Trevor bags two more bucks in Cambridge

After returning from Nebraska Trevor was excited to get in the woods for some hot Maryland rut action. On Nov. 18th, he was able to fill his bow bonus buck tag with a nice mature eight pointer from cambridge. It even had a previous broadhead injury form earlier this season! After that he was able to take his first whitetail ever with a rifle, a dandy old eight point buck at 250 yds! He aged out to be five and a half and will look great on the wall!

Brian puts the smackdown on monster eights again!

Big bucks sightings this year in charles county have seemed slower than usual. For Brian, however the bucks were still running great in his honey hole. After putting the smack on an awesome eight in early november he followed it up with a tremendous monster a week later! This eight pointer was the largest any of us have ever killed and unofficially scored 150 inches pope and young! He had seen it the day he shot the first eight pointer but it was out of range. Having already filled his two doe tags he was eligible for his bonus buck and when he chased a doe passed him at ten yards he crushed him!

Nebraska Trip a Success!

Evan and Trevor ventured across half the US to try to bag some big whitetails in the sleeper state of Nebraska. A family friend in Nebraska allowed them to hunt her property in southeastern Nebraska. After a long 21 hour drive west they had a great week hunting the creek and river bottoms of Jefferson County. Of course they wanted to hit it during the rut and with bows. After 6 solid days of hunting, they bagged two bucks, one doe, a coyote, and two shed antlers! They saw some awesome bucks and were able to bag a bruiser, can't wait until next year!

Sika mount finally back as well!

Well after a long two year wait the sika stag is finally all done. The mount was done by southern maryland taxidermy and I made the base myself. I'm glad I tackled the project myself, it saved me lots of money and allowed me to create exactly what I wanted. The 2011 sika slam was also a success, with us taking two sika spikeys and a sika hind.

Pay Up

Just left Southern Maryland Taxidermy the deer look great, may need more wall space.
Jesse

Their Guard Is Down

Its time to get in the woods! I was sitting watching a spike buck rub on a sapling when I heard a commotion, when I looked up past the spike I saw another tree that was much bigger shaking I looked with my binos and saw that this was a shooter. He charged in running the spike off and put him self 4yds from my tree. Game over...

Frankie's Monster

Frankie has never been the type that was scared to try something. I have hunted with him many times, sometimes I find myself thinking what is he doing, but it seems more and more his tactics are paying off. Take a look at what being aggressive in the tree did for him this time,he called this deer out of a big block of woods and got him within rang for the kill. Good work!!

Buck down!

Well the first buck of the season has fallen. This deer showed up on trail camera on one of the suburban properties Trevor hunts in Montgomery County. After a slow morning hunt on Saturday morning, this buck along with a small four pointer got up from where they were bedded close to Trevor's stand and began to work away. After Jesse had mentioned seeing bucks sparring the day before in Charles County, Trevor pulled out the rattling bag and decided to try mimicing some sparring. Sure enough it peaked both the bucks' curiosty. After quickly turning around, they came by at twenty yards; presenting Trevor with a great broadside shot. The buck went down quickly, Trevor's first deer for the season! Now he'll have to fill those doe tags quickly to open up another buck tag.

Trevor's first Snakehead bowkill!

The 1st Annual Potomac Snakehead Tournament went off without a hitch! We will soon have some awesome pictures and results up from it. On Saturday evening, after the tourney, Jesse and Chris were nice enough to take Trevor out to try to get his first snakehead with a bow! The tourney anglers must have done a good job because they were few and far in between. After some practice shots we took off along a hydrilla edge, and after cruising for a little while Chris pointed to a monstrous snakehead sitting atop the hydrilla fairly close to the boat. With a quick, lucky shot, Trevor managed to put the smackdown on the brute that measured a full 35 inches! It was his first snakehead with a bow! The rest of the evening proved slow but that monster made the trip worth it!

Snakehead: It's what's for dinner!

We launched on a strong incoming tide that filled the hydrilla beds and marsh grass with murky water. Jesse Swann built an awesome boat platform and lighting system that was powered by an onboard generator. He put us on the fish in no time.

Austin Murphy started things off by arrowing a nice fish off the front of the boat. Brian Rawlings put some nice shots on several fish and then Jesse stepped up and stuck a few. We arrowed a dozen fish in just a few hours. It was an awesome night on the water. Of course we can’t wait to cook up these tasty fish as soon as possible.

Frog Gigging!

The bull frogs have been bellowing on the shore, and the thought of some fresh fried legs sounded great. In Maryland, you technically can't 'gig' a frog (can't pierce the skin) so with a little ingenuinty we attached some #1 footholds to poles so we could still catch some of those tasty buggers. With cameras rolling we hit the ponds hard and captured about 35 over two nights. It was a blast!

Bow Fishing for SNAKE HEAD

We have been hearing a lot of talk about this fish time to see what its all about.
Doug Hancock, Clayton Hancock and Jesse Swann head out in pursuit of the Snake Head.
It only took the team a few hours to transform the boat into a killing machine. With the addition of a few lights and shooting platform, as you can see it worked great. We just need to work on our shooting, they are a bit hard to hit!!

Trail Cam pics are coming in

This Monster made it through 2010 and Doug Hancock found his horns, but if Frankie Burch has anything to do with it he will not make it through 2011!!

Jesse is tagged out!

Jesse could only hunt for about two hours before work, so he grabbed his bow and decoys and headed for the woods. He knew that to make a short hunt he would need to get close to the birds on the roost. The birds hit the ground at 15yds. If he had a gun they would have been dead, but that's not the case. The birds worked off to the right, he drew back -busted!!!
Within 15 minutes the birds were out on the field, time for a stalk. Jesse ran 600yds and got in front of the bird, got in a brush pile and waited for the ambush. The birds came by at 10yds, he took the shoot, the Tom got up and flew out into a near by marsh, not good!! Ninja to the rescue! He was able to catch the wounded tom and hold him for Jesse. A great end to a 3 hour hunt. Lucky for Jesse his boss is such a nice guy about being late to work.

Austin's Turkey Bow Kill

The morning started out with lots of excitement. I had birds shock gobbling very close to my set up before sunrise so I knew that I was on the "X." Just after sunrise the resident boss gobbler strutted in with five hens. He was huge and he guarded the spot for over an hour. I came to full draw on him a couple of times but he never quite presented a good enough shot. After he left the area, several hens and jakes worked their way within bow range.

At 10:00 a.m. I pulled up the binos and saw a nice tom at 70 yards but he was moving away from me. I hit the slate call and then yelped softly with my diaphragm call. He came running right in but hung up in some thick stuff just out of range. Things really heated up when he began to strut and fight with two other toms nearby.

At around 10:30 a.m. he worked himself up into quite a frenzy and decided to walk into the field to go after a live hen. He gave me a broadside shot at 24 yards. I drew my bow and touched off a shot. My arrow passed through him like butter and he folded in a few seconds.

This hunt was all about redemption for me. I made a few mistakes on a previous hunt with Jesse Swann and I was pretty down about it. Jesse convinced me to stay focused and to keep my head in the game. I definitely appreciate all of his help and encouragement!

Shed Antlers!

It was another busy year after trapping season searching for sheds. As usual we like to do some post season scouting and see which bucks survived and what we may have to look forward to last year. Trevor has been working with his dog Belle for the last couple years on finding this exclusive ivory of the woods. He pushed hard and walked many miles, many days to beat his previous record set last year of 31. This year he found a total of 34, so far. Hopefully we'll see some of these deer next year in the woods!

Brian's Tom 2011

After chasing the gobblers hard with the Goldey twins for a couple weeks, Brian was getting discouraged by close calls and no pulled triggers. After roosting some birds on Friday evening he deciding to head out on Saturday May 14th, with gun in hand, to try to bag one of the birds that had been so frustrating. Trevor was behind the camera and the plan came together perfectly as a tom in full strut came in right off the roost with two hens. He pulled the trigger at 45 yards and the bird dropped, sealing the deal at about 6:20 in the morning! It was an awesome hunt!

Trevor's Tom 2011

I hit the season hard this year with a trip to Virginia to kick off the turkey season a week early. I had some great hunts down there but wasn't able to bag a bird. Luckily, during a early morning hunt before work during opening week I was able to put the sneak on this old Tom on the eastern shore. He was delicious in the deep-fryer for Easter!

Turkey Time: Jesse's Awesome Bow Kill!

Like always, Jesse and Austin are chasing the turkeys through the woods with a stick and string trying to sink an arrow in one. We have been on the birds all season, but haven't been able to close the deal... until today. We had 3 mature toms come in at 20 yards, I released the arrow, the bird did a back flip and it was lights out.

Austin's Late Season Buck

This year was a tough year for me since I passed on a few decent bucks and I was starting to second guess my choices. With only a few days left in the season I decided to hunt a funnel on the north side of an ag field since the wind was blowing out of the northwest. Jesse Swann was hunting the south side of the same field that evening. The temperature plummeted down to single digits and the deer started moving well. They seemed a bit less stressed since gun season had ended several weeks ago.

The buck stepped out into a clearing with plenty of light left. He gave me a 40-yard broadside shot so I drew back and launched an arrow down range. It was a long shot for me and I couldn't really tell if I had made a good hit because he ran a few yards just out of my line of sight. Jesse was watching my shot through his binos from 90 yards away so he could clearly see me draw and shoot. I had no idea that the buck only made it about 40 yards and collapsed in a ravine.

After the shot I heard Jesse whistle from across the field. I looked up and saw him jumping up and down and fist pumping the sky. I knew then that the buck was down. Of course we had a tough time dragging him out but it was an awesome hunt and I definitely appreciated all of Jesse's help and encouragement that evening. It was a great way to end an awesome bow hunting season!

Late season sika slam!

The whackfactor boys hit the marsh hard for late muzzleloader and rifle season this year. We had a very successful time with Trevor bagging a spike stag and Jesse killing two hinds during late muzz. They were some of the largest hinds we have ever seen and we got some awesome footage, although the weather was frigid! During late rifle Brian put the smack down on two nice hinds. A good friend of Trevor's, Evan, was also on board for late rifle and harvested an awesome stag.