Author: Glenn Helgeland

Christmas Gift Book Idea…IN THE LAND OF THE BEAR

Posted on by Glenn Helgeland

By Denny Geurink

  • Published by Target Communications Outdoor Books, LLC
  • Danger & Adventure Hunting Brown Bears in Russia’s Forbidding Siberia

IN THE LAND OF THE BEAR, by Denny Geurink, is an inside look at the excitement, mystery, danger and adventure of hunting huge, aggressive brown bears in Siberia and traveling in Russia from 1991 through 2011, a time of political turmoil when the Soviet Union was evolving into Russia.

In addition to hair-raising stories of lethal brown bear attacks on people and livestock, bears digging up coffins in cemeteries, bears invading camps, and brown and grizzly bear hunting in general, IN THE LAND OF THE BEAR contains historical perspective of what was happening politically at that time in Russia, detailing how the Siberian people lived, worked, survived … and how they viewed ordinary Americans — favorably.  Siberia is a long way from Moscow and politics.)

Geurink was the first American guide/outfitter to take clients to Siberia, the brown bear capital of the world. Nearly 70 percent of the world’s brown bear population is in Russia, with much of that in Siberia. Russia is a game rich country; few residents are allowed to own firearms. There is little hunting and game animals get the chance to grow bigger and older…and bring in needed cash flow to local economies.

IN THE LAND OF THE BEAR is an outdoor adventure book. Fascinating stories all, in 23 engrossing chapters, 284 pages, 6” x 9”, paperback, available at www.targetcommbooks.com  or on Amazon.

IN THE LAND OF THE BEAR — 23 CHAPTERS OF ADVENTURE

  1. Journey to the Evil Empire
  2. Hanging Out with the KGB
  3. Brown Bear Natural History
  4. Bear Attacks: Girl Calls to Say Goodbye as Bear Kills & Eats Her, Bear Drags Off Sleeping Bag and Man, Killer Bears
  5. The People
  6. The Food: Fish Bread, That’s Not Pasta, Moose Meat Surprise, Nothing Goes to Waste
  7. The Culture
  8. Surrounded by Bears
  9. A Lesson on Fear
  10. An Encounter with the WWF
  11. American Hunter Taken to Police Station
  12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (hunters)
  13. Tales from Grizzly Camp
  14. If It Weren’t for Bad Luck
  15. Russian Bear Stalks U.S. Astronaut
  16. Excitement in Camp: The Russian Way of Dealing with Poachers, Bear in Camp, Bear in the Creek, Baby Snatchers
  17. Big Stags on The Black Sea
  18. Lady and the Bull
  19. The Capercaillie Two-Step
  20. Encounter with Rut-Crazed Bull Moose
  21. Bear Charges Snowmobile
  22. More Tales of Bear Attacks
  23. They’re All Heart and Determination

AUTHOR’S BIO — DENNIS GEURINK: Michigan native Denny Geurink has been a teacher (now retired) and was for several years the Midwest Regional Editor of Field & Stream magazine. He wrote a newspaper weekly outdoor column for nearly 40 years. He guided/outfitted in Siberia from 1992 through 2011, when he sold his outfitting business, then bought it back just recently because he couldn’t stay away.  He missed the adventure, the hunting, and the people he worked with in Siberia.

BACKGROUND INFO: In the early 1990s, the USSR wanted to boost its tourism industry and the revenue it would bring.  Hunters and fishermen usually aren’t at the head of any list of tourist invitees, but in 1991 the Soviet Union, working with a U.S.-based travel agency, looked primarily at the spectacular hunting and fishing opportunities in Siberia and invited Denny Geurink, a Michigan-based outdoor writer, on a moose and brown bear hunt. He had excellent success, but even more, enjoyed learning about and adapting to an unfamiliar culture and existence that he felt more-closely resembled the U. S. Wild West 150 to 175 years ago.

Geurink liked the total experience so much he became a hunting outfitter for Siberian brown bear (the largest, most aggressive in the world), grizzly bear and moose hunts, plus incidental hunts for bighorn/snow sheep, wild Russian boar (the largest in the world), with now and then a grouse or wolf hunt added. 

For nearly 25 years Geurink lived adventure with a capital A, enjoying every minute of the hunts, the people, the culture, the political discussions, the travel throughout Russia … and in the process developing strong attachments to the Siberian people and the land, sometimes staying for 90-day stretches to serve groups of hunting clients.  He has traveled there more than 50 times and continues to hunt Siberia annually.

 

Deer Hunter’s…5 BIGGEST MISTAKES, May Still be Time to Fix Your 2017 Hunt – Part 2 of 2

Posted on by Glenn Helgeland
  • Know the Deer You Hunt
  • Scouting, Being Detected
  • Gear & Gadgets, Over-Dependence
  • Patterning our Hunting Pattern
  • Where, When and How 

By John Sloan

Mistake #4: We get patterned doing the patterning.
Can we pattern a mature buck? I don’t think so. If we could, the odds are that we’d get patterned long before we could pattern the buck. We spend too much time at the wrong time walking, exploring, hanging stands and generally polluting the woods with our scent when we should have been prepared and just biding our time, waiting for the perfect day.

The very best chance we have to kill a mature buck is the very first time we hunt him. Yet we continue to walk around our stands, looking for fresh sign, freshening scrapes and generally messing things up. We repeatedly walk to our stands on the same trail. We think our scent spray will keep him from smelling us, or our rubber boots will keep him from smelling where we walked.

But we push limbs out of the way with our hands and we wear the same hat every day. Deer smell where we place our hands far more than they smell where we walk. Rubber boots are of no advantage, I believe, and our hats stink (our hair holds odors for a long time). To think otherwise is a mistake, a big one.

Proper stand placement is crucial to success. Good scouting will give you the necessary info.

Mistake #5: Despite knowledge to the contrary, hunting the wrong times.

When do deer move? The plain fact is they move whenever they want. Except for truly hot weather, as a general rule deer are no more active at daylight than they are at 10:30. In fact, more mature deer are killed between 10 a.m. and two p.m. than at any other time. The hunter who can effectively hunt all day has a huge advantage, but very few can. The operative word is effective. After three or four hours, most of us are just occupying space, not effectively hunting. By limiting our hunts to three or four hours in the morning and afternoon, we often miss the prime hunting time for mature whitetails.

During the rut, I routinely hunt four stands in one day, spending two or three hours in each. My final stand is usually on an approach trail or edge of a field. Often it is a ground blind, because a deer in a field is twice as likely to spot you in a tree stand as when you are in a properly placed ground blind. The other stands are in the timber.

I have killed as many bucks from 10:30-11:30 a.m. as at any other time. Think about it. Often, I am the only hunter in the woods at that time. And the deer know it. To skip midday hunting is a mistake.

Obviously, there are other mistakes we make and, just as obviously, we can make these five mistakes and still get lucky.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. If you are making these mistakes, you are not properly prepared.

Until Now.

Deer Hunter’s…5 BIGGEST MISTAKES, May Still be Time to Fix Your 2017 Hunt – Part 1 of 2

Posted on by Glenn Helgeland
  • Know the Deer You Hunt
  • Scouting, Being Detected
  • Gear & Gadgets, Over-Dependence
  • Patterning our Hunting Pattern
  • Where, When and How

By John Sloan

Deer cross obstacles such as roads and fences in the same place, most of the time. Learn to recognize these crossings.

Each year deer hunters, all of us, make mistakes. Sometimes they are minor mistakes, sometimes major. Not always do even the major mistakes turn out badly in terms of killing a deer or getting a shot. But sometimes they do. Over the 60 years I have hunted whitetail deer, I have determined what I feel to be the five biggest mistakes a hunter makes. Here they are in the order I rank them.

Keep these items in mind for hunting now, for scouting after this season, and for scouting next summer and fall for next year’s season.

Mistake #1: Failure to understand the animal you are hunting.

I have been a student of whitetail deer for more than six decades. I am still learning. I am still constantly reminded of how little I know. I have always wondered how a hunter can expect regular success on bucks over age 3-1/2 if they don’t work to learn all they can, and then test what they have learned.

Persimmon is a preferred food source when dropping. Did you know there are two types of persimmons, early and late, and deer don’t always eat them?  

Just reading and asking questions are not enough. You must get out in the woods and read sign, see what the deer has done. Then ask yourself why. Why did that deer do that? What caused that reaction? Will it happen every time?

If you ask any deer hunter what the deer’s preferred food source is right now, and they don’t know, they have not learned enough about the animal they hunt. Does the hunter know what will be the next preferred food source? Does he or she know why the deer are crossing a road in a particular place?

The questions and the answers are endless. It takes much more than just spending time in a stand. The more you ask and the more you learn, the better prepared hunter you will be, and it is a serious mistake not to be prepared.

A successful deer hunter will always have more questions than he or she has answers.

Mistake #2: Improper Scouting

Nothing prepares you for success more than proper scouting. Nothing costs you more than improper scouting.

Far too many hunters wait until the week or maybe the month before the season to begin scouting. However, proper scouting never stops. By far the most informative scouting is done in the weeks just after the season closes. That sets the stage for the rest of the scouting. It is then you learn what the bucks were doing when you were hunting them. It is then you find their hiding spots and secure travel trails. It is then you formulate your game plan for the next season.

Summer means long distance, non-invasive scouting with good optics. It is a prime way to spot where a buck enters and leaves a field without spooking him and may be a clue to finding autumn food sources.

In the summer, your scouting is non-invasive. You glass open fields just at sundown. There is little to be learned other than there are some deer here. That’s all you need to know at that point. There is little reason to be in the woods. That starts when the mast begins to form on trees. You are now looking for food sources. You couldn’t care less if you see deer. In fact, you hope you don’t. You are looking for where the deer are going to be, not where they are.

Hang a stand in the right place and stay away until you plan to kill him.

In early fall, you combine your hunting with your scouting, you are looking for new rubs, early scrapes, previously unknown creek or road crossings. You adjust as the deer do, as new travel patterns emerge.

In late season, you adjust again. The stand that was so hot in November may be useless now. Look for the trails in deep cover and secure food sources. Look for the trails that lead to agricultural crops and, in doing so, pass through the really thick stuff.

To scout for only a day or so in September or October is a serious mistake. It will cost you deer.

Do plenty of post-season scouting and make notes. This often can be the key to next year’s success.

Mistake #3: Over-Dependence on Equipment and Gadgets

As technology developed new and improved products, deer hunters got lazy. Magic potions in bottles or in spray cans replaced knowledge and work and study. We began to depend on our equipment to compensate for inaccurate shooting, good yardage judging, clean clothes and proper stand placement. We began to believe the advertisements and all the new theories. The latest call couldn’t fail. The hottest new camo couldn’t fail. The most popular new scent couldn’t fail. The new scent eliminators couldn’t fail. But they did… and do.

Don’t be afraid to hunt from the ground. With the right setup in the right place, it can be productive. Doesn’t always need to be a ground blind.

There are no magic potions or gimmicks. They are all aids and, yes, they are an aid. Properly used, under the right conditions they do work sometimes. None of them work all the time and some of them are counterproductive. Unless you understand what the product is; know how it works; know how to use it properly and understand the limitations of the product, you are making a mistake. If you depend on a spray or clothing to prevent deer from smelling you and do not take advantage of the wind, you are making a mistake.

These products and others can be invaluable for the unforeseen vagaries of hunting. But to depend on them alone is a mistake and it will cost you.

Consistently successful callers (deer, elk, turkey, etc.) always anticipate success and prepare for a response.  This anticipation is what I call the confidence factor, and it usually comes from experience and a working knowledge of the language of the game you’re hunting.  You don’t have to learn the hard way.  Learn the language, and when you make a deer call expect a deer to show up.