Finally the 2012 Wisconsin Deer Season Video

Finally I got the deer season video up.  I apologize for the crazy amount of time it took, but you see as Quad Survival we had an emergency that put everything on the back burner.  Our member Jimmy, got in a horrible car accident and was severely injured.  I encourage everyone to hope and pray for him as he continues his long road ahead and pray he has a full recovery.  With that said this video has a lot more fun than serious in it.  I hope everyone gets a slight kick out of it at least.  This video shows the deer George got while he and I were literally messing around in the woods just for fun.  That goes to show you all you have to do is be out there.  You can't get any deer talking about hunting just go into the woods and quit talking.  In this video it shows cookin with Jim where Jimmy cooks up that exact deer you see George harvesting the day before.  I got a little bit silly and tried to cut myself some venison bacon from the deer and it did not turn out well at all.  It tasted horrible, but as the cheap person I am I still ate it and learned not to do that again.  Here is the video I hope you enjoy.

Also look out for our next video coming which is ice fishing just like last year, but with less stuff cuz well I didn't get much ice fishing in due to visiting Jimmy.

My last few weeks of upland hunting in North Dakota and Movember

It has been a few weeks since I have last posted and I have been up to quite a bit.  I went hunting one day every weekend since then for upland birds and I was not very successful.  You can't expect to much though it is Eastern North Dakota and I was hunting without a dog.  Anyway, I didn't see a single thing in the way of birds until my last day out hunting.  I was driving along a road between some public land and what I could only describe as a massive number of grouse flush from the ditch on the side of the road.  It was actually around probably 30 grouse which I considered a big number.  I quickly found a spot to park the car and go attempt to chase after them.  It just snowed the day before, and there was quite a bit of snow on the ground which made walking difficult.  The grouse were nothing but annoying after that.  I could hear them making their noises so I would head their direction and they would either flush over 100 yards ahead of me or just keep running on the ground and staying around 100 yards in front of me.  I tried every tactic I could think of to try to fix that.  I would try to sneak up to them, run up to them, try from different angles relative to the wind, nothing changed the way they acted I could not get a shot at all.  Finally after following them around for an hour and being quite far away from the vehicle at this time they all decided to fly onto some posted private land and that was the end of me chasing grouse for the season I guess.  I did hunt a different location after that, but to no avail there.  My grouse and pheasant season in North Dakota before their deer opener ended in 0 birds and 1 jackrabbit.  This is more than previous years, but still less than hunting only one afternoon in Wisconsin.

My hunting these past few weekends has not been in vain though.  First off I really enjoyed being out of the city and enjoying mother nature.  You really can't beat that, because even if you don't get any food for the table you still enjoyed the day.  Second, I found quite a few signs of fur bearers.  There was one spot of public land where this one truck always was every time I went out hunting.  Finally one time when I went out there the truck wasn't there so I decided to check it out.  Little did I know after walking through the some of the extremely rare wooded areas in this part of North Dakota that I would come to a creek.  I was surprised and happy to find something besides the same fields over and over again.  I found a tree stand which I assume was the guy's with the truck who had always been there.  In the part of public land by this creek I found tons of gnawed trees and beaver slides.  This got me excited as I was starting to wondering if trapping was really going to be worth getting my car stuck in the snow tons of times this winter.  I also found what looked to be the makings of a beaver dam but that was on private property so I could not get to close of a look at it.  I think I found at least one spot to possibly trap this Winter which excites me.  To add onto this topic Eric and I decided to go combine our efforts in getting trapping stuff this year as we both have been challenged by someone we know in an outdoor contest.  Eric traded a bow for about a few dozen traps all size 1 through 3 coil spring and long spring.  I ordered things for the traps like swivels, in line springs, and stakes to put his traps in better working order for the coyote and fox he wants.  Eric still needs a catch pole and if he's reading this I would like to remind him to get one or we may have a bad time.  I want to try to trap a little more than just fox and coyote, so I got some dog proof coon traps, some weasel boxes, weasel lure, coon lure, and some muskrat colony traps.  I already own a #1 long spring, and #110 conibear as everyone has seen from my videos.  I have already ordered all my stuff, and it is currently sitting in Wisconsin waiting for me to come get it.  I will see it soon as I go home to celebrate the greatest national holiday known as Wisconsin Deer Season.  I won't be there for the while time, but I will get at least 4 days in of hunting.  So, lots of excitement is coming up for me.

Here are the pictures I took while I was out hunting these last few weekends.

Beaver run

Beaver run there were a lot of them

chewed on tree

same chewed on tree

chewed on tree next to a run

More runs

Treestand I found there

chewing

dam in progress

The dam again

another run

More beaver work

Rusting old farm equpiment

Sitting on one of the few hills taking a short break from chasing the grouse around

Cows staring at me

Finally the last part of the post for everyone who is sick of reading.  Quad Survival has, as you know, grown mustaches for Movember to support awareness for men's cancers.  Well this year we have decided to participate in it some more by having a Movember team.  Our team address is http://us.movember.com/team/893129 if you want to donate.  Also if you want to donate on my behalf which also goes towards the team as well you can donate at this address http://mobro.co/quadsurvival.  Either way works except donating on my behalf puts me up higher in the team rankings.  I encourage everyone to donate for Movember as it goes to a good cause, and showing the world it is not only women who get cancer.  You may also join our team if you would like and help on behalf of Quad Survival.  As  many of you know I recently lost my father to cancer and I thank everyone who will contribute to Movember in advance it means a lot to me in many ways.  Stay updated as we will have more posts coming soon especially with deer season coming.

Upland Hunting Last Weekend in North Dakota

After I wrote the blog post last Saturday I went out for some upland hunting.  I know the area I live in in North Dakota can only be described as embarrassing compared to hunting in Wisconsin, but dammit I need to do outdoors stuff.  I've gone upland hunting in this area of North Dakota many times before, and it is basically a miracle if you flush a grouse or partridge any more than 3 times in the season.  Yes it is that bad I kind of wish I had a dog to help me.  Anyway, I got ready and prepared for a day out in the fields seeing nothing.  I packed snacks water and so on.  I walk into the first field and within about 10 minutes of walking a jackrabbit pops up right next to me.  Within that split second I decided I was hungry enough to try jackrabbit, so I shot it and put it down.  This was the first time I have ever seen, or shot a jackrabbit and when I walked up to it I noticed it was quite large.  I picked up the rabbit and headed back into town to clean it.  I've never cleaned a rabbit or jackrabbit before, but from what I was taught it was pretty simple.  

When I got back to the apartment I weighed the jackrabbit and it weighed 7 pounds!  This seemed big to me, but from what I understand is normal size for North Dakota jackrabbits.  I did some looking up online on how to skin one and found there are about 8 different ways people are showing, so I decided to try it how my grandfather told me to, but modify it so the meat was boneless.  I don't think I did to bad for my first time skinning jackrabbit, but I didn't get as much meat as I could.  I got most of what Uncle Ted would call bountiful back straps  and some hind leg meat.  I made a pretty decent mess in the kitchen and decided that the sink was not the best place as the jackrabbit kept sliding around.  I have no learned and will be able to do a better job and get more meat next time.  After I was done cleaning up I put the meat in a bowl of saltwater in the fridge and went back out hunting for a while.

I didn't see anything else out hunting the second time that day, but I almost got my car stuck on minimum maintenance road.  When I finally got off the road my car was so loaded up with a dirt/clay mix that I had to get most of it out from the parts of my car by hand.  That wasn't fun.  Anyway, after that mess I went back to my apartment to get my jackrabbit ready.

I follow the way my grandfather, you know him as Old Man Rounce, told me.  I seasoned the meat with garlic salt, salt and pepper.  Then I shook the jackrabbit meat in a bag filled with flower.  Fried it on the stove in butter and olive oil at medium low for about 12 minutes, with a cover on it most of the time.  Then I took a pot put some butter in it added half a cup of water and a few shots of Brandy (the Brandy was my choice).  I set the oven to 350, put the meat in the pot (I don't own a dutch oven or I would use that) put a cover on it and let it cook for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.  Remember that rabbit is an extremely lean meat with nothing but really protein in it, so you must keep it as moist as possible and use lots of butter to give it more flavor, and keep the meat from getting to tough.  When the food came out of the oven it look pretty good.  It tasted not bad either, but Patty said it didn't have much flavor, which it didn't so for next time I have to add more spices and probably use real butter (Patty doesn't like real butter so it's almost never in the apartment).  So everyone make note of that use real butter not fake butter.

Patty went out hunting with my the next day, but we didn't see anything.  Below are some pictures of the weekend.

The jackrabbit

Getting ready to skin it

When it says Town Car for the name I guess it means Town Car

Sunset ending the first night of hunting

The jackrabbit after it was cooked.  Some of it was already eaten by me I was hungry.

The second day of hunting.

Also last weekend I guess Eric went salmon fishing in Wisconsin.  He sent me a picture with no details on if he caught this fish or not, but I'm sure if he actually contributed to this blog he would have some good stories for everyone to read.  It looks like he or someone did well salmon fishing though.  Here is the picture below.

Video of our end of summer shooting trip

First I apologize for how long this video took to upload, but there has been an ongoing family emergency that started at the beginning of the Summer and has taken a turn for the worst over the last month or so.  Due to that videos and blog posts have been few and far between.

I finally got the video up of Eric, Ryan, and I doing some shooting at the Indianhead Rifle and Pistol Club.  I brought my NAA Mini Revolver, Remington 870 Express Magnum in 20 gauge, Browning 20 Weight in 12 gauge, and my Remington 597 (we don't have any video of us shooting that).  It was fun, but we were all trying to rush through it due to me having to go to work that afternoon.  The last scene in the video with Eric shooting my mini revolver we were using .22 shotgun rounds or whatever you call them.  They are about the only kind of round that makes that gun fun shooting.  Other than that you can't hit the broadside of a barn with it, as you can see trying attempting to hit something with a regular .22 round in the video it is not very accurate.  I plan on making some more videos with the guns I own describing them a little then shooting them.  Here is the video enjoy.

I used my new laptop which had Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum on it and for some reason when it uploaded the video to YouTube it didn't upload the video in HD even though from what I understood I had it set up for HD.  The video saved in HD to the computer and in the program it said the video was in HD, but it didn't upload to YouTube that way.  If anyone knows how to get around this let me know, if not looks like I'm back to getting used to Open Shot on Ubuntu.  I find using Sony Vegas so far is more of a struggle to me.  The best way to describe how it works for me is this wonderful old Mac vs PC video.

Yeah that is basically how I feel trying to work with Sony Vegas.  Also Sony wtf is this Vaio Gate thing that is on the top of my screen that magically shows up when I'm up there it is quite annoying.  Alright I'm done ranting now everyone enjoy the videos.

Eric and I taking Trapper's Education

This last Friday and Saturday Eric and I took the Wisconsin Trapper's Education course at the Brill Area Sportsman's Club.  The course was only $12 so I figured why the hell not, and Eric decided to sign up too.  For the $12 we got a trapping license, a subscription to two trapping magazines, and lunch.  For that price you just can't go wrong.  I decided to make a trip of it since I got the time off from work and go camping for the class.  So, I stayed at the Waldo Carlson Park on Red Cedar Lake.  I took my brother's 2 man tent since I wanted to pack light.  I brought a sterno can like thing for heat to cook my food in case I didn't have a fire ring, because I didn't know anything about the campground.  It's a good thing I did too the campground was somehow actually worse than just camping in the woods.  There were some RV spots that were level, but other than that the campground was on a hill and did not have much space per campsite.  I was stuck on the side of a hill within a few feet of the road to get into the campground.  It was a horrible place and didn't even have a fire ring.  It was not enjoyable sleeping on the side of hill and even worse being so close to a road you could feel and hear every vehicle that went by.  The showers at campground cost $1 for 5 minutes which is expensive as far as pay showers go.  The campground was packed and I know it wasn't for the campground, so it must have been the lake.  Either way I did not enjoy my time there and if got the chance would for sure not go back.

Trappers Education was long, but fun and full of interesting things I learned.  The first night of the class was all ethics, laws and bookwork.  The second day was the fun one though.  Eric and I learned how to set every different kind of trap we could think of and different sets to make for catching animals.  It was fun, because it was all hands on and full of fun.  I even learned how to put animals up for sale.  The instructors for the class were so knowledgeable it was almost beyond belief.  I had some really quality instructors.  They got me excited to go trapping and I hope I can find some cheap traps and get trapping.  The one complaint I had is I hoped they would have a list they could give us of all the local fur buyers in the area with contact information.  The stressed each person traps a different way, and the way to learn how to trap is to get out and do it, so hopefully I will do just that.  Hopefully The Brill Area Sportsman's Clubhouse is really nice and even has AC!  Their trap and skeet range is also nice even having lights for night on it.  Their shooting range was a little less nice but still acceptable.  What really surprised me though was the fact that dues were only $20 a year for such a nice facility.  Anyway here are a few pictures of my camping experience and trapper's education.

A man's meal Beanie Weanies

My cooking setup

My campsite.  See how bad it is.

The skinning and fleshing station

What to have with you while trapping

Look at all the different kinds of traps

Spaghetti and meatballs

My campsite again

The sweet patch I got for graduating

Quad Survival's camping trip aka Ryan's tent shakedown

A few weeks ago Eric, Ryan, and I (Jared) went on a two night, wait O.K. two nights for me one night for Ryan and Eric camping trip on the Namekagon river at the Earl Landing.  I have camped at the earl landing quite a bit and I typically enjoy the experience.  In fact I had already camped there once this Summer.  The Earl landing has free campsites with a fire ring and picnic table and has a 3 night limit per spot on camping.  You can go to the landing and sign up ahead of time for a campsite if you want on a sheet of paper and so far I've had no trouble with people in my camp site I have signed up for (I hope that continues).

The main reason we went camping on this trip is that I had a few days off in a row, Eric really wanted to go camping, and Ryan got a new tent and wanted to try it out.  We ended up picking this location after talking Eric out of some crazy location where none of us could carry our gear to or something like that.  Anyway we got to the camp site early in the morning and set up our tents.  I put in my two crayfish traps and Eric put in his new minnow trap.  Eric and Ryan then decided to go fishing and I went tubing with my friends down the river.  I don't know what they did while I was gone so I can't write to much about it.  I got back from tubing and checked my crayfish traps and low and behold I caught a shiner minnow.  Not really what I wanted to catch so I let him go.  Eric and Ryan did a little bit more fishing and Eric came back with some smallmouth bass.  One of them was pretty nice as you can see in the picture.  Anyway, as true men Eric filleted the bass and we had a good old fashioned fish fry.  Eric added to the fish fry though some venison nuggets fried up which were amazing and the best food on the trip.  After that we decided to sit around the fit and I guess just talk.  Eric and Ryan decided they would have a long night discussing intellectual things.  I think they went to bed around 3 A.M.

The next day was rough for Ryan and Eric.  I checked my crayfish traps and caught a little turtle and let him go.  I spent most of the day convincing Eric and Ryan to stay another night, but they had enough camping for one day or something.  By afternoon I got Eric and Ryan going and we went to Hayward saw some sweet cars visited a friend, but that doesn't have to do with the outdoors.  We had venison nuggets again and I tried to convince Eric and Ryan to stay another night again, but they would have none of it and started packing up.  Just as they started packing up I turned on my weather radio and there was a storm coming in something like 5 minutes.  I informed Eric and Ryan and then went to my car and checked on my phone to confirm indeed a thunderstorm was coming.  Eric and Ryan decided to keep taking down their stuff anyway and ended up getting stuck in the storm.  Since my tent was the only one left up they all dove in it for the duration of the storm.  After it ended Eric and Ryan packed up and left.  I went to Spooner, got some food, went back to the tent, and spent the night in there sleeping with storms off and on.  In the morning I pulled my crayfish traps and they were empty.  I'm beginning to think crayfish don't exist anymore.  I then picked up my campsite and went to work.  That was the end of the camping trip.

The camping trip was pretty fun and the view from out campsite was as always beautiful.  Free camping and beautiful views reminds me of why I love Wisconsin.  Within the next few days I'll put up a blog post of Eric and I's next adventure which we did this last weekend.  Look for that soon until then here are pictures of our camping trip below.

My Tent

Ryan's new tent

Eric's overpriced hippie REI tent haha

The campsite

Eric and Ryan Fishing

Rough Morning

Breakfast

The boring way to start a fire

Being caught in a storm

My tent survived the storm and is the last tent set up

Campsite

Sitting around the fire

Sitting in the river

Ryan dressed quite interesting in front of his tent

caught inside due to the storm

The view of the river

Sitting in the river again

The bass Eric caught

End of camping burn everything fire

Eric making din din