Asleep in the Stand - Almost Summer Hunting Links

These links raided your strong box, ate all your shoestring potatoes and Snickers bars, and should be put down. But let's proceed with them anyway.

First, though, let me introduce to you the brand new Break-Up Infinity camo pattern from Mossy Oak.


From their website:

Featuring unprecedented depth, unequalled detail and elements with remarkable contrast, Break-Up Infinity truly offers hunters another dimension in camo.

Each element – leaves, limbs, acorns and branches – was selected to create unmatched realism and contrast to break up a hunter’s silhouette. Then they were placed over multiple layers of actual images from the woods to create a multi-dimensional depth of field unlike any camouflage ever created.

Break-Up Infinity is the first pattern ever that you can actually look into much the same way you look into the woods.

I thought Mossy Oak hit a homerun with their Treestand Pattern. From the word I got from Florida's Mossy Oak Pro-Staff Leader, Kevin Faver, Infinity should have hit the market yesterday.

It's the offseason. Go buy new clothes. Help the economy. It's an awesome pattern.

I'm still awfully bitter about my fortunes this past turkey season. I would like to get over it, really would, just can't. It's been hard to listen to others' tales of success. Still, ESPN Outdoors has an extensive photo gallery of those more fortunate than I this Spring.

Of course, I missed those turkeys because of equipment malfunction. Somebody probably missed because they were too jumpy on the trigger. Wade Bourne offers advice to those who suffer from flinching. I personally like to warm up with a .22 before touching off my cannons, but this is solid advice, too.

Back to the .22, Summer is a fine time in Florida - in the late evenings or early mornings, Sweaty Boy - to cure some varmint woes. Sure, we don't have prairie dogs like hunters out West, but there's a dubious list of undesirables to cope with here in the Sunshine State. Coyotes are susceptible to Summer hunting. Those feeder-destroying, turkey egg-eating raccoons. Armadillos. Or heck, just fly West and help their pest problem. Here's a rundown of rifles and gear you may need, want, or have to have.

On a far more serious note, the Gulf Coast is getting wrecked by this oil spill. Florida, luckily, has dodged it so far, but the Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi shores are in trouble. It's hard to envision a scenario where fishing and hunting in that area will return to normal in the next several years which means a lot of people are going to the poor farm, to speak nothing of the adverse effects on wildlife.

In addition to the clean-up work allegedly conducted by BP, Ducks Unlimited is supporting a bill making the rounds through Congress that will help supplement this effort.

Congress is working to pass a supplemental bill that has little funding to support clean-up operations on the Gulf coast. Representative’s John Dingell (MI), Lois Capps (CA), Mike Thompson (CA), and Charlie Melancon (LA) are circulating a Dear Colleague letter in the House of Representatives encouraging their colleagues to support increased funding of $85 million. This funding would go to assist the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with their response and recovery efforts to address economic and environmental damages resulting from the oil spill.

I understand the hesitance to spend additional taxpayer money in this day and age, but of all the bailouts and handouts, I do support this. It's a bitter pill, too, considering how badly NOAA and the USFWS has ignorantly abused the fishing community in the last few years. Still, it goes to restore the environment and should create a few jobs.

Finally, with the damage to wildlife well underway, here's a small way you can give back. Making wood duck boxes. I'm sure you can find an environmental group or two around who would be happy to accept your parts and labor.