Hunting, Fishing and Staying Fit

(Rifle Hunting in 2020) Welcome back! I wanted to squeak one more blog in before the end of this year...and what a year it was. On my final blog for 2020, I will focus on my riflescopes. This may or may not interest you, but I feel it is necessary to help others who send me quite a few DM's regarding optics during hunting season. It also is perfect timing for those thinking about upgrading their equipment in 2021.  First off, there are many different optics out there. I am not going to boast about which brand is better than others and start an argument, I simply want to explain my setup and why I love it. So to begin I have switched all my optics to Bushnell products. Why?  1.  I find that they are making tremendous leaps of improvement with each new launch.  2. Their customer service is excellent.  3. Great value for your dollar. While I take great pride in finding an awesome deal, and I love a company which provides excellent customer service, I wanted to focu...

It has been a few weeks since I thought about another blog. I love to do recipes that are easy, efficient and do not take half your afternoon to make. Actually, I made this in about 15 minutes before I went to bed last night.  Everything Venison Chili  Tools: You will need a large crockpot, frying pan, cutting board, knife, and a spatula  Ingredients: 1. 1 pound of venison, thawed 2. 1 Tbsp. of olive oil 3. 1 Tbsp. minced garlic 4. 1 whole onion diced 5. Green/Red sweet peppers and spicy peppers of your choice 6. 2 cans of chili beans 7. 1 can of kidney beans 8. 1 can of corn or whatever other odd ball cans you have that you want to use up   9. 1 Tbsp. of chili powder  Directions: 1. In a frying pan, brown venison burger. Once cooked, place in crock pot on lowest setting.  2. In a frying pan on low, add the olive oil, garlic and onions.  3. Add peppers and cook all ingredients until tender. Place pepper/onion mixture into the crockpot.  ...

  Shooting the Renegauge on trap night.  I am excited for this blog. So many people use Savage Arms rifles and to talk about their first semiautomatic shotgun with new technology has me stoked. I have been shooting shotguns for the past 9 years. I shot some bad ones, and I mean bad ones. One was so bad I refuse to hunt grouse ever again. It kicked me so hard and left bruises on my shoulder. Other ones canted into my face and left bruises after a night of trap. You could say that I was pretty much over shotguns until I got my Beretta. It at least did not kick me in the face or leave any bruises. I am here today to tell you to forget all your bad experiences with shotguns. The new Savage Renegauge is here, and it comes with a patented Dual Regulating Inline Valve (DRIV). The new DRIV system ensures excess gas vents before it drives the bolt, resulting in less recoil and a quicker cyclic rate. This means less kick and a fast cycle. When I got the gun in June I could not bel...

Weekend Antelope Roast I am not going into great detail about what roasts mean to me, how I harvested the meat and gathered the vegetables because, let's face it, get to the recipe already food bloggers. I call it a weekend roast because I usually start it on a Friday night and then we eat it for supper on Saturday.  This roast is from the antelope that I shot on October 3, 2020 in Haakon County, SD. He was shot with my Savage Arms110 Ultralite 6.5 PRC.  Ingredients: Salt and Pepper One 3 to 5 pound antelope roast  1 whole onion, peeled and halved  8 whole carrots, peeled and cubed 5-10 small potatoes cubed 3 cups of beef broth  2 sprigs of fresh rosemary   1. Turn your crockpot to the "low" setting depending on the crockpot. Even our lowest setting makes the broth boiling lava hot... 2. Place the onions, carrots and potatoes into the crockpot. The carrots from the garden are the rainbow variety. In the photo of the finished product you can see how dar...

  As hunting season fast approaches, I wanted to take a moment to write product review. I have worked with Bushnell Optics for just over a year. Ben and I are very particular about optics, and when I told him I had joined forces with Bushnell he was a bit hesitant. After demonstrating the uses of their new lines, I think it is safe to say he was impressed.  When discussing optics there are many companies on the market. I can admit it is hard especially for a beginner. I will only touch on rangefinders in this blog due to the amount of information of the other products, that would be best served in a different blog.  Recently I acquired the Bushnell Prime 1300 Laser Rangefinder. It features an all glass optical system and improved LCD display. This results in a brighter viewing experience that is crucial in low-light conditions. I can see animals up until the end of shooting light to provide an accurate range whereas before I could only range until 10-20 minutes before sho...

 Welcome back! I write this new post the day after my 2020 triathlon season concludes....well there was only 5 races total due to COVID-19. I did 3 of them and made the best of it. As triathlon season winds down and hunting season is in full force I wanted to take time to write my first hunting blog. I will give a background of my interest and how I got started.  Backing up to previous blogs, I was born in Minnesota and grew up in the SE Twin Cities in a town called Hastings. I knew a few people that hunted some friends of friends and friend's family. I always found it be to interesting, but I was focused on other things at the time. My family was not against the concept of it, we simply lived a different lifestyle and did other things.  When I met Ben in 2012 one of the first thing I noticed through social media photos was his passion for the outdoors. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with a wildlife biology and ecology degree. He always loved ...

 In 2016 I decided to sign up for my first triathlon. This is how triathlon goes..."so you were a college swimmer and like to run? Better get a bike and start doing tris." That is great and all but I can buy a suit on sale for $30, running shoes for $150, but a bike well that will cost you $5,000.  I do not have a lot of insight to offer newcomers but what I suggest is that you borrow a bike for a year or two and do a few triathlons first. If it is something that you want to get into then consider purchasing a new/used tri bike. This is exactly what I did in 2016-2018. In 2018 I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Trek Speed Concept aka The Teal Wheel.  Going into my first tri in 2016 I had no idea what to expect. I swam way too fast and transitioned exceptionally slow. I put shorts on in T1 and didn't wear bike shoes. Overall I finished 5th on a bike that had a hard time shifting. I didn't know the difference between the big and small ring of a bike. To be honest...

Well my goal of posting once per week flew out the window. Over the past month we have gone through a lot. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way I work, Ben works and the whole world works really. We also lost our beloved fox red Labrador on April 29, 2020. He had a ruptured disc in his neck and the surgery in my opinion would have complicated his life even further. We are getting by slowly as a family of 3. I have been sure to give Winston lots of love and attention and we now go for a lot more walks. Where I left off was my first half marathon that I bonked. I signed up for my second one in 2014 at the same venue in Deadwood. I trained roughly the same and was nervous at the start. Once the gun went off my goal was not to start out too fast. I was slow, and slow for most of the race until the end. My time was the same time down to the second as the year prior. This really had me confused since I went easy but finished about the same. I know that I needed to change something i...

Welcome to my blog, now I am one of "those" people. Yes, those people who jot down their feelings with the internet-longer than a Facebook post mind you. I wanted to first start out by giving a little information about myself, who I am where this all started. I was born in Northern Minnesota and moved to the Twin Cities at a young age. Growing up in a family of 7 was never a dull moment and to this day my 9 nieces and nephews bring me great joy. I competed in several sports/activities: soccer, softball, basketball, tennis, hockey, track, swimming, lacrosse, dance, gymnastics, piano, church choir, band (trombone), German Honor Society and guitar. I finally settled with swimming and track as my main sports motivation. Well, truth is after getting hit in the face twice with a ball while at two different sports in the same day I decided I needed something with less contact...thanks softball and tennis. In October of 1998 I went to my first swim practice in a suit meant for ...