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Saturday May 27 Rich Sandi and I got out to one of our bear baits in between the rainstorms, enough with the rain already! The bait had been completely cleaned out and the bears had even broken the barbwire I used to anchor the barrel to the tree. I found the barrel licked clean about 100 yards from the bait. I walked it back to the bait all the while yelling over my shoulder to Sandi as she drove the Argo into the bait site. I dropped the barrel, looked at the wire remnant on the tree turned around and watched a little bear stand up and yawn from about 5 yards away! A little excitement followed with me finally running him off and Sandi and I setting the night there. He returned as well as another small bear to feed and entertain. The next morning in the light I noticed we had a visitor at the truck as well who left paw prints in the mud and claw scratches in the paint, dang!
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Friday May 26 Rich Christmas came early! Today the postman brought a nice big box full of Realtree camo from Whitewater. The new clothes look awesome but I couldn’t help but laugh that the rain gear had been backordered. Just my luck, what with Mother Nature setting a new record for rain fall in May around here! Clothing all fit good and Sandi and I will give it a test tomorrow bear hunting.
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Tuesday May 23 Luke - Pro Staff Luke told me was on a good bear that he had been chasing for two years but until he showed up at the office with the pictures I wasn’t sure what “good” was in his books. It seems his idea of good and mine match up pretty well! This beautiful color phase nearly touches 500 pounds with a 32” neck and a 20 7/16” skull! Watch for the heart-stopping hunt on an up coming episode of Thomson Center’s Outdoor Quest. |
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May 20 - 22, 2006 Rich
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May 19-22, 2006, T.J.
I spent the long weekend in search of black bears in the northern part of Alberta but an early spring really made everything green up early this year and my traditional hotspots weren’t so hot. I was hunting with friend, Vanessa Harrop, and while we only saw four bears in our travels, we did learn some great new country for next year and we saw loads of deer, elk and moose.
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May 15, 2006 Rich Yesterday was Mother’s Day. So, Sandi and I took life easy and drove around looking for land to buy. The sun was shining and spring is full on us with green grass and new leaves. In the afternoon our two boys (Matt and Jake) fought their way through making supper for Sandi. Jake cooked and Matt interfered, these positions are interchangeable with these two. While this calamity was going on, I took a few minutes to slip out to the garage and do the one performance tweak I like to do on the Avenger.
Argo ships the Avenger with the 25" Terra Rawhide III tires standard but they mount them backwards to facilitate better swimming performance. The reverse mounting means the tires have a tendency to plug in gumbo and causes a little more effort by the machine in zero radius turning situations. The machine backs up like a demon out of the worst holes ever though! Since I don’t often have to swim the machine much over 100 yards at a time in sloughs and beaver dams, I swap the front three tires from side to side to mount the tires in the maximum traction rotation. Whoa Nelly! What a difference 10 minutes makes. Try the tweak on your machine. Leave the last pair on backwards and you’ll get that extra kick for backing up if you ever need to. June Back to top Home |
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Saturday, May 13, 2006 Rich Well after yesterdays continuous rain Sandi, Matt and I were itching to get out of the house. With bear baits needing tending we loaded up the Argo and headed out. The Avenger is the perfect work horse for bear bait tending as you can haul barrels and bait and people all at once through anything.
It was a great sunny day and with a little bit of work we got three sites tended with new beavers hung, and a bait barrel one site that is getting real hard hit. With just a small hole in the side of the barrel it will slow down how faster the beggars are cleaning up the bait.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day so Sandi will be staying how as the boys are cooking her supper but we are planning to sit the baits maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. June Back to top Home |
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May 11, 2006, T.J. Schwanky
While Thompson/Center is well known for making the finest single-shot rifles and pistols, and muzzleloaders in the industry, what most people don’t know is that they also make one of the best semi-automatic .22 rimfires around. I managed to sneak out for a bit today and try mine out on some ground squirrels in southern Alberta. The little rodents were enjoying the warm afternoon sun but were quick to seek refuge in their holes after I made short work of four of their buddies.
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Rich May 11, 2006 I made the 12 hour round trip to Edmonton today to pick up a new Argo Avenger for filming out of this year. Doug Lambley at Argyll Motor Sports preps all our machines for us here at the Outdoor Quest and Doug is very good at it. Doug is the man, all we ever need to do when we pick a machine up from Doug is put gas in the tank and it is ready to go. I’ll tell you a secret. I like taking the machines back to Doug for their 10 to 20 hour check up because they come back out of his shop as clean and shiny as the day they rolled off the showroom floor.
Anyway, if any of you know the distance from Grande Prairie to Edmonton and/or the way I drive you are scratching your head about the 12 hours. Ok, so me and the old dog (Duchess) went for a wander and took a little 2-hour sidetrack to check up on a couple of my bear baits and get the tires muddy on the new machine. The baits were started before I left for New Zealand and they have been pounded. Looks like I have a bunch of work to do this weekend.
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May 10, 2006 T.J. Schwanky
I know, me going hunting with a minister is scary but I had a great day and I did gain a whole new respect for mules. While I’ve shod them and packed them, this was my first time ever on the back of one.
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| RICH: May 9 2006 Both T.J. and I will be posting so I'm going
to start it off with a little bit of bragging from Sandi and my first
hunting trip of the season to magical New Zealand
Once we traveled up to the outfitters (Kanuka
Wilderness Hunting) lodge I rushed out to the range to check my
Pro Hunter. To my astonishment it was shooting 8" higher than it should
have been. I felt sick as I adjusted it back. I've never had a gun change
POI during travels and this was the first time I hadn't checked my guns,
go figure. So confident in the gun Sandi smartly knocked off an Arapawa
ram,
and then her Red Stag. 70 yards at the stag and 100 at the ram. 2 slam dunks, now the guides are snickering at me. Next morning I get my shot at a ram, I range it once at 212 yards by the time I shoot it is out to 230, no big deal I know with my load that my gun is zeroed at 200 yards based on where I sighted it at 100. I squeeze the trigger and drop the 250 shockwave under him between his front feet. The guides are disgusted and sniggering, I'm red faced and mortified. We do a long stalk and 2 hours later I kill the ram; 110 yard shot and he's mine but what the heck is going on?!!?! I only have a hundred yard range to work with and no chrono but I'm beginning to think that the weather (very wet and humid) and perhaps the powder lot (Chris from Hodgdon graciously arranged for 50/50 Pyrodex pellets to be available for me there) are combining to greatly reduce my velocity. It is the only thing making sense to me at this point.
My Stag was a 117 yards shot through the shoulders, no problem.
Sandi's Spanish goat was was at 188 yards, I told her to hold up at the
point of the shoulder and she took him low through the chest.
My last kill was 98 yards on my Spanish goat. Watch for these hunts to air on Thompson Center's Outdoor Quest starting January 1, 2007
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Sandi
and I spent the long weekend in search of bear. The weather was wildly
varied from bright and sunny to an inch of rain on Saturday. We put the
top up on the Argo when checking baits and traveled in the lap of luxury
nice and dry. We managed to sit a couple of hot baits on Sunday and Monday
and saw a couple of 3 year olds for our troubles. Nice 150 to 200 pound
bears but not what we are looking for.
We
joined Rich and Sandi on Saturday and spent a couple evenings on a bait
they are running and had what could only be described as a close encounter
with a black bear. We were hunting from a ground blind on one of the baits
and we literally had a bear walk right to our blind to check us out. At
one point, he was less than a foot and a half from Vanessa. It was pretty
awesome being that close to a bear. Check out the video by clicking the
link below. 
After
what looked like was going to be a very early spring here in southern Alberta,
the past two weeks of cool weather have slowed things down considerably. I got
out last week with the minister from the Anglican church, Jeff Enfield, and a
buddy of his, Cam Fleury, and spent the day riding mules through the hills
west of Nanton in search of black bears. While we didn’t see any bears, we saw
a wide variety of wildlife and I learned some great new country. 
Last
weekend we had a chance to put the new Thompson/Center Pro Hunter Encore
209x50 through its paces too. While I’d like to play with a few more
bullet/powder combinations, the Encore shot 150 grains of loose Pyrodex RS and
a 240-grain XTP well enough that if a bear shows his face that he won’t be
safe. The new recoil reducing stock is an absolute dream to shoot. It really
does work folks. The new rotating extractor and the new breech plug make this
the simplest muzzleloader ever to clean and I like the offset hammer
extension. It made cocking the hammer very simple, even with the scope on.
What else can I say about this new rifle from Thompson/Center other than,
“Dang it’s pretty.”
Just
got home late last night, more than slightly jet lagged. Trip was
fantastic, new Pro Hunter Encore shot like a dream, Sandi and I shot Tahr,
Red Stag, Spanish goat and Arapawa Ram. I had my most embarrassing moment
on film ever and my toughest hunt ever. The trip home was a little screwy
with a detour to Hawaii for a medical emergency and the resulting missing
of plane connections and having to stay in LA. Travel with a gun is not a
lot of fun, I've now been paged in 3 airports around the world. 
I
guess I better explain... 
