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In my lifetime, I have had the opportunity and pleasure of hunting and fishing with numerous women who enjoyed the sports. Not only did they enjoy it, they were very proficient at it!
I have hunted in the company of one young lady who is a true outdoors person! She will hunt as hard a most of the men and is successful at it also! Her first year bow hunting with us, she managed to shoot a huge Russian boar with her bow! Not only did she place the arrow well, she also tracked the animal!
The year prior to the hog kill, she sat a ladder stand on a damp and cold Louisiana winter day and shot a nice 5 point that was chasing a doe.
I really would like to see more women enjoying the hunting sport. It not only brings them a great deal of pride and personal satisfaction, it offers their children more opportunities to be in the woods.
Personally, I would love to see my wife hunt and fish with me! I would probably have to take on a second job to pay for it all, but even that would be OK! My wife has learned to enjoy shooting a bow! She will not take the life of an animal by harvesting it, but she enjoys shooting the 3-D range in my back pasture! I started her off with a fairly cheap bow then moved her up to a Matthew’s FX. We really enjoy the time we spend together shooting!
The more people that hunt (and I mean non-gender specific) the greater exposure we have and the greater strength to support and maintain our hunting traditions from those whom would try and take it away!
Many of the business that caters to the hunter, fisher, and outdoorsman, tend not to target the female gender. I feel they are making a very big mistake. For almost every sportsman that spends money on equipment, clothing, 4-wheelers, rain gear, weapons, (well you name it) there is generally a female who has a connection to the disposable income that is to be spent!
I am lucky that my wife does not complain of the money I spend (well not all the time) following my pursuits. More companies today are slowly realizing that there is a market with the female gender. It has been long in coming! Many women had to buy camo clothing cut for men and then wear them like it was, or make modifications.
Guy’s I do not hate to say it, I have known some females that could locate, hunt, shoot, and track deer better than any man I have seen! Including myself!
We often want to include our children (boy or girl) in our outdoor activities, but more than often, exclude our wives! If you want your children to really grow up and stay with the sport, the odds are much better if you include your wife!
Think of it as hunting insurance! Years from now your children will grow up and leave the nest (we all hope so) and then it will be just you and your spouse. These are the times when a lot of divorces happen! We lose interest in each other, or we get more involved in our pursuits and the other mate feels neglected. What a wonderful time to spend your "golden" years doing things together, taking trips around the country hunting or fishing new areas and species!
Or just maybe sitting around a campfire at the "long time" lease drinking coffee and sharing tales about hunts in the past with the great friends you have made! REMEMBER, your spouse should be your very best friend, and later in life, you will need one! What better way than sharing a life of friendship doing something you both like!
This past hunting season was extra special for me! My grandson shot his first deer, and in the box blind with us was his Mom, my middle daughter!
She was so excited and enjoyed hunting so much, unknowing to me, she enrolled in in a Hunters Ed course so she could hunt with me this winter!
She bought my grandson a 7mm-08 and I gave her my Dads 30.30 Winchester. She is excited about the upcoming season and I truly look forward to helping her get her first deer!
I also look forward to many years of a new hunting buddy with me in the woods! Because of her new found love of hunting and the outdoors, my grandson and his sister both will be well indoctrinated into the outdoor world and stay with it their whole lives!
The opening picture is her with my grandson with his first deer.
W. Wayne Kendrick
So you want to get your deer! Well that is the goal of all hunters’ young and old. The years of pursuing this quarry helps one gain much experience and no matter how many we get over the years, each new season is like the first time!
I have condensed what I have learned from my father and others over the years to provide some simple but very important information.
Hope this helps:
1. If you want to be successful, hunt in areas that have a lot of deer. The more deer in an area, the greater your odds of getting your shot, this is especially true for bow hunting! A truly good hunter can hunt an area with minimal deer and be successful; a novice can hunt an area with a lot of deer and be super-successful!
2. Get up early, hunt all day, and come down late! In an area with lots of deer, this is one of the most successful things you can do. I like to get up a tree in my climber 1 hour before daylight. This allows for things to quiet down before shooting light. It also allows for any scent I have left in the air to blow away or dissipate. If things are slow, I hunt all day. I have killed numerous good bucks between 10:am and 2:pm. They get up and move after everyone else has left the woods for they’re mid day siesta! Often as not, the other hunters getting out of the woods get up bedded deer that move into my area. If the mid day is slow, then I continue to hunt till dark.
3. Hunt High! Not on drugs, ELEVATION! I like to hunt as high as possible. When bow hunting, I will hunt 30-35 feet high. No I cannot see well or shoot 45 yards, but any deer offering me a shot won’t know I am there. Hunting high offers you the opportunity to move a little in your stand, keeps your scent from hitting the ground anywhere in your general vicinity. Many times I have had deer bed down under me during the mid-day and never knew I was there.
4. THINK Commercial REAL ESTATE! A new store is looking for LOCATION, LOCATION, and LOCATION! Scout well before season, do not just stomp through the woods looking for tracks or pellets, STALK! Actually hunt the deer without a weapon! You can even use a camera! FIND where they are bedding, feeding, traveling too and from these areas. If you think you have found that HOT SPOT bring in your climber one day before daylight, a good lunch, climb a tree and hang from daylight to dark. This can give you an idea of how good the area is EXACTLY where the deer ARE moving, and WHEN they move! NOW you will be ready for opening morning!
5. BOW HUNTING: shoot regularly and learn to be proficient! Don’t start a week before season and go try and shoot a deer. It is not fair to you for the time you have invested in hunting, AND it is not fair to the quarry to injure it and let it die a slow death of infection or starvation! Start practicing 3-4 days a week a couple of months before season. A week before season, start practicing while wearing the clothes you will hunt in. Make sure no pockets or loose sleeves will come into contact with your bowstring. It only takes a minimal brush of the string to throw your arrow WAY OFF!
6. BOW HUNTING Distances: KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS! Practice at 10-40 yards. HOWEVER you should never shoot over 30 yards at a deer. I know many have killed deer over 30. I have killed at 49 yards. But I have not taken a shot over 30-35 yards in years. Too many deer are crippled each year because it only takes a deer to move a fraction when you release to cause a non-vital hit to be made.
7. Movement: if you hunt under 30 foot in a tree, be as still as possible! Nothing besides scent will spook a deer quicker than a fast movement! Try to be a statue, be as still as possible when in the stand. Deer can not see colors like we do, in fact, most tend to think their eye sight is rather poor, except when it comes to picking out motion!
8. The Church Mouse Theory: When entering the woods and walking to your stand, be as quiet as a church mouse! Noises such as stands clanking, clothes rustling, metal to metal, limbs cracking, etc., carry a long way in the dead calm of dark. Try to touch as few limbs as possible with your hands so as not to leave any additional scent. You should have bathed with a quality scent neutralizing body sop, washed your clothes in a scent elimination detergent, and sprayed your boots and pants legs with a quality odor eliminating spray! Be quiet and as scent free as possible when moving in and out of the woods.
9. Tree Stand and Climber Safety: Make sure you inspect you climbing stand before and every week of hunting season. Loose nuts or worn bolts are dangerous and can cause injury or death! If you are hunting from a lock-on or permanent ladder stand, check them out to make sure the platforms, ladder rungs, or ratchet straps are in good condition! Check your safety harness for weak stitching, seams, or frayed lanyard straps! NOTHING IS MORE TRAJIC than someone getting hurt, paralyzed, or killed because of faulty equipment or stands. It not only will affect you, think of your livelihood and how it will affect your spouse or children! LIVE TO HUNT: HUNT TO LIVE!
10. If You Hunt Alone: Always leave a note, a drawing, and directions to the general area you will be hunting and a general time and date you will arrive back! If something was to happen to you, someone could actually find the general location you are at and get assistance to you! Having a buddy to hunt with you is really the best thing. Even then you need to communicate with each other as to where you are hunting and what time to expect each other at a predetermined location. If hunting alone it is really a great idea to carry a cell phone (that actually has service in the area you are hunting) If your cell phone does not work in the area you hunt, check out a pre-paid cell phone that DOES work in the area. It is also a good idea to carry a couple of flares or a small flare gun kit. If that is not feasible, get a small flashing battery powered strobe light. If you are hurt and cannot yell, then it can give away your location to search and rescue personnel from a very long way off.
11. GUN HUNTING: NEVER pull a loaded gun up into the stand! NEVER climb a tree whether a ladder stand or climber with a LOADED gun on your Back! Always unload your weapon prior to getting in a stand or up a tree. IN FACT: NEVER load your gun until you are ready to hunt! AND NEVER transport a loaded gun in a vehicle! ALWAYS BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR OF WHAT YOU ARE SHOOTING AT AND WHAT IS PAST THE AREA YOU WILL BE SHOOTING INTO! If you have never had a gun safety course certification, please take the time to get one, even OLD DOGS CAN LARN A NEW TRICK!
12. Be respectful; of other peoples property and rights! Be considerate to others hunting the same area! Especially if you are on a game reserve or public land. So he crowds you, yes it makes you mad but he is the one being a jerk! He has every bit as much right to be there as you, if he want’s to crowd you, do not stoop to his level! Go find another spot and know you are the better person!
13. The Environment: Be one with the woods, and above all, leave the woods and waterways cleaner than you found them! Never litter; pick up any garbage or litter you see in the woods on your way out.
14. The Shot: Make sure that EVERY SHOT you make is good! A true sportsman will make the cleanest and quickest kill shot they can, or pass it up! I know we all have had one that got away, but try to eliminate it from happening as much as possible!
15. After the shot: I feel that it is the sportsman duty to learn how to track a shot animal. No if, no but, no maybe! You owe it to the animal, yourself, and the sport to be able to recover every animal shot. This is especially true on open public land! Nothing hurts our sport than for a non-hunter who is accessing that land looking at flora, trees, or watching birds, than to walk up on the rotting carcass of a lost animal.
16. Share you knowledge with others! Get over the HE-MAN attitude of being a GREAT hunter and share your knowledge with those trying to learn the sport. This alone will help keep our sport growing instead of declining! Especially share the knowledge with the youngsters! One of your greatest legacies’ as a hunter will be for a youngster to carry your knowledge of the sport till he is older and pass it on to his children!
17. Hunting Private Property: If someone is nice enough to allow you access to his or her property to hunt, for heaven sake, respect it! And if you kill, make sure to bring them some backstrap, a roast, or some sausage to show YOUR appreciation for THEIR generosity! In fact, you should go by, show them what you have harvested, and offer them whatever they would like of it! I guarantee you that you will get an offer to come back!
18. If you harvest more than you can consume or use, share with those less fortunate, the poor, the elderly, and the injured! Ask your benevolence administrator at church, I am sure he can tell you where there are some needy families in the area! The smile, the thanks, and the hugs they give you is far greater than the thrill of the kill…. I know this personally!
Hope this helps some!
Wayne Kendrick
The IN’s and Out’s, the Do’s and Dont's of
Hunting Odor Elimination and Control
A Primer Of How To Keep Deer From Smelling You!
Prelude:
The sense of smell is a deer’s number one defense against predators. The only animal I encounter that has a more highly defined sense of smell than a deer is a wild hog.
Deer rely on their noses to find food, locate each other, and locate possible threats and dangers. A deer’s sight is sharp but being color blind (to a certain degree) they rely on detecting movement. And believe me, they are great at picking out and detecting the slightest of movement!
We are outlining the best steps for odor control and elimination to help the average hunter improve this problem and be more successful. We hope the following will offer some good and basic information.
ODORS Where and HOW:
Odors, or we should say malodors (offensive odors) are molecules of the source that attach themselves to or permeates a surface to which they adhere and stick.
Odors that are pleasant to us are malodors to deer. Yes the potpourris our wives use in the house smell really good to her and yes, even to us. But to deer it is a definite warning sign to get out and very quickly!
Our homes are full of odors that our olfactory senses become used to and we rarely even notice! Hair-spray, perfume, and after shave in the bathroom and bedroom, cooking odors throughout the home, pet odors in the house, and many more! The fabric in our vehicle adsorbs those onion and french-fry smells from that number 1 or 2 from McDonalds. Wendy’s, Burger King we had for lunch. The cigarette smoke, or from the snuff spit-cup on the dash.
Odor control for hunting is really very hard work!
The How and The Way:
Using a quality odor eliminator is the best defense to eliminate a deer from smelling you. That is why we invented No Scents At All odor eliminating products.
It works through chemistry. Even natural, organic materials produce odors that are chemical compounds. The No Scents At All products are formulated with an open-sided molecule that actually grabs the malodor molecule, migrates around it, then closes over it to encapsulate it and destroy it. Our Body Wash/Shampoo also utilizes Triclosen, which attacks and kills the bacteria on the skin that causes odors to grow on the body.
Steps To Take:
During hunting season, I personally quit using after-shave 3 days prior to the day of my hunts. All throughout hunting season I use only an unscented deodorants such as SURE or Right Guard unscented.
Washing And Drying:
I never wash and dry my hunting clothes when there is cooking going on in the house and I have managed to get my wife to not use scented candles or potpourri during hunting season.
Most people wash the clothes they are going to wear but completely disregard the equipment they will carry.
What you should wash and/or de-scent:
A) Clothing; Underwear, socks, shirts, pants, jackets, hats, face masks, rain suit, and gloves
B) Gear: Backpack, fanny pack, release for bow, gun sling, climbing stand, and any other gear you may carry or use.
1) Washing your clothes is easy. I usually make a “wet run” with washer with no clothes in it to rinse out any left over washing powder from a my wife’s previous wash so that I know the washer is clean.
Set your washer’s water level to lowest possible level setting to handle the amount of clothes you are washing. Set temperature settings to warm wash/cold rinse, and use the second rinse setting.
Add approximately 2-4 ounces of No Scents At All Concentrated Laundry Detergent to the wash and turn it on.
2) Drying your clothes: sounds easy? Well drying your hunting clothes is when most people negate the odor eliminating wash! Make sure there is no “fabric softening” sheets in the dryer. Remember! Clothes dryers operate by pulling air from inside your house into the dryer, heating it up and drying the clothes, THEN discharges it outside the house. Any cooking odors in the house will be drawn into the dryer and thus negating the whole process!
3) Once your clothes are dry, you should store them in something that offers scent free protection. Many companies offer scent free bags for this, however, my personal choice is a fiberglass or Samsonite type suitcase. If you decent them with No Scents All Spray, then you can store your hunting clothes in it and they will be air tight and remain odor free! They are also excellent because you can throw them in the rear of your vehicle and they are weather and waterproof! Plus you can get them very cheap at the local GOODWILL or Salvation Army store!
Personal Hygiene:
This is very important to eliminating odors on your body. The following is some things I do and for you to consider:
1) Stop using after-shaves 3 days prior to the day you plan on hunting.
2) Use a non-scented deodorant.
3) Shower or bathe with No Scents At All odor eliminating body wash/shampoo.
4) Remember: your hair collects and holds odors far quicker and better than your skin.
5) Bathe the evening before you hunt and if possible before you enter the woods.
6) Oral hygiene: Brush your teeth with a brand of toothpaste that has the least amount of breath freshener’s in it. If you use a mouthwash, try not to use one of the “antiseptic smelling” brands.
From Here To Your Stand!
Now you have to get from point A to point Z and hopefully get your deer! This process of traveling through the deers domain is just as important as the previous steps outlined above! Now you will be traveling through the area you hope that a deer will walk on his way to you! The last thing you want is to leave warning signs (smells) that will tell the deer you are in his vicinity and waiting on him.
1) You have successfully eliminated all the odors on your person
2) Spray down your equipment you will carry
3) Use scent free boots or a good quality rubber boot to eliminate the spreading of scent. New boots smell like rubber. When I get new boots, I use No Scents At All Laundry detergent and scrub the new boots with it using a bristle brush. Once they have been scrubbed, I hang them upside down on a fence post or rods driven into the ground in my yard and let them “Age” in the sun. About a month before hunting season opens, I will wear them scouting, walking through bayous, creeks and mud to break them in a little. Then de-scent them again prior to hunting day.
4) Riding my 4 wheeler to the general area I plan to hunt, I then get off and spray the soles, side, and tops of my boots with No Scents At All clothes and boots spray. If I decide to use any kind of cover scent, I will use raccoon urine in a spray bottle and spray this on my boots.
5) Next, I will use the No Scents At All clothes and boots spray and completely spray my pants and my shirt. Now I am almost ready to head to the tree.
6) I dip snuff, not a great idea for hunting but I have been dipping most all my life. I carry a spittoon bag around my neck. I NEVER spit on the ground when I am anywhere in the woods. To help eliminate the odor from the spittoon bag, I pour some No Scents At All clothes and boots spray into the bag after every time I rinse it out and clean it. I will swish the No Scents At All around inside, pour it out, rinse it, then add some No Scents At All to leave in there and combat the odor it will accumulate and generate as I use it.
7) If the weather is warm, I will remove my shirt and place it in my backpack as I climb the tree to help eliminate sweat saturation. Once in the tree, I use a small towel I carry to dry off the sweat from me, put my shirt back on, and will use the No Scents At All spray to spray myself and my hat as well.
BAD HABITS To Avoid:
Smoking and dipping provides a very heavy scent trail in the around and the woods surrounding you. Cigarette smoke drifts for a very long way and can spook off deer that you will never see!
If you can manage NOT to smoke while in pursuit of your quarry, then that is the way to go. If you do, make sure you use plenty of odor eliminating spray during the day while you are in the stand.
I dip snuff and that generates a considerable amount of odor on it’s own! I use a spittoon bag with No Scents At All spray inside to help eliminate the odor from being emitted. Every time I get a fresh dip, I also spray my hands and fingers to eliminate the snuff odor on them.
Urinating: I try to urinate before leaving the camp, when I get off my 4-wheeler, AND NEVER ON THE GROUND when in the woods or in my stand! I carry a urinal bag (actually 2 of them) in my backpack. This allows me to relieve myself when in the tree and to carry the offensive liquid back to the truck or camp where I can dump it there.
I hope this information will help you become a better hunter and be more successful in the woods
My Dream Season Hunting
(In memory of Thomas Alsie Kendrick)
I was asked recently what would be my “Dream Season?” To hunt anything, anywhere, with anyone who was famous?
I had a great season lined up to hunt/film in Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and TN the year this question was presented to me.
Some would call that a dream season, here lately it seems more like work as I take care of business and am recovering from cancer and a bloodclott.
However, If I could have a DREAM SEASON? What would it be?
It would be this:
My deceased father hunting with me again, walking the deep hollows in North Louisiana.
He and I sitting on top of a high ridge, squatting there, talking about life and the woods, how the hills were created, as the brisk January air burns our cheeks.
Maybe going back to the hogback ridge where we had a fire ring of stones, and used to sit and warm our hands over a small fire at mid-day and drink some coffee. The smell of burning oak drifting on the breeze.
Hunting the swamp edges for squirrels, me picking on him because I killed one more squirrel than he did!
One last trip to Colorado, walking the mountains in vain for deer, but enjoying the vista view of some of GODS greatest creations.
Just to sit around a camp fire and hear him clanging pots on my granddads old Coleman stove, cooking supper as his cackling laughter drowns out my Uncles gravelly voice. Laughing at the same jokes my Uncle has told over and over for years!
To be able to look him in the eyes once again and tell him one more time, thanks for teaching me to hunt and fish, and carrying me with him since I could walk, teaching me a love, respect, and appreciation for the great outdoors.
Putting my arm on his shoulder, my hand on his back, walking down some shaded trail through the woods, headed home. Deciding what excuse we would tell my Mom as to why we are once again late getting home. As if she did not already know!
To just look into his eyes one more time and tell him how proud I am to be his son and how much I love him.
THAT would be my DREAM SEASON!
Wayne Kendrick
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