Daddy Was a Hunter,
A Powerful Example Makes its Mark

The boy’s daddy was a hunter.

One thing the boy knew, even when he was a rebellious and irreverent teen, was that he wanted to be like his daddy. His daddy was well-liked, well-respected, didn’t take any guff from anyone, and liked to laugh and make other people laugh. His mama, too, was pretty, bright, and cheerful, and she was sweet and kind as well. But what became one of his strongest family ties and life-directing forces was that his daddy was a hunter.

Fewer things are more powerful when it comes to shaping a life than good examples set by other folks. His mama and daddy set the best examples they could — powerful and healthy ones at that. So the boy had something good to work with. And he wanted to be a hunter.

It seemed at times that this desire was one of the biggest motivators in his life. When his grades in school started falling off and he started acting up, he was faced with choosing between his poor behavior and going to the woods with his daddy. The boy chose the woods. What else could he do? To be left at home while his daddy went hunting was simply unacceptable.

In time, years later, he would look back at his early years and think how wrong it all could have gone for him, if he hadn’t been raised by two intelligent, loving parents… if they had lived in the city instead of the country… if his daddy hadn’t been a hunter.

Hunting kept him, as his father might say, “off the streets and out of trouble.” And though his daddy always said it with tongue in cheek, in this case it proved to be very true.

Once, one of his high school teachers asked him (in front of the class) if he’d ever gotten a deer. Well, he hadn’t gotten one yet — deer hunting was tough where he hunted, and more often than not there were no deer brought home from a weekend’s hunting, though success at hunting is not always measured in pounds of venison. Then his teacher — poor ignorant thing — suggested that maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a hunter after all! Sin of sins — to purposely and publicly step on a young man’s love and dreams and aspirations! It hurt him, but he knew better than to be discouraged, because his mama and daddy had taught him how to think for himself. He simply lowered his estimation of that teacher as a person, and kept on hunting.

When he got his first deer a year or so later, there was simply no way to describe his joy. All at the same time, he was in love with a sweet and beautiful girl, he had a wonderful family, he was accepted and liked by the menfolk in the camp, and by golly, he had gotten a deer! Could life ever taste sweeter? He didn’t think so. He still doesn’t.

As time went on, the boy got more deer. He married that beautiful girl (gaining some more great kin), met and parted ways with some hunting buddies. He lost some beloved family members, worked his way up in his chosen profession until he was at last licensed in his home state (passed the three-day exam the first time, he’d proudly tell you if you asked), and took on other activities as well.

The boy made some good friends and he moved to the woods when his home town got too crowded for him. He enjoyed living a quiet life, away from the rat race that he had lived long enough to get very tired of. He was never jailed or arrested and he never shot anyone, although he spent a large part of his life handling and shooting guns.

The boy enjoyed some success at everything he tried, and in the back of his mind he gave at least part of the credit for that to his love of hunting. And he always enjoyed some things more than others. More than once his beautiful wife would look at him and sigh and ask, “It’s always about hunting, isn’t it?” The boy would always smile and nod.

His daddy was a hunter.

This article was written by Russ Chastain. You can see the original article at http://hunting.about.com/library/weekly/aa_daddy_hunter.htm

Please post your comments below and let me know what you think!

Hunting Whitetail deer during the rut is truly awesome.  Many of the largest bucks are harvested during this time of year and it pays to be in the woods as much as possible.  At the same time there are many misconceptions floating around the hunting world about hunting whitetails during the rut.  If you listen to this bad advice it can really hurt your chances of tagging out on a monster whitetail buck during this years rut.

There is no one, in my opinion, who knows more about the habits of rutting whitetail bucks and estrous does as well as the science behind the timing of the deer’s rut, than Charles Alsheimer.   Host of the “Deer and Deer Hunting” Television Show and contributor to deer and Deer Hunting Magazine, Alsheimer is very well know for his photos of huge whitetails and his lunar rut prediction calendar.  Alsheimer has spent close to 2 decades studying the whitetail deer during the rut and more specifically how the moon impacts rutting activity of bucks and estrous does.  His insights in the video below are certainly worth understanding!  If you put his knowledge into practice  during this years deer hunting season it may help you to bag the biggest whitetail buck of your life.

If you have any experience that matches or even conflicts with Alsheimers insights be sure to leave a comment below!  Happy hunting!

To watch Alsheimers video on the rut scroll down using the bar on the right hand side of the video border until you get to “Lockdown Time of Rut”

Man on the vast and open sea, tiny in comparison to his surroundings, truly at the mercy of the elements.  Water being, the most powerful of all the earthly elements, necessary for the sustenance of life yet able to destroy, unlike anything else on the planet.  As hypnotic as it can be it is a place where your senses come alive.  Your survival depends on it!  For me it is this combination of peacefulness and danger that captures my thoughts, leads me into daydreams and fuels my desires to once again be in a boat on the open water!  You just never know what great adventure is in store for you over the next wave!

The story below is a great example of this!  This is truly a crazy fish story! Be sure to leave a comment below on the craziest thing you have ever caught while fishing or the most dangerous place you have ever found yourself in while out on the open water!

Click here to see a .pdf of the actual fish-story If it is too hard to read below!

Crazy fish makes you want to bring a bat next time you go fishing!

According to Wayne Six, one of Frederick’s  most respected appraisers, a balanced Real Estate market in Frederick county Maryland, has between 1,100 to 1,250 active home listings.  In layman’s terms, when we look back at market data over the past few decades- Prices are stable when there are somewhere between 1,100 to 1,250 homes for sale in Frederick county.

What does this mean for you?  The Bottom may be near at hand!  We currently have 1,300 homes for sale in Frederick county, MD and that means the over supply situation is about over!  Listing Inventory in Frederick county floated between 2,000 to 2,400 homes for sale for a couple of years and just in the last year has really begun to get back in line!  With any luck (for Sellers) prices will stop dropping, interest rates will stay low and Buyers who were waiting for “the bottom” will continue to jump off the fence.  Our economy relies on the Real Estate market for recovery and we are about to see things turn around!

According to the Frederick News Post, It appears that there will be many more foreclosures hitting the market in the next few months which may increase supply again, but at this point I can tell you that homes that are priced right are getting multiple offers and selling in a couple of weeks.  Just this morning, I helped some friends of mine, first time home buyers, to write an offer on a foreclosed home and there were 8 offers on the house!  It needs all new carpet and paint but at a list price of $185,000 for over 3,000 finished square feet it is a true Real Estate deal!  You can check out a picture of the house here on my facebook page.  We actually had to offer above list price to be in the running.  I will let you know what happens with our offer in a future post!

If you’d like to stay informed on what is selling in your neighborhood and what your home is currently worth check out this Market Snapshot that is updated every month with all of the data you could ever want to know! Learn about things like Average Days On The Market, Average List Price, Average Sold Price, Number Of Homes that Sold, Number of Homes that failed to sell, and much more- all customized to you reflect similar homes to yours and in your neighborhood or area- whether that is in Frederick, Mt. Airy or any where in Maryland.  The best part is that it is Free and online so you will get instant results once you input a couple of basic facts about your homes size and location!

Bottom line… NOW is the best time to buy a home in Frederick or anywhere in Maryland.  Prices are low- deals are everywhere, interest rates are historically low and if you act before November you get an $8,000 tax credit for buying!  Click here if you want to do an online home search and see what is currently available for sale!

In the Youtube video below, (You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here), you will see my current dog Roxy.  She has honestly been the most amazingly easy to train dog I have ever worked with.  She is the absolutely perfect combination of dominant and submissive.  I just tell her “No” once and she listens- 95% of the time, no leash or collar necessary.  She even listens well for my kids and my wife.  The interesting thing is that we have hardly ever used a collar and leash to train.  She is just th eperfect combination of “wants to please” and “submissive”  that you could ask for.  What I mean is that if you do ask her to do something and she doesn’t listen the first time- which for her is rare- just a hint of sternness (I think I just made up a word!) and she complies without rolling over on her belly and peeing herself.  She is very confident yet very compliant.  Truly unlike ANY other dog I have ever seen or worked with.

I am curious to see how she will do with more advanced training like handling, and force fetching, but feel very confident that If I properly adjust the degree of my reprimands to meet her level of learning she will do just an excellent job and turn out to be an amazing hunting and competition dog as well.

Because I am so busy these days, with the kids and with my Real Estate career and my Marketing Consultation Business, I do not get out to hunt or train as much as I used to back when I used to do guided hunts, manage the hunting club or host the television show.  Therefore I was blown away by the degree of her instinct when we took her to a field to do long marked retrieves for the first time.  Previous to this trip we had done a lot of fun retrieving around the house, of course, like any Labrador Retriever she is relentless in trying to get us to play fetch with her! Before the trip in the video we had only been out to a ball field on 3 seperate occassions to work on 50 to 100 yard marked retrieves.

I had a hunch that she was going to be an amazingly instinctive marking dog- just like her bloodlines had indicated she might be, so I set up the first throw at 300 yards.  Normally, I would have just slowly worked back to long retrieves, over a period of many training sessions, like you have to do with most dogs, but I believed she was different!  To my pleasure and amazement she nailed a 300, 400 and 500 yard retrieve on right after the other!  For any of you who know dogs, that is just about unheard of except in the rare case of “instinctively exceptional” pinpoint, marking ability. (Marking is the act of watching a bird or training dummy fall and then remembering the exact location of where it fell and running straight to it to pick it up without really stopping and using their nose to “Hunt for it”).

Well, enough of my chatter, check out the video of her 400 and 500 yard retrieves and leave a comment on what you think of her instinct!  Feel free to bookmark and share on twitter or use the video in one of your blogs if you’d like!  Happy Hunting!

If we are not already hooked up then let’s connect on…

Twitter: http://Twitter.com/Kevinboneill

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Blog: http://KevinBOneill.com

“Luke AFB is west of Phoenix and is rapidly being surrounded by
civilization that complains about the noise from the base and its
planes, forgetting that it was there long before
they were.

A certain Lieutenant Colonel at Luke AFB deserves a big pat on the back.
Apparently, an individual who lives somewhere near Luke AFB wrote the
local paper complaining about a group of F-16s that disturbed his/her
day at the mall.

When that individual read the response from a Luke AFB officer, it must
have stung quite a bit.

The complaint:
‘Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base:

Whom do we thank for the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely
9:11 A.M, a tight formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over
Arrowhead Mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500
feet.. Imagine our good fortune!  Do the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel we
need this wake-up call, or were they trying to impress the cashiers at
Mervyns early bird special?

Any response would be appreciated.

The response:

Regarding ‘A wake-up call from Luke’s jets’ On June 15, at precisely
9:12 am, a perfectly timed four- ship fly by of F-16s from the 63rd
Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of Capt.
Jeremy Fresques. Capt Fresques was an Air Force officer who was
previously stationed at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on
May 30, Memorial Day.

At 9 am on June 15, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial
Park in Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son and friend. Based
on the letter writer’s recount of the fly by, and because of the jet
noise, I’m sure you didn’t hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of taps,
or my words to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques as I gave them
their son’s flag on behalf of the President of the United States and
all those veterans and servicemen and women who understand the
sacrifices they have endured..

A four-ship fly by is a display of
respect the Air Force gives to those who give their lives in defense
of freedom. We are professional aviators and take our jobs seriously,
and on June 15 what the letter writer witnessed was four officers
lining up to pay their ultimate respects.

The letter writer asks, ‘Whom do we thank for the morning air show? The
56th Fighter Wing will make the call for you, and forward your thanks
to the widow and parents of Capt Fresques, and thank them for you, for
it was in their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation
of their lives.

Only 2 defining forces have ever offered to die for you….Jesus Christ
and the American Soldier.
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

Lt. Col. Grant L. Rosensteel, Jr.

USAF”

Well what do you think of his response?  Leave your comment below and have your friends comment as well!

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I plan to take my 6 and 3/4 year old, he insists that we don’t just call him 6, out in the field with me this year.  I have a couple of places where I can easily set up my Double Bull Ground Blind and a few decoys and see what happens.  Have you ever wondered why the grass seems greener on the other side?  I always seem to get permission on spots where the turkeys are roosting 100 or so yards away… right on the other side of the fence row that defines the property line!!  The birds are not only audible, some mornings, but often even visible.  They generally fly down strut around a bit and then head off in the opposite direction, like being pulled on a string towards the hens down in the bottom!

You never know when they will come your way though!  That’s what makes it so much fun!  In my next post I think I may share a story with you of when the boss Tom actually left the hens he was with to come my way.  Oh yeah, turkey fried in peanut oil is so good in the spring!

Please comment below if you liked this video!