Steve Beckwith - Maine Hunter

Thursday, November 3, 2016

ThermaCELL Mosquitoe Unit Tips and a NEW Heated Product Video Review

I often speak at shows and online about ThermaCELL products. The main reason that I do is because the products work exactly as the directions state their products will work and that's why I am on the ThermaCELL Prostaff... I only represent products that work as designed! My reputation and word is something that I pride myself on in life and you will never catch me promoting a product that doesn't produce as promised! ThermaCELL is top on my list of products that I stand behind 100%!

If you have ever tried a ThermaCELL product and returned it to a retail store because it doesn't work, chances are that you simply did not read or follow the instructions properly! ThermaCELL products come with instructions of use....READ them carefully and use as directed to achieve the designed results from all of their products!  

ThermaCELL is well known for their insect repellent devices, if you haven't experienced and used these to keep mosquitoes away, you need to crawl out from under that rock and buy a couple of these for your personal protection from the many diseases and viruses that mosquitoes carry like malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, chikungunya, yellow fever, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, La Crosse encephalitis and Zika fever!  The list grows every year and ThermaCELL is helping in the fight to keep us safe and more comfortable in the outdoors! One tip is to always keep in mind when using the insect repellent devices is that it takes about 5 minutes initially for the units to disperse the repellent into the 15 foot radius of the unit. If the wind blows, that repellent will blow outside the 15 foot area and when the wind dies back down give it 2-5 minutes to re-establish that 15 ft radius of repellent again. Occasionally between wind gusts, mosquitoes may be more prevalent during that 2-5 minute window while the device catches back up the 15 foot radius, but usually the wind also pushes the mosquitoes away with it too!  

ThermaCELL also has a great line of Heated Products! They have Heated Insoles for your feet that keep your feet dry and comfortable in cold weather and they also have Heated Pocket and Hand Warmers to warm other parts of your body when out in the cold elements! If you would like to learn more about these products, how they are used and get some inside tips from myself, watch this video on the newest products introduced in the fall of 2016. I have been testing and working with the ThermaCELL engineers testing their new Bluetooth driven ThermaCEL Heated Products App for Iphones and Android smartphones, since last winter here in Maine and this video will give you some insight on this new technology and how it will make you warmer and more comfortable outdoors in the cold weather!



In closing..... If ThermaCELL makes it.... Follow their use instructions to the "T" and their products will do exactly what they advertise they will do for you! Tested and approved by all Maine Hunters TV Pro-staffers!

Monday, October 17, 2016

Hunting The Fall Turkey As The Hunter




Always remember when reading my blog... I am not a professional writer, I tend to ramble, misspell and use bad grammar! In this article I will talk about both archery and shotgun hunting. I will also be talking about calling, stalking and tactics that have worked for me and that I use. Some conventional and some unconventional tactics, but keep in mind, I am a hunter and a hunter uses everything legal to achieve the ultimate end result which is food on our tables. My way may not be your way, but your way is not always the only way or the right way for another hunter! I am tired of the trash talk I see on Facebook and other social media sites from supposed hunters who think their way is the only way and talk down on new techniques or old traditions that they have never tried or that they simply don't like the concept. They trash talk new concepts without ever having tried them, they forget that some states allow methods that their state don't and immediately call it cheating, unethical, or unsafe! Anytime you set out to go hunting "always" check your local laws before implementing anything you read online! States like Massachusetts have no law against shooting turkeys off the roost, I don't like that law for my state, but maybe guys in Massachusetts like to hunt that way. In Maine we can hunt with electronic calls, not that I need them, but it's legal, therefore okay for those who use them here! Why bash others over legal hunting methods in the state we do it in? I say... to each his own, as long as it's legal to do where you hunt!    

I have had many ups and downs when it comes to fall turkey hunting. I do prefer using my shotgun but I have shot many fall turkeys with a bow over the years and I hate to admit this but many have also run off to die and never be found by myself, but instead by a fox, fisher or coyote that surely enjoyed my efforts!  Turkey hunting with a bow, from my years of experience tells me in order to be successful one must be very patient and select only the perfect shot angles. Shooting a turkey broadside with an arrow is in my opinion is a poor shot, there is a very small window of kill areas when a bird is broadside. (Yes.. it can be done, but more times than not they run away to die a slow death and can’t be found so I won't do it anymore.)   The best shots for me are either straight on with it walking directly towards you or walking directly away. Of course there are other good shots too like slightly angling towards you or going away angle shots that work quite well too, but this method gives a much bigger kill area and will easily disable a bird when you drive a broadhead through the spine, lungs, heart, neck or head!   

In my later years of hunting, I have made a choice in the hunting of turkey to use my 12 ga  Mossberg Ult-Mag 835 shotgun with 3 1/2” magnum with #5 shot (Heavy Shot or Federal Premiums patterned best in my gun.), mainly because I respect the animal and want to make sure I use a tool that does the job I am setting out to do, which is to kill a turkey and put him on my dinner table, not a coyote, fox or other critters meal! Using a gun of this caliber also allows longer range shooting which is often necessary in the fall. My gun has taken birds out to 80 yards, although 65 yards is my preferred maximum range. One does not need to use what I use, it’s just my personal choice for turkey hunting.  

There are too many ways to list them all but I have developed certain skills that help me to be a successful fall turkey hunter over the years. The first and foremost mission is that you have to locate birds and the easiest way to do that in the fall is to ride the roads and spot them in fields, backyards, (Bird Feeders) crossing roads and by frequenting areas where spring turkeys have been known to hang out, like oak ridges and old tote roads with landings or clearings. But, remember that fall turkeys have totally different habits and behaviors in the fall over spring turkey hunting. In the fall turkeys group into two flock types, hens and poults and Toms and  1 1/2 year old jakes, beards are with beards, and hens are still with their spring born broods. This requires different hunting tactics for each group of birds in the fall.

First I will go over hunting the hens and poults flock, calling fall birds is quite fun and this flock is the easiest to call, but yet not always will they respond. In order to call birds there are a couple methods that work, one is busting up the group, causing them to scatter into the woods ahead of you, either with a dog or by running at them yourself and forcing them to scatter. I don’t have a dog and I don’t like to chase turkeys although I have and it works! But after the birds have gone out of sight you simply set up close to where they dispersed and begin to call using a soft yelp and single putts or a young bird kee kee to simulate a gathering situation to which the birds will try to regroup and unfortunately to them, your calling is a fake part of their flock and when they appear looking for their friends the shot opportunity presents itself for you.

Another way I have been very successful calling hens and poults is by finding them in large fields or in areas you can easily predict their direction of traveling as a group, and I position myself about 100 yards ahead of that direction without getting caught, or busted, as we call it getting set up. Being stealthy and quick are keys to doing this. Using the woods and ridges make great cover while you get ahead of the flock. Once you are set up, again do some soft yelps and single puts and it won’t be long before that whole group is on the way looking for another flock or group to join up with and again you are not what they will be looking for! Being in camo and very still is crucial when flocks are approaching you in the woods, that many eyes all looking for the sounds you were making puts them on alarm of any foreign movement in their woods.

Recently I teamed up with a company called Blind Magnet, they make very light and easy to pop open blinds that gives me the added cover I need to prevent body movement. It carries easily in my pack or in my hand as I work my way through and ahead of birds in the woods and when I get to what I call “In The Zone”, which is about 100 yards or less from the flock, this blind pops open in two seconds and makes it perfect for run and gunning for fall turkeys. I will mention this blind again in this article for another awesome and fun way to get your turkey!




The male fall flock is quite a bit harder to call into range. Male birds in the fall do not want anything to do with females and their poults, I have been within 75 yards of flocks of male birds and let out a hen yelp, their heads pop up and two seconds later, they are running straight away from that sound they heard. Calling males in the fall can be done, but personally I have not mastered this call and I choose other methods for my hunting success. Males like to keep to themselves in the fall season. I personally believe it is because they know that the large groups of young birds are making too many sounds and predators go after them. The older wiser male birds don’t want these young poults giving them away and putting them in danger of coyotes and foxes, the male birds are no where near as vocal in the fall as the hen and poult flocks!  In my experience calling in fall Toms should be left up to only the most experienced turkey callers, a caller that can mimic only the male “yelp” something I have not yet mastered and probably never will for fall birds. But, I have called in male birds in the fall, using a deep yelp from the center of a slate call or a low pitched box call.

In Maine we can stalk turkey and it’s a lot of fun and is an adrenaline rush one has to experience but, I only advise this in open areas or fields to be safe. Open field or plains stalking is an ancient art of hunting that dates back to our ancestors using primitive hunting tools. In the past my fall tom hunting tactics of stalking have been finding a flock of toms and using natural elements to stalk and close the gap without getting seen by all those eyes watching for predators. I use trees, bushes, stonewalls, hills, valleys and anything that hides me while I close the distance for a kill shot. One of my favorite old time methods is to use a red headed jake decoy once I have located a flock in an open field, the trick is to find a hill or bushes across the field from them that I can get the decoy out in the field without being caught by the flock. Then set up against a tree with some good cover and wait for the flock to walk around the bush or hill and see the lone jake decoy, sometimes that single low pitched tom yelp makes them look quicker! They almost instantly run across the field ready to confront this new intruder in their area and will run right to the decoy. Now with the addition of the “Blind Magnet” in my backpack of tools I will be using that for a cover set up from now on rather than limited bushes and cover in setting up quickly in specific corners of a field!



This leads me to the recent discovery of use of the Blind Magnet for fall turkey hunting. Last spring I filmed the use of a Blind Magnet blind used to stalk three adult toms across a 500 yard field here in Maine and the shooter was able to stalk within 30 yards of these three birds that would not come to any call I had in my box of tricks. These birds stayed on the wood line on the opposite side of the field for hours, so we deployed the Tactical Blind Magnet and slowly worked across the wide open field, if the birds get a little nervous, you simply stop and watch for them to settle back down and start feeding or strutting, whatever they are doing naturally. These blinds have about a 3 inch circle hole in them above the handle you use to move the blind, which you can look out through and see everything ahead of you. Without the use of this new lightweight camo shield, stalking 500 yards to within shooting range of three weary toms would never happen! This new device should be in every turkey hunters bag of tricks. When your preferred method of calling just won’t work, deploy the Blind Magnet and try your hand at something that is very exciting but I will tell you that stalking skills are required to do this. You can’t just walk quickly across a field and shoot a turkey, you have to hunt skillfully behind this device, and that’s why it’s called hunting folks.

So in closing I hope you will give fall turkey hunting a try and that some of my experiences will help you to be more successful!  I hope you will consider giving staking turkey and other game a try. My late great friend Lane Benoit enjoyed tracking, stalking, learning the ways of the animal he was pursuing and he always told me that it is all part of why we all hunt. I had the pleasure of turkey hunting with Lane Benoit and he always told me great woodsman use all their skills and knowledge to be successful and to never leave any stone un-turned in achieving your end goal, which is food on your table!  I too live by the same words and use the tools available to me to achieve those goals!  So check your States game laws to be sure stalking game is legal in your area and catch the fever of fall turkey hunting and the many ways to be successful!


Maine Fall Turkey Hunting Laws

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Wow.. The social media has exploded on the subject of stalking. Of course it's the age old everyone has their right of choice on how to think, act and do things in life! From my stand point it's up to the individual how one chooses to be successful as a hunter. The method used "as long as it is legal" in my opinion is part of developing useful skills as a hunter. New gadgets and inventions is what humans do to advance or be successful! It's kind of like fishing, I like worms, you like flies, and someone else likes lures, it's "choice" and it's "my" choice not yours!



It doesn't matter if you are stalking, turkey, deer, moose, antelope, elk, geese, or a woodchuck if it is legal to stalk an animal we fellow sportsman need to stick together and accept how others hunt and what they enjoy. If you don't want to do it? It's simple don't! But for the love of god stop arguing that your way is better than my way and vice versa!



For example you may like to sit in a treestand all day to shoot a deer, but another hunter may opt to be a tracker and run down that animal until he finally gets his intended target, another hunter may choose to aimlessly walk around the woods and take a dear by accident (by chance or jump shooting), while another favors calling in a deer using scents and a call, or maybe driving deer is legal in your state and you enjoy that type of hunting or hunting from a ground blind is your preferred method. If these methods are legal and effective, it's all part of developing your own hunting skills your style and method of being the superior predator. A hunter is the ultimate predator. From the development of rock fall traps, spears, clubs, slingshots, bows and modern firearms man has developed methods and improvised his skills into many weapons and tactics to achieve hunting success. 


Man created decoys, mouth calls, electronic calls, metal tree stands, pop up blinds and many other tools to add to our bag of tricks to be successful. Does it really matter if I call in a turkey with a fancy custom made box call or if I use an electric call downloaded to my cell phone to make the same exact sound to kill a turkey? No it don't! Because the guy that uses his store bought electronic call will have filled his legal tag, followed his local laws to do so and had his own personal satisfaction that he or she is happy with to accomplishing the same end goal as the turkey hunter who called in his turkey using a box call he purchased at a department store or maybe made himself. Any person that belittles another fellow hunter because they used one device over another is nothing more than....well..a jack ass! Not anyone I would want to associate with, call my friend or especially go hunting with! People I associate with respect how others accomplish the same end result, by following their local game laws and legally filling their tag and putting meat on their table regardless of their personal skill level. 




I personally use anything at my disposal to be successful as long as it is legal where I am hunting. So let me get back to the topic at hand, stalking! I recently have been seeing many videos of people using turkey tails to stalk a turkey and get up close. I've seen hunters bashing others doing this on forums and social networking sites and saying how unsafe this is etc., etc. Yes.. it is marginally unsafe in certain conditions to do this, in my area in brush or wooded scenarios it could be dangerous, but it's certainly not unsafe in an open field. It is the gun handlers responsibility to always identify their targets or face stiff fines and even jail time for shooting another human. If you have ever seen a 5 foot plus person crawling behind a two foot wide turkey tail, across an open field it is rather obvious what is going on, most of your body is exposed from any direction. As a turkey hunter have you ever just fired at a tail fan...NO, you wait until you see the head, neck, beard before taking the shot, even if the live bird is close to the "fanning hunter" you can easily witness the live bird moving towards the human crawling behind the turkey tail fan and know that it's unsafe, unfair and usually illegal to shoot game being pursued by another hunter. 

 
I will agree a very few people have been shot across the USA while wearing red, blue, or white, using gobble calls, or even simply using male bird decoys in a set up by inexperienced hunters desperate to kill a turkey. But... these people are breaking numerous laws and are the negligent hunters we need to put the blame on the negligent shooter not on the person using a legal method to hunt the intended animal. When "we" as "hunters" step into the woods we accept the risk that another hunter may in fact fail to identify his target, it's unfortunately part of going hunting and we hunters have to be aware of our surroundings while in the act of hunting. I honestly feel that if I get shot while hunting it will be because whomever pulled their trigger is not a responsible hunter and should be held liable for their actions. If I'm hiding behind a natural bush, against a tree, a ground blind, walk behind blind, a stake out blind, a cow blind, a mirror blind, or crawling behind a turkey tail in an open field and what I am doing is perfectly legal in that State, if you shoot me or at me you, I will certainly be having you prosecuted in court and going after everything you own for damages! It is ridiculous to put the blame on the hunter abiding by the laws of hunting in that area, when an accident happens!  


So please stop putting down a fellow hunter's legal hunting tactics because it's not your cup of tea and remember to enjoy hunting how you like it, enjoy the world around you as you would like to enjoy it and respect your fellow hunters out there using legal hunting tactics to become the ultimate predator. Be aware of your surroundings, local game laws, and identify your target before engaging your shot, hunters stand united!