Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Get a cool Gamebirdhunts.com Hat

Click on the pheasant hunting hat to see a larger imageThe New Gamebirdhunts.com Hats Are Here. Pheasant Hunt In Style This Year!


Don't hit the field this season with out a new pheasant hunting hat from Game Bird Hunts. This adjustable hat is great quality and features a split cut out featuring Real Tree Hardwoods Camo on the bill. The Gamebirdhunts.com logo is embroidered onto the front. This hat would make a great gift for the pheasant hunter on your list. Be on the look out for hat give away's as well in the near future. $15/ Hat







Tuesday, September 23, 2008

New Taxidermy Website- Learn Taxidermy Online

Taxidermy Tube- Learn Taxidermy OnlineA whole new way for sportsmen to learn about taxidermy is now available on the internet. http://www.taxidermytube.com/, a joint venture between the television show Taxidermy For The Sportsman and Foremost Media, Inc. officially launched September 15th, 2008. The website offers aspiring taxidermists and curious hunters the opportunity to learn taxidermy by watching professionally produced instructional videos online and to corresponding with a panel of professional taxidermist via a private message board.

According to the site webmaster Jon Ballard, the site currently contains over 20 hours of instructional video and new videos are being produced and added on a weekly basis. Topics range from preparing your game harvest for the taxidermist to actually mounting the game yourself. According to site host and master taxidermist Dan Rinehart “The most popular video so far seems to be the European Skull Mount Videos followed by the Turkey Tail Mount Videos”. According to Dan, these two projects are less involved then a deer shoulder mount and instructions are in high demand by sportsman. “Once people see how easy these projects can be with our instructional videos we believe they will move on to more challenging projects like the flying pheasant mount or the shoulder mount deer project” says Dan. “We have just completed a series on how to full mount a fox and that should be online soon as well. We have a full production schedule this fall with many new titles to be released on the site soon.”

In addition to the professionally produced taxidermy videos from the folks at Taxidermy For the Sportsman the site also allows sportsman to upload their own taxidermy videos and correspond with other site members.

Membership in http://www.taxidermytube.com/ is only $19.99/ Month and sample videos can be found on the site as well as helpful articles and information about taxidermy.

TaxidermyTube.com is a website that allows hunters and sportsmen to learn taxidermy by watching online videos. For more information on the website please visit http://www.taxidermytube.com/ or email jballard@foremostmedia.com
Thursday, September 11, 2008

2007- The Good Old Days Of Pheasant Hunting-

Could 2007 soon be referred to as the good old days of pheasant hunting? It could unless we as hunters get involved in the new farm bill-

Why you ask???- The answer is the massive habitat losses year and into next year from the acres of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that are soon-to-expire and the high price of corn and beans.

So what can we do????- Contact your congress man or senator and tell them that you want a new strong farm bill that favors conservation. The Farm Bill will be introduced in the U.S. Senate soon, so get your butt going.

Did you know??? - CRP and other federal farmland conservation programs accounting for over 50 million acres nationwide. You have probably even chased some birds on this land over the past 10 years.

I borrowed some of this info from my buddies over at Pheasants Forever. To read their complete report please visit their site: www.pheasantsforever.com

Hunting, Politics and Women Hunting

I'm a hunter first and a Republican party member second. I guess when it comes down to it if I had to choose between hunting rights and political party hunting rights would trump almost every time. So now that I've lost 50% of my readers (I'm down from 4 of you to 2) I just have to share these pictures of VP Candidate and Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin:



You can see more pictures at Foremost Hunting

Regardless of your political lean you have to be excited about a women that hunts, runs a state and is running for VP of the country.
Friday, September 05, 2008

High Gas Prices and Pheasant Hunting

We recently published a article on how hunters were using some of our hunting directories to search for local alternatives for their hunting trips this year. Typical searches on these sites are most often for hunters planning a over the road trip 100's of miles from their home. This year however a much higher precentage of searches done on www.gamebirdhunts.com and www.foremosthunting.com are from local hunters searching their local area for hunting opportunities. That article seems to be reinforced by the following article released today by the National Shooting Sports Foundation:

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- For many hunters, that 300-mile drive to deer camp may be put on hold this year. Unwilling -- or unable -- to spend more on gasoline than licenses and lodging, many hunters are checking out their options closer to home.

Recent surveys have shown that this is a national trend among American hunters. According to research conducted by Southwick Associates' HunterSurvey.com, "40 percent of hunters indicated that rising gas prices will cause them to reduce their outdoor activities or reduce their travel distance."

Realizing that gaining access to both public and private land can be one of a hunter's most daunting challenges, some state fish and game departments have developed innovative programs to address the problem.

Pennsylvania, for example, provides the public with detailed maps that show areas accessible by local hunters. These include state game, forest and park lands, and national forest property, totaling over 3.5 million acres. Through a "landowner cooperator" program, an additional two million acres of private property have also been opened up to the state's hunters.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) recently unveiled a state-of-the-art mapping program using Google Maps. It's a user-friendly service especially valuable for those new to hunting or new to the state. "Every hunter knows scouting is key to success, and these Google Maps make it easy to start scouting at home," said Matthew Keenan, ODFW's Access and Habitat Program Coordinator. The map features state wildlife areas, national wildlife refuges and private lands open to hunting through the state's Access and Habitat and Upland Cooperative Access programs. Each area even has a descriptive bubble that provides information about the principal species hunted, size of the area, access periods and special regulations.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), working with sportsmen and landowners, provides sportsmen access to private land and through private land to public lands with a program called "Access Yes!"

"The 'Access Yes!' program is an exciting opportunity to get sportsmen and landowners together to improve habitat, increase hunting access and benefit private landowners. An additional benefit is that landowners and sportsmen get to know and respect each other," commented Jim Unsworth, deputy director for IDFG.

In 2008 IDFG has made 444,735 private acres accessible to sportsmen and access to an additional 381,310 acres of public ground by working with private landowners. "We are doing our part to keep our hunters hunting at home in Idaho," said Unsworth.

These programs, and similar ones in other states, have received significant funding from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, through its Hunting Heritage Partnership Program.


Here is our article on how gas prices are effecting hunters:
Hunting For Local Hunting Locations- Gas Prices Squeeze Hunters
Will high gas prices be the end of hunting? Probably not but hunters may be hunting closer to home this year.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 04, 2008 – With gas prices up at all time record highs hunters are finding it much more expensive to get to those remote hunting locations. "We are bracing for a tuff season" says Tennessee hunting guide Brett Gill. Hunters aren't willing to travel as far and much of their disposable income is being consumed by their trucks and cars." According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation 18.5 million hunters contribute more than $30 billion annually to the U.S. economy and support more than 986,000 jobs. Hunters not only spend money on guns and shells they also drive larger vehicles and travel long distances staying at hotels and dining out.

If there is a silver lining to the high gas prices it may be for many of the local hunting clubs. Many hunters are starting to look towards more local hunting opportunities in stead of a long road trips to far away locations. According to http://www.gamebirdhunts.com a hunting directory that allows hunters to search for pheasant hunting clubs in their area, they are seeing a large increase in the number of short radius searches. In other words hunters are not looking at far away trips like they use to. "The most popular search seems to be within a 100 mile radius of home" says www.gamebirdhunts.com webmaster Matt Brown. Another hunting site http://www.foremosthunting.com confirms this. "Many of our searches appear to be local hunters looking for hunting locations in their home state" These types of searches seem to be up 30% over last year.

Will high gas prices be the end of hunting? Probably not but hunters may be hunting closer to home this year.

# # #

Foremost Hunting is a directory of hunting locations organized by US state. In addition to our extensive list of hunting guides and outfitters we also offer a hunting community that allows hunters to connect, share photos, videos and stories for free


Here is a quote from the Washington Times:

Southwick Associates Inc., the pollsters of outdoors activities, confirm what so many of us fear: The high price of gasoline could seriously impact even short travels among anglers and hunters - and in some cases curtail them altogether.


The bright side to all this may be that for those willing to drive a ways there may be some deals on hunting packages. Stay tuned!

Followers