As a few days turned into weeks and a few weeks turned into months Jack was happy with a new home and a new job at a local sporting goods shop selling fishing stuff. He knew everything there was to know about fishing. He was the type of man that could catch fish in the hottest of summer and even catch them in a snow storm on the river if he had thought of it. No kids, no wife, and one aunt that stayed back in old Mississippi. The local women that came into the sporting goods store had tried to set him up on a many of dates but he was not interested. The store owners wife even tried to put her 30 year old toothless daughter off on Jack until she had passed out drunk as a skunk. The woman even took a picture of Jack and placed it on one of them fancy dating sites. His profile read this:

Wanted: A good old country girl who has plenty of money, a lot of land, who can cook and clean, and has a 4wd truck with a boat and motor. Send photo of land, and boat and motor!

A local bass tournament was coming up soon and Jack was bound to win it. He knew the area where the event was to take place well and had been fishing it for a few months or so. As anglers piled in on a daily bases to sign up for the $1,000.00 first prize tournament, Jack became a little more worried each day. The one thing he did not know was just how big these tournaments got. He was in for a treat! But he still seem to hold grasp to all the good spots on the water of the Mobile Tensaw-Delta water way. He knew there were some great fish in the waters. He was being sponsored bu the sporting good store that he worked at and didn’t seem to place his mind else where.

As tournament day arrived he was up and at the starting point well before anyone else. Determined to win, and to win big. One sign at the docks read: No cheating at any time during the tournament or else you will be disqualified and there will be NO REFUND! This includes no buying of fish from other anglers, and no dynamite of any kind! Jack did not need to do any of these things to win. He was confident enough he could win on his own ways and follow all rules.

As the day went on, Jack had done caught well over forty fish and only kept what he felt was needed to win. A 5 bass minimum was all he was allowed to bring into the weigh in at the end of the day. His largest weighing in at a whopping 12.5 lbs along with three others closing in at 9.0 lbs each. To Jack he was not worried about losing at this point. He knew he had it won. Weigh in time was coming near and Jack was on his way back in when something went wrong with his boat. He looked down at all the gauges and they seem to be working ok except for one. One gauge that should allow more attention than any other gauge. The Gas Gauge! Jack was in trouble and he had no other gas on board.

Luck was about to come in favor for Jack as he sat there in the middle of the water thinking. A black and red striped bass boat noticed him as it pulled up. In this boat was a tall long legged beautiful woman who also was fishing close by stood up and asked him if everything was ok. He asked the lady if she wouldn’t mind as to tow him back to the weigh in station. She agreed and they were on their way. Jack thought deeply in his mind on the way back to weigh in at how stupid he could be for not bring extra gas. As he neared the weigh in station the lady stuck around and watched as the rest of the event took place rooting Jack on. With no doubt Jack had won the tournament but will we ever know if Jack and the long legged beautiful lady had ever went on a date from that day on.

He has given me a son that will soon be ten years old. I am so proud of my son and knowing that he loves God makes me even prouder than any man could be. Do you ever sit in that deer stand on cold winter mornings and stare out into the woods and say a simple prayer to God for allowing you to be there. Do you carry your Bible to the stand while you hunt or to the creek bank while you fish. We do the things we do for a reason. I have read on a many of magazines back covers some of the ads from Mossy Oak. Their slogans or their catch phrases that catches our eyes paint a whole picture in our minds. I can see why Toxey Haas is so proud of his company and how it has grown.

It all begin with a fistful of dirt

These are the words that you read or have heard. How do we not know that this is how God reached out and said to Toxey Haas and said take this and go and build. A christian man from Mississippi takes a fistful of dirt and turns into what we see today as a leader in the Camo industry. I have written on Mossy Oak in the past and the obsession that they carry and have for the great outdoors. We should be thankful for what we have and some of do and there are still some of us who don’t.

I see Mossy Oak as not just a company owned and created by one man and his family but a company that has been placed here on earth by God himself for a reason. Back on June 24, 2011 my younger brother turned 21 years old. His young wife gave him something that she worked so hard to get. She gave him a present that will lead him and guide him on a day-to-day basis. She went to our local Bass Pro Shops and purchased a Bible that its cover had the pattern of Mossy Oak. Outdoor men and women now have a Bible from Mossy Oak! A number one brand in camouflage brings enthusiasm for the outdoors together with the passion for God’s Word. “It’s not a passion. It’s an obsession.” Enjoy all of God’s creation while reading God’s Word!

Me and my son have this little prayer that we came up with and one that we say before bed time each night on the weekends that I have him.

Dear Lord bless this day, and bless us the turkey hunter way.

We call it the turkey hunters prayer. Even though I am into turkey hunting a little more than deer hunting or fishing I still find time while on the stand to ask God to lead me and guide me in the right direction. Rather or not I harvest a game animal I am still glad to say I live to see it one more day. Take Gods words and let them bless you and help guide you on a day-to-day basis. You want regret ever just sitting down and reading just one line from Gods book. It will lead you and guide you all you have to do is grab one up and read. Our Lord blesses us for reading, listening, and sharing his word. God Bless!

Genesis 1:20-25
20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Toxey Haas of Mossy Oak talks about Conversation. Watch the Video:

I have planted in the past corn fields as much as six acres and left the whole field standing except for just a small portion. Corn fields can draw deer in the early season but is more beneficial to deer in the late winter months. Deer take in the carbohydrates of the corn and add needed weight for the extreme cold months to come. Placing too much pressure on these fields will hurt you from seeing that big buck in the late season. The deer get to understand the hunters behavior and change their daily routs into night routs. This is how the old bucks that you may get on your trail camera get old. You may see them and think you have them mapped out and they change their moves on you in a heart beat.

If you are hunting small acreage the older bucks are more likely to stay if you put less pressure and watch your doe herd that you may have. I see no harm in harvesting a mature doe in the early season such as bow season. Allow them to walk when gun season comes in. Where the does are the bucks want be far behind when the rut kicks into full swing. I have learned this the hard way on my own and by watching others mess their hunting locations up as I have done in the past. My favorite stand is a shooting house that sits square dead in the middle of an old pasture field that once held cows. It is standing underneath and beside a large pine tree all alone. Forty yards out in front of the stand is six rows of seven-year old sawtooth oak, live oaks, and Chinese chestnut trees that are all bearing nuts this season.

The trees are planted every twenty feet apart so that they can be kept clean through the summer months and fertilized twice a year. Once in the spring and once again in the fall when the small food plots are planted around them. In between each row and all around these trees there is some sort of winter food source there for my deer. There are five rows all together that get planted. Each row has something different except the two outside rows. These rows are planted in Brassica plants Georgia collard. Each row between the trees is roughly about 75 yards long and 20 yards wide. Inside the Brassica plants you have crimson, arrow leaf, and yuchi clovers planted. The last row left is planted in chicory.

By planting the clover it also acts as a food source in the spring time for my turkeys. So I am killing two birds with one stone. When planting different types of plants for wildlife it gives them a choice to eat something over the other. On small properties the more you plant the better the odds move into your favor. Even though your neighbor next door may have 200 to 300 acres more. You still have a chance at drawing some good deer onto your property and the odds increase into your favor. Do not ever give up on your dream of harvesting a great deer. You and I as outdoors-men stand the chance of taking a trophy in our own back yard just as much as the next hunter. We as hunters manage our money as we do our land and deer herd. What I mean by this, is if we are tight wads with what kind of deer we shoot then we are just as tight with our money. And I understand that in today’s economy everything sucks and we as citizens of the United States have to deal with it.

I love duck hunting, and Teal season is a breath of fresh air for me. Finally here, pumped up like a kid on the night before Christmas. Hell, I can’t even sleep, laying there think of what the next morning will bring. Listen for the whistle of the wings of the first flock to buzz my decoy spreed. Now to me that’s what dreams are made of. I have 25 years of Southeast Louisiana roughest duck hunting under my belt. So listen up,

CUZ DIS CAJUN BOUT TO TELL U HOW WE GONE TO DO DIS LIKE DAT.

• DO YOUR HOMEWORK

Go out and scout, see where the ducks are, where they or flying from and also where they might be headed. One thing you want to keep in mind is Teal don’t like to be in the same place to long. Face it they are on there we to Mexico, so try to stay mobile. Ducks fly in this invisible highway, called flyways. Kinda like Cow trails, they get up and fly this patten everyday. So know where you flyways are.

• FEED

Find a pond that has natural feed. This will allow you the best place to hunt, simply because the ducks have probably already found this spot. But if you don’t have the natural feed, then feed them but make sure to follow all local game laws in your area or state. Some states may not allow feeding of wildlife. You can use rice, corn, milo, etc. Remember all the feed that is not natural has to be gone before you can hunt that hole.

• BLIND & BLIND LOCATION

This one is my favorite, simply because I have always been able to pick the perfect spot as to say. Thanks to my grandpa & father teaching me. Your blind location must be with the sun facing your back and the north wind coming from your back also. The reason for this is because ducks tend to land against the wind. So this keeps all the action in front of your face. Having the sun at your back is so that you can see them, you ever try to shoot a duck with the sun in your eyes! That makes for a very crappy morning. Now that you have your spot, there are many different types of blinds that you can build or even buy.

• PIROUGUE BLIND

A pirouette is a flat bottom canoe that us Cajuns get around the marsh in. Well the blind is quite simple. Place your boat or pirouette were you want it and put brush around it. Remember when brushing your blind only use natural brush. Look at what’s around you and use that. If your in a salt water marsh don’t use a willow tree. Ducks ain’t stupid, you might get luck once but your not going to be successful time and time again.

• STAND BLIND

This is a platform style blind with a bench or seats. Usually built with a couple of 2×4 boards and some ply wood. This is done so that you can be on a sturdy area while you hunt. Make the blind so that you can fit 2, 3, even 4 people, that is pretty much up to you. Keep in mind the bigger the blind the harder to make it blend in. Once you have your base or platform built and don’t forget to brush it up a bit.

• HOUSE BLIND

This is just what it sounds like a house all brushed up. These have seating for alot of hunters and have stoves for cooking and heaters. This type of blind I used for all day hunts.

• BOAT BLIND

This one is my favorite. Why, because it keeps you mobile, and you can move according to wind and also move as the sun changes throughout the day. Usually this is when you buy or make a pop up blind that is attached to you boat. Cabelas has them for about few hundred buck. Just put it on your boat brush it with grass matts you can buy at Cabelas, Academy Sports, or Wal-mart, then add a little of the native grass just to break it the outline. This well help your blind blend better and also hold together better.

• CALLING

Easy way to learn is to buy a CD. By many means a teal has a nasally quack (this is done by the female) and the male is a whistler. Usually the female is the big mouth and she is usually the one who is going to do all the yelling just like at home. Her quacks normally are going to be 4 quick notes starting off high and going down. Then the male is
peep, peep peep, peep peep, just quick little peeps on a teal whistle. See Haydels game calls for your teal whistle and female teal call.

• DECOYS AND DECOY PATTERNS

Face it you can’t get them in close without decoys. Buy some decoys, make sure that they are not to bright and don’t shine when the sun hits them. This will cause ducks to flare up and leave. Green head gear make the best but there are one of they also can be the more pricey of the decoys out there. There is kind of an art to decoy spreads. When piling decoys you may use the V Style set up or you can use the little piles set ups or even the scattered pile style. Each of these will work. You have to make the rite set up work for you. In all the style spreads I listed here don’t forget to leave your shooting lanes!!! Motion decoys also can play a big role in killing the hell out of sum ducks! Good idea of motion decoys come from MOJO Decoys. A great line of all kinds of duck decoys!

If you fallow these simple steps your should to have a great teal season. Thanks for reading and happy hunting! Andre’ Matherne Owner of Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls

For more information on Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls contact Andre by clicking here and follow him and his great duck calls on Facebook. Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls

Alpha Mudlite Realtree® AP® Hunting Boots

• A boot made for comfort
• Scent control
• Lightweight
• 7.0 mm neoprene for cold to extreme cold weather
• brush tuff puncture resistant upper material for long term durability
• 100% waterproof

Venom Scent HD™ Realtree® APG HD® Snake Boots

• 360º Snake Guard Protection
• 100% Water Proof
• Scent-Free protection
• abrasion resistant toe cap
• comfort
• Side – Zip for easy on and off

These are just a few things that make these two sets of boots worth paying the money for. If my feet get cold in the dead winter then I am ready to head back to the house or camp. My feet do not sweat in these boots unlike some of the other hunting boots that I have had in the past. We all want comfort and it is here with LaCrosse. We all want 100% water proof barrier and it is also here. No more leaving the stand early because of the normal issues you may have with other style boots. Sit all day and never think of your feet getting cold or hurting from the long walk in. The days of buying boots for hunting are just about to become the end when you buy from LaCrosse Footwear.

I have used feeders for some time now on my hunting property in Alabama. The only down fall to supplemental feeding here in Alabama is that you have to have all feeder’s and feed up ten day’s before you head out to hunt. So this only allows me to feed from February 1st through March 1st then the feed has to come up and be gone for ten day’s before March 15th for opening day of Spring time turkey hunting. Then the feeder’s get placed back out on May 1st and will stay up until ten days before opening day of  bow season which starts here in Alabama in October of every year.

This is still not enough feeding time for my deer to feed like they should. They should be able to feed 365 day’s a year so they get the maximum fed protein that they need to grow big antler’s. This is where when I am not feeding I always try to make an attempt to have some kind of high protein food source out there for them. This is also where the food plots come into play and other type’s of crop food source that may be still left standing through turkey season. In most places there isn’t one strip of crop food left after January of each year.

I have found out by having a gravity fed feeder around during the months that there is no hunting will allow you to feed and feed correctly. Yes! trough style feeder’s work in this case also. By allowing a deer to feed when he get’s ready to feed will be a plus for your hunting property more than you realize. You do take the chance of having more deer feed at night but if you get in there and add the feed at scheduled times and stay out of the area as much as possible the deer will get use to feeding more in the day light hours.

This is where staying out of a place and leaving it as scent free as possible will pay off for you on opening day. I always wear gloves and scent free boots when taking time to go and place more feed into my feeder’s. This just helps me when the season starts. Even though bucks are into their summer time patterns and running together this will allow you to scout from a distance or check game camera’s only when necessarily. I check my game camera’s only when I go to add feed. This is like killing two birds with one stone.

My new choice of gravity fed feeder’s is the Buck Eye Feeder. Designer Steve Brown has brought a whole new meaning to feeding your wildlife. He has designed a feeder to allow wildlife to feed on a regular bases instead of allowing them to only feed at certain times. The Buck feeds, grows faster, and antlers get larger in twice the time.

Example:

If a deer eats 12 lbs of protein in one hour at a gravity feeder then it allows him to get his belly full. If he eats under a spin cast feeder he is not getting the whole 12 lbs that he would normally eat due to other deer eating at the site with him. Less food means less protein in this matter! Dose this make sense? So by allowing a deer to feed at their own pace may mean better overall health and larger antler development on them bucks that you seek. Remember that a buck need to have at least a 16% to 20% protein diet for 365 days a year and not just 4 to7 months of that diet to grow its fully developed set of antlers.

The Boone and Crockett club has placed high standards on being able to record a whitetail deer into their books. Even though there are record book bucks taken somewhere either in the U.S. or Canada each year. Pope & Young has also done the same. Safari Club International known as (SCI) has their on way of measuring trophy deer.  But do you really know what makes big antlers on deer. Is it the protein? How about the genetics of the deer? Can it be you have big deer on your property or you don’t have them? A lot of these same questions are asked each year and the same responses come out for the answers.

I have been a member in the past of several different types of hunting clubs. Some having more restrictions than the others. One club says only eight point or better. Another says six point outside the ears or better. But not one single club that I have ever been in said the deer has to be four or five years old before you can shoot it. Even though a daily protein level of 16% to 18% for a whitetail buck is needed 365 days a year it still is not enough. The genes of a buck also comes to mind when playing the antler growing game. But it too is still not enough.

A whitetail buck dose need all these or some of these things to grow but the one thing we all seem to leave out is their age. Now here is where the fun part comes into play. Say you are in this club that says you can only shoot an 8 point or better. You are hunting by yourself on a cool winter evening and a small 4.5 year old basket racked 9 point that want even score a thing walks out into the green field one hour before dark. You then study this 9 point a bit before you start to pull the trigger. Ten minutes later a 7 point walks out but is a 2.5 year old deer, that’s antlers would score in the 130′s. Which one would you shoot? Tempting isn’t it!

We should really think before we pull the trigger now days. That is if you want to grow big antlers. If the big antler thing isn’t your style then a older doe would be just fine for a little meat in the freezer. The doe harvesting should and can be a factor playing role in growing mature bucks. Too many does means less high quality food for the younger bucks. This also means that it might as well take five times longer to grow him compared to a buck that get’s high quality food year round somewhere else. Even though you do not have thousands of acres of land you can still manage and grow large antler deer on your property.

I have the chance each year to pay $16 and hunt 12,000 acres close too and around the Alabama River that holds plenty of big antler bucks. This land is in fact all public hunting ground and the hunting possibilities  here are as simple as buying your Alabama state licenses and a (WMA) wildlife management licenses. Even though that I also have 100 acres here and there that I also hunt the public land is still there for me to hunt when I may feel that I have put too much pressure on my own land. There are restrictions on the public land such as bow hunting only areas and only limited to certain two day hunts here and there for gun use.

But we all can take the rite measures if we make a plan and stick to it. To most of us sticking to the plan can sometimes be the hard part if we get to that point of thinking that is may be impossible to do where we hunt. Neighbors can also help with your program by trying it themselves. In fact they may already have a plan but may not be exactly what you may be searching for. So the best thing for you to do in this case is to stick to your plan and allow your neighbors to see with time at the large rack bucks that you harvest. Let them walk and watch them grow. Another good idea to comparing your property to your neighbors is to try and make your property the best place that a deer may want to spend his time during day and night time hours. So the next time you wish to grow a large rack deer remember just one thing. You are the one the make the deciding factor of pulling the trigger!

Good Luck!