The crew is unable to hunt because of the Canadian weather and are thinkin about heading home.

One more day for Micheal and crew to fill their Caribou Tags. Will the weather allow it?

Texas deer hunting by rule can be very laid back and typically yield a high percentage success rate. However the hunting by no means is always easy and that’s exactly what we experienced in Albany, TX while hunting the Newell Ranch.

The Bone Collector crew were guests of Mr. & Mrs. K.C. Jones. The Newell is a large acre, low fenced ranch that is managed by Randy and his son Jason Rifenburg. There is no rifle hunting allowed on the ranch which makes it a bow heaven for having the opportunity to hunt big mature Texas whitetails.

Typical TX terrain made up of Mesquite and prickly pear flats make perfect cover and habitat for the deer stay hidden and safe from G5 broad heads and Beman meat missiles, but typically three solid days of hunting will always allow a hunter at least one chance at a Pope and Young whitetail.

Well, after six days of hunting the famed Newell Ranch I found myself questioning if I would fill my buck tag? After lots of rain that come to the ranch in September the ranch was as green as any TX cowboy or myself had seen this part of TX, which gave the deer the advantage. Simply put, the deer were not coming in regular to the C’meer Deer, Corn feeders and Food plots as regular as usual. The hunting was tough, and we found it very hard to get a mature buck or even a doe in Archery range.

After adding a day or two to scheduled hunt, I finally connected on a really nice 9pt that came in to some C’meer deer Buck juice the last 10 minutes of my last evening hunt.
The big deer cautiously strolled in from around 70 yards out while MS cameraman Kenneth Lancaster rolled tape on him. At 27yards the Hoyt Alphamax was put to work.
He went about 80 yards after the shot and piled up!

Like I said TX isn’t always a cakewalk, but even when the hunting is tough there, it is still one of the best places in the country to fill a tag on a record buck.

Michael takes us around the camp he and his crew have taken over the last few days.

The Shanty Theater is Now Open due to dreary Canadian weather conditions.

If you like hearing more about Michael’s hunts you may want to pick up a copy of Petersen’s HUNTING magazine.  Starting in 2010 Michael has signed an exclusive writing agreement with Petersen’s HUNTING to become a regular monthly contributor.  According to Waddell, “This is going to be a great opportunity to share more of the hunt.  When you have to compress an entire hunting trip down to thirty minutes for television you don’t always capture the full flavor. Petersen’s HUNTING will give me the venue to share more from the field.”

“I’m extremely excited about bringing Michael into our magazine.  I’ve known and worked with Michael for a long time and he is the ‘real deal’. He has the hunting credibility that makes Petersen’s HUNTING so widely respected.” Says Petersen’s HUNTING Editor Mike Schoby.

Published ten times a year Petersen’s HUNTING is the nation’s premier hunting publication.  Featuring such writers as Craig Boddington, Wayne Van Zwoll, John Barsness, Lane Simpson and photographers John Hafner, Mitch Kezar and Dusan Smentana.

If you would like to receive a subscription of Petersen’s HUNTING click here www.petersenshunting.com

Gamblers have Vegas and Atlantic City. Bowhunters chasing Pope and Young whitetails have Northeast MT or more specific The Milk River.

The Milk River has been a long time favorite of mine since I started working at Realtree in 1995. No secretes about this spot anymore, lush fields of alfalfa and limited bedding around the rivers edge make evening bowhunting a guaranteed chess match everyday as multiple record book bucks file into the food source to forage on the tender chutes of alfalfa. It is not uncommon for any given evening to have over a hundred deer in a 50 acre alfalfa field. Common as well is to have a quarter of these deer to be nice bucks sporting good head gear. The chess match comes into play when you are trying to pick the perfect tree or ground blind for one of these shooters to come by in bow range.

This year was my first year to go back and hunt the Milk since 2004. Even though I had hunted other areas in MT and even some River Bottoms similar, it still wasn’t the same as where I cut my teeth River bottom hunting.

Again, Phillip Culpepper was joining me only this time he had a cameraman with him, as he was to be a hunter for the Roadtrips TV show. Scouting hard in the mornings, we were overwhelmed at the amount of deer in the fields and better than that was the quality of nice bucks. The hunt was on, and for the next 5 days we mixed it up with the early season whitetails.

On my last afternoon, I found a nice velvet ten point that came within range and luckily the Beman Bone Collector shaft flew true and after the 100 grain Tekan worked on his lungs for about 80 yards I had a 152 inch buck to put in the back of the truck. There was plenty of drama on this hunt that viewers will see when the Roadtrips show airs next July 10, so we don’t want to let all the info out on this blog. One thing I will say is that Producer Culpepper dropped his best buck ever.. 179 P&Y! This will be a must see next year and on Monster Bucks DVD’s.