Steve Gruber

I am in the process of putting together the final touches on the 2011-12 hunting calendar. We are going to have the best year ever when it comes to in your face footage. The eye of Wolf Creek will be looking across Australia… Africa… and maybe Argentina again!

We will also be setting up camp in some great new urban areas including Ann Arbor Michigan. We have put together a deal on hundreds of urban acres with several Boone and Crockett class flower eaters ready to get school in the art of broadhead warfare!

It certainly isn’t the first thing you’d think about when it comes to a Thanksgiving feast. I can say however during my visits to Africa a Tongue caserole can be a splendid meal. That however has nothing at all to do with the subject here today.

I attended Montana State University during the 1980’s where I focused on Marketing and Broadcast. While living in Bozeman my father and I spent countless hours pursuing fish and game across the magnificent landscape. In more recent years I’ve hunted elk with Mark Shutey of Stockton Outfitters in Butte, wrestled huge Rainbow Trout from the Missouri and The Madison. I’ve watched plenty of television featuring the amazing hunting across Montana. Frankly I thought I knew the state pretty well. But when I was invited to hunt ‘Big Whitetails and Mulies’ on the Tongue river I scratched my head. In fact I had to pull out my Montana maps and figure out what was really on the table.

For most of you it is the magical time of the year when leaves of yellow, red and burning orange spin toward the ground. The clouds on the horizon look almost like they could hold a blast of snow. The smell of cider and pumpkins drifts from roadside stands and the beaches are almost empty. Costumes of every description are popping up along main street and there are more pick-up trucks with hunting decals slowly cruising backroads looking for that of which they dream.

It’s fall and for most of it’s time to forget seasons past and focus on the dream of staring face to face with the buck of a lifetime. Years ago I would drive until the sound and smell of the city was insulated by huge tracks of cut cornfields and freshly planted winter wheat and stands of hardwoods. Today my focus is much different. I stay close to town and embrace the sounds of barking dogs, honking horns and kids laughing in the piles of dry leaves. I look for small patches of green held tightly between new build condos and sub divisions of every description. Why you ask? Simple: the biggest deer in the world in my estimation are living in urban areas all over this country.

The day of traveling to Argentina was so like many, long and slow. The flight from Detroit to Atlanta was easy enough but the flight to Buenes Aires took nearly 10 hours and then we rode 6 more in a van before reaching the lodge. Since the moment we arrived however it has been a wonderful experience and honestly the ride was one I’ll never forget.