Updates--Sept 7, 2010
Posted By
Jared Mills
at
9/7/2010 12:00:00 AM
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Update: September 7, 2010
Rich Fry - Northern IL
For the past 7 or 8 years Todd and I have been filming each other hunting just about everything hoping to get a chance at using our footage some where in the hunting world. Last year we joined Midwest Whitetail.com thinking it was a good way to use our footage but not have to produce a DVD or a show to sell ourselves. Hunting is first on our minds but do to the time we have to divide up with all our kids and family activities we thought this was a perfect fit for us. Well, things happen and I needed a total hip replacement in August and Todd and I lost our best place to hunt. So, we did not get a lot of velvet footage in but we did find some new places to hunt and I had friends put cameras out for me and got a few nice bucks on film. This year you should see more of us. Join our search for new places and new deer in 2010!
We have a new buck on the list right no
w. He is the one we call”Tom” He is a young buck that we got on film during the summer, for sure he is not more than 3 1/2 years old.
We called him Tom because he was filmed with a friend of ours camera who’s name is Tom.
We are filming all we can right now for velvet footage and we are moving our cameras each week to try to locate some bigger bucks to add to the hit list from all the new properties we have gotten this season.
So, it should be exciting to see what is on these new properties this year. Come and join us on this new season. We are going to keep you updated in our quest to fill the hit list. We’ll be getting out in the evenings this coming week and see what we can come up with.
Cavan Sullivan
We got back from South Africa in one piece. This was truly a trip of a lifetime, but I already want to go back. Whitetails still rule my world, and with every arrow shot I got more excited about the coming season. Steele has been doing doing some early Canada goose hunting and and with the addition of some new decoys he really is hoping to get the drop on some. We have been mostly busy with farm work, which allows us the freedom to hunt in the fall. The past several weeks we have been hanging trail cams and practicing shot situations in the back yard. It is amazing how shooting through tree openings, down hill, and rushed shots can humble a shooter. Better learn now rather than later. Our area has been hit particularly hard with epizootic hemorrhaging disease (EHD) this summer. We have found several dead deer on our farm this last two weeks and we removed the spleen and lymph nodes and took then to the University of Illinois to test. EHD is caused by a small biting insect that passes a virus on to the deer. Infected deer are usually drawn to water because of sever dehydration and difficulty breathing. Sydney and Steele started back to school this week and both will be commuting to be able to spend more time out in the field. As you can see in the picture the next generation of Timber Valley Fresh Scent urine producing does is doing great..jpg)
Thanks for checking in.
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Todd Berkenpas- Northern IL
The time is fast approaching to have everything ready for the 2010 season. My filming partner and I have been doing alot of scouting and most of that has been for new places to hunt. We lost our best place this year and have been continually looking for new opportunities. Sometimes opportunities just happen, well in this case it was called networking around a good old bon-fire. I was out in the country Sunday night on a 240 acre property. I knew the son real well but had never met his Dad. This was the family farm which had been in the family for generations. Mike introduced me to his Dad who was a really nice man. As our conversation went on he asked what I did. Without even thinking about it I said I did alot of hunting and pulled out my Midwestwhitetail business card. I don't think I ever told him what my real job was.He was very interested in what we were doing and without much more conversation he told me I could hunt the farm. I had not even asked for permission. As I was told later by others, many people have asked in the past and have never gotten the chance. One thing he said though that all of us may take note of is that he wants us to shoot all the coyotes we can. I told him we would go after them hard as well. If you are having trouble getting in on new places to hunt my advice to you is don't give up. You never know when a situation may present itself. Be curteous, polite and honest and things will fall your way eventually. I am now in the process of getting the satellite photo to bring out with me when we go walk the farm. I hope that we can bring you a good hunt from this farm as well. Good Luck to all this season.
Gabe Small and Jim Miller-
West Central IL
Jimmy, Sara, and I made the 2 hour trip up to our Adams County farm yesterday. We had a ton of work to do there and surprisingly, we accomplished most of what we wanted to do. We started out checking the trail cams, and we finally managed to get a few pics of a buck we have watched out in the bean fields this summer. His name is Scarface, he isn't the highest scoring buck on the farm, but he is old and unique because of a big scar or white patch right on his snout, andwe are excited to put a mark on him as a shooter for this fall.
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"Scarface" |
Next we weed whipped our 3/4 acre clover plot we have tucked between a huge bedding area and the big ag fields, we have high hopes for the stand set we hung just off of our little plot. In all we hung five different stand sets that we went in and marked early this spring, this is only our second year hunting this farm so we are still tweaking our stand locations, but we feel like we are pretty close.
Speaking of hanging stands, it is NOT the same to hang a stand for a hunter and a camera man than if you are hunting alone. Wow, the work to find a tree that will support, hide, and give just the right angles for two people is mind numbing. We have a new found respect for those who have done this successfully for years.
So far we have marked four, maybe five, bucks as shooters on this farm. So check back in and see if our carefully laid plans for seeing one of these big boys from 20 feet up works out, or if we fail miserably. Either way we are going to have fun trying.
Season starts Sept. 15 over here in our home state of Missouri, so we will be out next week trying to lay down one of our Missouri Hitlisters. We will let you know how that goes.
Season is finally here! I can't wait to get out there!
David Williams- Southern IL
Well, I finally made it up to Illinois last week after being in Georgia for the past few months working. The corn fields are falling and the food plots were being planted, at least for Team Southern Illinois. We finished putting the final touches on some great looking food plots for Team Southern Illinois.
We are still running our trail cameras and will continue to throughout the year as it can tell you the times deer are moving, what part of your property they are using, even what they are eating at the time, and you never know if you might get a new addition to your hitless.
It looks like all the pieces of the puzzle are coming together and I can't wait until I can get in the stand!
Nic DiFilippo-
Central IL
Central IL has started cutting corn at the moment.
Last year most of the corn was not cut till November and December. I still had some fields standing in Feb. So this is a great way to start the year. I am very excited to see the corn falling this year. The beans are not ready yet - so the food plots for early season should be great since I hope to see alot fo the corn gone by early Oct. The corn was abundant this year, so with it being cut I hope to be able to get out and find some bucks that I have not been able to find all summer.
Todd Anderson-
Northwest IL (Quad Cities)
- Last weekend we set up stands near The Bridge, in the Oak Flats, on the North Draw, and one along a ridge on the North Bottoms. I think we should have a good shot at another encounter with “Splitter” near the bridge, “Spot” has
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| Hitlist buck "Spot" in 2009 |
- We did a quick last-minute mowing of the interior paths on our farm this past weekend as well. Now that we have our stands set down in the timber and the paths have been cleaned up we’ll stay out of there until the season actually opens and most likely wait on a few areas until the crops are out, which we are hearing should be pretty early around us.
- We are still running about 10 trail cameras right now – I got the first pictures of hard antlered deer this past weekend and actually had one area that bucks were working a small scrape. I’ve got a couple of field edge stands that I want to put up still so that will be next weekend and obviously we’re still practice shooting regularly.
- One kind of twist that I’m facing this year is that we just came to terms on a 75-acre parcel of land that is near our farm which ties into a different block of timber then what we currently hunt. This should expose us to a different group of bucks and I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to attack this piece of ground since I’ve never scouted it before. I plan on doing some long-range observation of the farm fields around it to see if deer are coming out into them at specific locations and try to get an idea of what type of bucks are on the place. We should have full access to the land by Oct 1 and I’m planning on hunting it this fall, but it might be a little touch and go with figuring out exactly how to access it and where to hunt.
