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Older, Slower, Wiser, Happier Hunter

By: Ted Nugent You think slowing down and getting into the primal predator mode of the hunt is difficult for you, imagine the overwhelming challenge I face when attempting to go from Mr. Bouncing-off-the-walls MotorCity Madman back to the dangerous, stealthy, cunning, slow-motion bowhunter backstrapmando! I got your hyper dynamo juxtaposition right here, pilgrim! Chuck Berry and Little Richard on one side, Fred Bear and Ishi on the other! Whoa! But alas, I improvise, adapt and overcome and figured it out for the most part way back in my most manic high energy teenage youth, for the bow and arrow was as driving an inspirational a force to me as my firebreathing Gibson guitars and primalscream rock-n-roll. It was rather obvious in those early years of experimental bowhunting adventure that I was not naturally cutout for this slow and easy stealth and patience bowhunting stuff!

Happy Happy ThanXgiving Everyday America

By: Ted Nugent Where oh where does one begin to list the endless gifts that we are to be thankful for as Americans? ThanXgiving is indeed a very special occasion in America, and everybody I know makes a supreme effort to show sincere appreciation and gratitude for all the blessings we have in this Last Best Place on earth. I start out each day of my life looking to the heavens in absolute awe at this miracle of life and the God given individual rights and freedoms we have in this unique experiment in self-government we call the United States of America. I am extremely thankful that we designate a special day each November to celebrate all that is wondrous. I am most thankful that I am an American and we defied the abject status quo of the world and threw off the shackles of tyranny way back in our founding. I thank God each day for the wisdom and courage of our Founding Fathers who crafted the US Constitution and Bill of Rights to guide the opening volley for mankind for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Big Bang Opener!

By: Ted Nugent There is no doubt whatsoever that I am hopelessly addicted to the mystical flight of the arrow. And as addictions go, this one is a doozy and oh so good for you! Archery, almost like God, family, country, freedom and rock-n-roll plays a huge role in my American Dream of life, liberty and constant pursuit of happiness. That being said, right up there with the endless thrills of bowhunting the majestic deer of America comes my fascination and love of marksmanship and its ultimate aim small miss small application of firearms deerhunting. As I slam this little NugeBlog ditty on the 13th day of November 2019, I am just two days away from what many of us still believe is the defining magical moment in the deerhunting lifestyle-altogether now, say HALLELUJAH like ya mean it, for November 15 is Opening Day of the Michigan gun season, and I am as or more excited to Carpe that diem than I ever have been in 71 seasons!

DeerCamp

By: Ted Nugent Somewhere along the beautiful forested banks of the Tittibawasee River, somewhere in the big deerwoods of Northern Michigan, maybe it was near Grayling, maybe Gaylord, maybe Gladwin in classic Americana deer country, young 10 month old Theodore Anthony Nugent entered the glorious world of deercamp, and my American Dream deerhunting trajectory was written in stone. Lucky lucky me huh! Jettison forward at a breakneck pace lightyears into fall 2019, and here I am again, celebrating one of life’s most thrilling experiences, my 71st deercamp! Those earliest of years were in many ways totally different, but in the most important ways, exactly the same. Let me explain; before I really got the deerhunting bug, say around the age of 12 or 13, deercamp was an annual short window of opportunity getaway that we all eagerly looked forward to. Deercamp was a distant destination that entailed much planning and a serious family excursion from our Detroit home far, far away to the Great North. From the concrete jungle, fast paced Motorcity industrial revolution Arsenal of Democracy cityscape to the soul cleansing primal scream of big timber wilderness was not just a topographical journey, but surely a psychological adventure as well.

Trick or Treat Backstrap Dreams

By: Ted Nugent Well happy happy Halloween everybody! Surely everybody knows that Halloween day is one of the best deerhunting days in North America! Not only does vast unsolicited testimony and anecdotal evidence support this self-evident truth, but even the record books are replete with probably more beast entries on Halloween than any other day of the year! Backstrap trick or treat like you mean it! The exciting end of October is a virtual explosion of increased wildlife activity all around, but most importantly it signals the unleashing of the November critter firestorm of rutting insanity, and God knows we all deerly love the eruption of unleashed critter firestorm rutting insanity, do we not! In my more than 60 years of gungho deerhunting, I think I have only missed a handful of Halloween days afield, due in my teenage years to the hyper rock-n-roll touring schedule that I had not yet figured out how to properly prioritize my sacred hunting time. Then there were a few Halloweens where Ma Nature had a tizzy fit and threw massive snotfest rainstorms into our lives and kept us frustratingly under wraps. October 31, 2018 was a day to remember, that’s for sure! I was nestled in my high-ridge ladderstand in the glory of the Michigan color peak with ace VidCamDude Ethan Whisker, and a good hour before losing camera light I glimpsed shadowy movement in the dense puckerbrush where the cattail and reedgrass marsh melded into the mature timberground way off yonder. Bino’s instantly identified a hulk of a bulk of a blubberbuck stud strolling with purpose off to our north, and in one fell predator ballet swoop I was able to range a beachball size hole in the understory at 61 yards, come to fulldraw, burp out a half-ass doe bleat and launch my 400grain deathray up, over and arching on a mission of mercy square into the buckzilla chest cavity with a resounding WHACK!

Arrow Heaven

By: Ted Nugent Scouting my sacred wildgrounds and shooting my Mathews every day are nearly as exciting as hunting my wildgrounds. It is this year-round nonstop scouting that teaches me much about critter activity and the always changing travel patterns to better zero in on my most advantageous ambush location. And of course, my samurai mystical flight of the arrow addiction is not only thrilling beyond words, but essential in remaining ONE with the path of my arrow for clean kills and backstrap joys! And so it was on this magic fall day 2019 as I carefully snuck up on my chosen treestand setup for the afternoon bowhunt, that the Great Spirit was riding along on my shoulders to assist in my predator/conservation duties. I don’t know about you, but my predator radar glows bright orange DefCom1 fulltime the minute I make the decision to hunt, sucking in every minute detail of the energized wild world around me, even as I slowly stalk through the woods, across the creek, into the marsh edge and up the final ridge to my tree.

Just ShutUp and Hunt

By: Ted Nugent Happy happy October everybody! Ain’t it grand! Ain’t it special! Ain’t it wonderful! Ain’t it beautiful! Ain’t it ours! Celebrate October 2019 every day like you mean it! I guarantee I’m going to! Many hunters around the world kicked off the season back in August and September, but you have to admit, there is something rather special about the effervescent month of October. Since my earliest youth, October 1st always represented that much anticipated magic opening day of our Michigan bowseason, and it was celebrated with mucho gusto by the Nugent family and the growing army of deerhunting archers inspired by his majesty, Mr. Fred Bear. So many states have initiated earlier openers and I not only fully support such increased opportunities, but I fight like mad to create such increased attractions for hunter retention and recruitment in every state. The more opportunities, bang for your buck so to speak, the better for the future of conservation participation across America.

Hunt, Hunt, Hunt, then Hunt Some More

By: Ted Nugent I may as well have been deep in the bowels of primordial Africa, stalking a jungle ridge hunting for lions or elephants. The goosebumps on my goosebumps were proof of my inner tingling and borderline uncontrollable excitement. But I wasn’t in Africa, and there were no lions, tigers, elephants or bears anywhere nearby. I was sitting quietly atop a glacier cut ridgeline above my sacred Michigan swamp, nestled beneath a towering forest of mature oaks, maples, hickory, beach, cherry, tulip poplars and various deciduous and coniferous hardwoods and softwoods, trusty old Remington Model 41 TargetMaster .22 bolt rifle in hand, scouring the leafy canopy for those pesky bushytails of my youth. Squirrel hunting! Lord I love squirrel hunting! I hunt squirrels with my Mathews bow, an old Remington single-shot rifle, a Smith & Wesson .22 revolver, a shotgun and my daily carry Glock 10mm. And I love it all.

Herd Management 101

By: Ted Nugent I gaze lovingly at the mounted button buck and the small doe fawn side by side on my cabin wall. You want to talk about trophies! I remember every soul stirring detail of those two exciting deerkills way back in the 1960s, and though both deer are as small as legal deer can be, they both represent the essence of my thrilling hunting life. I think the most amazing memory of all is the shock and dismay on the taxidermist’s face when I brought the little boogers in to be mounted. He literally couldn’t believe I wanted to pay to have such non-trophy deer mounted, but eventually came to understand my genuine excitement and happiness in finally accomplishing my hunting goal of bagging a deer. As I state constantly on my Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild TV show for the past 31 years and in all my media interviews celebrating the perfect hunting lifestyle, when approached with a proper mindset and with the proper heart of a hunter-conservationist, every hunt should be all about fun, sport, meat and trophy.

Venison-The Ultimate Sacred Flesh

By: Ted Nugent Gamey! You’re darn tootin my venison is gamey! That’s exactly why it is celebrated around the world as the most desirable, delicious, nutritious, natural, organic, healthy food on planet earth. Let us all dedicate ourselves to destroy the bastardization of the once glowingly positive term gamey! Gamey does not mean nasty, rancid or yucky! Originally when describing wild game meat, the term gamey was universally worldwide considered the ultimate positive compliment anyone could use to describe how special and delicious venison is. Somewhere along the line as mankind migrated away from the independent hunting lifestyle of self-sufficiency and rugged individualism, some hunters became increasingly nonchalant and disconnected from the spiritual respect for the animals we hunt and became less considerate on how they handled the hard-earned carcass. That’s when they messed up and foolishly allowed urine, body fluids, bile, guts and all sorts of flavor destroying guck to infect the meat. Somebody somewhere took a bite of irresponsibly mishandled venison and got a suckerpunch of nastiness that turned them off from the flesh of game. Knowing that they had a bad taste experience with game meat, they kneejerkingly pronounced they didn’t like the gamey punch of venison. And it all went downhill from there.

Recruit Retain Reactivate

By: Ted Nugent Recruit Retain Reactivate is known as the 3R battlecry for the future of conservation in America. With the tragic, and what I believe to be the self-inflicted decline in hunter numbers across the country over the years, if those of us who truly cherish this extraordinary American conservation heritage and vital lifestyle fail to step up and get cracking to reverse this scourge like we mean it, believe me when I tell you, all is lost. I know all about the dramatic change in the geographical population drift from rural to urban. We all know about the intentional dumbing down of America by leftwing dingbats in academia, media, Hollywood and government to deny the necessity of annual hunting season harvests. It is painfully apparent that certain technological advances in the world have attracted more and more sedentary homebodies to avoid the great outdoors. There are many dynamics at play against us here, but I am convinced that with a genuine, united effort by those of us who care, these unacceptable cultural suicidal trends can be reversed forthwith. More powerful than those negative forces noted above are two areas that we can attack and fix rather expeditiously if strategized effectively.

To Kill A Deer

By: Ted Nugent I hunt, therefor I am. I hunt because I am a hunter. Pure and simple. I am nature as pure as the wind itself. Like Cochise, Sitting Bull, Davy Crocket, Jeremiah Johnson, Fred Bear and Crazy Horse, I am but the humble conservation servant of the almighty Creator. Nature is perfect and hunting is perfect. Celebrate it and promote it every day everywhere to everyone. Nature should not be a spectator sport, but rather a gungho participatory dedication. Be one with her spirit and pulse. As The Season approaches, we prepare to plunge spirit-first into that magical time of renewal, a time to return to the life giving pulse of God’s miraculous creation as a genuine dedicated hands on participant, fulfilling the natural tooth, fang and claw call of the wild stewardship responsibility that burns afire in our bellies. It is time to kill.

The Critters Save My Life

By: Ted Nugent

Well, sonic bombast rockout sweatfest number 6750 is now officially checked off the rock-n-roll calendar, in the books as they say, and I’m still out here going wild across the hinterland! And like every firebreathing gig, number 6750 was phenomenal to say the least.

Thank you, real music lovers everywhere!

Passion and enthusiasm certainly create a dangerous level of adrenalin driven energy every night, but Lord have mercy, if I fail to intelligently manage it, it sure could wear this old backstrapper out real quick like!

The Politics of Hunting

By: Ted Nugent “I’m not into politics, I just wanna go hunting” sayeth the unAmerican sheep. I cannot imagine many things more unAmerican, in fact downright anti-American, than being so disconnected and apathetic in failing to actually fulfill the #1 American...

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Celebrate and Promote-Never Defend Hunting

By: Ted Nugent Well hallelujah, my bowhunting BloodBrothers in California and Florida have already kicked off the backstrap boogie season 2019 and the celebratory SpiritWild campfires are already burning brightly in that not so quiet night. Me, I’m still out here celebrating the glorious American Dream freedom soundtrack with another few weeks to go on the greatest musical adventure of my life. Every song, every concert, every night, every guitar lick continues to be a Samurai out of body fun fest, with Greg Smith on bass guitar and young Jason Hartless on his MotorCity thunderdrums pounding out the best all American R&B rock-n-roll soulmusic the world has ever witnessed, if I do say so myself. And that guitar tone! Lord have mercy! I’m unleashing licks that God has yet to authorize! We are blessed with the greatest music loving audiences in the world and the energy level each night is off the Richter scale charts. I cannot say thank you often enough or loud enough! THANK YOU!

The Spirit of the Beast

By: Ted Nugent For my entire adult life, I have celebrated and promoted the spiritual dynamo of the hunting lifestyle and our very special participatory oneness with God’s miraculous creation. It’s all about the Spirit of the Wild! Going all the way back to my earliest musical adventures, spurred on in many ways and certainly paralleled year for year with my bowhunting upbringing, in my own mushybrained, not yet developed youthful intellect, I always felt the presence of The Great Spirit more than I actually understood it. The near impossible task and my indefatigable effort of getting close to wild things with my home-made hickory slingshot, Red Ryder BB gun and my precious yew longbow and arrows taught me much each day afield, that the hopeful act of potentially killing that critter was vastly overpowered, even eclipsed, by the daunting challenge of temporarily overcoming their miraculous design to avoid me.

The Deer Made Me Do It

By: Ted Nugent As your read these glowing words of spirit, attitude, independence and freedom, I am settling into the concrete hell warzone of California, about to assault the rock-n-roll stage for my 6721st concert. Oh the humanity! The title of my most recent record is The Music Made Me Do It, and this 2019 tour, 65 years later after my first musical performance at the age of 5 for a family gathering in Detroit, is titled “The Music Made Me Do It-Again!” I’ve come up with some clever wordsmithing over the years for tour titles, “Intensities In 10 Cities” comes to mind, but this year it is both literal and simple, because my American Dream has been powerfully fortified by my intense love of American rock-n-roll, and nothing, I mean nothing could ever get in my way. The music really did make me do it, and it still does.

2019 Is It Fall Yet?

By: Ted Nugent This morning, again, I cruised the plethora of trails bisecting my sacred Michigan hunting grounds, and literally wallowed and danced in unlimited spirit. In the first hour of cruising the swamplands in my Roxor offroader, I was blessed with the uniquely massive stimuli factor offered by the numerous deer sightings, beaver, otter, mink, a raccoon, possum, muskrat, turtles, a snake, frogs, red squirrels, fox squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, a groundhog, pheasant, woodcock, turkey, sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, swans, herons, crows, hawks, owls, a bald eagle, a pair of big, hammering Pileated woodpeckers and probably 30-40 species of birdlife, all singing and warbling the intoxicating soundtrack to my favorite life beyond the pavement. I stop often, shut off the diesel engine, sit a spell and listen, then wander off, gorging on delicious wild berries and checking and adjusting treestands here and there. My dogs Happy, Sadie and Coco joined me over the distant hogback ridge to check out a few remote foodplots, all doing fantastic from the rainy spring and summer so far. It was good to see the oak trees are already showing a killer mast crop coming on strong. The many wild apple trees are heavy with fruit again this year.

Happy Independence Day Everyday

By: Ted Nugent I smell backstraps on the grill baby, all across America! Afterall, nothing says Happy Independence Day quite like the sizzling sacred flesh fruits of the ultimate independent lifestyle of deerhunting. On this very special and uniquely American holiday, or better put, holy day, it is imperative that we teach our children and remind everyone in our lives just exactly what the 4th of July truly represents. I would like to think that no other lifestyle better celebrates true independence like the rugged individual, self-sufficiency lifestyle of the American deerhunter. Though our brilliant, courageous Founding Fathers and American Revolutionary Patriots that defeated King George’s sheep-like punk army wrote down a killer list of self-evident truths and God given individual rights by which we declared our independence, freedom and sovereignty, I have always believed they forgot as important a right as any listed in the Bill of Rights.

Rad Trad

By: Ted Nugent It was a sunny, warm fall day in 1957, and my cousin Mark and I were on safari along the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan. The Dearborn Hills golf course was our own little dream wildlife paradise, and we stealthily scooted along the fairway edges with our yew longbows tightly gripped, cedar arrows cocked, locked and oh so ready to rock! At the tender age of 9 I was already alive with the Spirit of the Wild, and my youthful critter radar was always on red alert. Mark and I simultaneously saw the movement above on the towering oak limb as a big bushytailed fox squirrel leapt, ran and scrambled for dear life.

The Fulltime Nature Life

By: Ted Nugent Sure. I know. It’s just the beginning of summertime and our beloved huntseason is still a longways off. Unless of course you are ready for the California and Florida deerseasons in July! But lament not my Spirit BloodBrothers of the Backstrap Tribe, for what we do this time of year can and should play a major role in how effective we can be once the season is upon us and we climb aboard our much-anticipated ambush deerstand. Even though the annual rock-n-roll outrage summer tour is about to erupt for this old guitar slaying backstrapper, (and I can’t wait!) I nonetheless remain deeply in touch with the pulse of my nature relationship pretty much every day all year long.

Ted Nugent Kamp for Kids 30 Years Later

By: Ted Nugent Thank God I was born into a hunting, shooting, outdoor celebrating family way back when! I’ve always said if Elvis Presley and Jim Hendrix et al were raised with a bow and arrow in the Great Outdoors, they would still be alive today! Believe me when I tell you how thrilling, challenging and consuming is the mighty mystical flight of the arrow and allthings Great Outdoors! There was simply no way any stoned, drunk, drooling goofball would have ever convinced me that getting high or drunk could possibly make me a better archer, hunter or guitar player.

We Can’t Give Up

By: Ted Nugent As powerful a healing force that nature provides us outdoor families in America, now is not the time to let her often intoxicating healing powers deter us from critical cultural life and death concerns and inherent duties that are all around us. Our sacred outdoor recreation time does not only re-create our energies and spirit, but should always bring a clearer focus to life’s many demands on our priority list. When I constantly repeat the American quality of life battlecry of God, family, country, it is always gratifying to witness how it resonates with my family, friends, neighbors, hunting buddies, and quite honestly everyone in not just my close inner-circle, but literally everyone everywhere in my everyday walk of life. But as we painfully see and hear the abject decay of goodwill and decency in increasing segments of American society, not to mention the war on truth, logic and commonsense in the nasty world of fakenews, academia propaganda and runaway criminal corruption in government, the best Americans, ie; hunting families, must step forward now more than ever to counterpunch all that negativity and fight for God, family and country like we mean it, like never before.