The Shore welcomes a hero

Over the last 7 years I have had a lot of really cool things happen in my career.  From working directly with Jeff Foxworthy and David Morris as field host on Bucks of Tecomate TV & Tecomate Whitetail Nation TV to filming the now 30 million hit viral video Denver Our Guilty Dog on YouTube.  All are special to me and have helped shape my career in one way or another.  But recently I had something happen to me that might just top them all.  Or at least, give them a run for their money.

A few weeks ago I welcomed Grateful Nation TV into town and our mission was to film a waterfowl hunt with me here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  In case you are not familiar with these fine folks, Grateful Nation TV airs nationally on Outdoor Channel and is hosted by Tim Abell.  Some of you may recognize Tim from his acting bits on CSI Miami, Soldier of Fortune, We were Soliders (with Mel Gibson) and a long list of other accomplishments.  But putting Hollywood aside, the premise of Grateful Nation TV is to give back to our wounded service men and women by taking them on a dream hunt here in the US or abroad.  From the mountains of New Mexico, to the deserts of Africa, the farm belt of the midwest, the greenfields of Scotland or maybe just right here on little old Eastern Shore, these Veterans are taken on a journey to experience some of the finest hunting to be found.  It is a small but powerful way to give back just a little and show appreciation to these amazing Patriots for their commitment, service and sacrifice to this amazing country.

Traditionally the recipients of these hunts are soldiers whom have been injured during active duty combat.  However, the production company decided to use this hunt with me as an opportunity to recognize the 20th anniversary of Black Hawk Down!  Yes, the Black Hawk Down you are thinking of.....the Mogadishu incident & the famous movie!  Essentially, if I had a camera rolling on my face when I was told I would be taking decorated war hero 1st Sargent Mathew Eversmann on this hunt, I may have had another viral video to my credit!  Matt was directly involved with the incident known as Black Hawk Down and both his character and accounts of the incident were used in the making of the film.  Watch the movie again and you will see the quite extensive role Matt played throughout.  And if you like nail biter movies, Black Hawk Down gives you just that!

So after months of preparation we fast-forward to January and all the pieces of the puzzle have been pulled together.  The geese and ducks are here, the weather is ideal, Matt, Tim and the entire production crew from Orion Entertainment have arrived and all the makings of a great hunt are before us.  We used the Inn at Mitchell down in Tolchester as our headquarters and as usual, Jim & Tracy Stone were hospitality personified. The food was outstanding and as a guest you are surrounded by history.  There is an extensive library there containing stories of the Revolutionary War along with very old, rare pieces of art dating back hundreds of years.  If you are a hunter or simply just visiting the Eastern Shore, where else would you want to be than the Inn at Mitchell House!

Now, I won't be going into detail here on the actual hunt because I don't want to spoil the show.  but I will say that we pulled together a heck of an awesome waterfowl episode indicative of the Eastern Shore and as it nears we will announce a reminder here and on our Facebook page (slated to air October 2013).  To help the hunt unfold as planned, I enlisted the assistance of several close friends.  A huge thank you goes out to Steve Goss, Zachary Goss, Steve MacGlashen and Michael Lloyd for helping me pull this all together.  All are Shoremen in their own right and without them I would never have been able to pull this one off.  Without warning I lost all my geese at the last moment and both Steve's were able to provide private farms that indeed pulled it all together.  I am forever thankful for their friendship and their kindness!

It was so great to hunt with Tim again and I am already looking forward to having him here next year.  And a new friendship was sparked with Matt and our text messages have been flying back and forth regularly since the hunt.  He and I had a lot of things in common and when we put aside the hunting and military talk, we enjoyed talks about other mutual interests and I really enjoyed that.  I want to end by saying this experience was never about me, and never intended to be about me.  All I wanted was to share what I have experienced all my life with folks that truly appreciated the opportunity.  The true honor I felt throughout the entire hunt was a feeling that is difficult to put into words.  In short, I consider myself to be a Patriot of this free country and to take a War Hero hunting and share the hunt with someone that knowing put his life on the line for all of us was simply beyond comprehension for me and the shock value has not worn off.  While listening to Matt's battle stories there were times during the hunt that I got emotional and there were times when I saw others around getting emotional.  If you ever get the opportunity, open your ears to one of our fine military veterans that have been in situations we only hear about on tv.....no doubt, it will put life into perspective!  Thank you again boys!

Sorghum the right way

Each season Outdoor Essentials plants a fairly large amount of impoundment ponds with the sole purpose of attracting migrating waterfowl that come down from Canada during the winter months.  For years we have been planting these ponds in a roundup ready BT variety hybrid corn and although I find this to be the best selection for high attraction, there are still a few customers that insist on us planting sorghum in some of their ponds.  Unfortunately there is no such thing as roundup ready sorghum and since sorghum is in the grass family (like corn), it makes things difficult right off the bat when it comes to controlling grasses post emergence.  If you are going to plant and grow sorghum properly (in the sense of having a clean field) then the use of pre emergent herbicides will be your best option.  In this piece I am going to show you a simple & effective way I plant sorghum and how you can increase the chances of having a really nice clean sorghum field the next time you give it a shot.

note:  My method of planting sorghum is with a drill or row planter and does not pertain to the broadcast/cultipacking/drag method

My first move is to work the ground really well and my tool of choice for that is my discs. Sorghum is a nitrogen lover so in order to maximize my yields I fertilize my soil with a minimum of 350 pounds of triple 19 per acre.  I then incorporate this into the soil with my 3 point rototiller/cultipacker.  Essentially I now let that field sit & "fester" for a few weeks and my purpose here is to let the weeds and grasses sprout and come to life (preferably 2-4 inches in height).  Typically this begins to happen after week one.

Planting right through junk and ready for pre and post spray

Next I come through with my planter (Yetter 71) and this creates minimal soil disturbance. I have my rows set for 30 inches, just like my choice for corn and soybean row widths. My choice of seed is Dekalb Safened Sorghum that allows the use of pre emergent herbicide.  As you can see in the photo at right, all that volunteer junk is now active and aggressively growing(which is what we want). Once planted, I immediately go over the field with a tank mixture of pre and post emergent herbicide.  My choice here is roundup as the post emergent(that will take care of the junk growing).  And I use "Me-To-Lachlor (Dual Magnum) as the pre emergent. Additionally I add Jitzu, Tombstone or other long term insecticide for plant protection.  This combination will burn off every bit of the existing weeds and grasses and also provide quite a bit of protection against problematics and give the soon to be germinating sorghum a chance at emerging and establishing with minimal competition.

just 3 weeks after spraying pre and post emergent herbicide

note:  If you elect NOT to use pre emergent herbicide, your last resort for helping surpress weeds and grasses is to cultivate in between the rows.  Use caution here, as the ground disturbance will permit unwanted junk to explode!

The good side of cultivation (as long as you are having a consistent moisture weather pattern) is the amount of moisture you can bank in the soil that can help your plants survive during harsh drought conditions.  The downside is disturbing an active weed and grass seed bank that will encourage an eruption of unwanted culprits and they will indeed make their move once the soil is engaged.

I have tried just about every method of planting sorghum and the steps I just described are the most effective.  As I said in the begining of this piece, unfortunately at this time there is no such thing as roundup ready sorghum and until there is, this system can work provided all the steps are followed.  You can delve a little deeper in the pre emergent options and strengthen the plot even further.  But the method above does a pretty darn good job.  Remember that timing is important and when you couple timing with patience, you can have a great, clean sorghum field.

HOT TIP:  One of the challenges of using Sorghum or other small seed waterfowl attractants is that when hundreds of millions of migrating blackbirds come through they can literally wipe out these ponds way before ducks get to them.  To combat this, roll or cultipack the mature sorghum (or millet, etc...) down to the ground then flood the pond.  The seeds will then soak and submerge and indeed, the ducks will find them rather than falling victim to blackbirds.  This absolutely works!

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Late Season Trail Camera Strategies

With the first rut over and late season here, trail cameras mean as much to me today as they did in the entire summer while collecting data of who's who on the buck list.  Now nearly 5 months later I want to know who has survived the early hunting seasons, who got pushed into my farm because of hard hunting neighbors and most importantly I want to know if I need to be fired up for Muzzleloader & late Bow season!  So yes, to me this is a critical time and I need some answers!

There are a few key areas you can focus on when hanging your cameras at this late stage of the hunting season.  It's no secret that trail cameras won't get you that big buck.  But it's a fact that they will tell you if he's still alive or better yet if he is even there.  Trail cameras will help you gather the data and make some stand adjustments and help strengthen your late season strategy.   Lets take a look!

Standing corn is a MAGNET for late season whitetails!

Food Sources:  Standing corn and/or Beans are a late season magnet for whitetails.  Throw in a few inches of snow and the icing is on the cake.  You can place cameras on field edges or on heavily used trails leading to and from the food.  It's a good idea to have the cameras in easy-in / easy-out locations to minimize the risk of bumping deer while swapping out the SD media cards & batteries.


Bedding Entrances:  In most cases, the thickest parts of your property are the bedding areas.  However, don't rule out open areas with excellent visibility and easy escape routes.  Thickets are not always the safest place for whitetails and older mature bucks know this; especially during the late season.  I tend to believe that the amount of pressure applied by hunters prior to late season has a lot to do with this.  Find the well worn trails leading in and out of the bedding area and place your cameras about 5 feet high, angling them down.  This gets the camera of plane sight and lessens the chance of the flash detection(white flash or red flash).


Field Edge Scrapes:  Even though the rut is gone, field edge scrapes will always attract every buck that comes into the field during daylight and night time hours.  They simply cannot resist it and feel compelled to visit.  Even if they do not work the scrape, the bucks will come smell it and smile for the camera.  Place cameras high and above eye level and try not to touch anything with your bare hands.

Mock Scrapes:  This is my old favorite and it can be used at any time of the season....even summer.  Bucks simply love to visit these and when you doctor them up with scent, it closes the deal.  I bring a small rake along with me, find an overhanging branch and scrape away.  I am a big fan of Code Blue for the mock scrapes and I get countless bucks on film working the scrapes.  Some simply urinate in the scrape and Wala!  I have done that too and it works!



  

Feed Sites:  If legal in your area, feeding the deer with grains is an excellent way to gather photos of the deer on the property.  Contrary to popular opinion, it is extremely hard to get mature bucks to visit feed locations during daylight hours. But it can allow you to intercept him going to or from the location if you have done your homework.



Growing up here on the Eastern Shore has exposed me to 2 of my favorite fall/winter outdoor activities..... deer and waterfowl hunting.  I love them both but by Christmas I make the transition from deer to birds.  I sometimes reference this as "Time to stop looking down and time to start looking up!"  But that does not mean I don't keep a constant eye on the deer and that is how trail cameras help me with data during the late season.  My late season deer outings are as methodical as my regular season outings and I only go when the conditions warrant and I feel like I have a good chance to cross paths with a good one.  I check my cameras every 4 days to keep a watchful eye on the activity.  Trail cameras will help me ID the deer and give me an idea of where they have been hanging out, along with the date and time.  It also shows me when bucks begin to shed out and by all means, I use the trail camera data when going after a few late season does for management and freezer purposes.

The technology we have at our fingertips today is remarkable.  Trail cameras have been a part of my life for several years now and I consider them a hunting tool and a management tool.  I can't honestly say that a trail camera has directly helped me kill a deer.  But they have helped me know who is in the area and when the best times are to be in the stand.  Collect this data and the rest is up to you.  Hunt smart, use the wind and remember, it's their house!

Illinois Gun Season

I absolutely love Bow Hunting whitetails and I dream up the next encounter every single day.  But there is something  exciting about sitting in dang good stand with an accurate gun in your hands on the Illinois gun season opener!  When you get settled into your stand and daylight starts its break, there just seems to be a different feeling that warms you all over.  To top it off, I was joined by my good friend Jeff Hull and, well, lets just say that doubling up on this hunt was something we texted about in the weeks leading up to the hunt!!

Rather than go into great detail, the video should tell it all.  Two guys having fun and having a good conversation.  enjoy!