I was able to put together a short version of the footage from Friday morning's Missouri turkey harvest last night.  Later in May, we plan on compiling all of our footage from our turkey hunts from this spring and put together a full length video of our turkey hunting experience from this spring. 

It seems that with more practice/experience with iMovie (Mac's video editing software), the films are becoming much easier and quicker to produce.  Depending on the footage, we may be able to start having two or three minute videos each week showing our hunts - which would be a great add to our blog.  Also, some time this week, the little brown truck should be dropping off a new Canon HV40 camcorder that is capable of filming in full 1080 HD.  I cannot imagine what our new videos will look like under full HD conditions, but hopefully we will be able to find out this weekend!

We hope you enjoy the video.  Please let us know what you like and what you don't....  We are always open to suggestions on how to make our films better for the viewers.  It can be tough seeing some of the small things when you have been looking at this footage for 5 - 10 hours...  Anyways, Bo and I are really happy with how the video turned out and we hope all of you are as well.

MWB put long beard on the ground this weekend!!

Friday morning finally started the Missouri spring turkey season for Bo and I as we pulled out of the driveway at 4:30 AM and headed to a property that neither of us had ever hunted before.  However, we felt that by the use of aerials, topo maps and some wishful luck, that we had a pretty good idea of where the birds would congregate.  Luckily, the farmer had not yet had a chance to disc up this particular 40 acre bean field, which created a perfect stage for some struttin', drummin', and lady romancin'.  The weather certainly did not want to cooperate as it would go from an annoying drizzle to a monsoon where you couldn't see the end of the field.  Due to the rain, the birds were pretty quiet on the roost, but we did manage to get a few gobbles out of the roosted toms in the bottom ground.

We were completely surrounded by birds all morning.  Shortly after sunrise, seven jakes and a couple hens pitched down into the field.  After an hour or so, three of them decided to check out our decoy set.  Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for the jake), I made an absolutely poor attempt at a 20 yard shot at the more dominant of the jakes and missed him BAD.  I'm not even going to try to think of any excuses why I missed so bad, I'm just accepting the fact I missed...  I was pretty down about missing the chance at my first bearded bird with a bow, but was hopeful that I would get another chance.  After watching birds in our field for four hours, the field finally cleared.

But as we were stretching our legs outside of the blind and trying to get a game plan for the remaining couple hours, a lone long beard entered the field and immediately starting making a b-line to our setup.  We quickly got everything situated again and were about to get the show of our lives.  This bird got held up at about 100 yards and sat there for over an hour in full strut, gobbling 75 times at Bo's calling with the sweet sounding VECtor calls!





































He finally broke strut to cross through a small section of standing beans and fully committed to our setup.  Again, he went into full strut and started dancin' for the ladies.  He got to within 20 yards, but I couldn't get drawn back without him catching movement.  While in full strut at 4 YARDS, he finally turned to face one of the hen decoys, giving me an opportunity to draw and give him an old fashioned texas heart shot.  He didn't go far and I finally got my first long beard with a bow.
























Bo's footage of this harvest is awesome!  We hope to have a short video of the hunt posted sometime this week, as I have a little bit of editing to do for his one hour plus show.  He ended up having a cut up 10" beard, 1" hooks, and would probably weight between 20-25 lbs.  Definitely a first bow bird I am proud of!

This past weekend, Bo and I got a chance to do a little target shooting to make sure our bows are still sighted in and everything is ready to go for the Missouri turkey opener this week.  Unfortunately, we cannot get out into the woods until Friday morning, but hopefully the long wait during the week will be worth it.  Luckily for Bo, he's all ready gotten the monkey off of his back with a great Kansas thunder chicken he took a couple weeks ago.  However for me, I've been itching to get back into the woods since January and I needed to make sure my sights point true.

After a few small adjustments, a broken "D" loop and a fat lip, we are as prepared as we can be for Friday morning.  Bo, I'll do you a favor and not post the video of your "D" loop breaking during draw back and you smacking yourself in the mouth......I am sorry to laugh, but man, that had to hurt!  All in all, it is hard to beat spending a beautiful day outdoors with good friends, while shooting your bow.

Friday morning cannot come soon enough.....

I was finally able to put together our first full video for Bo's recent turkey hunt on our Kansas lease.  It's amazing how an hour of footage turns into a five minute film.  Editing definitely isn't as easy as some people make it out to be.   But, I think the video turned out pretty well for our first shot and I hope everyone enjoys the clip.  Thanks for the camera work too Ben.   I'm sure as the season progresses, our filming and editting abilities should get much better.  Make sure to turn up the volume!   Enjoy!

If your computer doesn't like embedded YouTube videos, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L-yBW67IlA

This weekend, Bo and I had the opportunity to step foot onto a brand new property that we were just granted bowhunting and turkey hunting right to for the 2010 seasons.  This Missouri property is only a mile from Bo's house and only three miles from mine, which is not only exceptionally convienent to us, but also makes our wives much happier knowing we will be traveling a little less during the hunting seasons. 

Walking onto a property for the first time not only brings with it mixed emotions of excitement, anxiety, and anticipation.  One always hopes to come across a giant rub on a 12" oak tree or deep, well used deer trails, but you never want to get your hopes us too high.  Fortunately Bo and I were extremely pleased on the sign that we did find while only on the property for a few hours.  Not 10 minutes onto the property, Bo and I were both talking about how deep and worn the deer trails were and I happened to look up and spot a tine sticking above the leaf litter.  This 60"+ 4 point side had been laying there for awhile, but I'm glad we were able to save a little bit of bone from the tree rats this year.  Hopefully this buck still calls this area home and we'll get a crack at him this year.

But as I had mentioned before, the deer trails looked more like cattle trails on this property.  This property has numerous isolated crop fields and patches of big timber, which should provide a great habitat for growing and keeping whitetails.  In addition to the heavy trails and creek crossings, we also found some good rubs and fresh tracks that added to the anticipation of the upcoming season. 




We also came across one of the more oddly placed items we have ever found in the woods.  Not 15 feet away from an old tree stand was this very old (and well used) basketball hoop.  Granted it was located in a partial clearing, but I can only imagine that a young hunter from years past decided he wanted to practice his skills while waiting for that big buck to walk by his stand.