Five Outdoor Experiences Added to the List

My outdoor experiences are limited at best, hunting on my brother-in-law's farm, camping and backpacking in Emigrant Wilderness, skiing in the sierras, or deep sea fishing in Alaska; as awesome as all these have I still have my list.  I think everyone should have a "bucket list" or an outlined list of experiences to do before they can't be done anymore.  We'll my list continues to grow and grow.  I want to skydive, bungee jump, hike (parts) of the west coast trail, sail California's coast...frankly my list goes on and on; as I'm sure everyone's does.  As much as I hate and love to say it, my list just grew.

Five experiences added to my list.

1. Bowhunting for elk in the high country of southwest Montana.

2. Caribou hunting on the North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range. 

3. Flyfishing on the southern tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. 

4. Bowfishing in the upper rapids of the Rewa River, in Guyana. 

5. Shark fishing off the south African coast.

I suggest all of these to anyone interested, and I'm sure the non-hunters will argue against all of these.  While I respect that I still have to say, try them or something similar.  Instead of bowhunting in southwest Montana, try camping, instead of flyfishing in Mexico try vacationing, instead of shark fishing in south Africa try...something else.  What all these have in common is getting outside and appreciating the world around you.  

It seems that people in today's world easily forget to appreciate the outdoors due to family, work, and a lot of other reasons.  Frankly there just isn't enough time these days to do the things we'd like to do. Now I know not everyone can get out as much as they should, but that's where a list comes in handy.  Making these kinds of lists help plan ahead and enable a person to actually do the things they want to do in life, it's  definitely helped me.  

Buying Meat

People argue that hunting is cruel, inhumane, unfair or damaging...the list can go on and on.  My question for those people is, where do they get their meat?  These days the average shopper gets their meat from a local grocery store or possibly a butcher...if one can be found.  These meat providers get their product from a slaughterhouse; unless they run the entire process themselves...not likely.  Grocery stores are the main source for people to buy their meat, including myself.  While I consider myself a hunter, I don't hunt enough to provide myself with enough meat for a full year; in fact I hardly provide enough meat to last much longer after a hunt.  So just like everyone else, including those that argue against hunting, I go to my local Safeway and buy meat. 

This process of purchasing meat products from a store is awesome, all a person has to do is walk in, pick a cut, and buy it.  When hunting, I have to find my prey, kill it if I’m lucky, field dress it --- cleaning the animal and butchering it properly in the wild --- then transport the meat home, butcher it a little bit more, store it, and then finally cook and eat it.  I'm not complaining I love hunting and everything about it, but to end up with my final product, meat, it's a bit of a process.  Comparing the two, buying the meat at a grocery store is a piece of cake.  But if we look further into the process of how the meat gets to the grocery store, things start to look a little different.  Now just because the customer buying meat in a store isn't killing the animal themselves, doesn't mean they aren't contributing to that animal’s death.  The customer might not literally be killing the animal, but the value they create buy buying the meat provides the incentive so kill the animal. 

Not a lot of room to move around when
raised to be slaughtered.

Everyone wants to eat the bacon, but no one wants to kill the pig.  Because of this we have slaughterhouses.  The key point I want to make is that not all slaughterhouses are the same.  Some are more efficient than others, cleaner than others or more humane than others.  In truth it's hard to know where exactly your meat comes from and how it's handled before being processed.  I found a video showing the process inside a slaughterhouse with one of the leading companies in the U.S. Just to warn, this video does contain the full process of cows, from living to packaging, the actual killing part isn't shown.  Despite the killing not being shown, it shows the reporters face as she watches it happen, and just by watching her reaction you can tell it's not exactly a pretty sight.  If you have never seen a video like this I highly suggest you do.  Keep in mind that Cargill is a top slaughterhouse, and not all companies operate as humanely as they do.  

A cow so fat from food provided it has to be
moved with a forklift.

When I hear people talk about hunting and how it isn't humane or how it's damaging to the animal, I can't help but laugh a little inside.  The video showed how the cows were being fed an unhealthy diet just to make them fat for slaughter, comparing this to an animal that's hunted and eats properly I can't help think that the cow is being treated less humanely. The cows in the video have absolutely no chance of survival, they were born to be killed and will be killed, an animal being hunted has a considerable chance of survival, not all hunts are successful...trust me I know from plenty of experience.  When hunting a proper kill will actually kill an animal almost instantly, in the video it took in between one and two minutes for the cows to actually die.  One or two minutes for the animal to die, in a leading slaughterhouse, that’s shocking. 

A good thing about hunting is I know that I am killing the animal properly and humanely.  I will only take a shot at an animal if I know I can kill it, and kill it quickly.  I respect every animal I kill, doesn’t matter if it’s as small as a dove or as big as an elk.  Keep in mind I consider myself to be an ethical hunter, just like Cargill is an ethical company; not all companies and hunters are ethical and that’s the problem.  By hunting I can control how humanely the animal dies, when buying meat I have no idea if that specific animal was treated properly or not.  It’s hard to write how these animals are treated improperly, when it comes to something as serious as this; videos are the best way to show it.  Now I warn you, if the Cargill video was hard on you, this video might be too much.  It shows the improper handling of chickens at a Kentucky Fried Chicken slaughterhouse, but I recommend you watch it so you get the full effect of what can happen when things go wrong.

If you didn't watch the video I don't blame you, those kind of images turn my stomach into knots and makes me want to do to them what they do to those poor animals.  That video was a good example of what can go wrong in a slaughterhouse.  The chickens were being kicked, thrown, burned from high amounts of ammonia, transported covered in feces, and even when they were stuck in their cage employees would literally tear the birds apart to get them out...horrific.  That's a problem with buying meat from an outside source, a person can never be sure of how the animals were treated; even when it comes to a massive company like KFC. It's hard to imagine that a company I've supported before by buying their products treated animals this way.  Another small company that hardly anyone supports has had problems with their slaughterhouses, McDonalds. 

I think it's safe to say that nearly everyone at one point in their life has either eaten or bought McDonalds for a family member.  Now I'm not trying to point fingers I've eaten McDonalds plenty of times, as much as I don't want to admit to it.  I have one last video to post, now this one is truly upsetting, even made me a little sick.  Half of the video is sharing facts on McDonalds and their food, and the other part of the video is on a slaughterhouse that provided McDonalds with their meat.  If you didn't watch the first two videos, I doubt you'll want to watch this one.  It shows many disturbing acts being performed by employees including a cow being beaten with a crow bar for no apparent reason, a calf literally being punched repeatedly in the head by a worker...I’d rather not describe the rest, that was hard enough to write.  A person might argue what’s to stop a hunter from doing what these workers are doing, and the truth is there really isn't anything to stop them.  But I can tell you that if two hunters came across another hunter mindlessly beating a dear to death or treating it inhumanely like the men in the video, they would stop him.  But what happened in the McDonalds and KFC videos was different.  The workers were beating and treating the animals inhumanely and no one stopped them even though there were other workers around.

This McDonalds video showed what can happen to employees after working in those kinds of conditions, making me think not only of the animals but also of the employees.  After working so long in a position where killing an animal is the job side effects can happen.  A study done at Colorado State University described how employees are rotated among different positions, from slaughtering to packing for example, so they don't become sadistic.  An employee participating in the study said that by rotating between the kill chutes and driving cattle up the chute made it easier to maintain a humane attitude.  The study described how the people that actually do the killing approach their job three different ways, mechanical approach, sadistic approach, and a sacred ritual approach.  This study can be viewed at here.

Before when I heard people argue against hunting I'd laugh a little, knowing that they don't know everything that goes on with hunting.  But now when I hear someone call hunting cruel, inhumane, unfair or damaging I'll know the differences between how meat is gathered through hunting and how it's produced through slaughterhouses, and wonder if they know the same.  My aim wasn't to attack the non-hunters with this post, like I stated before, I also buy plenty of meat from my local grocery store; but before pointing the judgment finger at hunters maybe it should be pointed elsewhere.  Just remember the next time you’re buying meat from a grocery store doesn't mean you aren't contributing to that animal dying.  Maybe hunting isn't that bad after all.

Here’s an awesome post from a friend that wanted to share his hunting experience, enjoy.

Hi my name’s Johnny 5, author of “Why Ride,” and I wanted to share my experience with hunting with our fellow peers.  I’ve always had the desire to shoot things, and I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s a male trait or something about the marksmanship that a person has to have to actually pull off a successful kill.  I think there is something appealing about being able to live off the land, and a big part of this is being able to hunt prey and then successfully kill the animal humanely.  If we relied on this type of hunting to eat this would be a large task in sustaining life for a person and their family.  I’d like to share my experience where a group of friends and myself went out and tried to “Live off the Land.”

I would like to add as a disclaimer, this was my first experience hunting. There were 3 of us as we headed north to Willits to my friends Grandparent’s property to try our luck at hunting.  His folks owned about 300 acres so we were definitely in the realm of hunting on our own but still within civilization just in case we needed medical attention.

When we first approached the property we had to scope out a campsite, we looked for a shaded area so we could have some kind of relief from Humboldt's hot sun.  I got out of the truck and started to make my way by foot to find a flat spot good for tenting, and a quick thought ran through my mind “Maybe I should have a gun with me??”I reasoned with myself quickly saying “Naw, were just looking for a campsite not hunting yet,” and as soon as I said this the largest Jack_Rabit I have ever seen Got up and ran up the hill and I couldn’t do anything but watch as he hopped out of site.  I was pissed I had blown one opportunity as soon as we got there, but I felt like this was a sign of good luck for the upcoming weekend.  

The whole day we spent walking around the property trying to find good locations that Quail might be hiding in.  Not once did we see another living animal.  I went to sleep that night with a sense of disappointment that we hadn’t even seen another creature.  Later that night we were sitting around the fire and my friends cousin came up to our site and asked us “What yall huntin for?! Quail?? Fuck that shit, go up the hill and find a Turkey!”  He explained how they can hide next to trees and even in them sometimes.  He said a good strategy is to scare them down the hill and have somebody at the bottom of the hill ready for them.  

Taking his cousins advice into account the next day a few of us made our way up the hill to find any signs of life, and or push anything scared down the mountain.  Once again, skunked, nothing to be seen or even heard.  When I got to the bottom of the hill I saw a large group of trees in the middle of a field that offered a 270 degree visual of a large field.  This got me extremely excited because it was a great vantage point.  It was nearing the end of the day and still hadn’t had any luck.  I was sitting up in my hideout overlooking the field when I saw a family of turkey making their way down the mountain to get water from the stream!  I got so excited this was my opportunity!  I waited for them to get as close as they could because effective range on a shotgun is only about 20 yards and I was about 100 yards away.  I tried to circle around but this is when I found out that turkeys have extremely good eyesight, they saw me coming a mile away and ran back up the hill leaving me with nothing again!  I wanted to get back in that spot with my rifle first thing in the morning, perhaps with my rifle I might have a chance at getting one of these turkeys.  

I woke up before the sun rose and made my way to the hill.  Previously the night before I had put feed in the surrounding area so the turkey would come and take the bait.  As soon as I settled into the hill I heard the distinct sound of a turkey “Gobble Gobble!”  I made sure to stay very still this time as I saw a large Tom (male turkey) make his way towards the feed I had spread the night before.  I was getting so anxious I could hardly keep myself from hyperventilating.  As the turkey drew into my range I had loaded a load of #6 shot with high velocity.  This meant I was using larger ball bearings that traveled faster, especially for larger game like turkey.  I shot at the turkey and saw it jump and flutter off!  I was excited I knew I hit the animal but now I needed to finish the job.  I took out my machete to finish the job and approached where I saw the turkey hobble off to.  As I got close to the turkey I was feeling a rush of adrenaline, Tom’s have a large talon that they can gouge you with so I knew I had to be swift in my strike.  As I got within distance of the turkey it jumped into a huge bush of poison oak. “Ughhh,” I said. I hate poison oak, and there was no way I was going in that bush with a turkey that had a massive set of talons waiting for me.  Not one of us had a small caliber pistol and I didn’t want to pepper the turkey again with my shotgun so I decided the best bet would be to shoot at it with my rifle and hope for a through and through.  I got as close as comfort would let me and pulled the trigger on my 1942 Mosin Nagant ending the turkey’s life.  I was able to pull the turkey out of the bush with a pair of gloves and by stepping down onto the branches.  

After I had defeathered the bird and started to gut the animal I noticed that the shot from my rifle blew away half of the turkey.  It was my first encounter with ballistics and a large caliber bullet, needless to say I’m going to have a .22 next time I hunt for jobs such as this.  I was able to cook the turkey later that morning for a lunch for all 3 of us boys and my friend’s family which ended up serving about 6 people.  All of that work for one simple meal, I think the lesson I learned that day was bring some hot dogs next time you go hunting just in case your luck isn’t with you.

Hope you enjoyed the read,
Johnny 5-

Million Dollar Deer

This photo of a domesticated whitetail deer has been circulating the hunting community for some time now.  The price of this buck is a whopping one million dollars...no joke.  Now I am definitely not a trophy hunter, but I can agree that these antlers are impressive.  Yet there is a huge problem with this deer, and it should have been noticed in the first sentence, domesticated.  A closer look at this picture will show an ear tag on the deer and a fence in the background.  


Any hunter who loves deer and deer hunting would consider this situation to be a problem.  It's important to note that this form of hunting is not how majority of hunters hunt, in fact this type of hunting pertains to the super rich and the average hunter will never see something like this.  Unknown to most people, whitetail deer are a cherished symbol of our nation's wild lands and big game hunting.  The fact that this deer is behind a closed fence and has antlers of this size has absolutely nothing to do with either of those things.  This deer is incapable of living a normal life, due to captivity and tinkering with genetic lines.  While anyone is free to do this sort of thing with their money and their land, "this buck has about as much to do with real American hunting as a Transformer has to do with your pickup truck."-Steven Rinella.

96 Year Old Man Bags Limit

Bearded Turkey

Turkey season opened just over a week ago and Bill Tanner, 96, of Mississippi isn't allowed to hunt anymore; this is because he's already shot his limit.  Last Thursday Bill shot his third and final turkey for this season, about a week after his birthday.  The spring turkey season begins on the last Saturday in March and extends for 37 consecutive days.  Hunters are only allowed 1 bearded turkey per day and 3 per season.   Hunting means different things to different people, and for Bill hunting was more than a sport or hobby, it was a life style.

I was listening to 740am radio this morning while driving into the city trying to avoid the traffic.  Between the traffic reports Bill's story was a topic of interest, and I'm extremely glad I got the chance to hear it.  Bill started hunting when he was eight years old; his dad let him take a .410 shotgun and hunt squirrels.  By hunting and selling dressed squirrels for 15 cents each he was able to save up $4 to buy his first shotgun, a 12 gauge Southern Arms 32inch.  For 88 years Bill has been hunting, this means he was hunting before there was wildlife management, this man has seen it all.  Bill was even hunting before there was camo clothing to hunt in, "Tanner is a walking, talking history of hunting in Mississippi."  Today Bill enjoys every opening day with his grandson and great grandson, who is 8, and shares his love with hunting. Like Bill I hope that I can share my love for hunting with my children and grandchildren.  I'd even settle for enjoying hunting for another 88 years just like Bill; unlikely since I'll be 25 next month but what the hell. 

Mr. Tanner, 96.

Laser Guided Hunting

Flight path of the .50cal with an LED attached to it.

Imagine sitting in the woods and seeing a deer off in the distance, you carefully aim your rifle making sure there is a solid backstop behind the deer, adjust for the wind and distance, then slowly squeeze the trigger.  That's just part of the process that takes place, sometimes there's more and sometimes less.  What if all you had to do was point and shoot?  Well soon that might be a reality.  Sandia Labs is currently exploring and testing a laser guided .50 caliber bullet.  This new form of technology has created quite a ruckus in the hunting community.  Law enforcement, military and recreational shooters are all potential customers for this new ammunition.  I expect this laser guided .50cal to receive the same attention as hand grenades or trip guns; not for the hunter only for the military, as they should be.  Hunting any animal with a laser guided anything is highly unethical. 


Hunting and technology has been a problem for a while.  I've heard of archers argue there's no challenge in rifles, mule deer hunters thinking white tail deer hunters are pansies, iron sight hunters argue against scope hunting...the list could go on and on.  The fact is that every step of increased technology we put into hunting, the farther away we take ourselves from the roots of hunting.  For a lot of people hunting is about human tradition, the preservation of distinct identities, and an experience that can bind all humans.  While hunting with a rifle isn't exactly the most traditional form of hunting, laser guided hunting is just ridiculous.  A line must be drawn somewhere on how far to take hunting, it will always come down to the individual.

.50 cal on the far left (.50cal ammo is illegal in California, thanks Schwarzenegger) 

Collecting Poo...

Steven Rinella and his scat collection.

I love everything about hunting; the fresh air, the outdoors, being with my friends, and even getting dirty.  The one thing I have never taken an interest in is collecting the scat of the animals i hunt, or any animals.  I guess some people just love hunting a little more than I do.  Steven Rinella, host of The Meat Eater, recently put up a post on his blog about his scat collection.  After reading his post I was actually shocked with how interested I was in his poo, not his literally of course.  Steven described some of the different kinds of scat he has collected over the years: coyote scat with a fawn's hoof, black bear droppings with the claw of a black bear cub in it.  Not only can examining scat be informative, it's also one of the best ways to stalk an animal.  Stalking mainly involves a hunter following the tracks of an animal, if lucky the hunter will also come across the scat of the animal.  If the hunter is lucky the scat will be fresh and he/she will know that the animal is in the area.  Or the scat might contain certain food that's been digested.  This digested food can give the hunter an educated guess on areas the animal has been and maybe even will be again.

Being able to tell the difference between animals scat isn't only vital when stalking prey.  It's also vital in a survival situation; unfortunately I've experienced this.  While backpacking in Emigrant Wilderness, an area north west of Yosemite National Park and south east of Dodge Ridge ski resort, my friends and I got turned around on a trail and had to scale down granite bluffs before sundown.  While being lost in the middle of no where we came across a high amount of black bear scat, most of it was fresh.  This let us know that a bear was near by and that we needed to get the hell out of there, even more troubling was the amount which led us to think it was  possibly a mamma bear and her cubs, not a fun situation.  So my suggestion to everyone, the next time you go out in a wilderness area don't be afraid to examine some poo, it might just help one day.