Whats in your pack?

I have never been accused of having a light backpack and thats a fact...Jack.

Ok I won't continue to try and rhyme. I will however, take a few minutes to go over all of the things in my backpack for deer season. I was getting everything in order for the upcoming opener and could not believe the amount of stuff I carry. Now some of these things are just for giggles but for the most part I have a good reason for each item. I have been hunting for 26 years as of this fall and for the most part I feel like I have this hunting thing down to an science. I am sure what works for me may not work for you and that is fine, but I am always interested in finding out what the other guy is doing so here goes.

Now keep in mind that I do not hunt by myself anymore for the most part...We are always filming so the camera gear is a whole rack of gear in itself. I will try to keep it separated.

First...The pack. Since I am always filming I need a pack to handle all my camera gear as well as regular bowhunting gear. I have had just about every brand of pack on the market today that is made specifically for the solo camera archer/videographer and I have not been impressed. I have narrowed it down to a few that I like and the only problem I have is finding them in a decent color as they are not made for hunting. I use a Laptop/Camera backpack. The top loading laptop sleeve style gives me a great place to load my Muddy Camera Arm, while the padded and compartmentalized inside gives me a great place to house my Video Camera, DSLR, GoPro, and extra lenses...

Lets break down the camera end of this and get it out of the way....I should weigh all this crap just to see the extra poundage video/photography gear adds.

Naneu Pro Laptop/DSLR Backpack
1 Canon HF G10 
1 Canon T2i
1 GoPro Hero
   Extra Batteries for all1 Custom tree hanger with ball head for 2nd camera angle
1 Zoom Lens
1 50mm Lens
1 Muddy Outfitter Camera Arm and Base with Manfrotto 701 HDV Tripod head with Varizoom Lanc
   Controller 
1 Extra Tripod Shoe
1 Small Flathead Screwdriver


Now on to the HUNT!!!

After misplacing my license during Turkey Season...... Along with a gang of other crap...... I have gotten myself in gear with a better system for my license, tags, and permission slips. I use a wallet type thing with enough room in it for all of the above and a few pens, rubber bands, twist ties, and rubber gloves.

I also keep my gutting knife and extra blades in there....Thats right, I said extra blades. If you don't have a Havalon replaceable scalpel for gutting your critters you are missing out.

Eddie Bauer Travel Wallet
License
Tags
Pens
Permission Slips
Knife/Scalpel
Rubber Gloves
Rubber Bands/Twist Ties
Extra Medicine (Not having my meds on an out of state trip made for a long week one time)

Oh yeah...A tiny little Tape Measure for this special occasions where you just have to score one before you leave the field.

I keep a gang of stuff in the truck at all times in a Rubber Maid Container. Extra cover scent, gloves, socks, hats, tree steps, ropes, safety belts, First aid kit, flashlight, and batteries. And snacks...Definitely snacks...And TP. Don't forget the TP!!! But in the backpack I try to be as lightweight as I can while not being without anything I may need or want for an comfortable and effective hunt.

2 Facemask UC and UA Black
2 Pair Fingerless gloves UA and Knit
1 Pair UA Gloves
2 Spare releases Zenith/Stanislawski
2 bow hangers (For Accessories)
1 UltimateCamo taped treestep (Bow Hanger)
3 Treesteps (I leave the bottom 3 or 4 steps off of all my sets)
1 Small Pocket knife
1 Led Lenser Flashlight
1 Genes Grunt Call
1 Small Scent Sheild Cover Scent Spray Bottle
1 DDW Scent Prevent 
1 Can Buck Bomb
1 EverCalm Deer Herd in a Stick
1 HS Wind Checker
1 Hooyman Tree Saw
1 Gerber Limb Pruner
1 3 foot loop Drag Rope
1 30 foot Snagging Rope with a Hook
1 Thermacell w/ Case and Refills
TP



On my Person....

1 Muddy Full Body Safety Harness
   Attached to Harness
1 10X50 Carson Binoculars
1 Nikon Rangefinder
1 ABC Chalk Bag carrying my #1 Stanislawski Release
1 Set of Rattling Antlers


Now the rest of the gear...

Of course Im rockin' the UltimateCamo
Underneath all of that is UA Heat Gear or Carol Davis Sportswear when its real cold outside.
I like my Muck Rubber Boots and Lacross Leather Hikers
Most importantly is the BOW!!!

Elite Pulse at 68 LBS.
Maryland Gold Hinky Strings 
BowJax String Silencers
P.O.S String Supressor 
G5 Metapeep
Vapor Trail Limbdriver Arrow Rest
Sword Titan 
B-Stinger Stabilizer

Carbon Express Mach 5 Arrows 
EZ Eye Reflector Wraps
3 Maryland Gold Satin Bohning Blazers
CX Lazer Nocks
Rage/Slick Tricks/ G5 T3 or Rocket Broadheads
These will be riding in my Bohning Quiver

This stuff will all be with me this year as I hunt from my awesome new Muddy Bloodsport.

Now to top all of this off is the iPhone

I will give you a run down on all the uses for the iPhone next time...

Catching up with some critters the last couple days...

Been getting some cool pics of a few fuzzy antlered critters in the last few days... A couple have been some real weirdoes... From the 9 point with the giant sack on his brisket that looks like a boob...( wonder what he's hiding in there?) To the gray colored loopy racked 6 with trash. I named the first one Goiter Gary for obvious reasons and the second one Christian... Ask your Ladies why I named the GRAY one that....  I didn't read 50 shades but heard all about it........ Not that its such a bad thing ;)

Anyway, back on topic....Here are some pics....

UltimateCamo Andy had a great fishing trip last week   Here is what he had to say...
Went out on the Espadon with ex Washington Caps defenseman Sylvain Cote out of Sunset marina, and Captain Karl Bieberich working as first mate and Sylvain's son Caden helping Karl out. We were on fish all day, we had 14 or 15 Whites come to baits, got 9 to the boat and landed this 173 lb yellowfin, and lost what we think was another giant yellow fin as they hit the baits at the same time, too bad one was a 20lb rig, fought it for 40 minutes before we lost it. Was a great day fishing. Sylvain really did a great job keeping the boat in position when we had fish hooked up, that dude can drive a boat, and Karl was phenomenal in helping get the fish hooked up and to the boat and worked his butt off all day working the baits/rigs. Karl worked on hooking one  marlin 4 times before he finally hooked it up, was awesome to watch. You want to get on fish and have the Captain and crew work 110% give them a call 410-703-9191

Evolving

 

     Its been a while since my last entry... Life keeps getting in the way. We are heading to the Buckwild Hunting Show in Boonesboro, Md. this weekend with a skeleton crew. Life is in the way... Its not necessarily a bad thing. Charly is in Alaska doing what he does best....Guiding hunters to giant critters. Hinky is on Vacation with the Family... I gotta work my real job...and so on and so on.

     The same thing tends to happen to our hunting time, yet somehow we manage to find the time to give it 110%.  Things are always changing but there is one constant that has held a core group of us together to achieve the goal of capturing our season on video. A few have gone and some real promise has taken their place and we intend to not only roll with what life is throwing at us but to change pace and break from the norm and what has already been done.

      The biggest change was the decision to not do a DVD...Well, let me rephrase that. Not do a DVD yet. We have already been there and done that and could have easily done it again but why? I was convinced I had made the right decision when I heard that stores like Dicks Sporting goods were not even going to carry DVD's from the big boys like Drury and Primos. I had toyed with the idea of doing something different but had no real direction. I guess the answer is simple. DVD hunting vids are going the way of the dodo bird.

     I have often told people that I thought it would be way easier to do a tv series than a DVD anyway. I have tons of footage that gets tossed every year due to lack of time in the story or no place in the story. While I don't think I would ever do it, I have seen a pile of television shows that keep you hanging on for a half hour and don't even give you a doe kill.

     So, we decided to make individual episode type things that we are going to host on the website. Don't have the funds or the backing to get on television even though I feel our stuff crushes half the crap I watch.... Not trying to be cocky there but I know you have seen some real garbage. We had a promising lead during the summer that has not panned out yet.........yet. Just remember, anyone can have a TV show...Its all about the Benjamins Baby.

     Last season we took 4 P and Y class bucks on film as well as a few others. That is better than we had done in the past and we were utilizing less guys than previous years. 3 of those bucks were personal bests. The story lines are great and the footage is stellar. However, one thing kept surfacing and it made us want to do something different. The amount of fun we had together on hunts and trips where nothing got shot for video. It was the hunt and the time spent with friends that made it worth it and made us keep getting out there and trying.

     Our newest addition, Paul Coughlin is a die hard outdoorsman with a back for self filming. He has done great on his own but is a perfect fit with the rest of the guys. I spent a ton of time over Pauls shoulder after he filmed me killing my big 11 in November. We never sealed the deal on a buck for Paul at the end of the year (so guess who is up first this year) but we did have a lot of time to ponder the EVOLUTION of TeamOverkill. We made the decision to try and capture a little more than backyard deer this year and so far so good. Since then we have filmed everything from 10 Turkey kills, to Bowfishing for Rays and carp, to Crabbing, and Shroom and Shed hunting. Add these things all together and throw in a few backyard bow hunts and we have some very interesting and entertaining shows coming your way.

     Im not sure when the first episode will go live or a firm schedule yet but its coming....

     Bobby almost has almost finished working his Magic on the new and improved Website...

     The first step is going to be getting all my work built back up after my 2TB drive with all the past 2 years footage and pics crashed. Its in the process of being recovered by a new friend....


     Some times life gets in the way.... Its not always the end of the world....You just need to EVOLVE
                                                                 

Stay Tuned....
Troy

   

Riley found a little buddy while we were picking berries...

Daddy can I shoot my Bow?

WYLD minerals with Riley

Quick video of Riley and I setting up a new spot for this season...Hopefully we can shoot one together here...Should be fun to keep tabs on anyway. She was real excited to go put out the minerals and slowly got a little less enthused as we got hotter and into the bigger weeds...

Just Fishin'

A Day in the Life....Cassidy the Longbeard

Keep them in your thoughts and prayers....

Cassidy the Longbeard

Cassidy you say???

This ole boy was hoppin along all morning long....all season long actually...

Hop along Cassidy....get it?

Paul had seen him a couple times but I dont think he knew the sheer size of this rascal or he wouldnt have shot the bird he did this week to tag out....

I belly crawled an Avian X feeder hen out into the edge of the tall grass and crawled back...

He was in love....well kinda...he strutted once and looked our way when we called but he just took his sweet ole gimpy time....

Paul was praying for another tag as this bird was hopping toward us at an extremely slow pace due to some sort of leg injury. The wind was howlin' and the behemoth beard on this guy (which ended up going 14") was blowing sideways and landing on plants in the field....he would stop and his beard would be all over here and over there.......

I told Paul repeatedly that the beard had to be over a foot....then he said, while looking through his binoculars at the approaching freak of nature......

"I hate you....I should never have shot that bird!!!" 

I said...."Thats not very nice...He has giant spurs to doesnt he"?

he said...."yes"

hehehe....salty much???

It took a long time for him to come to us....he actually got run off by 3 Jake birds at one time......Well, I say run off....he looked more like a one legged sack race runner....

The Jake influx finally subsided...I have no idea why they never approached the decoy unless the feared the old boy that just ran from them???

The Tom looked toward the fake hen as if he was late for his date and commenced to hoppin'.........

He hung up at 30 yards....my leg was sleeeeeepy....my azz was asleep....Paul cut on the mouth call and I squeezed.....

Enter High 5's and fist bumps!!!

Here are the stats...

14" Beard

1 1/2" and 1 3/8" Spurs

A hair under 19lbs

If I was to enter him......Looks like he would be top 15...#3 beard in WVA

Couldn't believe the size of the beard and spurs on this guy....Thanks to my little 5 yr old rugrat Riley for the MWC Team Turkey competition pics...

Paul was at it again...goin solo

Here is Pauls story about crushing yet another Turkey!!!

Everything comes together

Morning started wondering where I was going to go since I had 3 hours to spare before my first client. I decided to hunt a farm that I only hunted twice both being after 10. This farm has always been good to me and from scouting early in the season I knew there were several toms running around on it.

Since I didn't know exactly where the birds were on the farm I slept in for an extra 20 minutes knowing I would have to listen for them then make a sneak on them. Ended up hearing one gobble about 1000 yards away at around 540 and waited for a second gobble to pin point him. He was right on a 20 acre sycamore patch of woods that was between two cow pastures. I had in hand my gun camera and two avian decoys and headed to the tom.

I cut the distance I realized that he was on the ground already and I was pretty much out in the open. I decided two leave the decoys and camera behind knowing they would get me busted. I crawled about 100 yards knowing that he was in the open and could bust me very easily if I walked in. I ended up getting to about a hundred yards two where I heard the tom last gobbled and heard a hen yelping to my right about 70+ yards Of course I'm thinking its another hunter until I peaked over a little rock break and saw the real thing. She was walking to my right and as I was watching her I noticed two white heads 15 yards right behind her. As I was looking at them through the binos I heard several Jake's going off to the left of the hen in the sycamore patch and right after that I heard the Tom. There ended up to be two hens that were zig zagging in the field feeding on bugs and where getting closer to me. The two toms ended up to be Jake's and then three other Jake's appeared behind them. Then I saw the Tom to the left of the hen peaking his white head over the hill.

  It turned out to be in a good spot and decided to settle in. I pulled out a mouth call that sounded similair to the hen I heard in the morning and thought if I did some light purrs and clucks the Jake would get curious and check me out. Turned out they all were curious and were heading my way.

  At this time I have two hens at about fifty yards 5 Jake's to the right of the hens at about 60 yards from me and a strutter with 3 other birds that were puffed up behind the tom at about 80 yards all headed my way. The hens started to walk away so I did a couple light yelps and purred and clucked a couple times and the Jake's started to head my way.

  Got as comfortable as I could and waited them out. The tom started showing off and started to do the hump dance at about 60 yards in front of me. While I was watching the tom I already had a Jake with a 5"ish beard sneak in at about 15 yards with 3 more right behind him that had about a 5" beards on them. I turned on the go pro and got ready and here they come. The strutter was heading my way and hit the 30 yards mark and I put the bead on him and the next thing you know it there were 6 Jake's trying to kick this toms tail with I think 3 watching. They all are at about 20 yards from me and I cannot get a shot. This tom is standing his ground and is fighting all 6 at the same time. I'm still trying to get a shot and I can't because there are way to many heads in the way. As I was watching this fight I noticed all the birds had full fans and they pretty much had a high pitch full gobble. At about 2.5 minutes into it my dang go pro dies....looks like I forgot to charge it. While the birds were going at it I actually turn to my right without them noticing. This fight went on for about 5 more minutes and they ended behind a rock break that was 10 yards in front of me.

   They started heading back to my left and the tom did a no no, he hopped on a rock that was about 25 yards from me and I let him have it. The tom does a flip backwards and the super Jake's started to kick his tail until they saw me at about 15 yards and scattered.  Running up to the tom I was thing he was going to be a brute until I saw his spurs.  He was only a 2 year old with about 3/4 " spurs and a 10" beard. When I picked him up he was light as a feather and would guess he weighed around 12 pounds.

I bet these Jake's ran this bird to the ground everyday and he was definitely feeling it. For what it was worth he stood his ground pretty well and gave me a heck of a show. Definitely was a awesome way to tag out.

Still Layin' down the Longbeards

and a short beard too....but it was for a good cause....

Hinky got his first bird ever thanks to his buddy Brad...Brad and his family are some turkey slayers and took Hinky out when he got back from his 2 weeks out of town for work...(could not have had a worse date for training...pretty sure I would be searching for employment at this time cuz I cant miss the first 2 weeks of turkey season)

Congrats to Hinky on this fine first bird and sone pretty cool video....Longbeards are great but this one was yummy fried last night...thanx bud!!!

Paul and I were so excited for this past Saturday with Andy...We had our azzez handed to us the previous two days and were ready to just get some video...Andy had quite a few talkers the last time out so we had high hopes...The birds were vocal but far away on another property that we could not access in the morning....We knew if we were patient and stayed put on this edge where we frequently see strutters that we could be in for a show...One bird was so vocal we figured he either had someone else firing him up with continual yelps on the next property or he was just extremely horny....Paul and I simulated a Jake fight on a couple slate calls...The gobbling went into the bottom...We did it a little more and it got a little closer....he shut up for a while so we shut up for a while...I laid back to listen and soak up the morning for a while....I think I was drifting off when I was startled by his gobble a lot closer....We all shifted ourselves and prepared....We had my strutter deke in the field and he was coming from the right so he would see it as soon as he popped into the field. Then we then heard that gobble that lets you know its gonna happen!!! He was in the field but we could not see him yet...That only took a second though as he came running with a sidekick Jake in tow!!! Paul told Andy not to shoot til he cut on the mouth call. The Tom was givin stinkeye to the impostor but then seemed to lose his stones...He went out of strut and turned to leave...He looked at the hen deke one time and Paul cut on the call but the bird put his head down...He cut again as the bird started to walk away and the deal was done...Andy was tagged out in MD!!!

And More Turkeys!!!

I have now stumbled into my best Turkey season ever by the numbers... Today makes 2 doubles for Paul and I in the last 6 days and 3 in the last 2 seasons... I really dont know where to begin...Im exhausted....cant wait to sleep....but will be back behind the camera tomorrow Am and the next day and the next.................... Paul had been watching his bird for weeks....he has footage of him strutting numerous times...I would hear about him daily...We knew he was a good one...We knew where he should end up after fly down....Paul called sparingly but the bird was a no show....or so we thought...maybe hunting preasure around the area  shut the gobbler up as Paul ran two jackaloons off of the farm two days ago...Luckily they were on the other side of the farm but today all was silent after the birds feet hit the ground.... Patient Paul actually got up to creep over and see if he was strutting over the rise....I took the opportunity to take a whiz...I zipped up and turned around just in time to see a hen cresting the hill less than 15 yards from Paul who was now crawling up the hill.....I whistled and motioned frantically for Paul to bail out....he dove in a ditch and scurried back behind me as the birds came over the knoll.....Their view obstructed by brush and the swale that Paul had run down in to....Paul could not get back to his original spot in front of me so I grabbed his gun and pushed it back to him...I readied the camera and plugged my left ear with my finger as the gun was right beside my head now and we had no other choice........ The bird made his way into view and did something I had never seen....got all the way to the decoys and kinda freaked....he putted and turned around....I heard Paul swing left and I let go of the cam.....Boom......Dusted....Im pretty sure the wad went through its face.............. We quickly went in search of another bird........ I really thought the chances of another double were slim to none but we were gonna give it hell.....we slapped a high five when we spotted a strutter in a field and quickly formulated a plan....we got a jake fan out of the truck and proceeded to run...crawl...scurry...climb...call...belly crawl...sweat....huff and puff.....and call some more...for an hour....This stud had a hen with him and they put on a show....we got cool footage of the most awesome mating ritual....including this ole boy dry humping the ground in front of the hen after he bred her as if to show her what he had just done to that thing!!!! Paul threw a super raspy call at the pair and the hen freaked......he ran after her but kept stopping to strut...he was lovesick and confused... I put a final stalk to within 35 yards of him with the jake fan....Im pretty sure his mind was blown....he seemed to hide in the grass.... I handed the fan to Paul and told him to hold it up and distract the bird...we rose up together with cam and gun....and we finished the day with 17 minutes left!!!! Unreal end to an unreal day!!! And then to top it all off....Andy finally scores on a dandy....After repeated attempts and numerous people trying to help call to some of the most unkillable birds on the planet...Andy packed it up and headed to a farm where he has had great  success in the past...He and Paul capped off a great weekend of Turkey hunting with this big old Gobbler!!!