The Foremost Outdoor TV crew ran into Daniel Hendricks at the 2011 ATA trade show and Dan was kind enough to do a little video interview:

Tom’s 196 square mile lease is covered up with antelope and I mean some real dandies.

A respectable number of requests for a good Pronghorn Antelope hunt have crossed my desk and I promised to see what I could uncover. Maryland member, Ron Williams provided me with a lead for an outfitter operating out of Douglas, Wyoming and guaranteed that we would like what he has to offer based on twelve consecutive years of hunting there. I spoke with the owner, Tom White about his company, Tom’s Antelope Adventures and he invited me to come out and see what he had to offer. Ron Williams said that he would come along on the maiden voyage and when I mentioned an Antelope Roundup to ACF member Gene Strie, he said he would come along to help evaluate.

We had to apply for licenses by March 15th and received them in the mail in July. Hotel reservations were made and we headed out for the third week of Tom Whites season arriving in Douglas on the 28th of August. During the trip, we learned that Tom had been running his bowhunting-only operation for 16 years and has 196 sections in his exclusive territory. He has primitive camping available or you may stay in Douglas at a variety of good hotels at reasonable rates.

Tom’s lease is covered up with antelope in big numbers and sizes. Both Ron and Gene filled their tags within the first half-hour of their hunt. I could have filled my tag too, but spent the first day and a half in the blind snapping hundreds of photos of antelope and a wide assortment of critters that came to the water hole for refreshment; it was fantastic! Late in the afternoon of the second day, I took a respectable Billy ending the hunt for our threesome in just over twenty-four hours. Tom and his wrangler, Clark were wonderfully accommodating about helping get the carcasses into the locker plant to be taken care of. Mine was skinned and cut up right at camp and placed in a cooler as I like to have my groceries processed at home.

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by Geoffery Toye, HBM European Correspondent

With ever more states in the USA encouraging the use of the crossbow for hunting, an enormous market has opened up.Crossbow sales have increased on an unprecedented scale, so much so that crossbowyers can scarcely keep up with demand.Predictably, in a society driven by free market forces, and with material and sourcing cost increasing, the retail price of hunting crossbows has increased apace; for some of us, perhaps prohibitively so.

Canadian Crossbowyers Excalibur have responded with their new crossbow, the Axiom.This is offered as a hunting crossbow of high quality, but with costs pared where possible without compromising that quality, which has made the company a world leader.

I have previously reviewed Excalibur bows and in my personal bow collection there are two, which I often shoot.I have found them to be robust, delivering excellent and dependable performance qualities which have seen them used in some of the hardest conditions on earth, and at sea, notable for scientific work, wildlife management and whale tagging.They are uncomplicated, recurve designs which have stood the test of time and not been found wanting.The founder of the company, Bill Troubridge, accidently drove a truck over one of his bows after which he reportedly dug it out of the dirt and shot it at a target only to discover that it had not lost its zero.He thought that would be a great thing to advertise his bows so he drove over it again, this time with a camera running, and filmed it all, including the same result.Do not try this at home; but you have to be impressed.

When I asked Bill what the Axiom was like he replied, “Like the Phoenix, but without the lipstick and high-heels.Want us to send one over?”Of course I did.

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Todd Graf has been a good, personal friend of mine for a decade and a half; and over the course of those years he has established a reputation within the industry as a serious bowhunter as well as a very competent business man. In recent years, he has entered into the field of hunting DVD production and I am here to report that he maintains his personal level of excellence in this endeavor as well.

I must confess that Todd presented me with a copy of his first production at the 2009 Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo and asked me to check it out. A year later at the same show, he asked what I thought of the DVD. I sheepishly had to admit that I had not taken the time to watch it in the past twelve months as I don’t spend my spare time watching hunting shows or videos. He admonished me, clucking in disapproval and then presented me with another copy of Volume One and as well as a copy of the newly released Volume Two. Culpably, I promised him that I would take the time to watch them sometime before the 2011 Expo.

Several weeks after returning home I sat down with a note pad and a inserted Volume 1 into the DVD player for a quick look. I settled in and spent over two hours delightfully entertained and at times even on the edge of my seat, watching one bowhunt after another as Todd and his friends pursued the wily whitetail deer with a stick and string. Read More......

When I found myself recently invited to prepare for an African Safari, I telephoned Anne Reeve and told her I already owned a good pocket knife but, as I did not want to use a rigid knife on this trip so I wanted a really strong folding hunter, very high quality but not too big and able to be stripped in the field. It had to be a Sebenza, a working tool and the benchmark against which all others are judged.

Anne is a charming conversationalist; the generous result of our discussion was two Sebenza 21 models for review, one large one small, both named to commemorate twenty-one years of manufacture.

These knives are plain and in photographs which could not possibly convey their subtlety, frankly look it. However, to see them in reality is to see how they came to be the recipients of so many prestigious design awards. The underwhelming illustration on the page manifests incarnate as an eloquent expression of precision, robustness, functionality and understated elegance. The grind-lines of the heavy-gauge blade are perfectly symmetrical in exquisite hollows which curve down to a perfect edge.

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There is a certain pride in a job well done in any sport, and so I would like to express my pride and appreciation to the Crossbow Archers who came to the First ACF State Crossbow Championship ever held in the United States. Sanctioned by the American Crossbow Federation, Fort Polk Louisiana was the starting point for future events, with the world class Shooting Complex being able to host any shooting sport event you can imagine.

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In late September of 2008, my good friend, John Dale from Natchez, invited me to participate in the first private lands alligator hunt ever held in Mississippi. Although I had only one night to hunt, I eagerly accepted the invitation. The Dale camp on Brierfield would be our hunt headquarters. The club caretaker, Scott Skipper, would be operating the boat; I would be manning the crossbow; John would be in charge of the video camera.

The weather turned foggy and cool - not the best situation for hunting alligators at night. The big lizards simply would not cooperate! Every time we got within range, the gators would silently slip beneath the surface and disappear. I did manage to get one arrow into a big alligator, but he managed to pull off after a brief fight in the thick brush and aquatic vegetation. I had to leave the next day, but Scott was able to fill all the club tags during daylight hours with his rifle over the next few days while the big ones were sunning along the shore.

Fast forward to Friday, September 18, 2009, this would be my second attempt at getting an alligator on Davis Island with a crossbow. This year I would be shooting my new Horton Vision 175. I arrived early in the afternoon, and Scott and I prepared our equipment for the hunt. Boat batteries had to be charged, arrows and buoys checked, and the boat launched before dark.

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