Kyle Lamore - Summertime Scouting!!

With summer vacation in the rear view mirror and fall quickly approaching it's that time to start putting our game plan together for this hunting season!   For the first time in a long time, we will actually be hunting the same lease that we bowhunted last year. The good news is the  same property means that a lot of the legwork is already done such as hanging sets, food plots, trimming lanes etc.  The bad is the landowner does not allow any gun hunting on the farm so we have  had to focus our attention elsewhere for those three Illinois gun  weekends. We started hanging Reconyx cameras a few months ago and were pleasantly surprised to see alot of familiar faces as well as a few new ones. One deer in particular that stands out is a deer by the name of "niner". Although "niner" doesnt really seem to fit anymore because he is now a "tenner"; he still remains very high on our hitlist. However, the problem is that last year we found this deer almost un-killable. Despite being one of the most photogenic deer on the property getting pics of him on literally almost every camera, we never saw him one time from the stand. His pattern proved very unpredictable and for the most part was a nighttime mover. So...the question we have to ask ourselves this year is:

 

How much time should we spend trying to kill this deer? ?  ? ?

What would you do?

On one hand I feel since this deer was almost impossible last year, being a year older at 5.5 now he will be even elusive and nocturnal. However, it is very difficult to just ingore a 160" deer that is living right on your farm. 

Do we just mount our efforts on another hit-lister?? Mabye just wait until the rut?  I still am unsure on what we will decide, hopefully the Reconyx can help us with this decision in the next month before season opens. 
 

 















We also had the opportunity to take care of the missing piece of the puzzle (no gun hunting our farm) by meeting up with Shawn Lucky at Illinois Extreme Whitetails in Pike, Adams and Brown county recently. From the looks of the lodge and farms so far, we are going to be in for a treat with  the accommodations and hunting.  I have been fortunate enough to stay at alot of nice places, however this lodge without a doubt is the king of all. Shawn took us around for the weekend giving us some different options and had the opportunity to see some great deer while we were out scouting. Both quality and quantity of deer seemed evident and I cannot wait for November to get here to head north and try our luck! Good luck to all this fall!

Kyle Lamore
JJ Kolesar

J.J. Kolesar - "NOT AGAIN!!!!"

Well, if you have followed Drury Outdoors at all you may have heard us say more than once that “we are on a new lease.” Unfortunately it has happened again, but hopefully we can maintain this one for long-term period. It is not that we get kicked off or anything, but situations like land auctions, outbidding (money), outfitters, and insurance scares, make it a difficult time to wrap up the type of property we and maybe even you would ultimately like to have. However, after 3 county plat books, 43 no’s, 2 maybe’s, and 1 we will see, we final broke into pay dirt. We have been on the hunt for better ground for the last 3 and half months and just now feel as if we have found where it is we want to be. We feel though we have found a piece that will hopefully lead us down a more successful road and hope that we can bring you some fun and exciting hunting action.
If you find yourself in a similar situation here are a few ways to make it easier and not feel so depressed about the rejection that you will probably face. These were some of the aspects we feel will help your cause:


1) Choose to make 3 calls/trips a day! (Simple, but not overwhelming, not as depressing or frustrating, but doing diligence is the only way to discovery)
2) Find someone in common with the landowner (“Kind of like the Kevin Bacon Game, if you know what I am saying”)
3) Have an answer for any question the landowner may ask:
a) Insurance, # of people, typical season, etc.
b) Know what it is you want, alleviates problems in the future that could cost you your opportunity.
c) Expectations of both you and him!
4) Most importantly, BE HONEST & COMPLETE ON YOUR INTENTIONS, stones left unturned could come back to haunt you!

This brings us to our Blog topic of the early spring. Now that we have acquired a new tract we are in the process of breaking down what is taking place on the farm. We have not set foot on the tract, but in all honesty, didn’t have the choice. We had to pull the trigger and hope that the reputation of the ground treats us right. Without having set foot on it, we have been eagerly studying the buckview program within Reconyx’s new software. With the tools we are able to highlight what we think the deer would do, and identify spots that we believe should be good. Needless to say, we are excited to compare our computer notes to those of the real landscape. With this being said, we at Drury Outdoors would love to hear more about how you break down your new tract and any tricks of trade from which you have benefited, and we will also share what we have done in the past that has led us to some of our mild success on green ground. Good Luck Shed Hunting and we look forward to hearing from you.

Kyle and JJ

Kyle Lamore - Off Season Antics

What to do in the off season?? That is a question we find ourselves trying to answer every year about this time. To try to keep our shooting skills sharp, for the last eight weeks, we have been involved with our local bow shop's shooting league. Myself, JJ Kolesar, and our two buddies Ben and Todd have been trying our best to oust the 25 competing 4 man teams. Although we didn't bring home the trophy, we had alot of fun shooting the DART target system and a variety of pop up targets every week. However, it is the "iron buck" that creates the most havoc every Monday night.

The iron buck is the last shot of the evening, although not required to be shot, it can earn each shooter 10 bonus points at the end of the night, which I usually need! That's the good news, however it can also destroy an arrow quicker than any shoulder blade! The hole is roughly the size of a baseball, and from 30 yards, along with plenty of verbal jabs from buddies, can be quite interesting. I have been fortunate enough to slip a couple through in the last few weeks. However, as you can see, sometimes the arrows aren't so lucky! Despite a snowed out shed hunt this past weekend in Iowa, the weather looks to be turning and Kansas spring gobblers are less than 2 weeks away! Good luck this spring!

-Kyle and JJ

Kyle Lamore - Plantin' A New Plot

Summer...and the living is good for a teacher this time of year! Despite the fact that deer season closed here in Illinois 6 months ago, JJ Kolesar and myself have been working towards the upcoming season ever since.

This past off season, we started putting in a new 2.5 acre foot plot..while that might sound easy, the fact that over 600 trees called this home for the last 15 years didnt help matters. We spent every spare minute cutting, dragging, and burning trees since neither of us owns a bulldozer!

Last week was the easy part--the planting. With plenty of rain latey, we are crossing our fingers that this "buffet" of a food plot, with Biologic's Maximum and Full Draw, along with some soybeans will be the ticket this fall! Trail cameras are out and season cannot get here fast enough for us!

Kyle Lamore - ...If it Weren't for Bad Luck...

Well…October is slowly slipping away and one of our goals for this year was to finally put down a good deer in October. To accomplish this, we tried incorporating several deep timber Biologic food plots this year….well, the Reconyx camera was stolen, along with the stands and ladder stick, so… needless to say it has been a bust. The clock is quickly ticking towards November and with only two hunts left..…no big buck has yet to meet the Rage. However, we have seen and encountered more big deer this October than ever before. I think Jared Lurk said it best one time with “When filming, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.” The following examples have occurred since season has begun!

1. The month started at Hadley Creek and we saw a ton of deer, shot a doe, but just couldn’t seem to find a buck that would meet the new 140” minimum. We even had an ancient buck come to within 30 yards that would have been in deep trouble back home, but had to give him a pass because he didn’t have quite enough inches on his head.

2. We have been watching a deer that we nicknamed “Redemption” since mid summer. We have tons and tons of pics of this deer and finally laid eyes on him Oct. 19 at only 22 yards from the stand. However, JJ called me off of him b/c it was very low light for the camera and so he got a pass without an arrow released.

3. Saturday, Oct. 25th was the first time we had hunted our new lease in the morning. Well, the morning was full of fog and drizzle, since an inch of rain had fallen the night before. Things started out rather slow, but by mid-morning we had several does moving in. I was filming them and trying to decide if JJ was going to shoot one when my camera starting flashing “CONDENSATION DETECTED”… the words any cameraman detests having pop up!! I told him not to shoot when he tells me big buck coming, a big nine pointer then follows the does right by our stand at 26 yards broadside. JJ’s asks me what is going on, while I currently have a doe staring at me from under the stand b/c the tape is being ejected in and out of the camera. I had to return the favor as he did a week earlier and call him off of the beast b/c the camera couldn’t boot up. Ten minutes later, the camera is working fine…go figure!!

So...we are trying to close the deal of one of these bucks in the near future and hoping our black cloud leaves us alone for a while! Good luck this fall to all!

Kyle