Author: Larry Weishuhn

Thankfully, The Global Sportsman booth was only a short walk down an aisle at DSC’s 2022 Annual Convention and Hunting Expo. That’s when John Landgraf, a fellow Texas Aggie, said in response to my questions about hunting Baja California, Mexico, “Late October works for me! We’ll finalize our agreement and get gun and passport information to Patty when we get home.” (Patty Curnutte heads The Global Sportsman booking agency. John and I had frequently used her and her husband John’s agency to book trips throughout the world in the past. ) John and I sat down with Patty. Said told…

The hunt had been fun, though long and grueling, and for the past several days I had crawled up a tree using a “climber” and hunted at the convergence of three active trails. One came and went from a large grain field, the other led to a dense cedar swamp and the third ran out to a rocky ridge. The property was relatively small, far smaller than most of the places I hunted back home in Texas. The tree I crawled up using a borrowed “vintage” climber was certainly not my idea. My Wisconsin host proclaimed, nay demanded: “You can’t…

Here’s where my brother was frustratingly situated. “That blasted doe must have a sixth or seventh sense! Whenever she gets close to where I’m sitting, she starts blowing! And it doesn’t matter what stand I’m in. This afternoon, she started blowing before she got to my north shooting lane, the blind in the northwest corner. The wind was out of the north. I know she did not smell me. And…I have the windows covered with dark cloth. There’s no way she could see in or even see a silhouette or shadow.” My brother continued. “Two days ago, a nice eight-…

PHOTO CREDIT: LARRY WEISHUHN OUTDOORS The ebony-beamed, ivory-tipped 6×6 bull elk turned and started walking away. “We can and will do better,” whispered Mescalero Apache Reservation’s hunt guide James Adams. Then, James again blew his cow call. Close by, four more bulls started bugling. In the distance, bulls bugled at every point on the compass. Darrin Rhodes smiled and mouthed the words, “Elk hunter’s heaven!” Just then, James grabbed our hunter’s arm and pointed to an opening between trees saying, “Big bull!” Near the end of a long valley, 500 yards away strode an enormous bull. James suggested, “That’s one…

Several years ago I was preparing to hunt elk with my Native American friend, Joe Two Ponies, out on a ranch near Wapiti, Colorado. We were at the ranch’s shooting bench, and two hunters had just made certain their rifles were properly sighted. I waited until they had finished before pulling out my T/C Encore handgun chambered in .30-06. Seated at the bench, I broke open the action, inserted a 165-grain SST Hornady round into the barrel, then settled into a comfortable shooting position behind the long-eye relief scope. As I reached to cock the hammer, one of the hunters…

and Seeing Targets from Their Level These were the directions from my Alabama host: “Position your feet so you can raise the lower platform of the crawler, raise the platform, then stand on it. Next, use the upper part of the platform where the seat is to pull yourself up the tree. Then, repeat the process until you get 20 or more feet off the ground. Nothing to it!” Before I could ask questions, he was gone. That was the very first time I had ever been exposed to a “climber.” There was no safety harness back then, but I…

“Why did you not shoot that buck? He walked to within less than 20 feet of where you were hidden under that pile of corn stalks,” exclaimed the smiling neighboring farmer when I walked back to my pickup, which was parked at his gate. I simply shook my head. For most of the Iowa late muzzleloader season, I had targeted and hunted one individual buck. He was “just an eight-point,” but that eight-point carried antler mass the size of a soft-drink can from just above his antler burs to nearly the end of his tines. His shortest tines were his…

In an ideal world I never would have quit hunting Canada for whitetails, especially with my long-time friend Ron Nemetchek and his North River Outfitting. Simply to quit hunting Alberta had been a matter of economics, not the cost of the hunt, but the cost of time. As a producer of outdoor television shows I could go to Canada, hunt for a week, and, hopefully produce one really interesting episode. Or, I could during those same nine days hunt two different destinations in the States, produce two shows complete with numerous encounters and likely show the taking of two mature…