Success at Buck Paradise

Luck was on our side this afternoon when the buck we were looking for came in to tend his scrape. Vanessa made a perfect shot with the Triumph and the big buck was hers. Now it's my turn to trade the video camera for the Omega. Hopefully we have more pictures to share tomorrow. http:\\www.buckparadise.com

Saskatchewan Whitetails

Vanessa and I are in Green Lake, Saskatchewan hunting whitetail with Buck Paradise Outfitters. We've been seeing loads of deer, including numerous 130-class deer but we still haven't pulled the trigger on the muzzleloader. There is one large 5x5 that we passed on day one that we are going to try and find again tomorrow. After reviewing the footage, passing on him was definitely a mistake. Hopefully he comes back to tend his scrape tomorrow!

Wish us luck!

Jake's Mule Deer

Jake is our youngest boy and this year he drew a mule buck tag. Jake is a journeyman carpenter and does a 14 in and 7 out shift in Ft McMurray. October 25 and 26 he and I got a chance to fill that tag. With the temperature hovering at zero and winds gusting to 50 mph scattering leaves and snow, we gave up trying to spot and stalk and pitched a blind on a canola field that Sandi and I had spotted good bucks on back in September. Just before dark a nice buck came out and slowly started feeding away from the blind. By the time Jake was ready the buck was at a lasered 348 yards, but Jake's shot with the 30 T/c and show hand loaded Nosler E-Tips made for some spectacular footage.

Project: Deer Blind

With a day that was too nice to waste in my office where I should have been writing, I loaded up the Argo and trailer with tools and materials headed out to the back 160. A elevated deer blind on my property is a project that has been waiting for a day where I had nothing better to do.

A good days work saw me get the post holes drilled and the posts placed and tamped true and plumb. I got the cross bracing and the floor on along with two of the walls. Building is sweet when you have the tools and the Argo made get the generator, compressor, nailers and everything else out there breeze. Now I just need to find another day where I have "nothing to do" to finish what I've started.

Moose Camp 2008

Matt my oldest son ans I drew calling season bull moose tags this year and the last week of September saw us in camp suffering through the hottest moose hunting temperatures ever. It took 7 days but Matt finally connected on his second ever moose.

With two days left and moose as scarce as hen's teeth I went home empty handed, but my good luck charm Sandi picked up the camera duties for me a couple of days later and with two intense days of hunting I finally got my chance and made good on it with the Triumph muzzleloader.

Some Fun in Brooks!

No October would be complete without a trip to the Pheasant Festival in Brooks, Alberta and that's where last weekend found us. After enjoying the festivities on Friday night, we headed out for a day of canal shooting on Saturday and managed to take a limit of mixed ducks.

Sunday found us up at 4:00am waiting for buddy Ed Houck from Fowl Weather Outfitting to take us on a goose shoot. Ed has a real place in his heart for youth hunters and he was accompanied by two 14-year olds, one on his first goose shoot and several other novice goose shooters. We had a great morning, taking 14 geese and several ducks. The largest goose tipped the scales at 13.5 pounds!

Nice Day in the Mountains

With all of our sheep tags filled and our bellies full of Thanksgiving turkey, Vanessa and I took a trip to the mountains to photograph some sheep. I think we had a pretty successful day. Also saw a grizzly bear, goats, loads of bugling elk and several coyotes.

Alberta Bighorns

While hunting season started off slowly for me, I made up for it in late September when Vanessa and I snuck into a remote basin in the Alberta Rockies and found a trophy bighorn ram. I managed to sneak within 59 yards of him and dispatched the big ram with one shot from the 7mm STW. It turned into a 15-hour day with heavy packs and Vanessa took a bad fall and fractured her elbow but she toughed it out and returned with me the following day for a second load of meat.

The following weekend, buddy Dan Mosier came down to hunt for bighorn ewes with us and he took a nice fat ewe that will provide some great meals this winter.

Not to be outdone, Vanessa followed up the next weekend by taking a nice fat ewe herself. She dropped the ewe at 197 yards with the Pro Hunter 7mm Rem Mag shooting Hornady 139 grain Accubonds. While temperatures were only +2, the bright sun and good fortune made for an incredible day in the Rockies.

Yukon Adventure

Hunting season started early with a backpack hunt for Dall sheep in the Yukon with Deuling Stone Outfitters. Despite covering countless miles with heavy packs, my guide, Paul Dueling and his buddy Ronny, were unable to put me on a legal ram. While disappointing, it was still an incredible experience and if anything, it just made me want to go back more than ever. http://deulingstoneoutfitters.com/

Vanessa joined me for a second hunt with Yukon Stone Outfitters. I was again skunked on the hunt, this time for moose, but Vanessa took a very old mountain caribou with the Triumph at an amazing 279 yards. The bull will easily make top-5 in the Longhunter Trophy Book. http://www.yukonstone.com/

More Great Fishing Action

I returned to Winefred Lake again in August and enjoyed more incredible walleye action and a quick trip with Mikisew Sportfishing Adventures provided some great lake trout action and my buddy Brad caught a true monster northern pike. http://www.mikisewsportfishing.com/

Vanessa and I also enjoyed a number of trips to the mountains in Alberta's Kananaskis Country where we scouted for bighorn sheep and enjoyed some incredible cutthroat trout fishing.

Fishing Season begins with a Bang

Where has the time gone? It seems it was only a few short weeks ago that I was planning for the May Long Weekend trip to Duck Lake in British Columbia and now, here it is, mid October and we are right in the middle of hunting season. Where to begin?

The Duck Lake trip was awesome and we enjoyed +30 degree temperatures and phenominal largemouth bass fishing. Vanessa caught the big one of the weekend at just under 5 pounds.

June found us headed for Winefred Lake Lodge in northern Alberta where we enjoyed some incredible pike and walleye fishing. Having fished many of North America's best walleye waters, I'd have to say that Winefred Lake ranks right up there at the top. We caught numerous walleye in the 27-29 inch range and some big pike were an added bonus. For more information on Winefred Lake Lodge, check out http://www.winefredlakelodge.com/

September 22 2008

After days of false stalks and frustrating wind and rain filled evenings we finally got a break and just days before I left for moose camp Sandi and I were set up on large canola field in the blind hoping the nice buck we had put to bed there days ago was still holding to his pattern. We got in early, hours before when we thought the bucks would make an appearance and yet had barely settled into the blind when the big buck wandered out into the field. Mule deer are strange creatures, he feed for twenty minutes at 300 to 400 yards distance and then turning towards us walked to almost 250 yards and bedded down in the open swathed and combined field! We watched him sleep for hours and when he stood again Sandi said "I'm taking him." I said "OK, but make sure you anchor him that coolie is very deep and you will have a tough pack getting him out of there." The 155 grain Berger bullet from her 308 Icon flipped his switched so fast his jaw slammed into the dirt when he fell. Watch for this exciting episode in our 2009 broadcast.

September 17, 2008

Opening day of Mule deer season. Sandi has drawn a buck tag near home here in Northern Alberta. We spot a nice buck out is a swathed canola field with about an hour to go before sundown. We tried a long circuitous stalk on him only to find he was more interested in feeding in the center of the half section. There was just no way to close the distance as the minutes counted down we resigned ourselves that we weren't going to get a shot at him and turned to work our way out of the field before dark. To our surprise a large black bear had came out into the field behind us. Sandi had a tag left from spring bear so we quickly slapped together a make shift plan and headed after the big bear. Having a spare tag in her pocket completely turned around what was looking to be a bust on deer opener. All the action is captured on film and will make for a great episode of the new season of Outdoor Quest.

2008 Outdoor Quest Blog

Welcome to our BLOG page!
On this page you are going to see bits and pieces from all parts of the day to day stuff that goes into making a TV show. Sometimes you'll get a on location report other times the latest trip to the sport store or range. Who knows where this will go but we hope you enjoy it! Rich & T.J.
Home 2007
July 2008 Crocodile Bay Resort Costa Rica
For the first time in a couple years we have fishing back on the show. Sandi and I chose big game fishing in Costa Rica for its incredible weather and sterling reputation for big fish and plentiful numbers of fish.


Sandi and a Cuberra Snapper.










One of many Rooster fish we caught fishing inshore. Incredible battlers!











Sandi and a 120 pound sailfish. In total we fished 1 day inshore and 4 days offshore. We caught Marlin to 300 pounds and hooked and fought larger fish. One day we took off from fishing to enjoy the world class spa and an eco tour zip lining through the jungle canopy. Crocodile Bay Costa Rica is a fabulous vacation spot and the staff are first class. It especially impressed me that we were met at every turn by staff. Whether coming or going Crocodile Bay made sure we were transported from airport to hotel and back. They even provided transportation between airports!

May & June 2008 Alberta Spring Bear
Straight from our New Zealand plane we drove over to Argyll Motor Sports in Edmonton and picked up our new 2008 Argo Avenger 750 EFI and headed to the woods bear baiting.










For a review on what's new with the Avenger check out this 2008 Avenger EFI.Nothing compares with an Argo when it comes to hauling the thousands of pounds of bait required to run a dozen bear baits.

Sandi and I renewed old baits from last year and set up several new for this year, even floated a couple of beaver dams to set up baits in untouched areas.All to no avail. We had small bears coming in on the trail cams and a huge number of sows with cubs but only one decent boar.

we sat the baits right to last day of the season hoping for a good bear to wander in but no success. Hopefully we can get on some bear in oats crops this fall and use some tags.














April 2008 North Island New Zealand
Sandi and I found our way back to the incredible green hills of Kanuka Wilderness Hunting situated just east of the town of Palmerston North near the south end of the island. The weather this trip was gorgeous and we enjoyed beautiful blue skies and 20 C plus days. Now that is great hunting weather!






Sandi was first up to hunt, (when isn't she?!?) and she lead us on three merry stalks for a beautiful fallow buck. The fallow were just wrapping up their rut and were pretty mobile which can make for difficult hunting especially when packing a camera with you. We saw some huge bucks but they never stayed out where we could put a stalk on them. Two we watched bed and lost sight of as we trekked through the ravines and forest only to pop up where they were to find empty beds. Such is hunting.




We took to sitting on some pretty spectacular cliff ledges during the warm part of the afternoon and from one at Ferrari Lookout I made a great shot cross canyon for my fallow buck. The second victim of the Icon in 30 T/C.




















Not to be outdone Sandi made a great 240 plus yard shot two mornings later while lying in the dew soaked grass to anchor here great stag. Once again the 30 T/C did a spectacular job. Sandi's heart shot stag managed two faltering steps and plummeted over the edge of a gorge and in spectacular fall broke a hind leg. He was dead where he landed but as we were enjoying here beautiful trophy, I commented on how something smelled bad and at that point Shane our guide exclaimed "Bugger! Look here!" Not 20 yards from Sandi's stag a monster stag had slipped on the precarious hillside trail and had hung himself backwards by his great antlers from a Kanuka tree. The terrible story was there for viewing and the poor bugger didn't have a good end at all.

Bit a bit. Similar to our large burrs the beggar crumbles to the touch into a multitude of near impossible to remove seeds.

Bastard Grass. It looks similar to red top or rye grass here but let a seed come in contact with a hair and you are in for an unpleasant pull as the specially evolved hooks won't let go of the hair and it takes quite a tug to get the seed loose of the stem.

Lawyer Vine. I love these names! It is pretty obvious where the name comes from, cause if it gets its hooks into you it don't let go.

My stag in the Avenger from Blair's . My first animal killed with the new T/C Triumph. Believe it or not one box of Hodgdon pellets cost $110.00!

Sandi and I took these two fine rams on the same day, mine at 142 yards with the Triumph and Sandi's at 220 with the Icon.

For giggles Sandi and I carried the sheep to the Argo in the traditional Kiwi style where you turn the animal into its own back pack. Very comfortable but a little messy.
New Zealand was hard to leave once again, the people and the country are so welcoming they must have strict immigration laws in place to stop being over run by newcomers. Be sure to watch

the Outdoor Quest in 2009 for all the new hunts.