Equipment - Check, Check 1,2

Can everyone here me in the back....yes. Okay. Well we aren't running full out video equipment this season but equipment checks are vital to your operation. Your hunting gear has to be up to par and then some. If it isn't then your wall could remain spacious and your freezer empty. Your wife might be happy about the wall but lack of fresh venison for your grill hurt your feelings more. Whether you are hunting with a bow or gun, you have to take care of them.

Guns are probably the lesser of two evils. Most folks wait until those famous turkey shoots in late November to put couple of punches on paper and call it good for the season. I did this one year, boy was I sorry. It was the last day of rifle season in western Pennsylvania. A colleague from work had allowed me to hunt his 80 acre plot just north of Pittsburgh. To my first dismay, my tree stand had been stolen which was very disheartening in follow hunters of the area. That's just wrong, I there just a few days prior with an awesome setup by the way. There was a small drainage creek from the corn fields just inside the wood line. Judging by the signs around and my previous experiences in the stand, it was a super highway for deer.

So going to my second best option since my seat in the tree was gone, I pulled out my trusty five gallon bucket and sat near a tree. An hour after sun up, here comes Joe Smoe, tramping through the woods...really dude. We traded stories from earlier in the season and planned to drive the woods toward me. Well that was certainly nice of him, as he disappeared into the snowy morning. Snowing...oh yes, it got even worse as the day went on. After a few hours, I decided to get up and stretch my legs. Using a deer trail, I followed down into the ravine. It wasn't long before I came across a nice 6 point buck. At least that's how many points were countable in the blizzard at this point.

The woods were thick, the snow was falling and the buck presented one shot just behind his neck. At less than 25 yards, the 3006 let out a roar. The deer ran away....the hunter stood there in more dismay. What happened, at that distance, the deer would have to be Houdini to dodge that bullet. Well, it was later evident that my scope mount rings had come loose. Think about how you treat your gun... Take out from a nice cozy lodge or car ride to your destination, than expose it to the elements. In my case a 40 degree difference. Repeat this for a week or so while at hunting camp.

It only took millimeters to miss that buck on my scope mount. A simple check of those little bolts during my sighting in would have done the trick. I took it step further to prevent this from happening again, some blue thread lock. Let's look at it another way though, what if you were traveling to Colorado. Did you pack a small tool kit to make such adjustments....you should. Also a laser bore sighter can save you time. After you sight in for the season, put your bore sighter in, and not where in your scope the dot appears. If it changes from your travels, then you need to correct it. And if it still in the same spot...go hunting.

Your weapon of choice is just one piece of the pie though, Your binoculars, range finder, knives (and sharper), and the list goes on. In fact, make a list to check through each piece of equipment, and take spare parts and tools to fix things on the fly. If I had known my scope was loose in the field, a piece of duck tape could have even solved the problem. Better to have than to have not. The more options you have then the more opportunities to succeed.