Canada Super Hunt w/Updates
 

Well folks I am about to take off in a few days for Canada.

This trip I will have 2 Companions on the trip with me as we attempt to take our humor across the border and hopefully get some video to share with everyone.

These 2 companions will be some guys by the name of Scott & Kelly who I will attempt to embarrass the heck out of, not only outdo them in everything possible, but make this one of those "trips of a lifetime".

While there we will be staying under the open arms of President of Hardcor Fightwear Cory Rewuski and doing a little Pheasant, Duck and Goose hunting, along with a few other surprises are in store as well. (I can only imagine)

I'm not exactly for sure if we will have internet up there, but I know I will atleast have cell phone coverage, and will send out Live Updates via Text Messaging.

If you want to be notified Instantly about how the trip is going, here is a quick link that will add you to our Instant Updates!!

If we aren't able to update via internet, hopefully some of the members here will be able to post information and at a minimum Cell Phone Pictures back here for everyone to view.

Thanks to everyone who started doing Live Hunts, and taking the time to keep everyone who is back here in Texas updated. I will attempt to do the same on my international travel as well.

Good Luck and keep us posted if you can and make sure and say ya'll alot! :)

good luck..............

Thanks fellas, I'm really looking forward to this.

Whats this hunt all aboot, are you going to kill something or just video it eh? Tell us all aboot it.

Yeah I'm going to start off hunting Pheasant, and Kelly will take to the camera work on the morning hunt. After I get us some dinner, he will take gun and I'll swap to the camera.

Same way with the Duck and Geese.

Then when we get to the big game on day 3, we will have videographers filming us.

If something happens, at a minimum the big game hunts will be self filmed.

Good luck, glad we know all aboot it now eh.

Have fun coach!

Well after an eventful night in Waco...we are heading towards the DFW airport.

Keep us posted!!

I think they are supposed to land in Canada around 11:30 tonight.

Day 1 - Update
 

Oh good lordy lordy where do I even begin on letting you know how things went today.

Well we started the morning off with several outstanding people offering me a place to stay, and park my truck near the DFW airport to save me from having to pay a daily parking fee on my vehicle. Chris works on the North side of DFW and offered to give us his parking spot for the week as well as drop us off and pick us up from our gate!! Got to love Texas and see allot of that hospitality is still around.

Well once Chris drops us off, here is where the trip begins to go sour!! We are standing in DFW at these little Computers and everything is going ok until it comes time for me to swipe my passport. (at first i thought i grabbed the wrong one when the computer wasn't accepting it) Well one of the nice fellas working there comes up to me and says, "You look familiar, where have I seen you before?" I'm kind of speechless at this point, I'm not sure what to say and I udder out, "Well I hope it wasn't a wanted poster or both of us are screwed". He looks at me kind of strange and proceeds to try swiping my passport
through this little thing, it doesn't work so he takes me up to the front of the line and puts me in front of an open agent. (man its over 40 people in line) Scott was already at that point about 39 people back, so he see's me getting help at the counter and jumps out of line himself and piggy backs with me!! Well the guys at the counter get us all set up, and for some reason the guy who thinks he's Jeff Foxworthy decides to switch our tags up and put my names on Scott's bag, and vice versa. So now all I can hope for is that when they scan those things that his chasity belt, leather, whips and chains doesn't flag security to
check the name and call me up......Well thankfully the bags made it through ok......So now we got 40 something people pissed at us standing in line to check in, and I got some yahoo that just keeps staring at me going "gosh, where do I know you from", the ENTIRE time I'm trying to check in. Well I shook each one of their hands and we continued on to our gate.

We arrive in Atlanta after sitting behind what had to be the Guiness book of world records ugliest woman & woman couple...I'll let you guys just assume what I'm hinting at here. Immediately after getting out of the gate, I look at the screens and on Delta's board it says flight NW1433 departing gate A31. Now A31 is the gate we just came out of..so I'm thinking WTF!! I ask the little Delta lady for help, and to see if I
am reading my ticket, and the board right. She confirms that yes this is my gate, and we are supposed to catch the flight that leaves at 540. I smile and tell her "thanks for the help".

The first thing I do is take Scott to get some Krystal's since he has never had it. I hook him up with one of the best ATL representatives who just happens to work at a Krystal's (gosh I hope you guys can since my sarcasm) and order the #1. 5 Cheeseburgers and fries smothered in Chili....Boy we are going to have a good flight up to Canada after eating this stuff!!

Well we are done eating and we head over towards our A31 gate again. They begin boarding the flight for Minneapolis, and out departure time I notice has changed a whopping 4 mimutes later than what it was originally scheduled for. I don't think anything of it.

We get to the gate to check in once they call our "zone" that we were sitting in, only to tell us. "Sir your flight was moved over to the D concourse and left 4 minutes ago". At this point my jaw hits the floor, and due to Scott's age I'm looking for the AED. (an AED will jump start your heart). The "gate lady"
says our only hope is walk about 12 gates down to the ticket counter and see what they can do.

So we are talking to the Delta ticket ladies (for some reason out of coincidence) since the Northwest Ticket office was already closed for the day. All these ladies can do is access Delta flights (since the Delta/Northwest merge hasn't completely happened yet). They tell us we have no chance at all in making it to Canada tonight and we can choose to stay in Minneapolis, or Atlanta overnight. Well with what I know about Travel, I'm not buying it...

I step out of line, and begin talking to the Northwest people via cell phone instantly away from the ticket counter. I end up talking with a lady in the Reservations Center for Northwest, and explaining to her what happened, and how it messed up all of my connecting flights.

Somehow I was able to weasel us into the top positions on the list for standby on what I found out was going to be our only hope. A 725pm flight out of Atlanta on Delta headed for Minneapolis. Now the only way that this is going to work is if we make the 725pm flight, and luck out that our 915 arrival
time is enough to make the 930pm Calgary departure. The lady on the phone tells me it isn't possible for us to make it from 1 part of the terminal in Minneapolis to the other in 15 minutes and make the flight since we are completely changing airlines from Delta to Northwest. She tries everything to convince me
that it is impossible to do. I finally said to her, "ma'am first off can it happen. Is there even a small possibility for it can happen? On your end with the computer can you schedule it to happen?" She says "yes i can schedule it but you won't make it". I asked her to please schedule it because I would rather have a chance at the flight, then no chance at all and right now I have had bad luck all day, and I'm do for some good luck. She laughed and said well good luck both of you guys are booked for the flights, and I made you top priority for standby...

Now we have got to hightail it from Concourse A, all the way to Concourse B in Atlanta in time to check in for Standby. Well we get there and there is only 6 people at the counter and we see our names on the Screen. Some yahoo named Thra/S has the #1 spot, somone named Gov/C is #2, and I see my name in #3. with a total of 11 names on stand by. Well as people keep checking in, I see the number of assigned seats keep getting smaller and smaller. So me and the guy in the #1 standby position are talking, and he says if there is only 1 seat then he will stay back with me. If their are 2 seats then we are going to cut off the head of the guy who has the #2 spot. As we are saying this, I guess we were talking a little to loud as I think guy #2 turned around and looked at us, then walked away. The next thing we hear after our laughter stops, is the lady at the Gate call out the TOP 3 names. YES!!! We made it on the 725 flight...We still have hope to make it to Calgary tonight.

Ok whew!! We made it on the early flight, now we have to find a way to get from Concourse A in Mineapolis, to Councourse D....Since we have to switch from Delta to Northwest. It was a lengthy flight so I began talking with the flight attendents asking if there was anything they could do and I start asking
them to do something that I know they can do, but they usually don't do. They look at me and smile, and says well lets see what we can come up with. There is 20 minutes left on the flight into Minneapolis when I get a tap on the shoulder and I'm waved to come back to the kitchen area of the airplane. The lady tells
me what is in store for me, but I am going to have to BULLDOZE all of the 1st Class passengers as soon as the Fasten Seat Belt sign goes off when we stop. For me that is the easy part, now for the hard part. All my camera equipment is in the back of the aircraft, and my seat is in the middle of the aircraft. Somehow I get the bright idea to go up to the very front row in Coach and ask them if they wouldn't mind switching seats for me as I am about to show them the funniest thing they have ever seen on an airplane but I need their seats to do it. The flight attendants take my camera gear and stage it in the jump seat next to the exit so I can "grab & go" without having to pull luggage out of the bins and etc....Ok my gear is staged, and I begin telling Scott that we are about to pull off 31 dive out of the I formation and I'm blocking for him as he carry's my laptop bag...As I'm explaining to him "31 dive" I get a tap on the shoulder once again.

The flight attendent talked to the pilot, and he radioed ahead to have us a guide with cart waiting to fly us to the next Councourse!! 31 Dive works like a champ, and we rush down the tunnel. A delta representative was there to meet us, and escort us to the cart. The driver jumped in that cart, and we ALMOST looked like ol Big Daddy Don Garlits. (I hope a few of you know who he is)

We make it to the Gate, and they are pulling the tunnel back from the Plane. Oh crap all that talking, and hurrying, and taking what seemed like 2 hours to get Scott to comprehend "31 Dive" for nothing. I talk with the sweet lady that is at the window and she rushes us down some stairs to a service ramp. We go down the maintenance ladder, and she is saying "Give me your Boarding Passes". LUCKILY i still had my original ones that they gave me in DFW....Scott got pissed and through his away in ATLANTA (man I wish I had a picture of him in Atlanta trying to dig through the trash to get them back) after they printed up some new tickets for him that had us arriving in Canada the next day. We climb up another ladder and get into a make shift passenger tunnel, and another lady is beating on the door
having them open the door back up. We made the flight, and arrived in Calgary when we were originally expected to!!

Pulling that off was just amazing, and I couldn't believe we did it.

I clear customs no problem at all, and Scott gets "flagged" so he has to go see the mean looking folks behind the glass :D

I go ahead and worked my way to the baggage claim areas and find my bag no problem. Well Scott on the other hand never found his bag, and now has no clothes to change into or hunt in!!!

Holy cow coach! Sounds like its going to be a heck of a trip already!! Good luck brother.

Well, how did yall do yesterday? What's the plan for today?

That sounds like something that could happen to me. Good luck

WOW and WOW!!

Today our day started off while we were all knocked out asleep in bed, but our guide Timmy woke us up very quickly saying his scout had a stalk on a Moose! Now moose wasn't on our schedule, but I dang sure wasn't going to pass up the oppertunity to get a hunt on film!!

It was about a half hour drive to where the Moose was spotted and had our feature hunter Ron Chaffer on the stalk on it. When we showed up the Moose was about 15yds from heading back into the thick trees. Ron asked his videographer Craig, if he had the green light. Craig told him to hold, and then about 20 seconds later Craig gave Ron the green light.

Ron dropped the Moose in it's tracks. This was my first ever time to see a moose in the wild, and to get to see one drop like that was amazing. As we went over to see the moose I was in shock at how massive it was. The guys laughed at me and said 'oh that's a small one, he's only 3-4 years old'. Immediately we got a call from the scout saying that another moose has been spotted and we need to hurry.

We high tailed it out of there, and headed for the location. It was about 20 minutes of driving down some back roads, but we finally made it. When we got there, we had missed the moose by about 5 minutes as it made it's way back into the thick trees.

We went back to the location where Ron was at, and they had already loaded the moose up and was headed back to the shop to begin cleaning it. When we showed up at the shop, here is what was left of it!

http://huntingonabudget.com/publicup...amooseskin.jpg

http://huntingonabudget.com/publicup...mooseskin1.jpg

We were treated to some fresh Seafood Chowder made with Lobster, Halibut, and Shrimp at the shop while the guys finished cutting up the moose.


After that we were taken to the Canadian Pheasant Company. We got an in depth tour of the facility, and even got to meet with one of the owners Ed Houck. Ed is famous throughout these parts for his major success with the upland bird, and water fowl program for the entire country of Canada. Ed is well knows as well for his success with Ducks Unlimited. Ed was the senior biologist for over 7 years with Ducks Unlimited.

Ed had a little surprise for me, as he took me over to the waterfowl area. It seems someone had informed him about my love and passion for Duck Hunting. Well he took me into a holding area that had about 200 ducks all of various breeds. Ed then told me he wanted me to go inside and pick out a duck. I grabbed the first Mallard I came to and brought it back to Ed. Ed handed me a metal strip, and a crimper. Since I started Duck Hunting in Texas a few years ago, I have never gotten the luxery of taking the prized 'banded bird'. Now to be on this end of it to where you are the one who actually bands the bird, had me in awe!!! Once they wrote down the breed of the duck, along with some other information, they took the number off of the band. I put it into a box, and he told me to now go get 11 more. I ended up banding 12 different ducks, and hopefully the hunters who harvest these birds will report it. I wasn't aware of it, but after placing them into the box, they took the box outside to their pond, and I got to release each bird myself into the wild.

Seeing this aspect of hunting, and what actually goes into it gives me a much more respect for what these various organizations do. I hope these bad boys make it down to Texas, and I am interested at seeing where "my ducks" end up at.

Once we were finished at the Canadian Pheasant company we spent the rest of the day scouting for ducks and geese. We found a few promising spots, and I can't wait until we get to begin to hammer them!!!!

My second day in Canada was definately inspiring. I got to see hunters themselves taking part in a big part of conservation for Upland and Waterfowl. I got some tremendous video of how beautiful this place is, got to witness my first ever Moose Hunt, and take part in conservation. Definately a very successful day for me, and being able to personally pick out 12 birds to band and release was pretty cool to say the least!

good luck!!

I will do my best to get one of those birds! :)

Today was our second day Pheasant hunting. Today we did it a little different, instead of taking to the field with just 1 dog and 2 hunters, we released 100 birds and had 4 dogs working with 6 hunters.


Amongst the 6 of use we ended up with 76 birds total.


I was just beat at the end of the day, as we spent all day hunting pheasant. We started at 8am, and finished about an hour before sunset.


Ron Chaffer quickly gathered his things up and we went to an open field where they had been seeing Whitetails. Ron was able to drop a whitetail so we could eat Pheasant and Venison for the evening.


After dinner I jumped in the steam sauna for about 15 minutes, then followed that up with a hot shower to end a great day. 8pm, and I was dead asleep!

-----------------
Day 4
-----------------
Today started off with a Duck & Goose hunt. Our limits for the day were 8 Ducks, 8 Canadian Geese, and 20 Snow Geese.

Well there were 3 of us who were shooting so the potential to have over 100 birds on the ground and going to the freezer sounded awesome.

The area we ended up in had been scouted for 5 continous days before we showed up to hunt there this morning and each day it was loaded with geese and even had some ducks mixed in as well. Our guide determined that this would give us better options then to set up in a field for geese only, then move and get around a pond for ducks later on. We ended up with over 200 decoys in the field, and as we were setting up the the last dozen decoys we had a flock of Malards come in for final approach. The guide yells out "Coach, bust em" so I picked up the closest gun I could find, and busted 2 Drakes and 1 hen. Going 3 for 3 right off the bat definately had my spirits high as I couldn't wait for the geese. It took about 15 minutes before we started seeing the geese get up and move about a half mile off. Our guide began hitting the call, and watching a flock of 30 plus geese turn towards us was just amazing. The flock came in on us but flared off about 200yds away. As they were flying away, our guide hit the call once again turning them once more, and they circled us again and started to work the decoys. After 4 passes the geese finally dropped in to land, and out came the call to "bust em Coach". We were able to drop 3 Canadians out of the first group.

Drake (lab-retriever) gathered each one of the birds quickly for us, and we laughed for a few while Drake was gathering the birds. I don't know what it is, but being out in hunting blinds whether it is Coffin Blinds here in Alberta Canada, pit blinds in Port Aransas, or Tower Blinds in Mexico they always seem to bring out funny stories and some times it is just a little to much information that you cared to know about some people! The story involved 3 items, A bullwhip, a tube of liquid platinum, and coco butter.

I was crying the remainder of the hunt from laughter after listening to the story. Roughly half an hour went by before we got our next set of birds, but when they came within calling range, they came big!!! Our next set of birds brought us 5 different flocks of Canadians and each flock contained over 50 birds each. Our guide started to work the birds and got all 5 groups to turn towards us. As he was working the Canadians one of the most beautiful things in my entire life
started to come into my line of site. We had well over 250 canadians working the decoys above us at about 200 feet, and my first ever flock of snow geese was making a B-line straight to us. Our guide asked what I wanted to do, and I told him to let the Canadians land as I wanted to bust
the Snow Geese on apporoach!! Now my strategy on this was that we would be able to bust the Snow Geese, and then catch the Canadians while they took off. I knew it was quiet a few snow geese in the flock because I could see the flock from well over a mile away. The reason why this is one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my life is because this flock was well over 400 birds of Snow Geese flying all together, it looked like a huge moving cloud. As these geese are coming in and we are getting ready to bust them I hear our "flag men" start hollering "blue blue blue, there's a blue".

Now I got no clue in the world what in the world he is hollering so I relax the tension on the gun and look over in his direction taking my eyes off the incoming birds. I hear the guide say "bust em" and when I look back the Snow Geese didn't even work the decoys, they came straight in and were landing. We ended up getting 6 Snow Geese and 3 Canadians out of that mass of birds. At the end of the day, I was still in awe at the size of that flock of birds flying all together like that. Words really can't describe how loud it was having a flock that size landing right in front of you, and you just hear the wind cutting across their wings with all of them "locked".

We only got 1 more group of Mallards after that. 30 minutes of no action at all, and we called it a day. We didn't limit out, but I got to see something that was just truly amazing and really words just don't do it justice.
http://huntingonabudget.com/images/s...Canada2008.jpg

Later on that evening I headed to Lethbrige with Cory to one of his Sports Bars. He was hosting the UFC fights, and had a few friends in the house that I got to meet and some of you might know a few of them from the pictures below.
http://www.huntingonabudget.com/phot...riends/ufc.jpg
Can anyone guess who this is?
http://www.huntingonabudget.com/phot...samhardcor.jpg

So what did "Blue" mean?

Brad a "Blue Goose" is one of those genetic things that happen ever once in awhile. It's more of a Trophy Snow Goose since they are rare.

Snow Goose
http://content.ornith.cornell.edu/UE...2_00058A_L.jpg
Blue Goose
http://content.ornith.cornell.edu/UE...2_00058B_L.jpg

As you can see they are very distinct, but when I had over 400 of the Snow Birds coming in at me, I was in awe just enjoying the site, and unlike the locals who were hunting with us, I definately didn't have the trained eye to find the Blue Geese!

Thanks and way cool!!

Brad if your going to be near Austin/San Marcos area on Weds-Saturday I'll be there on Vacation...err business...well you know :D