I recently did a guest post for Elizabeth at the Deer Passion blog tilted Why Hunting is the Best. In that post I noticed a lot of people commenting about their own hunting families. I would like to give you a little bit more background about my hunting family and why I call them my hunting family.

Like Gary of Base Camp Legends said,” And when your best hunting friends are your family it is the best –“. I agree a good portion of my hunting family is family too. I hunt with my cousins, uncles, and my brother it just makes it that much better. I deer hunt with a few other guys too, who are just like family now.

To quote Blessed of A Blessed Crazy Life Blog“the interaction doesn't just stop at the end of hunting season - it's the middle of summer and you need help with your truck, or a tree in your yard, or just want to get together for a bar-b-que - the hunting buddies are there”! My hunting buddies are the same way and it is so great any time I need help I can guarantee at least a couple of them will help out no matter what time of the year it is, or what the task may be.

Our deer hunting party always has the core group of guys. The group consists of My Uncle Bruce (The Silver Back), My Brother Ryan (Big Foot), my cousin Aaron (If I can see it I can shoot it/Deer slayer), my other Cousin Brandon (The Cook) and my self. We try to get others to join with us every year, and have added one more guy who hunts with us every year Pat, and another guy Rob who hunts almost every year. Last year we recruited one more guy Brian (It was his first year deer hunting), and we are hopeful he will become a regular.

My hunting family does expand past my deer hunting party, but only with a few more guys. When I go out grouse, pheasant, or squirrel hunting I add to the family, my good buddy Luke, another good buddy Troy, my uncle Larry, and my cousin Nick. This group I’m a bit more hesitant to add others. The reason is when you are doing this type of hunting you are usually in pretty close range of one another, and you never know how safe the new hunters are.

I really enjoy hunting with every one of these guys I call my hunting family. I hope every one else who hunts can find a great group like the group of guys I hunt with. The hunting time I spend with all of these guys will give me a life time of memories, and lots of stories to tell.

Ben G.

The next thing I had to do was get them out of the packaging and put them on. When I picked them up I couldn’t believe how light weight the glasses were. I put them on and it didn’t even feel like I had them on my face. They fit so comfortably no pinching or extra pressure on my head (no head aces).One thing I did notice was that when I put them on I saw dots. I thought to my self how am I going to be able to shoot at a Turkey with all these dots. I decided to look at the packaging and see if it addressed this problem. Of course it did the package says if you wear them for 10 to 15 minutes your eye’s will adjust to the dots on the glasses. I had to test this one out to see if it was true, so I decided to wear them on three different walks with Daffy. Sure enough about 10 minutes into each of my walks I didn’t even notice the dots any more.

After inspecting the glasses for a short while I noticed the nose piece looked rather unique. It was rather large and split in the middle. This maybe something rather common with glasses. I don’t wear glasses very often so I hadn’t seen this before. When I wore them on the walks I found that is feature may be to help keep you from sweating while maintaining maximum comfort. The nose piece also detached from the glasses for easy cleaning.
Camo Vision has about 24 color options for the glasses including all of your favorite camo patterns. With each set you have the option of camo lenses with a flat black frame, camo lenses with camo frame, and you can add the anti reflective coating to either of these options.

They also offer themed glasses and can put your school or corporate logo on the lenses. How cool is that?
Now about the anti reflective coating, if you noticed in my photos there isn’t any glair form the lenses. I believe this is a huge feature and a must have when out hunting your favorite game. The last thing you want on a sunny day is a deer or a turkey to catch a glimpse of the glair from your eye ware it could ruin your hunt.


I love Camo Vision’s Slogan “Don’t Let’em See The White Of Your Eyes”! How much better does it get. If you decide to get a pair believe me you won’t regret it. They also have a testimonial page check it out.
web site http://www.camovision.com/



Ben G.

My mother sent me an e-mail with this funny little video. I guess bears can dance too.

Hope you enjoy!

More Videos

Lion Hunt

Ben G.

I missed last week and will try and post two this week.

This time we will travel across the Minnesota borader to Wisconson and check out Horicon National Wildlife Refuge

Over 21,000 acres in size, Horicon National Wildlife Refuge is located on the west branch of the Rock River in southeastern Wisconsin and encompasses the northern two-thirds of Horicon Marsh.



Horicon Marsh is a shallow, peat-filled lakebed gouged out by the Wisconsin Glacier about 12,000 thousand years ago. The headwaters of the Rock River, Horicon Marsh is 14 miles long and three-to-five miles wide. Branches of the Rock River, small and intermittent streams, and groundwater springs provide the water resources for the marsh. At 32,000 acres in size, it is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States.



In 1990, Horicon Marsh was designated a "Wetland of International Importance" by the Ramsar Convention. It has also been designated as "Globally and State Important Bird Areas" by the American Bird Conservancy and a unit of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve.

Brochure

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/horicon/docs/brochure.pdf

Recreation and Education

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/horicon/recreation.html

Hunting

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/horicon/hunting.html

Enjoy

Ben G.
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/horicon/docs/HRChunt.pdf

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter even though it's a day late. Hope you enjoy these photos of Wyatt and his new buddy.

If you have been following my blog you know by now that I hunt public land quite often. I thought it would be nice to share some of the tips I have learned over the years. So here are 10 tips for deer hunting on Public land.


Other Tips
11 Tips How to get Hunting Gear on a Limited Budget
Ten Steps for a successful Whitetail scouting trip
10 tips for Picking the Best Place for your stand and setting it up for success
11 Tips To help you lure a deer in to shooting range
How to get to your deer stand with out getting noticed (in the dark)

Starting today I am going to do a weekly post about a National Wildlife Refuge. I’ll start with the one I frequent here in Minnesota. I hope to hit at least one in each of the 50 states. I will also provide you with links associated with each of these NWR’s and hopefully some pictures and/or a map. I hope you enjoy.

Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is located in the east central region of the state, approximately 50 miles northwest of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area and 30 miles southeast of St. Cloud. The refuge protects 30,700 acres of habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.

The primary mission of the refuge is to represent a diverse biological community characteristic of the transition zone between tallgrass prairie and forest. Established in 1965 to protect and restore the habitats associated with the St. Francis River Valley, refuge management today focuses on the restoration of oak savanna, wetland and big woods habitats.


Recreation and Edcuation Oppurtunites
History of the Sherburne NWR
Visitor Info.

~Ben G.

Saturday afternoon I took the pup out for a walk at our favorite park. Wow was I surprised to see how high the Mississippi river was. The water came up to the edge of the parking lot. Just last weekend my family and I were at the rivers edge watching the ice chunks float by, and the river looked normal. I know I haven’t seen the river this high since I was a youngster living in Sauk Rapids.





We kept walking until we came across this giant trail blocking puddle. I decided to go around this one too. To my surprise the water just kept going and going. There was no sign of the water even getting shallow enough to walk through. Daffy and I kept going trying to find a spot to cross. Eventually we ended up with water on three sides of us and no were else to go.

Daffy and I had to back track and go out the woods the way we came in. Our little walk ended up taking us around an hour and a half, but we both enjoyed every minute of it.