We would like to mention that we are going to be at the Illinois Deer Classic in February 2008

We would like to mention that we are going to be at the Illinois Deer Classic in February 2008!
Stop by our booth to meet the staff and to introduce yourself, we’d love to see you there!

Also, please check our website for updates! We add more content each month to help keep
you informed. If you are not signed up on our forum, get on the ball! We have hunters from
all over the country joining us at a rapid pace. It’s a great place to network with other hunters
for advice, places to hunt or just some plain ole’ chitchat.

The Final Stretch on Whitetails
What a year! We scouted hard all year. Hunted before the rut, the pre-rut,
the rut and the post rut. What’s left you wonder??? January of course!

Simple solution; use what works!
Steer away from the ever constant “upgrading” of equipment.

In this highly publicized world of hunting equipment, one would wonder which direction to go when making a decision on what to buy. As you are aware of, Non Typical Hunter, Inc. makes it our business to test new products and inform the public of our findings. We do this with the help of our Pro-Staff personnel, our forum members and through word of mouth, to get an overall feeling of a particular product. For me to preach to you about sticking with the equipment that is right for you, well, might seem a bit odd.

We understand that eventually, a hunter will need to purchase a particular product sooner or later which is why we DO our product testing in the first place. Sometimes products do get better as technology excels and the more advanced products seem to find their need in our arsenal of gadgets. When does replacing our older equipment with the newer stuff deem necessary? When is it time to just “let it be”? Is it really worth having the latest and the greatest?

There are basically 3 types of hunters in my not-so-humble opinion:

You have the “Party Hunter” who quite frankly, just wants to hunt so that he can hang out with the gang for a few days. He doesn’t really care if he bags anything big…or anything at all for that matter.
Then you have the “High Tech Hunter” who has the best of everything: top of the line bow, the latest “shade” of camo and the coffee mug that carries a gallon of coffee (hey wait a minute, I carry that much coffee!). He has read all the latest magazines on hunting and knows all of the latest deer lingo like “lockup”, “sanctuary”, etc. but doesn’t really “get into” the meat and potatoes of the sport.
Last but not least, the “Good Ole’ Boy Hunter”. This guy could care less about who did what, he just wants to hunt! He wears old army fatigues, shoots with his dad’s old gun or bow and uses techniques that are really cutting edge, but isn’t aware that they are, because he doesn’t ever read.

So where do you fall in these classifications of hunters? Me? I personally like to think of myself as a combination of the later two. I admire the good ole boy’s love of the sport and his knowledge of the outdoors. I also enjoy great products that work as good as advertised. As far as the party goes, I can wait to celebrate with some grilled back-loins smothered with horseradish sauce after the hunt is over. For me, there is no party until I harvest what I was hunting for.

So now that I have lost all of my readers because of insults, I’ll go hunt…not really, you can’t walk away just yet!

Take yourself down memory lane and search through your gray matter to see if you can remember what type of equipment you were using during a particular hunt. Do sort of a mental collection of data to verify how much the equipment played a role in harvesting your animal. Always ask yourself how it affected the key elements of a successful hunt; scent control, sound, movement and so forth. I think you will be surprised to find out that what worked 10 years ago, can certainly work today. I still use an 18-year-old bow, 10-year-old camo, 20-year-old gun, etc. and all have proven worth their weight in gold over time. Are their better bows than mine? You better believe it! Considering I use an 18 year old Oneida Arrow Force that weighs a ton. Have there been any newer issues of camo since my last Real-Tree purchase? Many times. What about calls, scent control, etc? Oh sure, but not necessarily cutting edge. The fact remains, I love my old bow; it shoots fast, straight and hard. I can deal with the weight. I draw 70 lbs with it and the unit still performs as well as it did the day I bought it. I do have problems finding parts though and have to drive 50 miles to get strings, etc. for it. One of these days I’ll have to replace it and when I do, I’ll buy one with the intention of keeping it until I die. It’s kind of hard letting something go that has produced so many good hunts for me, I’m sure most of you can understand. The new calls, etc., well, lets just say we can live without the “growl call” technology and so forth. The scent control products are mostly the same formulas that have been on the market for 15 years.

I know part of this sport, we call hunting, is going out to the hunting stores with the hopes of finding something new and exciting. I do it often enough just because it is fun. When I travel out of state, I make it a point of finding the nearest Bass-Pro shop. I usually end up buying tidbits of things and nothing large. We also have hunting equipment manufacturers send us their products so that we can test and analyze them, which really gives me the chance to see how much of it is really new technology, and how much is just hype.

At the cost of sounding like a hermit, I really am an advocate of high technology. I summarize this article by stating that it is the hunter’s skills that constantly produce a successful hunt with the help of the equipment and not the other way around. When it comes time to look at the “latest and the greatest”, have a heart-to-heart with yourself before jumping into the hype. I think the best type of hunter has a combination of the aforementioned personality traits, so stay balanced and keep your head on straight so you can hang his on your wall!

Your Local Great White Hunter

This section is dedicated for hunters in “your neck of the woods” whom you have
chosen or nominated as your local great White Hunter.

This issue will feature Parrish Brown from Goodfield, IL. Parrish was a winner at the
Illinois Deer Classic in 2006 for dropping a huge 217” non-typical with his bow,
which is a feat in itself, but Parrish was a proven hunter before his claim to fame.
His track record for killing big bucks is proof that harvesting a buck of a lifetime was
not just a fluke. Please read what he has to say about tree stand safety!
FYI, this is our second story this year about tree stand safety. It is that important!

Safety in the Tree

Twenty-seven years ago when I started deer hunting in Wisconsin, it was typical for hunters to locate their spot in the woods, find a nice tree to climb and sit or stand on a branch that would support them. Boy do I remember those days. You could not get as high in the tree as you would like; it was very uncomfortable and not to mention extremely unsafe.

As time went on my father took care of the uncomfortable part by purchasing a couple of folding seats. The seats had a chain you could use to wrap around the tree to secure it and also had a little fold down padded seat. The seat was more comfortable, but still did not meet the safety aspect because we were still resting our feet on branches. Safety harnesses did not ever cross our minds and climbing branch by branch was very unsafe. Unfortunately my father had to find out for himself how unsafe that act was.

In the fall of 1986, my father went out for an afternoon hunt. He found the tree he liked to sit in and started his climb. He reached the point where he thought he would stop, but thought it would be better to go a little bit higher. He reached out to the next branch and ended up being too far out to get his feet back down. Not being able to pull himself up on top of the branch, his grip gave out and he fell to the ground. His first reaction was to get back on his feet, but he fell to the ground trying to do so. He then realized he had broken both of his ankles. Since he didn’t have a cell phone back then to call for help and only had a couple hours of daylight left, he knew he needed to try to get moving the best he could. Using his knife to pull him along as he did the army crawl, he was able to get out of the woods and into a clearing. At that point, he was able to yell loud enough for the farmer to hear him and come to his rescue.

It is unfortunate it took a very bad accident like that to change the way we hunted out of trees. Tree stands were becoming more popular, so we bought some and we even built some. We also started using screw in steps instead of climbing branch by branch, which was much safer. Not having the harness systems we have today, we would use rope to secure ourselves to the tree.

Fast-forward 21 years to 2007. Tree stand safety among the hunting population has grown tremendously, but still not where I would like to see it. In the 2006-hunting season my cousin had fallen asleep in his tree stand and woke up on the ground with a broken nose. He is very lucky that was all he had suffered. A safety system could have saved him from falling.

There are many different safety systems for hunters to use. I have tried the safety vest harnesses, but feel they add extra weight and are too bulky for bow hunting. I use the Transformer Safety System by Loggy Bayou. I like the fact they use quick release buckles in their harnesses, instead of the tangled loops in many of the other harnesses.

There are a few safety precautions I like to use before each climb. I make sure all my tree steps are secured safely. Once I climb up to the stand, I make sure it is properly secured to the tree before I step on to it. When I am on the stand, I connect my harness to a quick connect tree strap with locking carabiner. With this setup, I feel very secure and can concentrate on my hunt. As a career Firefighter we are trained to think safety first when we arrive on scene. As hunters we need to think the same way as we begin our hunt. Be careful and hunt safe!

- Parrish N. Brown

Recipes
Crock Pot Venison

4 large venison steaks
1 large onion
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 qt. Tomatoes
1/4 cup hot sauce
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper
1 tsp. cumin

Cut Steaks into smaller pieces and place in Crock Pot in layers.
Load the Crock Pot with everything else.
Cook for 10-12 hours. Yummy!

Signing off...
Now that the year has come to an end, we here at the staff of Non Typical Hunter wish
you all a very Merry Christmas! We hope you enjoyed another year of our newsletter,
which is now a mini-magazine. NTH has grown over 1000% this year and it is because
we have a reading audience that interacts with the staff, participates in the forum and
just plain loves to hunt!

I want to say thanks to all who have forwarded our Mini-Mag to other hunters. By expanding,
we are able to accommodate hunters from age 10 through 80! It’s this variety of ages that
creates a highway of knowledge to be exchanged among our readers.

Here’s to 2008!

Thanks for reading,

Marc Anthony
V.P/Pro Staff
Chief Editor
Non Typical Hunter Inc.
www.nontypicalhunter.net


“Are you kidding”, you’re saying? No, I’m not insane although my wife thinks I am, but that’s for different reasons. January is a great time to hunt. Deer need to eat heavy this time of year to replenish their loss of weight from running through the month of November. Does need every bit of nourishment they can get, as many mature does are now pregnant. Bucks haven’t eaten a good meal for some time now as they have had one thing on their mind and eating wasn’t it. * * * * * So, what’s our strategy going to be?	There isn’t much to strategize when it comes to feeding whitetails. We know what deer love to eat; the problem is getting to their food source unnoticed. Corn, beans and food plots are our prime targets here in the Midwest. Morning and evening are optimum times to catch these animals at the dinner table. Data shows the evening time to be much more productive in harvesting bucks as compared to mornings. Having said that, don’t exclude your morning hunts if at all possible! * * * * * One word of caution: does usually bed close to their morning feeding areas, so be very careful when setting up.	This data is good to have at hand if a person is a trophy hunter or just limited in managing their time to hunt. Setting up on grazing deer still requires obedience from you, the hunter, in scent control, great camo, playing the wind, etc. Scouting is also very important, as deer in general will tend to enter and exit the fields in close proximity. They have no need to travel, unless their food source is limited. * * * * * Bucks are often back in bachelor groups again and the does “yard” together. The term “yard” refers to deer grouping up together throughout the winter for protection against predators and to keep warmth among themselves.	Your scouting should pay close attention to their entry and exit locations, as these are excellent locations to ambush them! If you are a ground hunter, this can really pay off. Your mobility on the ground can allow you to adjust your position for the final stage of your hunt. One nice aspect of this type of hunting is your ability to watch your game from afar while being encapsulated within the trees. My first bow-kill buck was killed in January and his head is hanging on my wall as proof that winter hunting is as productive as ever. So get your winter clothes out, grab your weapons and hit the fields! There’s no better way to close out the season than to have one more deer hanging in your garage.