I'll be leaving today to hunt a new location in Texas in which I'm really excited about. Dan Johnson and I will be hanging stands later this afternoon in the hopes of catching one of those dark-horned monster roaming a creek bottom. I'll be sure and give you a report on the trip next week, but until then, post a comment and let me know how your season is going.

From what I can tell, things are starting to get cranked up around in the deer woods. Georgia cooled off this weekend, and as everyone knows, the magical month of November is just around the corner.

And I can't wait.

The first trip of the year is now in the books, and at this rate, it could be a long season! Michael and I were hunting with Seven J Outfitters in Wyoming where we’ve been going for 11 years now. I’ve had a lot of fond memories up in the Black Hills with Jeff and Deb Smith. But the memory I have from this past trip is really not that fond!
Of course I’m kidding. Sorta.

Michael and I had a GREAT time filming an episode for Road Trips for next year’s season. We really enjoyed just hanging out and spending time together on the road. As a matter of fact, coming up pretty soon is the Merriam's Madness Tour ’08 from Seven J that will air on Road Trips.

We shot our bows on the range behind the lodge with a lot of anticipation for the upcoming season, watched college football (including that awesome game between Tennessee and UCLA)! Wow! That got us fired up about college football. Watched as my Georgia Bulldogs were knocked off the #1 slot due to an unimpressive performance.

First morning out in the stand, Dan Johnson and I were sitting a few hundred yards off an alfalfa field and at 7:20, I looked up about 70 yards away and saw an awesome buck headed back to bed, just taking his time. This deer would score about 150 inches. Man, that got Dan and I fired up!

Then the weather turned awful! Lots of rain, the wrong winds, etc.

Meanwhile, Michael went out and did what he does best...he smacked an awesome 145” 9 pointer! In full velvet! And it’s a great hunt, too. Of course, with Phillip Culpepper running the camera, what else can I say!

Well, Dan and I stayed with it, battling the elements and we just could not get close enough to a “shooter”.

Finally on the last evening of the hunt, guide Kenny Morga, put me in a stand that was “hot”!

Dan and I had several smaller bucks come by us almost immediately after getting settled. Then, at 4:30, a group of four bucks appeared, heading our way. One of them was a really good looking 125” 10 pointer and he was going to give me a shot at 23 yards! Awesome!

Not!!!!!

I commenced to come to full draw and got plum rattled! Let’s just put it this way. It is a great miss!

I did everything wrong. I didn’t take my time, didn’t pick a spot, didn’t execute a good shot, etc. And believe me, as hard as I tried to wrestle the tape out of Dan’s hand so I could destroy the evidence, it was no use.

So, I guess I’ll be eating yet another serving of humble pie! That stuff is hard to wash down.

Now, I’m headed to New Mexico to elk hunt near Cimarron. Can I redeem myself?

As I mentioned briefly, I did redeem myself from my miss in Wyoming! And wow, what an awesome hunt! I had arranged an elk hunt through San Miguel Outdoors with Rodney Prince of Rawhide Outfitters, Inc near Cimarron, New Mexico. And after the first morning’s elk hunt, Realtree cameraman “Squeedunk” Viars and I realized this could be tough. We did hear and eventually see a couple of herd bulls...but they had 70-90 cows with each of them!

Now, I’m not an elk hunting expert but I did the math. We were in for a tough deal, especially trying to get good video.

Driving back into town after that first morning hunt, Rodney and I spotted a group of mule deer feeding in a field along a small river. Upon closer inspection, we could tell there was a couple of really nice bucks in the group.

I asked Rodney what it would take to draw a mule deer tag in that unit and he quickly stated that it was private land and that he had access to tags if I was willing to purchase a license and tag to hunt one of them. And honestly, I didn’t know what to do ...for about an hour!

I, once again, quickly assessed the elk hunting and concluded that we could still hunt elk in the mornings and evenings when they were active and hunt the mule deer after the elk had gone to bed for the day. It sounded like a plan so we drove up to Raton to buy my license and I was fixing to go mule deer hunting!

On the second day, as we were headed out to elk hunt, we made a trip by the river and lo and behold we saw two bucks feeding and we had the wind perfect! Squeedunk and I also had cover to work with and if we played our cards right we could end up about 50 yards from the bucks.

As I glassed the pair, I realized the bigger one was one of the bucks we’d seen the first day. He was awesome! Sure enough, we belly crawled as far as we could, set up in a cane thicket and hoped that they wouldn’t feed away from us. The big buck was at 54 yards but was feeding directly away from me. Plus, I wasn’t crazy about taking a shot that far especially since we had a 15-20 mph cross wind.

Then, the bucks turned and fed back toward us. The MAX-1 did an AWESOME job! Several times the bucks looked at us but couldn’t make us out.

Finally, at 43 yards the big buck turned broadside. I firmly anchored and focused. I was determined not to rush my shot as I had done in Wyoming.

After releasing the arrow, I immediately knew I had made a good hit and I had scored for the first time this year! What a feeling! And he’s a good buck! The G5 Striker did it’s job.

Go ahead. Make fun of my stabilizer. But doggone it feels good on my BowTech!