The management of the American Crossbow Federation assembled a panel of crossbow hunting experts to evaluate the newly contracted bear outfitters for our trek into Manitoba for our annual Spring Fling. Our outfitters were David Bouchard and Wyman Sangster; and our guide was Evan Proctor. After a week of hard and at times, very wet hunting, hearty affirmation was unanimously awarded by the team to our hosts for a job well done.

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February, although the shortest month of the year, can seem like the longest, especially for those who call the northern-most tier of the United States home. In the mid-winter, February’s rationed sunlight, accumulating snowfall and below zero temperatures can turn an outdoorsman’s days into a miserable sentence of hard time if there are no adventures to look forward to in his immediate future. My personal remedy for curing February’s doldrums is making the annual trip to the Rio Bonito Ranch in the Texas Hill Country for the ACF Winter Rendezvous. Six days atop the Edwards Plateau traipsing across its ruggedly handsome landscape while chasing the Rio’s plentiful and varied big game population is all that is necessary to break up the winter and rejuvenate one’s ebbing spirits. It also provides an opportunity to add some delectable cuisine to the family larder.

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Tom’s 196 square mile lease is covered up with antelope and I mean some real dandies.

A respectable number of requests for a good Pronghorn Antelope hunt have crossed my desk and I promised to see what I could uncover. Maryland member, Ron Williams provided me with a lead for an outfitter operating out of Douglas, Wyoming and guaranteed that we would like what he has to offer based on twelve consecutive years of hunting there. I spoke with the owner, Tom White about his company, Tom’s Antelope Adventures and he invited me to come out and see what he had to offer. Ron Williams said that he would come along on the maiden voyage and when I mentioned an Antelope Roundup to ACF member Gene Strie, he said he would come along to help evaluate.

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One of the many seeds planted deep within my psyche by my parents as a youngster was an abhorrence for bullies.We all know what they are and have seen them in action as they browbeat their victims; victims whom are usually smaller and weaker and pose no real threat to the attacker.As I aged, my unique personality (some would say obnoxious personality) frequently made me the target of bullies in my everyday life and that personal contact only served to deepen my distain for those who brutally intimidate, just because they can.

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Every year, smack dab in the middle of October, a half a dozen ACF members gather for the Fall Rendezvous in Houston, Missouri, the home of Ozark Mountain Outfitters.  Jim and Darlene Wilson and son Eric play host to our group in some of the most beautiful deer and turkey country that America has to offer.  The hunt allows the taking of a whitetail buck and doe as well as a wild turkey.  The hunt this year was a three day hunt, but in 2010 it will be expanded to five full days of exciting hunting with toasty-warm hospitality, lots of great home-cooked food and plenty of wildlife being seen by all who are sent out to guard Jim’s lush food plots.

This year I was joined by ACF members, Jackie Seale of Alabama, Harold Webster of Mississippi, Bob Jacobs of Minnesota and Randy Archer of North Dakota for four days of what turned out to be wet and colder than normal weather...

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