Predator Call

Last weekend I had a Burnham Brothers/Mossy Oak booth at the Texas Trophy Hunters Show in Houston, I picked up a Sportsman Eyewear video camera in Mossy Oak.  The camera is built into a pair of glasses with the lens and microphones located between your eyes.  Once in the record mode, the camera records whatever you are looking at.  The memory card will hold approximately three hours of video and audio recording and the built-in battery will power the camera for three to four hours. 

I took the little camera into the field this morning and shot video of my hounds working.  The dogs treed four coons, two in the dark and two after daylight.  I started recording 15-20 minutes before sunrise and continued until the sun had been up for about 30 minutes.  I carried the glasses/camera to my laptop to review the footage.  I was most suprised at the video and audio quality of the camera. 

See you outdoors,

Gary Roberson

Last weekend, Miss Deb, Steve, Dustin and Jeana Whitacre and I exhibited at the Texas Trophy Hunter Extravaganza show in San Antonio.  We were there with Burnham Brothers and Mossy Oak camo and for the first time on 20 years, I heard excuses on why they could not make a purchase.  Until now, it seems that the Texas economy was somewhat immune to the economic problems facing most of the nation. 

I was in the banking business in the ’80s when the Texas economy was in bad shape.  At that time, we were the last state to feel the downturn and the last state to recover from it.  The saying “Last in…last out” comes to mind.  I hope and pray that this recession or depression does not last as long as the one I experienced in the ’80s as I saw our real estate prices plunge almost 50%.  I must admit that I don’t have a lot of confidence in this administration to turn things around and I feel that much of the stimulus money that we have spent has made matters worse in the long term.

With the downturn of the economy, I guess that means that I will have to hunt harder…that’s not a bad thing.

See you outdoors,

Gary Roberson

Steve, Dustin (aka-Shed) and I drove to Dryden, Texas Friday afternoon to try to call up a bobcat for CARNIVORE.  We made one call that evening that produced 6 deer but no predators.  Saturday morning, the first stand yielded a gray fox that could not resist the sound of Cottontail Duet.  I had been playing the distress cries of a grown cottontail which I am sure had lured him into the area.  As soon as I switched the Compucaller III to the “duet”, the fox dashed from a thicket with a mockingbird pecking at his back.  Shed missed his first shot as the trigger pull on his Savage Model 10 is a little lighter than he is accustomed to.  The fox did not spook and his second shot was true.

The third stand produced another fox that pranced up to the caller with his tail arched.  He was trying to make himself appear to be about twice his size.  After nosing up to the caller, he trotted back toward cover.  Shed “gave him a barrel” but the bullet appeared to to hit under the little critter. 

Believe it or not, it was difficult sleeping in our old cabin for the recent rains have produced quite the mosquito population.  We ended up having to shut the doors which made it awfully hot; too hot for this old man.  We decided to drive back to civilization and air conditioning.

See you outdoors,

Gary Roberson

Just returned from a hunt with an old buddy, J. Martin Bassinger from Polar, Texas.  While J. Martin is a cat hunter with great hounds, he is nice enough to carry me around coyote calling.  We hunted near Gail last Friday and the success we had helped me forget about the tough time we had in New Mexico. 

Shortly after setting down to make the first call, I heard coyotes barking (socially)about a half mile downwind.  I knew that these dogs had me but was hoping something would approach from the west or north.  I know that these coyotes got around behind me and later made a visual on one walking back to the truck.  That is the bad news, the good news is that this was about the last call I made that day that did not have a coyote or more on it.

I was calling with the COMPUCALLER III and they were loving the Grown Cottontail.  I had two different pairs show up on the last call of the day and I killed two of them.  The last shot is one that I will replay many times as I killed the dog running at approximately 150 yards.  I think that I counted three somersaults before he quit rolling. 

We were shooting a pilot for our new TV show, CARNIVORE.  It will air on the PURSUIT CHANNEL beginning July, 2011.  PURSUIT will be part of all standard packages on Dish and Direct TV which will make it the largest channel carrying hunting and fishing programming.

See you outdoors,

Gary

Burnham Brothers continues to lead the predator calling industry by bringing more folks into the game.  While Mossy Oak has partnered with Burnham Brothers since the mid 90’s with the four part EYES FRONT video series.  Two years ago, Gary Roberson owner of Burnham Brothers convinced Savage Arms that this time was right to build a rifle dedicated to this sport, then came the Model 10 Predator Hunter.  This past year, Roberson worked with Jon Allen and Jon LaCorte of Nikon Sport Optics to produce a riflescope specific for coyote calling. This past weekend, Mossy Oak, Savage Arms, Nikon Sport Optics and Burnham Brothers met in northeast New Mexico for a coyote hunt.  While the coyotes were not responding as well as we hoped, we had a great time and visited about what we can do to help this great sport to continue to grow. 

This last week, I received emails and text messages from some young hunters who had recently purchased Compucaller III’s.  One of the young fellows is from Mason and had just won a calling contest in Mason with 36 gray fox taken in 24 hours.  Another young gent from San Angelo won the Sonora hunt last weekend with 20 gray fox and a bobcat.  I met a couple of young hunters at Cleburne and sold them a Compucaller III.  They carried it to the field that evening and called up 5 coyotes, one cat and a fox on three stands.  The next night he hunted again and killed eight coyotes. 

It is great to see all of these young guys out there hunting instead of doing all of the things that get so many young folks in trouble.  Predator control costs taxpayers over $100 million annually and these young hunters kill predators at no expense to any one.  

Two weeks ago, Nikon sent Michael Engelmeyer down from St. Louis, Missouri to photograph me with some of their new products.  Fortunately, we were able to accomplish our mission in one afternoon.  Last week, Michael returned with Erin Gavin with Mossy Oak and we shot photos of hunting apparel for two full days.  My oldest son, Clint is an archery hunter and modeled Friday morning and then left for Terrell County to do a little hunting with his brothers.I continued to work as we shot on three different ranches and with three different sets of clothes and three different hunting situations, predator, archery and deer.  I am not sure how many photos were taken but no doubt over 1,000; surely one or two of them will work for something.  The very best news is that I did not break the camera!

The Burnham Brothers SL-18 Shooting Light offers a stellar advantage for the best of hunters.  When you have this light, no predator can hide.  With this light shooting system, you can be sure that the target that you have in mind is going down. 

Welcome to the future of hunting.  Don’t be left behind.  It does everything advertised as well as being compact and has no loose wires to get tangled up in.