2009 Illinois Bound for the Rut

It's that time again to head down to the lower 48 to bow hunt trophy whitetails. I have been looking forward to these couple of weeks in November more than any other time of the year. This is what hunting is all about, THE WHITETAIL RUT in the Midwest. I am sorry, but if it wasn't for the whitetail rut I doubt I would ever set foot in the Midwest. I head out this evening, actually 12:30 a.m. Alaska time.

I am attempting to start this blog back up. I am heading from Alaska back down to the lower 48 to bow hunt in Illinois.


I've started a new site Hunting Alaska , it is not the site that will be up once I am done creating the site, but it's something to occupy the space until the site is up and running. It has some articles on Alaska and Alaska hunting.

Northern Wisconsin has always been a very special place for me. My parents were born here as were their parents and their parents before them. The land of green, gold, and blaze orange. I head to Wisconsin year after year to partake in the opening day of gun hunting season, the steady stream of headlights heading north past Minocqua tell me I ain't the only one. This is a ritual that has taken place in the Theiler family for almost a century and has been a standard in most northern Wisconsin families since statehood. My great grandfather hunted the same land well before my scentlock clothing and even before the first Winchester model 70 hit the market. Signs welcoming and wishing good luck to hunters can be found on almost every sign of commerce.

I start my stay at my families' posh "hunting condo" in Minocqua as we get in too late to make the drive to the hunting shack properly known as Amik Arms. Thursday before the opener we do some scounting and setup an Ameristep blind on the fringe of tag alder swamp. The next day we journey to the Twin Cities several hours away to pick up my wife and the boy. We get picked up at midnight by Tooter, my father's life long friend, at a locked gate bordering the Chequamegon National Forest.

We are hunting on private land that borders the national forest. The landscape is thick, dense, and lacks the desirable hunting traits one looks for with the sole purpose of hunting big bucks. Although there are big bucks found about and I did shoot a 9 pointer last year, one is not as likely to see them due to the dense cover and nocturnal nature of the whitetail beast. I am not up here for the trophy hunting. I am up here for the camaraderie, the land, the history, and to be a bit closer to the memories of the distant fathers of my father.

It's a good feeling to have my little man up here for his first trip out of Alaska. He has no idea about the pull of this area, but he will in time. As for the hunting we see four deer the entire three days of hunting fairly hard, three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening with day time strolls in between. I end up shooting a beautiful, rather big four year old doe and am very happy to be bringing a full cooler of venison back with me to Alaska.

Sitting in another airport

Well, I am back in another air port, in Portland, OR this time. Thank god for wireless with a 3 hour plus lay over. It's nice to see a few free wi-fi airports still around. The last two, Minn and Chicago were all pay by the day wi-fi, greedy bastards.I was going to post about the last trip down to the lower 48 to Missouri, but couldn't find the time between customers, school, and the boy. The bow hunting trip to Missouri was a great time, no dice on a trophy whitetail though. I saw one big daddy that would score 150 plus on the min side, but the following evening the farmer decided to harvest the field with me in a blind not 10 yards away and relieved the hope of seeing him again. I was hunting in Harrison country, Missouri, an unreal place for trophy whitetail hunting.

This was my first time hunting in Missouri and being not more than a mile from the Iowa border I was sure it was going to have great potential. Lots of small wood lots surrounded by soy beans, corn, and alfalpha. We'd hunt natural funnels within these wood lots.I believe the score would of been different if we had the moon and the temperature on our side, but with a full moon and day time temps in the 60's and 70's it definitely put a damper on deer movement. We were also a week behind the upward swing of the beloved rut. Saw a few smaller bucks chasing and the big one I saw was chasing only to give up after losing interest.

The smell was yet to be in the air.We shared hunting camp with a great bunch of guys while staying at the Sportsman's Lodge just outside Eagleville. Is there anything better than hunting camp with a good crew? I swear I could talk hunting till the cows come home.Two guys in camp ended up getting a 9 and a 10 pointer with relative scores in the 120/130's, yet the potential was definitely there to draw you back year in and year out.Other than hunting in Saskatchewan, Missouri has some of the best potential in trophy quality whitetails that I have seen anywhere in North America. I was glad to get back and see the wife and my new son, Boone. This was the first time I left for any significant time and I missed him as much as anything I've ever missed in my life. It makes it much harder for me to leave the little guy behind for any real amount of time, but this is in my blood and I certainly can't live without it. I can't wait for the day when he gets old enough to tag along with his dad. The best times I've ever had were with my dad out in the woods. Again, is there anything more important and more cerished than time spent out in the woods with family? You'll be damned hard pressed to find better times.Speaking of better times, get me the hell out of this airport. Normally my flights out of Alaska are late night, red eye flights in which I get to sleep a great portion of my journey to the lower 48, but not this time. Two rows behind me, nonstop, a two year old screaming and crying. Two in the morning, crying, three in the morning crying, waiting for people to take their own sweet ass time getting baggage out of the overhead bin, crying. I can't remember a flight where the entire duration was spent listening to a bellowing child. I sure hope that isn't the fate of my boy and the poor wife. I will be meeting them on Friday in Minneapolis after a few days scouting in Wisconsin. We'll be picking them up and heading for deer camp for opening week of gun season. The wife, the boy, and my mother will be hanging out in Minocqua for a few days. After hunting in Wisconsin we'll be heading to Michigan for Thanksgiving and more hunting.I'll try and keep this blog up to date, I say that now, but we'll see. I would like to be able to make daily to weekly posts about various hunting, fishing, and outdoor topics and only stick to such topics anything else, politics, religion, and other various bitching will only waste time and more than likely will be redundant to the reader. I find the more one pays attention to things, the more one gets frustrated and pissed off, so I try to pay attention to those things that don't do so.Till, next time.