and his tips have been fantastic insights.  I am forever grateful for his contributions and I am getting to learn more and more about Chris from his writing... Get on those comments folks and welcome Chris and tell him what a great job he is doing!

Hunting Tip 130

Improvise: Use Your Surroundings To Your Advantage When Hunting

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Safari Club International (SCI) has filed extensive comments opposing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed listing of the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Bart Semcer is an avid outdoorsman who has dedicated his life to conserving the world's wildlife and wild places. Bart currently serves the Sierra Club as its Washington, DC Representative for Fish and Wildlife Policy and Hunting and Fishing Programs. In this position his responsibilities include developing and executing government relations strategies on issues related to the management of endangered species, public lands and the perpetuation of America's outdoor heritage.

I felt it would be incredibly important to interview Bart for our readers here.  Bart is advocating a strong bond between environmentalists and Conservationists to work on the things we do agree upon in saving our wild places and protecting our planet.  I think you will see from the following interview that Bart is working extremely hard on all of our behalf and while some may view him on the wrong side of the fence, he is an avid hunter and is working hard to make changes from within.

Here is a really quick story from the NRA-ILA newsletter about some people I know in the industry that I think you should all know about.  Steve and Annette Elliott are friends of mine and we are all working together to bring to the Washington Metro Area one of the greatest outdoor and Sportsmen's shows this area has ever seen but currently they are under attack in Roanoke Virginia for putting together a gun show in that area.  Please let the folks in Roanoke know about your displeasure.

Greenbrier County officials are scouring the woods near Cold Knob after receiving multiple reports that a lion -- an African lion, not the mountain variety -- is on the loose.

"We're treating this pretty seriously," said Robert McClung, the county's senior animal-control officer. "Right now, we're trying to confirm the initial report. Once we do that, we'll figure out what we're going to do about it."

A local hunter, 72-year-old Jim Shortridge of Frankfort, was bowhunting for deer Oct. 17 when the lion reportedly approached him.

"I watched it for more than 40 minutes," said Shortridge, who owns the parcel of land he was hunting on. "I watched it from my vehicle and from my hunting blind."

As many hunters in the Midwest know, a disease called blue tongue (BTV) has overwhelming swept in to their favorite hunting spots.  Southern Indiana, Kentucky, Southern Illinois, and parts of Tennessee have been the hardest hit this year.  Blue Tongue otherwise known as catarrhal fever, is a viral disease carried by biting insects that is transferred to sheep, deer and possibly other animals. Biologists have been trying to figure out the dynamic behind this depressing disease. There are some conclusions biologists have reached.  A biting insect called a “midge” is responsible for carrying the disease.  Once the midge infects a deer, the deer begin to have noticeable symptoms.  Some of these symptoms are high fever, hemorrhaging of the brain, and inflammation of muscles.  The deer literally go crazy due to the high temperatures of their bodies.  In the above Midwestern states (and possibly others), numerous sightings of deer standing in pools of water, ponds, lakes and rivers have been reported. The deer get overwhelmingly hot and travel to the nearest source of water to cool themselves down.  Unfortunately in many cases, this does not happen and the deer die near these sources of water.