Mark & Terry Drury - We're Back In The Studio!

Hey everybody! We wanted to give all of our fans a quick update on some of the extracurricular things that we have been up to over the last 6 months or so.


Last summer we were privileged to be asked to shoot a Bad Boy Buggie commercial with our good friend David Blanton. The guys at Triple Horse Productions out of Georgia did a phenomenal job as they do on all of the commercials that they are apart of. The shoot went well and the commercial turned out great! We've had a bunch of positive feedback from it and you can currently catch it airing on the Outdoor Channel. Here are a few of the pictures from the shoot.



This past fall we combined to have our best deer season personally in 20 years! We feel very fortunate and particularly blessed to be able to have that type of a season on what is our 20th year in the industry with Drury Outdoors. Stay tuned in the coming months to see the new DVD releases as well as the television shows on the Outdoor Channel. If you would like to see more info on the harvests click over on our journal to read up on each one.

In January we headed to the ATA and SHOT shows in Indy and Orlando. At the ATA show we were humbled to win the 2008 NIKON Monarch Award presented for excellence in TV and Video Production! We would like to thank everyone at NIKON for presenting us with this award and feel very gracious and honored.


February has rolled around and we are as busy as ever! This week a production crew from the Outdoor Channel has been sent to shoot an episode for a new show titled "ICONS" premiering in the 3rd quarter of 2009. The show will highlight several of the "Icons" in the Outdoor Industry and we were asked to be apart of one of the shows. The production crew came to our hometown and interviewed our parents as well as our siblings and other family members. It was neat to go to our old stomping grounds and visit the "40 Acre Club" where it all began for us! Here is a pic of our folks being interviewed. It was a very neat experience.

In closing, we just want to share a few pictures that were emailed to us from a loyal/die-hard Drury Outdoors Fan! Corey Stigers of Illinois has a tattoo that would make John Frank proud! He not only has a Mossy Oak tattoo, but he now has a Drury Outdoors tattoo on his other arm to match it! We met Corey at the ATA Show in Indy this year and he told us that he was going to get the tattoo done....and he lived up to his word! Thank you Corey for your extreme devotion to Drury Outdoors we hope our productions live up to all of our fans standards for many more years to come!


Safe Hunting! -Mark & Terry Drury

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

John O'Dell - What a Month!

Well the month of September 2008 turned out to be a great month! Although Dave and I did not have any luck on our short trip out west (2 days) to Sherman Creek Outfitters, we did have a couple of close encounters. I had a 170” Mule deer buck in velvet at 10 yards but he came in directly behind the rock blind I was hiding in and I could not get turned around for the shot. Then Dave had a great encounter with a black bear at 10 yards on the ground but opted to pass the shot as Joe had some pictures of a monster bear that he though was 400 lbs plus! We plan to head back out to hunt with Joe and Jodi in December as Joe has a number of great deer on camera. Hopefully we’ll have better luck then.

The reason our hunt was cut short is that Suzy and I were expecting a new addition to the family. If I would have missed the birth of my child I am pretty sure I would be living with Joe and Jodi permanently. Luckily for me baby O’Dell waited to arrive on the morning of Saturday the 13th of September. Macy Elizabeth O’Dell was born 8 lbs 4 oz 21.5”. My son Jacob had the quote of the day when she was born as he said when asked what he thought about his new baby sister “Well I kind of wanted a brother but at least we got something”! J Mom and baby are doing great! Dad is tired from lack of sleep!



One week after Macy’s arrival my lovely wife was gracious enough to let me fly to St. Louis for our Drury Outdoors annual fall meeting. At the meeting we review upcoming titles and themes for the DVD’s and TV shows. We also have the opportunity to view new products from our wonderful sponsors and we have the opportunity to spend time as team members swapping hunting stories and just having a great time together. The weekend culminates with the annual awards banquet. It is an incredible atmosphere where we get to see highlights from the hunts our teams captured from the previous hunting season. There is always some good humor mixed in from some of the bloopers from the season and this year was special in that we celebrated Drury Outdoors upcoming 20th year anniversary! (Congratulations again Mark and Terry!) Having been on the team for 15 of those years it doesn’t seem possible that so much time has passed. I guess that is why they say time flies when you are having fun! During the awards show there are also different categories were team members are recognized amongst their peers for outstanding production. The pinnacle of these awards is the “Producer of the Year”. The competition for this category has become intense and realistically could go to several teams. This year however I was extremely fortunate to be the recipient of this prestigious award. It was an awesome feeling to win but it was equally enjoyable to celebrate with all of my good friends and Drury Team Members. I only wish Suzy could have been there as well but she was home taking care of Macy Elizabeth.



Well October has finally arrived and as usual Dave and I can’t wait to get in the deer stand! We have several pictures of some giant bucks on our Reconyx camera. Amy will up to bat first with early season muzzleloader in Iowa (Suzy is taking the year off due to Macy’s feeding schedule) and then Dave and I will get after it with PSE’s in hand. Hopefully my next updates will be on the journal page with some big bucks down.

Safe Hunting!

John

Mark & Terry Drury - Busy Few Weeks!

What a busy past couple of weeks we have had at Drury Outdoors! We had our annual Shoot To Thrill Award Show at the end of September where all of our Teams come in from across the country to celebrate the past years accomplishments and to look ahead to the upcoming year.

We not only celebrated a great year in which we harvested over 100 whitetails on film, but we also looked forward to 2009 and our 20th Year Anniversary as a company! We had some special guest appearances and John O'Dell walked away the big winner with the coveted 2008 Producer of the Year Award!

This past week we were at Hadley Creek Outfitters in Pike County Illinois filming for our upcoming year of Dream Season TV titled REDEMPTION! We assembled an electric cast of characters from seasons past. The weather was great at Hadley and we had some wonderful encounters. Team Missouri - Chris and Jeff Propst - even ended the week perfectly by Chris harvesting the only buck of the trip.



Not to mention the great shooting competition that was involved! We can't give too many of the details away, but here is a pic to help hold you over until next summer :)

As if all of this wasn't enough....we had the esteemed photographer Michael Engelmeyer from Great Outdoors Studios in to shoot our custom built "I Shot It With My PSE" grand prize giveaway Bike for the 2009 TV Season! Man oh man, he shot some outstanding pics and truly is a talented photographer. Here are a couple sample shots of his work this weekend.



For more info on how you can sign up and submit an entry to be apart of next years "I Shot It With My PSE" on Bow Madness Season 2 click here.

Good luck this fall and remember to always be safe out there! -Mark & Terry Drury

Louie Payne - Hot Times in Kentucky

Summers in Kentucky are always long, dry and hot. Rainfall this time of year is hard to come by but once again we took the gamble by putting our food plots in the ground by mid August. Hunting over a field of green Biologic is something that Mother Nature controls. We were lucky enough to get one good rain right after we put the seed in the ground and boy did it get things rolling. Now we are keeping our fingers crossed that the Hurricanes in the south will bring Kentucky just a little bit of rain and keep our food plots going.

This year I had high hopes of taking a velvet buck but did I get a surprise! After checking the Reconyx camera last weekend, August 28th we had pics of bucks in velvet. But on the 29th of August the same bucks had gone through the complete process of losing the velvet. What a sight to see! We all know once that velvet comes off; it’s a whole new ball game. Nevertheless we will be chasing these bucks in the high Kentucky heat hoping for a cold front soon.

J.J. Kolesar - Back 2 School

Well, the season is rapidly approaching, and Kyle and I are trying every tactic in our bow-hunting arsenal to spot some giant whitetails. Currently, we have been catching some beautiful bucks on our new Reconyx Cameras (which are wonderful by the way). The key is where will old mossy horns be when he sheds his velvet? This is a question that always seems to puzzle us in October.


The summer has ended and school is officially underway, so I guess it is back to reality. Between classes and football practices, we try to get our glasses out and see if we can put any pieces of the puzzle together. We are in the midst of dicing up some soil for our fall food plots. Kyle and I are going to experiment with some deep woods hunting plots in hopes to get closer to a bruiser during daylight hours. We will see how it goes. Hope everyone is doing well. Have a great season! See you all in a few weeks.
Thanks, J.J. & Kyle

John O'Dell - Passing On The Tradition

Well I am finally walking without the support of a walking boot and crutches. My achilles is getting better everyday, so it is time to get back to normal late summer activities. That said I was able to take the kids fishing again. We had a blast catching lots of bluegills and bass despite the summer heat. Jacob definitely caught the most fish with the aid of his "Sponge Bob" bobber while Madison caught ole "big mouth bass". It was a really nice fish for this time of year.

Suzy and I are getting ready for the new addition to our family which will be here soon with a due date of September 19th. She has also been busy with back to school shopping with the kids. This has given me the time to do some scouting and Dave and I are getting some great photos of some giant deer already.


Dave and I are headed back to Sherman Creek Outfitters to hunt with our good friends Joe and Jodi Rasmussen for the archery season opener in Eastern Washington State. As usual Joe has some dandy whitetail bucks in velvet that he has patterned. This year he has an added surprise for us. He has been getting some great pictures of some nice mule deer in velvet. He has also been seeing quite a few black bears so he said we might want to buy a tag. He won't have to twist my arm! If you recall Dave and Joe played a fast one on me last year with the two sided coin so that means I am up to bat first this year and I can't wait.

I am anticipating the 08' deer season as much as any season ever. The reason is because my daughter Madison is going to try to take her first deer with a bow. She has been shooting a Browning bow from our friends at PSE and I think you'll agree from the attached photo that she is shooting pretty well. I can't wait to spend time with her in the woods this fall and with any luck I will film her harvest her first deer. Although it will be awhile before her little brother can hunt he already enjoys shooting his bow with dad.

Well my next blog will be after I get back from Sherman Creek Outfitters so hopefully I will have a good story to tell.