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It is Thursday, August 05, 2010 and I have decided to enter the MM Hunt Adventure Challenge! I'm not a professional writer or videographer or hunter for that matter. I consider myself an average guy with an above average passion for hunting.
So why am I doing this? Well, first I think that most MM readers are average people like me and so maybe they can relate to some of the things I write or photos I show. Secondly, I think the hunts that are on my plate for 2010 will allow me to communicate a wide range of experiences ? archery to rifle, DIY to guided, solo to multiple hunters and personal tag to just helping out family members. And finally, I've never kept a journal or even a very organized record of past hunting adventures. Participating in the Hunt Adventure Challenge will force me to take notes and photos and record experiences in a logical manner.
So my goal is not necessarily to win a prize at the end of this, but rather to document my experiences of the coming year and share them with all the MM devotees. I will attempt to show how an average guy approaches the hunting seasons and communicate the trials, tribulations, successes and failures along the way. My intent is to record at least one experience each day from now until the conclusion of my last hunt of the year. It may not always be possible to post every day, but I will indicate the date of the event in each post.
So to wrap it up for my first post, let me give you a little background on the characters that will be involved in my Chronicle and a sneak peek at the hunts that will be covered. Let's start with myself: my name is Bill and I'm pressing hard against the dreaded age of 50! I'm in better shape than I have been in quite a while mostly due to going cold turkey from alcohol just over a year ago. I have a professional job that gives me a decent income (I am not wealthy), but also limits my time off. I have lived in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ for about 20 years and am originally from rural MN. In addition to the tags mentioned below, I have an archery deer tag for unit 13B in AZ ? the famous strip country! This is the first hunt of the year and begins August 20. Not much time to get ready!
I have been married 25+ years to my wife, Kelly, who also hunts when drawn in AZ, but doesn't apply at all for out-of-state hunts. She is a trooper and has received more than one marriage proposal from fellow hunters who have witnessed her skinning an elk or deer. Kelly has an antlerless elk tag for AZ unit 3C West in mid-October and a mule deer tag for AZ unit 3A/3C at the end of October. This unit is about a 2.5 hour drive from our home, but we own a cabin in the area, so we won't exactly be roughing it. I will just be a helper on these adventures.
We have two sons, Cody (18) and Jordan (17) who have both been applying for AZ tags since they were of legal age. Cody has also applied with me on a few out-of-state hunts and we were drawn for the first time this year. We will be hunting antelope in NM in mid-October (doesn't directly conflict with Kelly?s elk hunt)! We were very fortunate to draw these tags, but we were assigned to separate ranches and early research shows they are not the very best ranches for numbers of antelope. We will see on the quality.
These are the four core hunts I will be writing about in my Chronicle. There?s a chance we'll try to pick up leftover deer tags for the boys and a chance that I'll go back to MN for whitetails, but time off work and school is pretty constrained. We should be able to get out and chase some dove and maybe quail when those seasons roll around.
With that intro, I'll call it good for this first post. I will try to add some pictures tonight so you can put some faces to the names and we can show off a few of the trophies (in our minds anyway) from years past. After the photos, my next post will address the mad rush of preparation for my quest for a Monster Muley!
It is Thursday, August 05, 2010 and I have decided to enter the MM Hunt Adventure Challenge! I'm not a professional writer or videographer or hunter for that matter. I consider myself an average guy with an above average passion for hunting.
So why am I doing this? Well, first I think that most MM readers are average people like me and so maybe they can relate to some of the things I write or photos I show. Secondly, I think the hunts that are on my plate for 2010 will allow me to communicate a wide range of experiences ? archery to rifle, DIY to guided, solo to multiple hunters and personal tag to just helping out family members. And finally, I've never kept a journal or even a very organized record of past hunting adventures. Participating in the Hunt Adventure Challenge will force me to take notes and photos and record experiences in a logical manner.
So my goal is not necessarily to win a prize at the end of this, but rather to document my experiences of the coming year and share them with all the MM devotees. I will attempt to show how an average guy approaches the hunting seasons and communicate the trials, tribulations, successes and failures along the way. My intent is to record at least one experience each day from now until the conclusion of my last hunt of the year. It may not always be possible to post every day, but I will indicate the date of the event in each post.
So to wrap it up for my first post, let me give you a little background on the characters that will be involved in my Chronicle and a sneak peek at the hunts that will be covered. Let's start with myself: my name is Bill and I'm pressing hard against the dreaded age of 50! I'm in better shape than I have been in quite a while mostly due to going cold turkey from alcohol just over a year ago. I have a professional job that gives me a decent income (I am not wealthy), but also limits my time off. I have lived in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ for about 20 years and am originally from rural MN. In addition to the tags mentioned below, I have an archery deer tag for unit 13B in AZ ? the famous strip country! This is the first hunt of the year and begins August 20. Not much time to get ready!
I have been married 25+ years to my wife, Kelly, who also hunts when drawn in AZ, but doesn't apply at all for out-of-state hunts. She is a trooper and has received more than one marriage proposal from fellow hunters who have witnessed her skinning an elk or deer. Kelly has an antlerless elk tag for AZ unit 3C West in mid-October and a mule deer tag for AZ unit 3A/3C at the end of October. This unit is about a 2.5 hour drive from our home, but we own a cabin in the area, so we won't exactly be roughing it. I will just be a helper on these adventures.
We have two sons, Cody (18) and Jordan (17) who have both been applying for AZ tags since they were of legal age. Cody has also applied with me on a few out-of-state hunts and we were drawn for the first time this year. We will be hunting antelope in NM in mid-October (doesn't directly conflict with Kelly?s elk hunt)! We were very fortunate to draw these tags, but we were assigned to separate ranches and early research shows they are not the very best ranches for numbers of antelope. We will see on the quality.
These are the four core hunts I will be writing about in my Chronicle. There?s a chance we'll try to pick up leftover deer tags for the boys and a chance that I'll go back to MN for whitetails, but time off work and school is pretty constrained. We should be able to get out and chase some dove and maybe quail when those seasons roll around.
With that intro, I'll call it good for this first post. I will try to add some pictures tonight so you can put some faces to the names and we can show off a few of the trophies (in our minds anyway) from years past. After the photos, my next post will address the mad rush of preparation for my quest for a Monster Muley!