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Hunters tree one bear only too well

Wedged animal takes some doing to bring down

ANTIGO — It's hard enough for a hunter to move a 525-pound bear when it's on the ground. But what if it's wedged in a tree 30 feet up?

Eugene Mancl of Wisconsin Rapids and a group of Langlade County bear hunters faced that predicament this season and, fortunately, solved the riddle.

It wasn't the way Mancl, a master electrician, expected his long-anticipated bear pursuit would end, but he couldn't be happier at the results.

"When the day was over, I ended up with a high-ankle sprain," the 44-year-old hunter said. "But I don't care. To this day, when I feel a twinge of pain in my ankle, I just smile. It brings back memories of the hunt. There's nothing painful about it."

It took Mancl nine years to obtain a bear kill tag.

There are more applicants than bear kill tags available in Wisconsin's four bear hunting zones. Tags are issued on a preference point basis. A hunter earns a preference point for each year he applies and fails to receive a kill permit. It typically takes five to nine years of preference to earn a tag.

With a permit finally in hand, Mancl set out bait for 1½ months in the Rhinelander area this past summer, only to find his efforts had attracted sows with cubs and a small yearling.

"I had three cameras out," he said. "The photos they took and tracks I found were disappointing. I had hoped for something bigger."

Several years ago, Mancl killed a black bear on a guided hunt in Manitoba "but this time, I wanted to do it all myself," he said.

His initial plans quickly were shelved.

With time and the bear hunting season running out, Mancl got in touch with Ridge Runner Guide Service, operated by Ken Rine and his son, Dan, in Bryant in central Langlade County. One of their specialties is running bear with dogs, often in conjunction with other bear hound enthusiasts.

"I was lucky," Mancl said. "The hunter that was scheduled had just filled his tag, and they were happy to have me. We met at 6 a.m. on a Saturday. While we were having breakfast, they had seven to eight guys checking bait sites for tracks. They reported finding large bear tracks at one site. We went there and released hounds to follow the cold trail."

After 2½ hours, the bear was jumped by the hounds. After a lengthy pursuit that included the bear turning several times to confront the dogs and bounding across a roadway in front of alerted motorists, the bear climbed a massive oak.

Mancl arrived on the scene, about 1½ miles from the nearest road, and dispatched the animal. Instead of falling, however, the bear sagged and wedged in a crotch of the tree, creating an unusual predicament, as well as spectator interest.

"One of the guys in the group — Chad Henry — climbed up, but he couldn't dislodge it," Mancl said. "We couldn't quite figure out why it was so difficult. Estimates had been that the bear weighed about 300 pounds."

An obvious solution was to cut the tree down but the oak — on private land — was too large for that.

"Somebody suggested that we call Chris Minch, a guy from Antigo who used to work for a tree service and has climbing tools," Mancl said. "It turned out Minch had heard about the chase and was already at the road where we had left our cars."

Minch climbed the tree and placed a strap across a strong limb above the bear. One end of the strap was connected to the bear, the other to an ATV weighted with riders. The pulling effort raised the bear enough to clear the snag, and the carcass rapidly descended.

"It was the first time everybody got a good look at it," Mancl said. "Then we realized — no wonder it wouldn't move — it's a 500-pound bear!"

Mancl's prize weighed 442 pounds dressed out and is estimated to have weighed 525 pounds live, one of the larger bear registered in the state this year. The hide measured seven feet, four inches from nose to tail. Mancl said he expects the skull measurement will be sufficient to qualify for entry into the Boone and Crockett record book.

"After we got the bear out of the woods, I went to a local establishment and made sure every one who helped was rewarded for their efforts," Mancl said.

When the bill came, it was Mancl who found himself stuck, but gratefully so.

"The doctor said that at my age I may feel pain in my ankle for the rest of my life," he said. "I said, 'Fine. I can live with it.'

"It was a neat hunt."

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Hornady Gains Market Leverage
New LEVERevolution line of cartridges for tubular magazines will have you reaching for that old crank-action once again.

Hornady Ammunition recently announced their latest innovative offering -- the LEVERevolution line of cartridges. Designed for lever-guns, all cartridges in the LEVERevolution line house the Evolution bullet that features an elastomer flex tip that not only improves the ballistic coefficient of the bullets, but also addresses the safety concerns that are generally associated with loading pointed bullets into a tubular magazine. Hornady also developed new propellants that reportedly provide up to 250 fps more muzzle velocity at safe pressures, resulting in a flatter shooting bullet with 40 percent more velocity. The initial offerings in the LEVERevolution line include:

.30-30 Winchester, 160 gr. Evolution (Muzzle velocity = 2,400 fps)
.35 Remington, 200 gr. Evolution (2,225 fps)
.444 Marlin, 265-gr. Evolution (2,050 fps)
.45-70 Government, 325-gr. Evolution (2,050 fps)
.450 Marlin, 325-gr. Evolution (2,225 fps)

Both the .30-30 Winchester and .35 Remington are available on dealer's shelves now, while the .444 Marlin, .45-70 Govt., and .450 Marlin will be available in Spring of 2006.

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Hunters helped save rare bird from extinction

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A hunting lodge with antler chandeliers and stuffed ducks on the walls seems a strange place to celebrate the comeback of the ivory-billed woodpecker, but wildlife officials are doing exactly that.

They credit hunters in particular with helping bring the rare bird back from presumed extinction in the Big Woods section of Arkansas.

"The people of Arkansas, the hunting and fishing community, conserved these woods," Scott Simon of The Nature Conservancy told reporters on Monday at the Mallard Pointe Lodge, where a coalition of environmentalists, academics and wildlife officials rejoiced in woodpecker's return to the living.

Simon said hunters and others helped save the bird in large part by buying Duck Stamps, at $15 each. These stamps are not for postage, but pay for a federal migratory bird conservation fund, and eventually added up to $41 million to reclaim much of the habitat of the endangered woodpecker.

"The $41 million went into the land before the ivory bill showed up," Simon said.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was believed extinct for the last 60 years, and various reports of sightings of the big bird -- jet black and bright white with a red crest on the male -- were dismissed by professional ornithologists.

Their skepticism was warranted because of the destruction of the big old trees over much of the American southeast that began after the U.S. Civil War. The ivory bill's large size, with a body perhaps 20 inches long means it needs large trees to nest in. It is known to scale the bark off old, dying and dead trees to get at the cigar-sized grubs that live there.

But that was before an amateur naturalist said he saw one while paddling in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in February 2004. When he brought two bird experts to the same spot, they saw it too. And when a professor captured the bird in flight in fuzzy but authentic video, an analysis of all the data pointed to the startling fact that the ivory bill was back.

The ivory bill's public rediscovery last April energized a massive search in eastern Arkansas. Starting in November, teams of paid experts and volunteers have been scouring the Big Woods for signs of the bird.

In this, too, hunters are allies, according to Scott Henderson, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

"The deer hunter and the duck hunter out there are some of the best eyes and ears we've got," Henderson said. "We have 7,000 hunters in this same area for eight hours at a time or more in some cases."

Good observers are essential to catching a glimpse of the camera-shy ivory bill. So far, some 20,000 hours of searching by dozens of trained observers have failed to spot the bird. But that is understandable, given each woodpecker's presumed 12 mile foraging range. Experts do not know how many ivory-billed woodpeckers might exist in this area.

The total search area in Arkansas takes in 550,000 acres of forest and swamp. Since last year, searchers have covered about 62 square miles.

Henderson acknowledged that hunters were concerned at first that the urge to protect the woodpecker's habitat would limit access to hunting areas, but he said this has not happened.

Game officials want to avoid what Henderson called a "spotted owl situation" -- the clash of interests that occurred in the 1980s between wildlife preservationists and loggers in the U.S. northwest over protecting the small bird.

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Test:
Stövel för frusna jägare på pass


Under hösten har jag testat stöveln Muck Boot Arctic. Muck Boot Arctic är nog det varmaste jag har haft på fötterna.
Stöveln är perfekt för den jägare som oftast står på pass. De gånger jag stod pass var det en mycket skön och varm stövel. Men när jag gick som hundförare blev det en plåga att ha Muck Boot på. Fötterna blev dyblöta av svett.
Muck Boot Arctic har andningsfoder av Airmesh plus microfleece. Helgjuten stabil gummisula med tre lager isolering. Skaften är med fem millimeter neopren och fyrvägs-stretch av rivtålig nylon.
Enligt tillverkaren ska komforttemperaturen vara 15 plusgrader till 40 minusgrader. Skafthöjden är på 43 centimeter.

Pris: 1 149 kronor.
Telefon: 035-15 44 00.
http://www.hdf-gyttorp.se

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Frykter ulv i Vestfold
torsdag 15. desember 2005
Folkeaksjonen ny rovdyrpolitikk har fått fylkeslag i Vestfold. Nå skal det etableres et rodesystem for sporing av ulv og andre rovdyr. - Ulven kommer garantert til vestfold. Det er kun et spørsmål om tid, sier sentralstyremedlem, Nils Solberg.

I følge NRK har ulvebestanden på svensk side av grensen økt kraftig. Rovdyrforsker, Petter Wabakken ved Høgskolen i Hedmark, tror at ulven snart kommer til Østfold.

- Over en to-års periode har det vært en vekst på 77 prosent i den delen av stammen som har tilhold på svensk side. Derfor venter jeg også økt trafikk i Østfold i årene som kommer, sier han til NRK.

Snøfattige vintre gjør det vrient å spore ulven. Derfor kan det bli vanskelig å forhindre at ulven vandrer til Vestfold.

- Sannsynligheten for at det kan komme ulv til Vestfold på grunn av lite snø er stor, sier nyvalgt fylkeslagsleder, Helge Røsholt, til Østlands-Posten.

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Dødelig hundesykdom sprer seg
onsdag 14. desember 2005
Hjerteorm rammer stadig flere danske hunder. De fleste tilfellene blir funnet rundt Storkøbenhavn, men i det siste er mange hunder blirr rammet også i andre deler av Skjælland. Den 10-20 millimeter lange parasitten overføres til hunder via snegler. Typiske symtomer er vekttap, tretthet, hoste og generell utilpasshet. Sykdommen er dødelig, men kan behandles.

Mvh
Kim

Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.

Hej alle.

Jeg har lige "kikket en kikkert ind" på min Remington, altså prøvejusteret, for at kunne grovindstille kikkerten inden indskydning.

Da jeg begyndte at skrue ned mod punktet jeg pegede på, kom jeg til endestoppet, før jeg nåede det.

Derfor midterstillede jeg justeringsskruen og beregnede hvor langt op der var til krydset, på næstnaboens flagstang. [B)]

Med almindeligt øjemål og en afstandsmåler, mener jeg at det drejer sig om en skævhed på ca. 600 mm på 100 meters afstand.

Jeg har prøvet at ombytte montagerne, men de er lige høje.

Nu har jeg brugt søgeknappen og fundet ID's forklaring på langholdsmontager og så vidt jeg kan se, så er det noget i den retning jeg skal ha'.

Jeg har ikke opdaget at skyderen var skæv før, da der sad en Leupoldkikkert på før, som har større justeringsområde.

Jeg har slået nogle streger på acad, som viser at der skal tages 0,6 mm af den forreste montage. Det passer også fint med (loven om ensvinklede trekanter) for der er 100 mm mellem ringene.

Nu kommer så spørgsmålet, kan der tages af den forreste ring i højden, for så at slibe retningen i montagerne, når der er tale om Leuolds PRW montage, eller skal jeg købe en anden?

Basen er en lang Remingtonskinne og ikke lige til at lave om på.

Og hvem laver/forhandler 30mm 23 moa montager, for de skulle kunne gøre jobbet.

K&B Clax []




Er mere til Guns end roses ... Cum insantientibus fuere necesse est

hej drenge[]
jeg håber i kan hjælpe mig med min riffel/kikkert.
Den er begyndt at skyde a-he.... til [!]piben ER frit læggende og kikkerten sidder fast.
hvad ha..en er der galt?????

mik

Hej DRALF'ere!

Ud fra gamle tråde kan jeg se, at www.theopticzone.com havde de bedste priser på sigtekikkerter dengang. Gælder det stadig? Er der nogen, som har handlet "over there" for nyligt og har lidt styr på prisniveauet. Jeg tænker her specielt på Zeiss Conquest 3,5-10x44.

mvh Lars

"Jeg har mange forskellige interesser, men de slutter alle på -jagt"

Findes der en "gør det selv" måde at trykprøve haglpatroner på? Jeg har lige hentet en portion hjemmeladede haglpatroner hos en bekendt,og han er lidt træt af at sende nye "kreationer" til Bofors,for at få dem trykprøvet,det tager tid og de arbejder ikke gratis!!!!! Så vi kom til at tale om,om der ikke findes en måde at afprøve dem på selv.Han har kronograferet nogle af "opfindelserne" til over 600 M/S men han tør ikke rigtig bruge dem[B)] Jeg lovede at prøve at undersøge sagen,og hvor er det mere naturligt at forvente et fornuftigt svar end her?? Hilsen Ulrik