A Blackpowder Bear for Angie Walker

Posted on May 16, 2013 by cvamuzzleloaders

We were hunting for 4 days with Elaine Lake Outfitters in northern Saskatchewan where we try to hunt every year. I took a bear with my bow, and Angie took a bear with her CVA Accura .50 caliber blackpowder rifle. On all our whitetail hunts, we load with 150 grains of powder and a 250-grain PowerBelt Aerolite bullet. On our bear hunts, we know we probably won’t have more than a 50-yard shot. So, we only use 100 grains of powder and the 250-grain Aerolite bullet. In all the years we’ve been hunting bears with muzzleloaders, we’ve never had a bear go more than 40 yards after we’ve shot him with this powder charge and bullet.

When hunting bear in Saskatchewan, especially if you plan to hunt in the provincial forest, you must hunt over bait, or you never will see a bear. Many people don’t understand that the growth there is so thick, that you can’t use the spot-and-stalk technique to find and take a bear.  Many hunters also have the misguided notion that bears aren’t very smart. However, the bear has a very-sensitive nose. If you can’t control your human odor, the bear never will come in to your bait and present the shot. Some of these bears may be 20-years old, and may have had many encounters with humans.

I don’t believe any one system of odor control can completely eliminate human odor, so Angie and I wear ScentBlocker suits and use Nose Jammer spray to elimate as much odor as possible. If you plan to hunt twice a day, you have to shower before each hunt, keep your clean clothes in an airtight container and spray down with an odor-neutralizing spray every time you go afield. I don’t believe you ever completely fool an animal’s nose, but you often can buy yourself the extra 10 or 15 seconds you need to get your shot off, before the bear smells you.

This bear hunt was Angie’s first, so when this 325-pound bear came strolling into the bait site, Angie was breathing hard. Her eyes were about the size of saucers. She was only 15-yards from the bear when she squeezed the trigger. All our bear hunts on “The American Way” TV show are done from ground blinds. We like to hunt and photograph from the ground blind and usually set-up 15 to 25 yards from the bear bait. When you’re on the ground that close to a big bear, there’s a real adrenaline rush for the hunter, the cameraman and the audience at home.

By: Tony Walker who with his wife Angie hosts the “The American Way” TV show on the Pursuit Channel. Starting July 1 and running through December, you can watch their show on Monday nights at 9:30 pm and on Sunday mornings at 9 am.

Posted in accura, bear, cva, hunting | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The CVA Apex with Bergara Barrels Can Take Caribou and Turkeys with Joe Sebo

Posted on May 6, 2013 by cvamuzzleloaders

The CVA Apex with Bergara Barrels Can Take Caribou and Turkeys with Joe SeboAfter the excellent performance of the CVA Apex with the .300 Win Mag Bergara barrel on my caribou hunt, I had no reservations about ordering the 12-gauge Bergara barrel with a turkey choke and scope rail to use on my Apex to hunt turkeys. A common misconception about shotguns is that they are “scatter” guns, meaning as long as you shoot close to where you want to hit, there are enough scattered pellets to find the turkey’s neck and head. That’s not true. You really need to take any turkey shotgun to a pattern board and see the exact pattern a gun and its barrel produce at different ranges. For instance, when I got the Bergara turkey barrel, the first thing I noticed was the shell patterned about 11:00 high on the patterning board, instead of the majority of the pellets hitting dead center where I was aiming. I adjusted my scope, so the crosshairs were on the densest part of the pattern. Most knowledgeable turkey hunters will recommend that you pattern your shotgun with several sizes of shot and shells made by different manufacturers to see which pattern best in a gun. However, I already had some 3- and 3-1/2-inch shells I had used in my previous shotgun. I test-fired the gun at 10, 20, 30 and 40 yards after I adjusted my scope. I got a tight pattern at all those ranges, so I was confident that I easily could take a turkey from 10 to 40 yards with my Apex and the Bergara 12-gauge barrel.

Because we had rain on the opening day of turkey season, the turkey hunting was slow. I didn’t get onto a bird until about 10:30 or 11:00 am. I was very familiar with the spot where I was hunting, right at the edge of a field on a hardwood rise. I already had a trail camera there and had set-up a blind. My trail camera had taken pictures of 24 birds passing in front of it at one time. From those photographs, I could tell this flock contained one big gobbler, three jakes and a number of hens. One of the hens had about an 8-inch beard, but in Georgia where I live you can’t take a bearded hen. You can’t just see a beard on a bird and shoot, so using trail cameras to identify the turkey you want to take is very helpful. When I arrived at my blind, I put out decoys and waited on the gobbler to show up. I called a little, but the longbeard came in silently. When he was at 25 yards, I squeezed the trigger on my Apex with the turkey barrel, and the tom went down. This bird weighed 22 pounds and was at least 3-years old. He had a 10-3/4-inch beard and 1-1/2-inch spurs.

The CVA Apex with Bergara Barrels Can Take Caribou and Turkeys with Joe SeboI like a riflescope like the ones CVA sells for their turkey shotguns, since once you see where the densest part of your pattern is, you can move the reticles inside the scope to be dead-on at the densest part of the pattern to get the gun to pattern the way you want. You don’t have to go to the expense of buying several manufacturers’ shells and shot sizes to get your gun to pattern properly. I had put a .300 Win Mag Bergara barrel on a CVA Apex frame and used it to take a caribou at 275 yards. Then I mounted the Bergara turkey barrel onto that same frame and took a longbeard at 25 yards in the spring. However, for deer hunting this fall, the .300 Weatherby magnum Bergara barrel is overkill. Instead, I have the option of hunting with my 50-caliber blackpowder barrel, a .308 Bergara barrel or a .270 Bergara barrel, all on the same Apex frame I’ve used to take a caribou and a turkey.

By Joe Sebo of Jonesboro, Georgia, a CVA Pro Staff.

Posted in apex, Caribou, hunting, Turkey | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Editing TV Shows and Planting and Growing Green Fields Means You Keep a Frantic Pace

Posted on April 17, 2013 by cvamuzzleloaders

The spring is our busiest time of the year.

The spring is our busiest time of the year. Most people probably think the fall is our busiest time, when we’re hunting and doing TV shows. But in the spring, we’re editing and building episodes for our TV show. Angie’s father farms a large area in Indiana, and we have a tract of that land that we manage for whitetails. I tell folks that our deer season never ends, it just resets. Through the winter months, we frost seed our green fields, put out lime and build mineral sites. We also spend time shed hunting to find out what size bucks have made it through the last hunting season.

Hunters often don’t understand what I mean when I talk about frost seeding a green field. In the North, this is a great way to put in a food plot if you don’t have the equipment to plow, till and plant a field. For instance, I may have 3 acres of open river bank where I want to put a green field. In mid-February and early March, when there’s still some snow on the ground, I strew clover, alfalfa or any-other green field planting seeds on top of the snow. When the snow melts, it will work that seed into the ground. Then, when the frost pushes up the ground, the seed will work its way even deeper in the soil. It will sprout and come up in the spring. In May, when we start having a green-up, I can take a herbicide and spray over the area to kill all the grass and weeds. Then I’ll have a productive green field without using any farming implements. This process is especially beneficial when you want to have a green field in a specific place but can’t get your farming equipment to it, or if you don’t have any farming equipment.

We use seed from the Heartland Wildlife Institute to create these green fields.

We use seed from the Heartland Wildlife Institute to create these green fields. I decide to plant clover or alfalfa by determining the amount of moisture the site usually receives. Alfalfa likes dry feet (areas that are relatively dry during the spring), however, clover prefers wet feet (regions that remain wet much of the spring). Clover is one of the first plantings that greens-up during the spring, so I don’t think you can beat clover for an early-season food plot. The deer usually will feed on clover and alfalfa throughout the spring and summer until the first frost. I really believe food plots are the best management tools for growing big deer. I like being able to watch the deer grow throughout the spring and summer into the early fall. I don’t believe there’s any property where you can’t put in at least a 1/2-acre food plot.

Often in August, I’ll go into an area with a weed eater, cut down all the weeds and spray the entire area with Roundup to kill all the grasses and weeds. Then I frost seed that region during late February or early March. If I’m preparing a seed bed during the fall, I take soil samples. If necessary, I put out lime. This way you can have a really-nice seed bed prepared before you frost seed in February and March.

By: Tony Walker who with his wife Angie hosts the “The American Way” TV show on the Pursuit Channel. Starting July 1 and running through December, you can watch their show on Monday nights at 9:30 pm and on Sunday mornings at 9 am.

Posted in cva | 1 Comment

O’Neill Williams Tells about a Turkey for His Grandson Travis

Posted on March 28, 2013 by cvamuzzleloaders
A gobbler flew down right in front of me at 30 yards.

A gobbler flew down right in front of me at 30 yards.

I was hunting Rio Grande turkeys in Texas in a creek bottom with cottonwood trees where the turkeys were roosting. At first light, we did a little tree calling. A gobbler flew down right in front of me at 30 yards. The hens flew down all around the gobbler – between me and him. That tom was strutting for all he was worth. I was 30-yards away underneath a mesquite tree. Finally, when the hens cleared, I was able to take that turkey with my .50 caliber CVA rifle.

Later I went on a hunt in north Georgia with my 12-year-old grandson, Travis. We were sitting on the edge of a field, and the turkeys were 250-yards away in some roost trees. At daylight, the turkeys – probably 100 Eastern gobblers – flew down into a field. Travis took the second-largest turkey ever taken in Georgia at that time at 40 yards with a CVA rifle. The turkey had an 11-7/8-inch beard and 1-5/8-inch spurs and weighed 24 pounds.

Many traditional turkey hunters don’t believe you should shoot a turkey with a rifle, even a blackpowder rifle. There are also many states that don’t allow hunters to use rifles for turkeys. However, my philosophy is to get a turkey within 45 yards or less, since that’s the range I can take him with a shotgun. I don’t use the range of the CVA rifle to shoot a gobbler at 100 yards or more. I believe if I can call a turkey to within shotgun range, then I have played the game fairly, whether I take the shot with a shotgun or a CVA rifle. The turkey is just as dead, regardless of what gun you’ve used.

Turkey hunting is a great sport.

Turkey hunting is a great sport.

Turkey hunting is a great sport. Different people hunt turkeys in various ways. In many states, the shotgun is the most-traditional way to take turkeys. Turkey hunters also use compound bows, crossbows and rifles. The device you use to take a turkey depends on your hunting philosophy and the type weapon you prefer to use. Regardless of the weapon you choose, plan to get out in the woods this season. Talk to a tom, let him come to you, and harvest him if you can.

By O’Neill Williams, host of the “O’Neill Outside” TV show

Posted in cva, hunting, Turkey | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Andy Weichers on Turkey Hunting with His CVA APEX and Spring Plantings

Posted on March 27, 2013 by cvamuzzleloaders
Andy Weichers, host of the “Campfire Stories” TV show

Andy Weichers, host of the “Campfire Stories” TV show

Now that the filming season is over, we’ve started going through all the shows and working with our editors to put TV shows together. We also look at how our teams can do better filming and improve in the future. We take what we’ve learned about filming during the whitetail season and test those ideas to improve the video footage during turkey season. This practice also helps us get ready for the next deer season. This year, 2013, we’ll be airing 26 weeks of television. We plan to have a few turkey episodes, but they mainly will be on harvesting birds without as much storyline.

We’ll be shooting the 12-gauge CVA APEX that comes with a choke already in the barrel. Our video team comes from a background of bowhunting turkeys, so we do a lot of calling and decoying. We take many turkeys within 10-12 yards using the CVA APEX, but we also reach out to 20 and 30 yards. With 14 video teams, we should take about 35 turkeys while hunting six-different states. The main birds we’ll be taking will be Eastern gobblers, but we’ll have a few teams hunting Rio Grande turkeys in Kansas and others hunting Merriams in Nebraska.

Whitetail Institute of North America

Whitetail Institute of North America

Before we can start any of our preparations for the fall, 2013 upcoming deer season, we have to wait for snow to leave Iowa. We’ve just signed with the Whitetail Institute of North America , and we’ll use their products for our minerals and to plant our food plots. We do a lot of off-season feeding to keep our deer healthy through the winter and help them come out of the winter ready for the spring. We really believe in putting minerals out to help the bucks gain weight and put-on heavy antlers, but also to make sure the does are strong and healthy in preparation for the fawning season. At the end of April and first of May, we’ll start plowing ground on my farms and getting ready to plant green fields for the spring and summer. We believe if we want to have big deer to hunt, we have to feed them during the off season, grow crops for them in the spring and summer, put out mineral licks and use DLC Covert Cameras to watch them as they grow antlers and produce young. For us, deer hunting is a year-round business. We’ve found the more and better food we provide, and the more we learn by getting pictures, the better deer we can raise to hunt during deer season for our show.

by Andy Weichers, host of the “Campfire Stories” TV show on the Pursuit Channel that starts the last week of June, 2013.

Posted in cva, hunting, Turkey | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment