Can't Wait to Go Hunting

It's probably a good 1 month into deer season and I haven't even gone hunting once! This is nothing less than upsetting for me. I blame it highly on college life. I have little time to do anything other than studying and classes during the day. Not to mention that, there is not really any hunting land around here. At least when I was home, I could go hunting every weekend, even with high school. The drive was only 30 minutes and I would be hunting at least 5 times a month. To watch my friends put pictures up on facebook and some send me some via email, it gets me so pumped to go hunting this Thanksgiving break. I already planned it out with my Uncle. Hopefully this year, I can get my first bow kill. If not, I will most certainly settle for a kill with my rifle. I don't expect to get anything considered a trophy, I mean this is Florida after all. I will settle for anything. I must admit that my greatest weakness is that I am a little trigger happy, I love shooting. If I get to shoot on any hunting trip, it's a good trip to me. God did not bless me with patience when it comes to that. For now, I'll be visiting Bass Pro Shop every weekend, perhaps pretending like one of the trophy deer on the wall is mine. I'll also probably look for some new hunting gear to ask for Christmas. Until I actually go hunting, looking in Bass Pro Shop and shooting clay pigeons are the only things keeping me sane.

Guns for Christmas

My gun collection is almost complete. So far I have my bolt action hunting rifle, a Remington over and under, and then my newly purchases Remington 870 pump shotgun. I believe the next on the list is a semi-auto shotgun, followed by a pistol, an then a revolver. After that, the "basic" gun collection is complete. I think the next gun I will get/ask for Christmas is the Stoeger M2000. It is a semi-auto shotgun and a nice one at that. Since the price is a little steep, It'll probably be my only or one of few Christmas gifts that I get this year. I can already think of the pistol and revolver that I would like to get after the Stoeger. I am thinking a Springfield XDM and Ruger SR9 for two pistols and the Taurus Judge for a revolver. The cool thing about Tarus' Judge is that it can shoot 45 colt and .410 shot shell. So its like a shotgun in a revolver. I probably picked the worst time to start buying guns thought. With Obama as president, gun prices, as well as ammunition has gone up in costs... Not making it easy for the college student (me) to start a basic gun collection. And speaking of guns, I can not wait to get a house/ rent one next year, being able to actually keep my guns where I live would me amazing... as a gun owner, I enjoy running the actions on the guns and cleaning each one with great care. I love guns, what can I say.

New Remington 870 on Veterans Day

Yesterday was a pretty glum day for me. I sat around doing nothing all day. Yes, it was nice because we had no school but I felt very unproductive, especially with it getting dark around 5:00 pm everyday. I had to make the best out of the day and think what I could do to get myself in a better mood. I had been saving up for a Shotgun lately and I thought that it might be the day. I became really excited just thinking about buying a new gun. I called Bass Pro and Dicks Sporting Goods to check if they had what I was looking for, a Remington 870. I checked the prices and finally decided to go to Dicks Sporting Goods to buy my gun. As I stood at the counter, admiring the large quantity of guns, I felt like Christmas had come early. I checked some other shotguns out to make sure I was making the right choice. The Benelli Nova seemed to awkward to hold and had an unusual weight layout. I decided to take the Remington 870, synthetic stock, 26" barrel. The slide was smooth and the look was very nice, being all black. The clerk asked me to fill out the necessary paper work and I did. This was my first gun purchase as the actually buyer. It is a pretty historic day for me. Also turned my day right around, from kinda crappy to Christmas. I think this would be a nice tradition to start, buy a gun every Veterans day, to honor the Veterans. Hopefully I'll be able to carry this tradition on financially. Remember all those who have served to protect our freedoms. Happy Veterans Day!

Gator Hunting

I went gator hunting with my friend the other day for the first time. Being already involved in all sorts of hunting, I was anxious to add another animal to my hunting list. I told a couple of my friends I was going and one of them, a hunter himself, made a remark that showed his disapproval towards hunting of gators. Coming from a hunter, I was quite surprised... maybe I could expect this from a "tree hugger" but not him. His reasoning was that gators are often taken for trophy more than they are for meat and also, the way that gators are hunted make it an unfair advantage. I told him to hold off on his argument... I knew nothing about gator hunting and I was not going to/nor have I to this day made an argument on a subject that I have no clue about. So with his disapproval and voiced opinion, I went gator hunting. After we finished gator hunting, killing two gators.... I was ready for my rebuttal. First, we saw some big gators but we were out for meat. Some people are not fans of gator meat but I love it... and the basic rule is: the bigger the gator, the tougher the meat. Because of this, we were looking for moderate sized gators... nothing that could be considered trophy size. So the misconception that gator hunting is all for trophy was eliminated. Next was the unfair hunting tactics.... although I see where my friend was coming from, I do not agree. We are hunting on the alligators home territory without baiting and such... we come on a loud air boat and they are fully aware of us coming. Not to mention that alligators can stay under water for a very long time, make them very hard to spot. If anything, the alligators have the upper advantage. Some may disagree with my points but after going gator hunting, this is what I came up with and this is what I believe. Hopefully I will enjoy many more gator hunts in the future because it was a lot of fun.

After seeing the New Hunting Property....

After seeing the new hunting property, I came back to Fort Myers with a bitter taste in my mouth. I have to admit that I could not help but get my hopes up. I imagined a property that is 124 acres large would have at least half open land and half hardwoods and hopefully more hardwoods if I got lucky. What I found myself in was 124 acres of open land. What my Uncle had bought for hunting looked more suitable for pasture than it was for hunting. All the properties next door were covered in hardwoods. Our property was the sore looking thumb out of the entire area, being the most open. The only thing that it had that made me hope of killing a deer was a thin, little oak hammock that ran through the middle of the property to the edge on both sides. The property is surrounded by hardwoods on all sides except that which leads to the road. The only pleasing thing that I saw was a nice little hunting cabin that we could stay in if we ever did decide to hunt on the property. I went walking around to check out for any hunting tracks. Considering that hogs are overpopulating Florida, I thought I would at least see some hog tracks.... I did not see any. I saw a couple of deer tracks but nothing that amazed me. The property seems too open for any kind of animal to feel safe to travel on during the day. Hopefully with some food plots and some well-placed feeders, we can draw some hogs and deer onto the property.... thus actually earning the label of a hunting property rather than some pasture land.

New Hunting Property

My Uncle informed me about a week ago that he has purchased some new hunting property in Land O' Lakes (about a 30 minute drive from where I live). The hunting property is 153 acres large and backs up to water-well field. I am pretty excited to come home this weekend and check the property out. Up until this point, we have hunted on a piece of land, through a hunting club that my Uncle is in. It is a nice piece of property but it wasn't our piece of property, limiting the number of people we could take hunting and also what we did on the land. Now, with this new property, I am anxious to see what the property holds. I am hoping there will be a lot of game animals.... I mean it does back up to the water-well property that has never been hunted on. Right now it is bow hunting season so I am hoping to be lucky enough to make a first time kill on the property. Right now I am making the property out to be worse than what I think, that way I am not disapointed. I have so many plans and hopes for this new property... I hope it meets my high hopes, and not my low expectations.

Burmese Pythons in Florida

A recent Issue brought up in South Florida is the issue of Burmese Pythons. Just recently, the large population of Burmese pythons in South Florida has gained much publicity. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) blames this on the irresponsible pet owners who let their pet Burmese pythons out into the wild after becoming too big for the pet owners to keep. Because of this, the FWC has issued hunters with hunting permits, to lawfully and legally hunt Burmese pythons. Some argue that they want the total population of Burmese pythons to be eliminated but I think differently. I believe that with this new invasive species populating South Florida, more people will want to hunt these snakes. I believe that with this new animal, more people will buy licenses and therefor raising more money for FWC. Yeah they are a little out of control right now, but look at it as a business opportunity.