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

Dave Reisner - Tough Summer

This summer has been tough!  The lack of rain has really taken its toll on the food plots and my sanity. To understand where I am coming from let me digress. I have made it through the massive floods of 2008 and then reoccurring floods the next few years after to now the past two years being in drought circumstances.  Through all this I have gained much more empathy for the farmers that rely on crops and the all powerful Mother Nature for their livelihood.  I used to think farmers just liked to hear themselves complain and that they were never happy no matter what weather was doing. 

The story hits a little closer to home when you have some sweat equity invested in even "small" scale food plots as well as money invested for fertilizer, seed, and roundup. Not to mention the tractors, implements, diesel fuel and all the miscellaneous costs I spend each year.  Do I sound like a farmer yet? 

So back to the present!  I have been checking on my corn fields every week to see what I can expect for corn production and make decisions on whether or not I need to mow it down and start fresh with fall green food sources. 

Of my 3 main areas planted all within 3 weeks I have all ends of the spectrum covered.

  

The first area planted I will actually make corn and although the field did show signs of serious stress it got just enough moisture late to fill out the ears and I am confident that it would yield 150 bushel or better per acre if it was to be harvested.

The second field planted, probably 10 to 12 acres, I will be considering a total loss and have already mowed some of it down to plant fall greens. It turned yellow earlier and never got taller than 6'.  Even this field after a couple late rains shows signs of trying to still produce an ear of corn, but realistically it is too late for this corn. 

The last field planted which is about a 5 acre corn field has a mixture of both good areas and some areas that look like it burned up.  All in all I think it would average 80 bushel per acre. 

My conclusion is that I do not completely understand the corn plant and its needs at variable times of growth, but overall I'm amazed at its resourcefulness to at any cost try to produce an ear of corn.    

….Now I'm just praying for rain for my fall green plots!!!! -Dave Reisner

Ben Rising - What a Year!

Last year Rising/Woods team had an awesome deer hunting season. This year it seems like if there wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all this season. In order to fully explain all of our bad luck, I need to rewind a few months back to July. My wife Melody was going through a rough time with her back. After finally convincing her to go to the Dr., once she could barely walk, she had Xrays done. Here her left leg is slightly longer than her right which has made her lower spine twisted, vertebra are unaligned vertically and suffering from 2 herniated disks. So she started a long treatment to try and get better. She was desperate to get better not only just to be able to live a normal life again but also to be able to get into a tree by the end of Sept.

Shortly after starting her healing process, our oldest son Zach had an accident. Trying to help me at the mill, he took it upon himself to try and dislodge a piece of wood that was stuck in a conveyor belt. Needless to say, the belt caught his glove and pulled his arm in. He was stuck in the machine for 20 minutes while Jarod Hawkins, his family and my fellow coworkers desperately tried to get him dislodged from the machine. Once we finally got him out I was afraid of what would happen. Surprisingly, while stuck there was little blood, so I was afraid that it would start flowing uncontrollably once we was free. BUT it didn't even though he had a gash about 8" long all the way done to the bone and open about 4" across. After getting him to the hospital he ended up going into surgery for 2hrs to repair his arm. The Dr was completely amazed!! He had just missed his main nerve and artery and could not figure our how he managed to not severe either one. A week after surgery there was signs of infection starting. It was a long recovery for him also, but recover he did and soon started physical therapy to regain strength in his arm. His biggest concern at that point was whether or not he would be able to pull a bow back by the end of Sept.

So basically that is how our summer went. All vacations were canceled and we spent the rest of the summer focusing on getting Melody and Zach healed. Finally by the end of Sept Melody was feeling A LOT better and only needs to go in every so often for adjustments (though her spine is still twisted and unaligned and prob will forever be so) her herniated disks are healed and therefor the pain is gone as long as she stays on top of it. Zach finally ended therapy and has regained strength back from 10lbs to 43lbs of strength in his arm (FYI-he has 96lbs of strength in good arm). Needless to say he will NOT be pulling a bow back this year. But we are just grateful that he will be able to go at all and have use of his arm.

So with all that said and done, it is time for bow hunting season to start. As most know by now, I am partners in an outfitting business with Jarod Hawkins. We start full camp by mid October so that gives me until then to hunt and film on my own personal properties. I have had my sights on a certain buck but he has been completely unpredictable and nocturnal. I was hoping by 1st or 2nd week of Oct he would be showing up more in the daylight. But NO, we hit that Oct lull that everyone's been talking about. The days got shorter, but a whole lot warmer!! Now it seems he has completely disappeared. I haven't gotten a picture of him in over 2wks.

We have had several other nice bucks that we have been keeping an eye on, hoping that they would make it through the season and become some serious studs next year. Unfortunately, we have had calls saying that the bucks we've been watching were harvested by neighbors. One has been hit but not recovered yet. Hope he made it!! I have included a trail photo of one that was harvested that we really hoped would make it. These are deer that have traveled off of our properties and been harvested on by neighbors. One deer in particular that Jarod had been keeping an eye on, was hit on the road. What's a guy to do??

Now it's work time and our hunters started showing up. And let me tell you, it was rough for them too. We were still in that Oct lull when our outfitting started. I don't think Ive ever seen it this bad before. By our second week of outfitting, the bucks were finally on their feet. We had several guys have opportunity, but just didn't make it happen with one wounding a nice one but unable to recover it due to a bad hit. We are now in our 3rd week of outfitting and things are really picking up with several nice harvests. Two of my best buds Kenney Bevans and James Mugrave help us out along throughout the summer hanging stands and such, so they get to come out and hunt our outfitting properties. Kenney was able to harvest a really nice buck on Sunday. I have included a Kodak video of him with his buck.

So now we are keeping our fingers crossed and hustling like crazy to get our hunters deer. In the mean time, I will be guiding and hopefully getting a little free time to get out myself and Melody out and on film. Soon I am scheduled to head out to Iowa and Illinois, so maybe then my luck will change.

Until then I'm hoping the RISING lull will end soon and you will all hear from me soon!!

Ben Rising

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!

John O'Dell - Down and Out....

I truly enjoy every aspect of whitetail deer hunting and that normally means that this time of year I would be hanging stands, planting food plots, and shooting my PSE XForce in 3D tournaments or at our local archery club. This year however I ran into a snafu. I also enjoy playing softball during the summer.

That said I was playing softball for our company coed softball team at JCrew. It was late in the second game of a double header and I was playing left center field. I went to plant my foot like I have done thousands of times before to charge a fly ball and that’s when it happened. I heard a loud “POP” and my left foot literally collapsed and I hit the ground. Being the competitive person that I am I wanted to go after the ball but I quickly ascertained that I could not move my left foot at all. It was just dangling and I felt a sharp pain in the back of my ankle. Ugh! So after being carried off the field by my team mates; I took the golf cart ride to a friend’s car and went directly to the emergency room. It was later determined that I tore my achilles tendon. Then I had to have surgery to reattach the tendon. Believe me that it is as painful as it sounds!!

From what I understand I am on a long path to recovery. My days consist of trying to figure out how to do everyday activities like shower and go to work with crutches or by hoping on one leg! I plan to be diligent with my physical therapy so that I am prepared for my first hunt with long time filming partner Dave Resiner this fall. It will be four to six weeks before I can begin rehab so I guess I will have to get used to my crutches for now. One thing is for certain that I will be shooting early and often with my PSE once I can stand on both feet again.