COOSEFAN

Thanks! I made a special trip up north specifically looking for branches to replicate the area where I killed the buck on the lower west side of 12aw. I also think it is spot on and glad you do as well! Thanks again! JIM>

The extreme wide angle lens on the GoPro cam makes the objects appear ALOT farther than they are! I paced off my first shot at 12 yards and the video makes it look like 50! Next time I'll have the big camera rolling at the same time! JIM>

I found another pic that I had on my cell phone which better illustrates just how big bodied Sticks actually was and how big the mount is. In the pic you can see the good sized buck on the left and how much bigger bodied Sticks was! They grow em' big on the 'Bab!

I just got back from my turkey hunt and it was very tough! In 2 1/2 days from 1 hour before light till late at night I covered the entire unit trying to find a gobble. I only had 1 bird that would gobble a couple times after flydown and then shut up and 1 other bird that had a hen and only gobbled once just to let me know not to waste my time on him! I did successfully run in on the 1 tom that would gobble on flydown but because he would only gobble once every 15-20 minutes I unknowingly set up too close to him and with my first call he shock gobbled in my face and blew outta there. Last night I changed my strategy and set a decoy up on the only water I found that had a track on it and called very soft and sparingly. About 1 hour before dark last night I finally had a hen and 2 jakes come in. They came in to the decoy and where pecking at it and as they finally walked past me I could see a beard on 1 of em' at 12 yards. That's when I decided it was time to end the misery of this quiet turkey hunt...BOOM,BOOM,BOOM...done! Luckily I borrowed my friend's Benelli and it shoots as fast as you can pull the trigger, it came in handy! I had the GoPro cam attached to the barrel of the gun and the video is pretty cool! The problem was the adaptor partially blocks the sights and with a 12 yard shot and an extra full choke I wasn't aiming as tight as I needed to... so there's my excuse for the 3 BOOM's!

They were all still packin' in Mexico couple days ago as well. JIM>

Man, I've got a tag that started today and instead of chasing birds I'm sittin' here at home I did get a big ol' long bearded Goulds to gobble and strut for me out of my truck window yesterday afternoon! He was lonely and easy to fire up with my lame turkey calls using just my voice. This was near Arizpe, MX though , I'm just hoping they are that stoopid on Monday when I finally get out! Good luck to all that are heading out! JIM>

Lake Pleasant. If I'm on a boat, cut the swim bladder and sink em' for the turtles. If I'm on land I chuck em' out of sight for the skunks and coons. They'll have a big carp down to nothing but a head and skeleton in 1 night. Nobody wants to see dead fish floating or laying all over the bank so what I do is what all the respectful bowfishermen do. I'm now headed to Alamo after Tilapia, and those tasty dudes will get thrown in an ice chest!

Hey guys, I ran out to try my new toy today and basically spent most of the time reading the manual and still messed up! I bought the new GoPro HD Hero2 thinking it will be a cool addition to our videos this year, plus I think it'll be awesome for bowfishing I'm guessing that last storm changed things up as it was very hard to find any carp today. The worst part for me was that after shooting the few carp that I did find I realized I was clicking the button twice putting the GoPro on camera mode and not video So I should've had a couple more kill shots but instead I have a couple pictures of the scene just before the shots! I finally realized I was messin' up and eventually got an awesome long shot on video. On my computer screen on full resolution I can see the fish and the quality of footage is awesome, but after downsizing it to make it web-friendly all the detail is washed out. Oh well, it's a work in progress and I'll get better at it! I should be shooting Tilapia tomorrow and Sunday so hopefully I have a better video for ya when I get back!

That would be a lot worse missing out on footage like that!

Great info guys thanks! JIM>

My Mexico trip was postponed till next week so every day this week for a couple hours I grabbed my bow and went huntin for carp! It's only 40 minutes from my house, gas is cheap in the 'Yota, and the carp are stacked in the shallows so it's no wonder what I've been doing I decided to try and take pics so I had my camera handy yesterday. Also, because of the short shots and shallow water I took the recurve instead of the compound. I haven't used this bow and reel for a while and completely forgot to click open the bail and with that first shot my line snapped (luckily!) Not so luckily, my arrow actually hit the fish and off he went! I dropped the bow and jumped in after em! I'm sure it would have been a sight to see for anyone watching as I chased my arrow all the way to the deep water and ultimately losing it! Fortunately I had packed in a second arrow so after tying it on the fish whackin' got started! The plan of attack was staying about 10 yards out from the bank in the water and shooting the fish that were up against it. I had cut a length of 100# braid line to use for a stringer so I could get a pic of the fish pile in the end and I kept it tied to my shorts while I waded around. Afer I had 10 or so on there I realized that I couldn't lift them all out of the water for the pic! My buddy had showed up and while I tried to lift the stringer out of the water for a pic it broke and half the fish slid off! So, I messed with and drug half those fish around with me for nothing! Oh well, it's always a blast gettin' down and dirty hunting those mud suckers on their level! I was only out for a couple hours and don't know how many I shot total. I did get 1 double yesterday and had 10 or so of the biggest ones on that stringer until it broke. I'll use a bigger rope next time

Awesome! Just hearing what materials you used helps a ton! Thanks, JIM>

Hey ROMO, it's Lake Pleasant. Joe, right where we were "noodlin" is where I was diving after my arrow! You should've seen it, water flyin' everywhere with me cussin' and chasing my arrow, but he finally made it into that deep pool. I'm older and a little smarter now (prolly had more to do with being scared!) so I didn't go in there after him with a knife like we would have back in the day! We had some good times back in those good ol' days in that spot! I'll try to build a shootin platform for my boat, I've been meaning to do it for years now, just hard to do on an expensive bass boat! I'll see if I can get it done in time for the "Shootin the Moon" tourney! Sounds like a blast! JIM>

That was an awesome video!! I thought it was cool when that second Heron went back into the water to wash the dirt off his dinner before trying to choke em' down! Maybe he was just getting him wet so he would slide down better? Very cool! JIM>

I've driven along that river many times but have only dreamed of fishing it! One of these days! At least for now I got to enjoy your post here! Congrats on a great trip and thanks for takin us along! JIM>

Was just there last weekend. The fishing WAS on fire last week but has been tapering off. The weather changes weekly so it could pick back up this week. 2 weeks ago the bite would start late morning and taper off mid day then pick back up late evening. Last weekend it was daylight till late morning and then never turned back on really for the rest of the day. This of course was our experience but others I talked to had similar stories. Pitchin' dark colored jigs seemed to be the best last weekend for us. Good luck! JIM>

Not to start a Pi$$ing match but that has to be one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard. The only time Fixed heads "suck" is if 1. The bow is not properly tuned or 2. The shooter has form issues. Whenever I tune my bow, after paper, walk back etc.. I shoot a fixed, mechanical (usually either rage, or T3 ) and a field point. I'm not happy until they all shoot together. Once a bow is tuned, almost any head mechanical or fixed will shoot great. I like G5 striker, montec or Wac em and now I am shooting the VPA's they are awesome. I would love to see someone shoot accurate groups at 80 yards with a fix blade as accurately as i can do with a mechanical. Fix blades take a lot more effort and time to tune to your bow. I personally have my bow paper tuned as well and it helps but they still doesn't compare to the mechanical broadheads. But thats also my opinion. You know just as well as i do, that if you ask 10 different archers one question about something you will get 10 different answers. Thanks for not taking my post as an attack, as it wasn't meant to be, and I agree everyone will have an opinion. Here is mine: I love to shoot broadheads, I shoot them all year around, I like to try and shoot as many brands, styles as I can. I have shot many, many broadheads and agree that mechanicals can be less sensitive to form. BUT for all of MY hunting applications, the difference between my mechanicals and fixed are negligible, out to my max hunting range. Shooting a fixed has two major advantages though. 1. (I like numbering my thoughts) When using a fixed head there is no premature deployment (quiver, or hitting branch or spider clip fail, or rubber band failure etc...) 2. When I practice with my fixed COC, VPA's I then can touch up the edge and hunt with them without having to take them off my arrow to change out blades or to take off the practice tip and re-screw in the hunting bh. Once my solid BH is spin tested, shot then I hunt with my practice tip WITH ABSOLUTELY NO ADJUSTMENTS TO THE ARROW/BROADHEAD except to resharpen and of course that is done without taking it off the arrow. Once thing I believe in is to shoot what you are comfortable with have confidence in, this archery game is mostly mental. One more thing, hitting an elk in the vitals at 60 yards is relativly easy, compared to hitting a coues deer. With an elk I would rather give up a minimal amount of accuracy to have a tougher, fixed head. again my opinion. Yeah, what he said too!!! JIM>

+1

Well, finally got out for a few days and had some fun! I first headed up and met some friends at one of their ranches to practice some LONG range shooting...and I couldn't pass up the fishing while there either We first set up and fouled the guns from the benches at 600 yards and then moved out to 800 and 1125 yards! I've practiced a bunch at 800 yards but this was the first time shooting farther than that! With more than 2 full rotations of the turret, we dialed in my 300WM and I was killing the steel elk target with every shot at 1125 yards! Although I will never shoot at an animal that far, it seriously builds up your skills and confidence at closer ranges and this rifle is ready for the season to start! Here's the 800-1125 yard set up, the targets are past the field and on top of the ridge... With a fish filled creek flowing through the ranch along with several ponds I jumped in a paddle boat and this was where the fun began! The trout were aggressive and the fighting was furious! For several hours I got pulled around the pond by one trout after another! Sure, it wasn't a high alpine setting on public land, but I did have several Coues deer watching me fish and the trout were big so I enjoyed the heck out of it! I tried using my picture taker camera to take video, I just set it down on the paddle boat and got some video of one of the catches. The pics I took of the Coues does that were watching me didn't turn out either. Here's a little clip I put together... Paddle Boat Trout Next, I ran home, took a shower and jumped in my buddy's truck and headed to Alamo Lake! My dad and nephew and some friends were already out there and my buddy Craig, his son Tanner and I were there by Friday night. I was really bad about leaving the camera in the glove box and never got any pics of the fish or sunsets. We caught a bunch, none were very big but it was fun! On the last day we finally got into some shootable fish. I grabbed the bow and knocked out 1 carp and 3 Tilapia right away. Tanner then took over and stuck his first Tilapia with my bow! It was a great weekend and now being back to reality sucks. I am headed to Mexico to scout some ranches tomorrow so reality will be short lived thankfully Thanks if you read through my post, JIM>

Man that makes my eyes water up. Losing a close friend like that is extremely hard and I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. I've got a GSP that is gettin up there in age and bracing myself for that dreaded day. You gave him a great life with lots of love, gotta focus on that and be thankful you had that time with him! Take care, JIM>

WOW!!! Those are some HUGE commons and that Buff is a PIG!!! I shot a few Tilapia and carp yesterday at Alamo in between catching bass, really need to get a deck built! Great job and thanks for sharing the pics! JIM>

I unfortunately had an external hard drive crash and lost thousands of photos and video recently and it's been a huge setback. I was able to scrounge up most of my important photos (thank God for photobucket!) and I put together a little "Hit List" for this coming season. These bulls are all still alive, a couple are really smart and a couple are really lucky, but they are all really big! Enjoy and congrats if you drew a tag! JIM> Mullins Outfitters Hit List 2012

LOL! He wishes he got the "milk dud"!!!! Sorry Jeff, no 27 bulls in that list, I'm sure there's 1 or 2 similar bulls over there tho

I never said you were good just that nobody can lip bawl bugle like you I left the part out about me teaching you everything you know LOL!

Yep, do what he says! I'll add that in 6a, some of the biggest bulls and least amount of hunting pressure will be in the lowest elevations.