Articles

Deerhunting Turkeys

Thursday, May 16, 2019

By: Ted Nugent Growing up and hunting in Michigan throughout the 50s 60s and 70s, there were no wild turkeys to be had. My first encounter with the mighty Thunderchicken was in the Manistee National Forest up in the northeast area of the lower peninsula around 1975. Trekking mile after mile of wonderful rugged wildground habitat pursuing the elusive Ruff Grouse and Timberdoodles with my amazing Irish Setter birdmasters, we stumbled upon a flock of about twelve Eastern turkey hens one afternoon, and I was rather surprised and delighted to say the least. A few years after that we could apply for a spring gobbler permit, and my exciting hunting for this magnificent big game bird was off and running.

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The Future Is Now

Thursday, May 9, 2019

By: Ted Nugent I remember it like it was just this morning. I couldn’t have been much more than six, maybe seven years old. We lived on Florence Street in Redford on the northwest edge of Detroit, and right across Hazelton Street was the winding wildgrounds of the mighty Rouge River that called my name loud and clear and all the time. It may have well been the uncharted jungles of Mozambique for all I could have known or cared, for its big timber, towering forests, snag-nasty tanglezones of thick scrub and impenetrable bush, tall, steep hills and deep, dark valleys, all its magnificent wildness and mystifying critters lured me as powerfully as anything can lure a human being. At first, pre-dating Whamo’s and WristRockets, I had my trusty old handmade slingshot, cleverly fabricated from a geometrically perfect forked hickory branch, powered by old bicycle innertube strips fastened by tight shoelaces with a sturdy patch of worn canvas for a projectile pouch. Many a painstaking hour was dedicated to picking out the perfect sized, as round as possible pebbles and stones for my arsenal of ballistically coefficient ammo, and Lord knows the passion with which I relentlessly practiced my aim small miss small discipline to be the best marksman I could be. And let me tell you, I was murder! Chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, quail, birds of every description and species, river rats, snakes, frogs, turtles, coons, possums, skunks, nothing was safe from the WhackMaster in the making.

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Conservation Gang Warfare

Friday, May 3, 2019

By: Ted Nugent The National Rifle Association. Hunter Nation. Gun Owners of America. Ducks Unlimited. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. National Wild Turkey Foundation. Delta Waterfowl. Pheasants Forever. Trout Unlimited. Quail Unlimited. The Grouse Society. Gun Owners of California. Texas Rifle Association. Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. The Zelman Partisans. The Wild Sheep Foundation. The National Trappers Association. The Boone and Crocket Club. Pope and Young. Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. The Audubon Society. National Wildlife Federation. The Arbor Day Foundation. Safari Club International. The Dallas Safaris Club. The Houston Safari Club. Shikar Safaris. Michigan Conservation Clubs. Michigan Bowhunters. Wisconsin Bowhunters. South Dakota Bowhunters. Nebraska Bowhunters. Alaska Bowhunters. I’m sure I could go, but this is a partial list of absolutely amazing conservation and freedom organizations to which I have over the many years supported in one way or another. All 50 states and all Canadian Provinces have various hunting, conservation and gun-rights organizations, and in equally various ways, do wonderful work on behalf of conservation, hunting, fishing and trapping rights and very important freedom-based gun-rights.

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Back To Basics-Wildlife Management 101

Thursday, April 25, 2019

By: Ted Nugent I’m just a guitarplayer and I never went to college. I was too busy learning stuff; really important stuff! You know, all that radical stuff like self-evident truths, logic, commonsense, reality, earning your own way, living within your means, saving for a rainyday, self-sufficiency, accountability, frugality, utilitarian pragmatism, independence, work ethic productivity, responsible conservation, honesty, resource stewardship, giving instead of taking, leaving things better than I found them, hands-on down to earth natural world stuff that remains to this day the basics of quality of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and allthings American Dream. Oh, radical, radical me! It is my 70 years of clean and sober ultra-aliveness that has taught me to believe that no other lifestyle available to mankind will teach these things better than the life of a hunter, especially the life of a bowhunter. The higher level of awareness and demanding stealth discipline of bowhunting eliminates the failures of stumbling and bumbling along in hopes that luck will win the day.

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May The Great Spirit Be Forever At Your Side

Thursday, April 18, 2019

By: Ted Nugent “Man started out living in a cave. Felt right at home nobody’s slave. Only wanted a happy home. Only wanted to be left alone. Now it’s my turn to show my stuff. Its sometimes fun its sometimes rough. I’m workin’ hard to earn my way, but lucky me my work is play!…

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One With The Beast

Friday, April 12, 2019

By: Ted Nugent I love animals. They’re delicious! Well, of course, the most pure and original relationship mankind has had with critters certainly pivots upon the procurement and reverence for the life sustaining protein they have provided us time immemorial. I think we can all agree that in its most basic and simplistic consideration, venison is indeed life. Once our species began to consume meat, our brains began to develop and we got real smart real quick. With those smarts came the inescapable better understanding and genuine respect for the animals beyond just sustenance, and hence the beginning of hieroglyphics on cave walls, showing an increasing love affair with the beasts that provided ultimate fun, sport, meat, tools, weapons, shelter, clothing, medicine, trophies and much powerful spirit. I have only had a quickie 70-year blip on life’s radar so far, but I am certain that as a hunter, my love affair with animals is as pure and righteous as God had intended. My overall life, liberty and pursuit of happiness has an awful lot to do with my year-round lifestyle connection with animals on every imaginable level. Loving animals alone is insufficient and inadequate without genuine respect.

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Deerhunt All Year Long

Thursday, April 4, 2019

By: Ted Nugent VENISON! The primal scream battlecry for deerhunters everywhere that just won’t quit. Of course the term venison is not limited to just the sacred flesh of deer, but historically the nomenclature describing all wild game meat that has always fed mankind and we so cherish. With turkey season, bear season and fishing season coming alive across the springtime hunter hinterland, there are plenty of various hunting opportunities to keep us die hard, venison addicted, reasoning predators engaged and motivated, that’s for sure. But fret thee not my fellow gungho deerhunters, for the always thrilling herbivore/cervid season never ends in the last best place of Texas. Not only on millions of private ranches all across the Lone Star state but also found on open range public ground as well, it is not out of the ordinary to bump into any one of the many various species of deer that have called Texas home for many, many years.

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Deerhunting Then And Now

Thursday, March 28, 2019

By: Ted Nugent A good friend and I were exchanging ideas today about our love for deerhunting, referencing our lifetimes of exciting experiences and memories in our beloved deerwoods. Of course such discussions take place in my life all the time, but on this occasion my walk down deerhunting memory lane just happened to be with Dan Schmidt, editor extraordinaire of Deer And Deer Hunting magazine, probably as close to a maniacal, over-the-top, gungho deerhunter as me that there is. When I first hit the deerwoods in our mythical, sacred Up North big timber of Michigan way back in November of 1949, I was only 10 months old, so I can’t really share many accurate memories of those first few years. But believe me when I tell you, the Spirit of the Wild imprinted powerfully deep inside me nonetheless, and within a mere couple of years later, I not only figured out what was going on but instantly became fascinated by the whole primal scream ritual of the seasonal dynamo of the fall hunting season. And be it known to all good men everywhere, it has accelerated incrementally over 70 glorious deerseasons so far.

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The Future is NOW!

Thursday, March 14, 2019

By: Ted Nugent Priorities, priorities, priorities! They just keep mounting up, don’t they. Even though the hunting season never ends in Texas, I nonetheless have a slightly different list of priorities now that another wonderful whitetail season has come to a close. I work daily on equipment upgrades, foodplots, treestands, feeders, ranch chores, guitar adventure, dog work, media interviews and all the goodstuff that drives my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. To keep it simple and in perspective, I always start every day with my American Dream Battlecry of God, family, country. Everything else for quality of life pretty much falls into place, including backstraps and rock-n-roll. I figure, what exactly would God want me to do today? Well, surely, He would want me to take care of myself, my family, my community, my country, my earth and my fellow man. And therefore, I got all the prime priorities covered real good in every category just by doing the right thing and intelligently and responsibly managing my time, energy, spirit and resources to the max for positive attitude and forward motion.

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Remember Fred Bear

Thursday, March 7, 2019

By: Ted Nugent It’s the guy that goes to his grave with the most powerful memories that wins. My memory bank runneth over with the greatest memories a guy could ever hope for, and as we enter March 2019, this is the time of year, every year, when my happy memory planets align, for March 5 is Fred Bear’s birthday. Born in 1902, Fred would have turned 117 this week and a gathering of Fred Bear loving BloodBrothers got together for the 2nd annual Fred Bear Day in Grayling, Michigan, to commemorate this wonderful human being. Of course, Grayling, the real Gateway to Up North, was where Fred and his amazing bowyer Nels Grumly relocated their unique and soon to be legendary little archery shop from Detroit way back around 1940 or thereabouts, and they were off to the races. My good fortune came about because my dad, Warren Henry Nugent was already a bowhunter and follower of Fred’s when I was born in 1948, and like all American kids in those days, we all had Red Ryder Daisy BB-guns, a homemade slingshot and a homemade bow and arrow.

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