How a little help can go a long way to help others become successful hunters

© By Othmar Vohringer

Those of my readers who also read the Whitetail Deer Passion blog may remember the post I wrote about the young Wisconsin hunter who killed his first ever buck after seeking my advice.

After that initial buck Shawn, the young Wisconsin hunter, asked for more advice because he hadn’t seen any more deer. He was wondering where they went. I gave him advice, based on the information he provided, and a few days later he called to tell me that he shot a huge 11-point puck during Wisconsin’s slug gun season. The hunter kindly supplied me with his hunting report and the permission to publish it on Whitetail Deer Passion.

In the report he writes an interesting part that all hunters should take to heart. “…His way of thinking surprised me. I always thought that bow hunters had to be either in a tree stand or in a ground blind that is manufactured…” To often hunters are caught up with traditions and “that is how it is done” rituals. The fact however is, that the hunter who thinks outside the box will always be more successful. Deer do not read hunting magazines, watch videos or attend hunting seminars. Deer do what they do and hunters need to observe and adjust accordingly.

As Shawn’s story and the popularity of my hunting strategy consultant service and seminars prove time and again thinking outside of the box and be flexible pays off big time.

The full story can be read here.

I am flattered by the credit Shawn pays to my advice but also very proud of having been able to play my part in his success. It is quite something for a novice hunter to go from getting nothing for years to filling tow doe and two buck tags, and big bucks at that, in one season.

For more information on my services to improve your success visit my website.

Here I leave you with Shawn’s two big bucks which he killed within a few weeks of each other.













This is Shawn's 10 point bow buck.














This is Shawn's 11 point slug gun season buck.

Images courtesy of Shawn Moretti.

Tags: Deer Hunting, Hunting Strategy Consultant, Improve Hunting Success

NBC Refuses to air PETA Thanksgiving Commercial

© By Othmar Vohringer

According to a U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance news release plus several newspaper reports the NBC refuses to play a Thanksgiving commercial produced by the notorious animal rights group PETA.

A spokes person for the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance said; “The “Grace” ad produced by PETA starts off innocently with a cute, young girl sitting at the dinner table with her family. She is asked to give a Thanksgiving blessing and goes into a long winded, and very graphic dissertation about the “cruelty” of turkey farming.”

According to PETA’s blog, it submitted the ad to NBC so that it could run during coverage of the annual Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving Day. NBC responded that it required more information before it would run the ad. PETA responded with some of its outrageous propaganda but was disappointed when NBC still came firmly down against allowing the ad to air.

“It is highly inappropriate, but not unexpected for PETA to attempt to hijack a family tradition in order to push its radical message,” said Bud Pidgeon, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance president and CEO. “Just like with the Super Bowl commercial, NBC made the right call.”

I too think that the NBC made the right call to turn the PETA commercial down and since it is Thanksgiving I would like to encourage hunters and anglers reading this blog to give thanks to the NBC for this wise decision. Contact NBC.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: Thanksgiving, NBC, PETA, TV Commercial

Youth Outdoor Participation Declines

© By Othmar Vohringer

According to a new outdoor recreation activity survey released by “The Outdoor Foundation®” youth participation in outdoor activity is in decline following a promising growth in participation in 2008.

The survey included 114 different outdoor activities capturing responses from over 40,000 youth aged six and older. This was the largest survey ever done on youth outdoor activity participation. According to the survey some reasons for the drop are the beginning of adjustments in American lifestyles brought about by a challenging economy, shifting demographics and changing times.

Youth, so the surveys finds, spend more time indoors. The outdoor participation of youth aged 6 to 17 dropped 16.7 percent. The biggest drop was noted among the youngest ( 6 to 12 ) that fell a staggering nine percent. There is a wide gap between ethnic groups in the outdoor participation. Caucasians are more active in the outdoors than any other ethnic groups while African Americans are the lowest ranking.


The report of the survey is critical for the Outdoor Foundation’s development of strategies to promote outdoor activity and get youth.
Among the long list of activities that are loosing favour with youth is hunting. Hunting shows the biggest loss and that to me is troubling.

For years hunting is loosing participants. This is due in part to the baby boomers retiring and not enough youth entering. While we have been very successful at recruiting women, the largest growing hunting segment into our ranks we’re still loosing more hunters than we gain.

To be perfectly frank, if hunters were an animal species we would be on the endangered species list. Organizations would organize fundraisers on our behalf and the governments would implement laws for our protection. Since we’re not an animal species we have to think of ways to attract more new and young hunters. Since, as the survey shows, young people spend more time indoors and on the computers we, the outdoor bloggers, may be able to reach these young people via the computer screen.

How about writing about a young hunter, highlighting the fun and excitement hunting can be for the novice and the guide? It is common for a hunter to bring his or her children into hunting. What about the children or adults that do not have hunter parents, friends or relatives? From personal experience I know that there are a fairly large number of youth and adults that would like to become hunters if they only could find someone that shows then how to get started or is available with advice when needed.

If we want to recruit more hunters we need to think outside the box and beyond our immediate family. Extend the recruitment of hunters to your friends at work and to those of your children. Write about the experiences on your blogs. If young people read about other youth, through your blogs, they might give hunting serious consideration. How well that can work became clear to me a few weeks ago. A young man contacted me after reading through my blog and asked me advice on hunting. We began to communicate by phone and email for several weeks and the other day I got a phone call from that young man telling me that he just shot a big ten-point buck. (The full story of that event will soon be posted on my Whitetail Deer Passion blog.)

This young man was a novice hunter with no hunting background in his family so he could not ask his parents, siblings or relatives for advice on how to hunt. But what really disturbed me was the fact that even fellow hunters seemed to have no time for him when he approached them. Finally, before giving up hunting, he thought that he would take a chance and phone me, a complete stranger, because he read on my blog about my dedication to helping new hunters. The young hunter made his mind up that if I would turn him down too he would give up hunting. But because I blogged about the importance of helping new hunters we gained a hunter.

It doesn’t matter what outdoors activity niche you cover with your blog because the blog can function as a tool to recruit young people back into the outdoors. Show the youth through your words that the outdoors is a great place to have fun, excitement and thrills and it is also a place to celebrate their achievements.

For more information on my efforts to promote hunting to young and new generation of hunters visit my website. Othmar Vohringer Outdoors


Tags: Youth Outdoor Participation in Decline, The Outdoor Foundation, Promoting Hunting

Maine Trappers 1 - Animal Rights 0

© By Othmar Vohringer

Today I received a press release from the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation that I would like to share with my readers. Ones again sportsmen and the supporting organizations have proven that when we stick together and argue with facts we win against animal rights. Read on!

Trappers in Maine won a major victory as the state’s Federal District Court upheld the state’s trapping practices and blocked the establishment of a precedent that could be used by anti-hunting and anti-trapping groups nationwide.
In 2008, the Animal Welfare Institute and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine filed a lawsuit against the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW) seeking a permanent injunction that would have essentially prohibited trapping in the state. The lawsuit claimed that Maine’s trapping regulations violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because Canada lynx, a threatened species under the ESA, could be incidentally caught in traps causing “irreparable harm” to the population.

Throughout the case, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (USSAF), along with the Maine Trappers’ Association, Fur Takers of America, National Trappers’ Association , and several individual sportsmen, argued that the anti-trapping plaintiffs had to show that Maine’s trapping practices were a threat to the Canada lynx population as a whole. The plaintiffs insisted that harm to one individual lynx was sufficient for the Court to prohibit trapping in the state.

On November 10th, Federal District Court Judge John A. Woodcock, Jr. ruled that Maine’s trapping practices did not irreparably harm the Canada lynx and denied the injunction sought by the anti-trappers. Further, the Judge agreed with the state and the USSAF that “irreparable harm” is harm to a species as a whole and not simply one individual member.

“Although the plaintiffs may appeal the ruling, the Federal Court’s decision is a monumental victory for the trappers in Maine and sets an excellent precedent that will make it harder for the antis to misuse the ESA in their attempts to ban hunting and trapping in other states,” states USSAF Vice President for Government Affairs Rob Sexton.

“We knew the evidence was on our side and are thrilled with outcome,” said Skip Trask, executive director of the Maine Trappers Association. “The USSAF’s legal assistance was invaluable to the favorable outcome.”

Read full article here.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Tags: Maine Trappers, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, Trappers Win Court Case Against Anti Hunters, Press Release,

A happy day for Canadian gun owners

© By Othmar Vohringer

I am a bit late with this news but thought that my American readers would like to know that Canada’s gun owners finally can sigh a breath of relieve. The Firearm Registry is finally to be killed off.

The Firearm Registry required that every gun owner had to register any firearm they owned or acquired. Failing to do so was a criminal offence and could lead to having the guns taken away by the police. Canadian firearm owners had to endure the firearm registry for over a decade. The registry was introduced as a cosmetic touch in response to the December 1989 massacre of 14 women at a Montreal college. True to Liberal party thinking (then still in power) and the anti gun lunatic fringe of society the guns were to blame for the bloodbath not the killer.

The idea, faulty as it was, was that ones all the guns are registered, including all personal information of the owner, illegal firearms would just simply vanish and gun violence would end. Initially this cosmetic touch should cost taxpayers no more than two million dollars. But what do you know it ended up costing the taxpayers over two billion dollars and counting.

Any sane person would understand that just registering the guns alone would not prevent crime or illegal gun traffic. Since when do criminals register firearms? Even the police had to admit that there was not a single case known where the registry could be used to trace an illegal firearm used in a crime. As I just said, criminals do not register guns. However, that simple fact did not jell with the Liberal government, they just keep pouring more money into it.

When the Conservative party took over the government, Harper promised that he would kill the useless gun registry but since he only had a minority it was not as easy as he thought but finally it has happened. The Harper government finally could convince some of the more reasonable Liberals to see commonsense and support him to bring and end to Canada’s most expensive cosmetic application in recent history. The 164-137 vote in favour of Bill C-391 is a big victory for the Tories, who have been fighting for years to end what they call a "wasteful, inefficient" registry.

There are only a few left that will not see common sense and one of them is Michael Ignatieff who joined the Liberal party as their new leader and hopes one day to run for Prime Minister. Not if Canadians can help it. Ignatieff said that his Liberal party, who brought the long-run registry in, still support the gun control registry and believes in its value to control gun crime. That anti gun fanatic, the Major of Toronto, blows the same hot pro registry air. He cries that gun violence will go up if the registry is scraped. Funny thing is that all these years when Canada had a gun registry, Toronto’s gun related crime just went up, and up, and up… Could it be that the gun registry has eaten up so much money (two billion) that there was nothing left to hire more police officers? It seems obvious to me.

Although the first and important step is taken in killing the gun registry with an overwhelming nod from the parliament, there are still several hurdles to jump until we see the final burial service of the gun registry. There are some that say that the registry might resurface in a different from but somehow I don’t think so. The majority of Canadians are outraged about the amount of money it has cost them and they got absolutely nothing in return for it. I think, any politician, other than Ignatieff (he will just return to America if he fails) and a few other diehard anti-gun-advocates, will be very foolish to keep beating away on a dead horse and upset taxpayers even more then they already are.

It’s a good day to be a legal Canadian firearm owner again without been treated like a potential criminal and liability to society. Somehow and throughout the years I always believed that in the end commonsense would prevail. As for Harper, he will get my vote anytime. Harper and his Tory party worked for many years against all obstacles to make good on the election promise to scrap the registry, and so they did. It’s nice to know that there are still a few politicians left with a backbone.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Tags: Canada, Gun Registry, Gun Control , Harper, Canada Abolishes Firearm Registry

Two new states are added to the concealed handgun reciprocity list

© By Othmar Vohringer

The Sunday Gazette Mail reports that two more American states, Delaware and North Dakota, have added West Virginia to the concealed handgun reciprocity list. According to Managing Deputy Attorney General Tom Smith the signed agreement with Delaware should be back any day now.

Once the deal with Delaware is final, West Virginians with valid concealed weapons permits will be able to legally carry a hidden gun in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia under written agreements between West Virginia and those states.

While each day more American states recognize the inherent right of citizens to protect themselves against criminals and oppose the sweeping gun control plans of the federal government. Here in Canada, especially Ontario, legal gun owners have become the target of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and his rabbit anti gun boss, Toronto Mayor David Miller.

With broad sweeping statements and outright lies the pair blames legal gun owners for gun crimes. Since the day Harper became Canada’s Prime Minister he’s working on the abolition of the multi-million-dollar mess, called Firearm Registry. Miller and Blair, in an effort of scare mongering people, go public with statements that the Conservative government wants to abolish all gun control. Nothing could be further from the truth. Harper only wants to get rid of the gun registry that has terribly failed and costs taxpayers millions.

In a statement Police Chief Blair bragged that he assigned over 1,000 officers to the task of checking up on legal gun owners. In his mind that is how violent crime can be lowered. Of course we all know that the real problem of violent crime are the courts. The courts consistently refuse to punish criminals, often turning criminals back onto the streets before the ink on the police report is dry.

Having grown up in Switzerland I have learned at a very early age in life that when citizens are given the tools to make use of their God given right to defend themselves against criminal’s, crime will go down. Because as my father once said, “A criminal may not value your life but he sure as hell values his own. Knowing that he [the criminal] is likely to loose his life will make him think twice before committing a crime.” Which echoes a statement made by the late Swiss State President, “An armed society is a safe, free and polite society.”

Taking away the means of defense or even the tight to defend will not make for a safer society. Quite the opposite. There is nothing more appealing to a criminal then a defenseless victim. add to that the morally corrupt courts that seem to be more concerned with a criminals rights then that of the victim and it not difficult to figure out why crime is on the rise.

It seems that more and more American states understand that and begin to act upon, despite federal efforts to take guns away from legal gun owners.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Tags: Gun Control, Concealed Handgun Carry, Toronto, Concealed Handgun Reciprocity list