Fitz's 2011 Season Journal (*semi-live)

Well, Hunt #1 is in the books. What a way to start off the season

It always feels so good first time out, but this year I've just got a feeling. What an awesome sit! The wind was blowing pretty good out of the south, about 15mph but it dropped to 7 by the time I headed in. Got to see one of my favorite creatures of the woods, the Pine Marten. Gotta love any animal that specializes in eating red squirrels

Every thing was going as expected. Around 6:30 I though I could hear something approaching behind me from the SE. I slowly stood and readied myself while listening. All I could hear was one step about every minute or so, then nothing. I stood frozen for 15 min. Chalking it up to my imagination, I sat back down. 5 min later I heard steps again coming my way. I standing & ready, my ears hear the unmistakable sound of a moose grunt. Then another. Powered up my iPhone and hit record. The young bull circled from my 5 o'clock to my 9 about 30 yds out, then came straight in to the tree at about 4 yards grunting and clicking the whole time! What a treat!

After a couple minutes of grunting and displaying, he turned and headed on his initial course. I don't think he ever caught my wind, or saw me. Man what a fun night.

I think I had a deer head toward the lake on the other side of the inlet, but I never got a visual.

Can't wait to get back at it. We'll see how my next few days pan out. I may head back there tomorrow, otherwise I'll wait until Mon and do a run & gun set to the North.... maybe both

 

The videos are taking awhile to upload to Photobucket, so they may not be posted until tomorrow...

 

I wanna see you put a moose in your canoe.

 

yeah that would be a sight. sounds like a great hunt.

 

Let's see if I can get youtube to work. Whenerver I upload to photobucket, the video gets choppy...

[video=youtube_share;P-eUnQ-qZKA]http://youtu.be/P-eUnQ-qZKA[/video]

 

Here are the other two.

[video=youtube_share;CjhiM5aDa1E]http://youtu.be/CjhiM5aDa1E[/video]

[video=youtube_share;FTAGCnDKJFA]http://youtu.be/FTAGCnDKJFA[/video]

 

Awesome ! ! !

 

That is freakin' cool!!! Can I come up and hunt sometime? Did he follow your scent to your tree?

What kind of setup do you have for your phone. Looks like something I'd be interested in doing.

 

Donnie

Here's a photo of my set up:





I'm using Insane Archery's camera mount, but I opted to go with a different case for my iPhone. I picked the Xshot because it offered both portrait & landscape mounting as well as being able to quickly disconnect it for txt & posting purposes.

Here are the links:

Insane Archery

xshot

 

One tip:

On my bow hand (left), I took my light weight glove and cut the tip of my index finger off. Then took a lighter and singed the edge to keep it from fraying. With this set up, I can power-up, record & pause my iPhone all while at full draw

 

Fritz, I love threads like these. Your vidoes came out great. I did this yesterday for the very first time from my ground blind with my Nikon D90 mounted on a tripod. Only problem was I need to figure out on to set the metering when doing video. The inside of the blind was darker and as soon as the sun got high enough the outside washed out pretty bad. I have a droid X2 that takes awesome video...maybe I should fab up a mount to my xBow for it.

 

Not really. He may have come in on part of my trail initially, but by the time I was rolling on him, he was well off of it. Then he circled to the opposite side of the tree from which I come in on, and came straight in. This was all while being completely up wind.

From his vantage point in the last movie, he could overlook the same creek bottom I hunt over. With all the grunting and slight displaying, I think he was looking for love

I thought about trying to call him back in, but I didn't want to be trapped in my tree until 10PM

 

Awesome. I think that mount is an awesome idea. I remember your initial thread about it, but I'm going to look around for something like that for my droid.

 

Well between the rain ans the SE winds today, I don't think that I'm going to head out. With over 100 more days in the season, I guess I don't need to hunt an iffy wind. I have a few spots I could go with the SE wind, but they aren't as good so sitting in the rain there doesn't do it for me.

The winds will switch to the NW for tomorrow, so... I'm going to set up on Blade in that mature stand to the North

Plus I want to get my memory card in that area

 

Cool thread, I'll be following all season.

 

Yo Fitzy baby! I just bought that cool mount thingy..lol. I'll give it a go in lets say a month I don't have an iphone so im gunna use a standard cheapo camera I have. One question. Can you tilt that thing in order to line up your field of view better or does it only turn back and forth???hmmmm??? tell me!!!lol

 

Sean, I'm not sure what you mean by tilt? When you mount it behind the stabalizer, its in line with your POI. You can the swing it to either side of this riser.

 

Very cool Fitz! Im def jealous of where you live.... If only the wife, kid, and job would move.... lol!

 

I appreciate the links, Fitz. I'm almost positive I'll buy the Insane Archery Mount. I have a point and shoot that films in HD that would be perfect for it. It's also waterproof so even better. Doubt I'll use my phone...great idea though!

Is your video interrupted while someone is calling/texting you?

 

Ok cool. After seeing your vid and how easy that thing looked I had to get one. By tilt i ment up and down not side to side but I think by looking at it it doesn't tilt. But it does look like it mounts in a way that gives you a great view. Have you tried shooting targets with it and you are able to see POI?