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REALWORLD SURVIVAL SKILLS

By: Ted Nugent You feel it don’t you! A burning, powerhouse throbbing deep in our souls! As summer throttles on, our spiritual radar is picking up super strong signals all around us, and as hunters in the modern world, we know exactly what to do with these signals. The primal scream is alive and well as long as we pay attention. As we witness the inescapable ugly results of a society inexcusably further disconnecting from the natural world around them, and the self-preservation instincts associated with it, we can rejoice our eternal participation and reverence for the natural world and its soul cleansing healing powers. We can’t wake-up everybody in the world, but we sure can alert the people in our lives how critically important a role the natural world plays in ultimate quality of life. The spirit of the woods is like an old, good friend. It makes us feel warm and good inside!

PRESEASON INVENTORY

By: Ted Nugent AUGUST! Say Hallelujah like you mean it! Another month down and another month closer to our glorious, long awaited, need it more than ever fall season-O-harvest! You do realize that a whole herd of gungho dedicated hunters around the world are already hard at it, don’t you! I’m getting photos daily from my SpiritWild backstrap buddies with big grins and hands full of big old California blacktails, Florida whitetails, hogs and gators, Alaskan and Canadian bighorn sheep, mountain goats, Texas rams and various exotics, African game of every imaginable species, and of course fish, fish and more fish as summertime 2021 throttles on towards our beloved autumn. I’ve tried valiantly to arrow one of the many exotics we celebrate here in Texas, but amazingly have been skunked every time and time again. How can that be when exotic hunting is a fish in the barrel kind of thing! Cuz it aint, that’s why!

Ultimate Resource Management

By: Ted Nugent Clearly, the jury is not still out when it comes to wildlife management 101. The inescapable proof and universal evidence of why game animals are thriving in America and elsewhere today is a direct result of the simplest of science; habitat management, its carrying capacity and the sustain yield annual valued harvest of the surplus. Placing real world value on habitat protection, improvement, enhancement and overall management along with the monitoring of wildlife productivity is a virtual guarantee that these wonderful natural wildlife resources will thrive forevermore. We the people in the hunting/conservation world can all rejoice and be exceedingly proud of such an accomplishment in a world that rarely does the right thing whenever government bureaucrats get involved. We’ve succeeded in spite of them so far. These wildlife resources are truly precious and mean the world to nature lovers everywhere, which is why they remain in the asset column when bureaucrats get out of our way and let truth, logic, science and common sense guide our policies. Usually. When I say usually, it is because it is unfortunately not always the case.

The Simple Things Are The Best Things

By: Ted Nugent           A tin of sardines with saltine crackers on a cold fall afternoon around a warming campfire in the Yukon. A makeshift coniferous shelter from a cold rain on the banks of a babbling brook in Alaska. Buddies laughing and swapping stories at the buckpole on a family farm in November. Dragging a son’s and/or daughter’s first deer out of the woods together. The unrivaled thrill of hearing the glorious words; “Here he is over here!!” The delicious, overpowering aroma of thick-cut slab bacon sizzling at 3am on opening morning. Sitting in a tree during a snowstorm. The first hunt with dad. The last hunt with dad.

The Great Balancing Act

By: Ted Nugent Like pretty much every day of my life, I spent most of today walking and wandering in, on and about some wonderful, healthy, soul cleansing wildlife habitat wildground. As summertime throttles onward and we dream of cool October days, I continue to seek, absorb and cherish new lessons of the wild that not only bring me much immediate gratification and powerful sense of belonging, but also a constant reminder of God’s miraculous nature creation, and most importantly, our moral, intellectual and spiritual obligation to take good care of His precious gift. Natural resource stewards unite Having just celebrated my 73rd renewal of another springtime, now summer shows us how perfect the four seasons are in the big scheme of life.

Trophy Hunting Defined

By: Ted Nugent Meat hunters are perfect conservationists. Sport hunters are perfect conservationists. Casual hunters are perfect conservationists. Gungho hunters are perfect conservationists. And shout it out loud and proud, trophy hunters are perfect conservationists! The mere act of purchasing a hunting license, the gargantuan spending orgy on all the plethora of sporting gear and associated taxes, the vast related economy of food, lodging, travel, fuel, supplies, groceries, restaurants, ATVs, trucks, cabins, land, foodplot seed, fertilizer, tractors, equipment, guides, outfitters, taxidermists, and assorted gear are all about as perfect of a value based wise use conservation of these sacred renewable resources as we humans can accomplish. The globally celebrated and conclusively proven sound science based American wildlife conservation model of pay as you go has brought back game populations from the brink of extinction following the unregulated wanton marketing slaughter of yore, to the healthiest, thriving game populations in the history of mankind. The meat hunter, of which I am proud to be, pays our way, balances the herds and brings home the bacon. Perfect.

Ghosts In The Woods

By: Ted Nugent I wander the wild on a daily basis. It’s just what I do. I fortunately carved out my ultimate American outdoor lifestyle Dream long, long ago to make sure I lived my life, liberty and pursuit of gonzo happiness with everything I got, and everything that God gave me, and the rewards are immeasurable. My radar picks up on the smallest of surrounding detail as I cruise my sacred wildgrounds, and I see, hear, smell and feel new things each day that spark interest, intrigue, fascination, and wonderful memories. There’s an old scrape there, a buckrub, a blowdown, deerbed, a new trail, turkey scratchings, a birdnest, some old bones, a shed antler, some feathers from an unlucky victim of a predator, and an endless plethora of earthly goodies that never fail to stimulate and educate me. More and more lately I’ve been taking note of old, historical treestand remnants that bring a glowing smile to my face, for those old pieces of dilapidated, busted-up 2x4s hanging precariously from forked branches bring a flood of amazing forever moments strategizing to ambush a backstrapper.

Winter Spring Summer Fall

By: Ted Nugent Pretty simple stuff, those wonderful four seasons of the year! Who could not love and celebrate them all! I just created another killer instrumental song recently titled Winter Spring Summer Fall and it flowed out of me like life’s breath itself! Going back to the earliest years with my amazing band The Amboy Dukes, I have created instrumentals, moving pieces dare I say, with songtitles very close to my heart that clearly follow my love and passion for the outdoor lifestyle; Scottish Tea, Migration, Homebound, Free Flight, Hibernation, TNT Overture, Earthtones, Sunrize and now this new orchestral primal, instinctual celebration of our love of the four-season dynamo that encompasses and facilitates life itself. Some may think that our love of hunting and the great outdoors focuses sole on the fall season, and for some this may very well be true. Nothing like the cool, crisp, delicious predator air of October and November to set our hearts a-flutter!

I of the Beholder

By: Ted Nugent On the wall of our old NorthWoods Michigan Nuge family log cabin are the artfully mounted heads of a pair of handsome whitetail deer. These two mounts literally reek of glowing memory tsunamis of every minute detail of each encounter that reside deep in my soul and remain on call for my serious happiness celebration anytime and everytime I see them or even think about them. Afterall, that is the essence of the art of taxidermy and also why nobody ever hires a taxidermy artist to mount their chicken no matter how enjoyable the Cordon Bleu family meal memory may be. Many guests to our wilderness cabin end up staring at these two deer on the wall and eventually and inevitably inquire as to why I had them mounted, for you see, the one is a button buck fawn of the year 1969 and the other is a doe fawn of the year 1970. As I excitedly go into the detailed stories behind each kill, some soon begin to understand the spiritual moment of my excitement while others remain somewhat confused as to why anyone would ever bother to mount such non-trophy animals, missing the whole point of what such taxidermy work truly represents. Over the years I have had many more big game kills mounted and many of them do indeed qualify as genuine trophies by any and all such measurements, both official and non-official.

Thank You My Spirit BloodBrothers

By: Ted Nugent OK. I’m old. Not tired or worn out by any means, but relatively travel-weary after a very wild 60+ year (so far) hyper rock-n-roll blitz of superhuman/animal proportions around the globe. I started my guitarslamming American Dream way, way back around 1955, and by the time I was 9 years old, I was already rocking out onstage like a guitarboy possessed in various duets, reviews, combos, trios and bands. And, mind you, my mystical flight of the arrow flingfest erupted even earlier than that, if you can believe it! Believe it! Adventure shortage I know not, and I have thrilled and continue to thrill at every magical moment in both dynamic arenas of life, liberty and the gonzo pursuit of my ultra-rock-n-roll bowhunting happiness. And to this day 72.4 years later, the eternal passionfires blaze on ferociously into that not so quiet night!

The Year Round Sniper

By: Ted Nugent My wonderful Catahoula/black mouth cur Happy was singing the ultimate hound howl as I strained to find the limb-clinging bushytail high aloft in the old Live Oak tree. Old Happy is never wrong and wasn’t about to...

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Deerhunter SpringCleaning

By: Ted Nugent Whew! That was crazy exciting! Talkin’ about Gonzo springcleaning outrage! A bewildering whirlwind vortex of shrapnel infested dust has finally settled here at CampNuge as I just wrapped up the most insane auction in the history of insane auctions! I painfully soldoff a lifetime overabundance of incredible guns, one of a kind iconic guitars, artistic knives, beautiful wildlife artwork masterpieces, scads of historical bows and arrows, custom trucks and hotrods, legendary rock-n-roll memorabilia and unique career paraphernalia from rock-n-roll hell. All of a sudden my barns, shops and closets have room to move in! Though TribeNuge always conducts some sort of basic springcleaning as an annual ritual of reorganization, cleanup and streamlining responsibility, this auction was surely a once in a lifetime ultra-cleanout that should have probably happened a long time ago, but better late than never as the saying goes. As Shemane and I continue to settle into our new Texas home, we are still in the process of getting things organized and as we haul boxes from old house to new house, this is the perfect time to sort out the truly desirable goods from an accumulation of marginally lesser desirable items. And though my auction soldoff more than 400 individual items, as we go through our stuff now, I am reminded why I had the sale to begin with. I still have a crazy amount of really cool stuff to keep me more than busy, happy and adventurous.

The Memory Bridge

By: Ted Nugent It’s not like I haven’t got plenty to keep me crazy busy in between deerseasons, that’s for sure! But even with the nonstop orgy of my musical adventure, songwriting, guitarslamming, tone tweaking, equipment experimentation, jamming, sonic defiance, and soulmusic alchemy, I still dream relentlessly of October, November, December 2021 and beyond! Gee, I’m almost like a deerhunting junkie for God’s sake! And speaking of God, I would certainly like to thank Him immensely for the diversity of my life’s adventures. I raise maximum God, family, country, freedom hell everyday on global media, fulfill my daily ranch chore responsibilities, do my very best to wear out my beloved hound dogs, shoot a squirrel or two in the eyeball, check my trapline each morning, diligently pursue my husband, father and grandfather duties, and constantly reachout to remind my elected government employees that the Nugent family expects them to live up to their sacred Constitutional Oaths. Then of course there’s always vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, laundry, general home maintenance, grocery shopping, etc, and today I mounted a new US flag and Texas flag to the front of our home. I had to chainsaw some lowhanging limbs on the fence again this morning, fill a few feeders, cut and remove some old barbwire tangles, train with and clean a few guns, exercise my Mathews bow, and oh yeah, sign a couple thousand Come And Take It hats and flags (tednugent.com) for the hardcore freedom demanding masses! Then I had a quick breakfast and here I am.

Axis-Bold As Love!

By: Ted Nugent 113 days and 106 deerhunting sits later since returning home to Texas last November, (I duck hunted a few mornings and evenings) the ghost appeared for the 1st time before me! Axis deer! By far the most invisible, and quite possibly, the most desirable critter on SpiritWild Ranch, and for many hunters, all across Texas. Nestled back in a prime Primos Double Bull popup blind deep in the vast mesquite jungle, the gorgeous and most delicious of the deer family appeared at the edge of the distant foodplot like an apparition from the cedar valley sanctuary. Oh my! Still more than 200 yards out, but with a good hour of shooting light remaining, my hope meter sprang to life with visions of the spotted deer entering my killzone. Ever so cautiously and painstakingly slow, the foursome of stags browsed and nibbled their way in my direction. My Mathews bow was up and ready when even at that for off range, the lead buck’s head jerked erect, head swiveling to and fro, and all four deer spun and beat a hasty retreat back into no-mans-land. As usual.

The Kill Crescendo

The End Is The Beginning

Year-Round Bowhunting

By: Ted Nugent

The gorgeous whitetail buck was still a long-ways off, but if he stays on course along the rocky dry creekbed, I just may get an arrow off for more backstrap dreams. It may be late in the season for whitetails on this beautiful, cold February afternoon, but you would think this was my very first encounter ever with a deer I was so damn excited.

A handsome doe with two good sized yearlings meandered past my ambush tree and I was gearing up for a hopeful shot after a long, patience testing vigil when I caught movement off my left shoulder in the puckerbrush tangles below.

Well, lo and behold, there is no question we are in Texas baby, when the telltale red and white spotted beast stepped into view, and immediately my whitetail dreams pulsate

Backup BloodBrothers

By: Ted Nugent

I constantly celebrate my extreme good fortune to share deerhunting campfires with the best people that roam the earth. Life’s blessings in the deerhunting world come in many forms, but to connect so intimately so often every season with so many great families could very well be the greatest blessing of them all.

My annual 777 Ranch deerhunt in Hondo Texas is a perfect example of such a grand experience. Each January I join legendary international professional big game hunter Jeff Rann and his wonderful wife Kwezi and team at this amazing wildlife paradise and historical whitetail deer hunting destination in South Texas.

The Hunt That Never Ends

By: Ted Nugent

South Texas is certainly a deerhunting paradise. My annual whitetail winter safari around the Uvalde, Knippa, Sabinal, Hondo region southwest of San Antonio is beyond any bowhunting dream this old Michigan deerhunter could have ever imagined.

Blessed and beyond fortunate to be invited on to the 8000-acre Mosing family 4M Ranch all these years has brought me so much joy I can hardly stand it. Managed for nearly 50 years for optimal healthy, thriving wildlife habitat through balanced deer numbers has created a deer herd that you would have to see it and hunt it to believe it.

Triple Double Double Triple

By: Ted Nugent

For starters, I would like to wish my deeranddeerhunting.com Spirit BloodBrothers a very happy 2021! As we throttle into another gift of a new year of life in the eternal deercamps of America, I hope we all maximize the positive and fight like mad to reduce and hopefully eliminate as much of the negative as we can in our every word, deed and action.

I will be sharing some of my amazing deerhunts from 2020 and still going on into 2021 here in an effort to emphasize the many lessons I have learned. When approached with the proper mindset, each and every hunt will provide important lessons in not only how to be more efficient deerhunters, but more importantly, how these powerful lessons of cause and effect can be applied to our every day lives for overall upgrade.

Many of us will hunt nonstop for the next month or so, and I thank God everyday for the opportunity to connect with His physics of spirituality in the soul cleansing great outdoors.

Adios 2020, Good Riddance

By: Ted Nugent

Anybody get the license plate number on that runaway tandem gravel scow that just twelve-wheel drifted broadside into our American Dream! I think it said “2020” in big, ugly, bold numbers!

That is a number we will not soon forget, unfortunately!

I’ve been around for 72 of these wild earthly American years, (measured in deerseasons) and I’ve seen and witnessed a lot of extremes, but there was no way I was ready for what the year 2020 had in store for us.

Deerhunting Birthdays

By: Ted Nugent

Here on this wonderful December 17, 2020 glorious day of bowhunting whitetail deer on the gamerich grounds of Texas, I pause to say a loud and proud, loving Happy Birthday to my dear old dad, Warren Henry Nugent. Born on this day in 1920 in Detroit, Michigan, dad would have been the big 100 this year!

I know we don’t frame everything in our lives in deerhunting terms (almost) but having just celebrated my 72^nd birthday with a deercamp full of incredible Americans as I do every year, I must share the amazing consistency with which so many people communicate with me as to how their birthday celebrations do indeed reference our beloved deerhunting lifestyle more often than not.

Why Me?

By: Ted Nugent

Hunting is a very individual, independent loner function for many of us in an otherwise gregarious world. Sure, hunting camp is a powerfully traditional gathering of family and friends, harking back to our very earliest ancestors as we discovered the necessity of teamwork to slay the mighty dinosaurs and giant beasts of prey, but our individual hunting time is almost always a loner experience.

In the modern world of deerhunting, our natural predatory meanderings, swampbusting, woodland forays and ridgerunning pursuits are more often than not a very personal, solo endeavor.

Happy ThanXgiving Everyday

By: Ted Nugent

Even though the year is not quite over and we continue to celebrate some great deerhunting as the Christmas Holidays approach, during ThanXgiving with family and friends we can begin to review another year, another tsunami of powerful memories, some great, some not so great, but nonetheless, in the final analysis, how we here in the United States of America have much to be thankful for.

I am ever so thankful to be an American, where life, liberty and our individual pursuit of happiness can still guide our every choice and every dream.