These are some of my favorate whitetail hunting books.

I considered myself an amateur photographer from way back when I got my first Kodak 110 instamatic camera.  Since then I progressed trough polaroid, 35mm and more recently the digital SLR age.  I’ve always been lugging camera equipment where ever I go.  Always swapping lenses and looking for just the right angle.  For some reason that has become a real drag, and I somehow sense another era is coming to an end.  Maybe it has something to do with age, or maybe it is the realization the everything gets old sooner these days.   I find myself using my daughter’s little pocket size Nikon a lot more then my Canon EOS digital SLR.  So I decided it’s time for a change.

I recently helped my mom pick a new digital camera I saw that it took pretty good HD movies.  At least much better then my old Sony Digital-8 camcorder.   I started wondering how a little camera like this could be mounted on my Bear Truth compound bow.  I made a list of the camera features that would make the perfect camera in my book .  It has to be light and small so I can fit it in my pocket or mount it on my bow.  It has to shoot real nice video, preferably in 1080p so I could enjoy it on my big screen TV.  It should have a decent zoom lens so I can take real close-up shots of those bucks that just won’t come into  range.  It has to have a wide angle lens, preferably 26mm or less, so I can fit a lot of real estate in one picture.   And if it’s not too much to ask, I want a built-in GPS so I can use Google Earth and Picasa to map out my scouting pictures.  That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Well, guess what.  It was too much to ask.  Although there are many cameras out there that fit most of my requirements, I had very little success finding one that fits all of my needs.  The Nikon P100 came close, but is still a little bulky.  Canon has some very nice cameras but they are all 720p.  Same with Kodak, 720p.  Casio has excellent 1080p cameras, but none of them come with a wide angle lens.   And so the story goes with all the other brands out there.   Let’s not even mention GPS capability.  Heck my two year old cellphone’s has a GPS tied into it’s camera.  Maybe it’s time these manufacturers begin thinking about the future of photography.

To trim a long story a little shorter – success at last.  I think i finally found the camera of my dreams.  Sony will soon release it’s new HX5V/B digital camera.  Not only does it have everything I was looking for in a camera, it even has more.  Let take a quick look.  It’s small (102.9mm x 57.7mm x 28.9mm), and light (just over 7 ounces). It shoots full-HD 1080i movies (60 frames interlaced) and 1440×1080p (30 frames progressive). It has a well balanced lens (25-250mm) with good zoom and one of the widest angles in it’s class. It also has an optical image stabilizer for those long zoom shots. Another very nice feature only found in newer high-end digital cameras is the High Dynamic Range (HDR) backlight correction. This improves the quality of high-contras scenes, typically what we see in the woods with penetrating sunlight and dark shaded areas. And last, the cherry on the cake, it comes with built-in GPS and a compass. It has a slew of other features which are a bonus.

To me the Sony HX5V/B is what I was waiting for. It fits my needs and won’t break the bank. It will replace my Canon EOS digital SLR, which will soon be available on ebay. More on my experience and how it measures up in a next post.

Here’s a few places to buy the Sony HX5V/B:

Buy the DSC-HX5V/B Digital Camera direct from Sony

Or get the Sony DSC-HX5V Camera from Amazon

You will also need a nice big memory card for all that HD video footage.

This was the first night with the camera on video mode.  The snow is about four inches deep and it’s late December.  The show starts at 6:30pm on the 25th with the does making their way until 6:55pm.  The first buck appears at 12:40am and walks in and out the camera view for the next 10 minutes (4 clips).  The does are back at 2:20 and 3:30am.  The two buck are back at 5:30am.  The last foggy scene is 14 hours later at 8:15pm.  This was taken without any feed.

The first bucks appear around 2 mins into the video.

Below are some nice deer hunting video posted on NH Fish and Game web site:

It’s unfortunate that Netflix did not provide the “watch instantly” option for this DVD.  The footage was shot in the late eighties with VHS equipment and it would have been well suited for streaming.  Looking past the video quality, the movie makes some instructional points that still hold true.   I found part two to be more specific about year round scouting tactics, tree stand location, shot planning and wind considerations.  I also like that the terrain they hunt is somewhat similar to what we see here in New Hampshire. 

These are obviously seasoned hunters and some of their techniques are not for newbie bow hunters like myself.  Shooting at a running deer that passes within ten yards seems right in the edge.

They end the production by listing seven rules to help determine tree stand placement.  As and African hunter still quite new to white tail hunting, the first rule made this worth the watch:

Rule number one. “Never hunt where the deer you want does not exists”.  In other words, unless you know about a sizable buck in an area, your chances of success are much lower.  I spent my first New Hampshire rifle season in new locations which I did not know.  I ended up empty handed.

They go on to emphasize the importance of all year scouting with the other six rules.  Rule two: never take a tree stand when scouting, rule three: never use hunting as a means to gauge a spot, rule four: better a poor tree in the rights spot than…  Rule five talks about the 18 yard rule where a deer will often jump the string when they hear the bow before the arrow hits.  They show a couple of good examples of misses that was caused by string jumping.  Rule six covers wind direction, and seven stresses the importance of having multiple stand location.

All in all  a nice production by some guys obviously passionate about bow hunting.  I enjoyed it and would recommend it.  Netflix has it.  Check your library.  Amazon also has a couple of used copies last I checked. 

A few years back while visiting Grandpa in South Africa, I had my first chance to catch the common carp.  The location was a little town called Prieska on the banks of the murky Orange River.

Like in many other countries, the common carp is an invasive species in South Africa.  The mirror carp and grass carp are two other members of the family that also roam these waters.  My Dad and Grandpa caught hundreds of these South African carp throughout the years.

Although not a real monster carp, this foot-and-half long fish was certainly a monster to me.  For bait, we used rolled-up whole grain bread.  

Unfortunately the sun was hot and time was short and we only had a few hours to fish.  The day also yielded a small catfish (called a barber down there). 

My first (monster) common carp!!!

Ever caught an eel? Remember the dismay when the snake-like figure surfaced? And then the struggle to unhook that slimy creature while trying to hang on to it with the other hand? We take eels for granted but they actually have a very interesting life story.

Let’s start with the female eel who lays her eggs in the Atlantic ocean, yes not in your favorite lake or river. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a female American eel will spawn between two and twenty million eggs at sea. It’s believed that the females die shortly afterwards.

The eggs hatch into larvae. Over the next year the larvae goes through metamorphosis and are called glass eels by the time they reach the North American shore. As the eels become pigmented and move into the streams and estuaries, they are known as elvers. At this stage they are about two to three inches long. For the next few years these elvers will continue to migrate upstream and replace older eels who returned to the ocean for spawning. They will live in their freshwater habitat anywhere from 5 to 20 years before returning to the ocean to spawn and complete the lifecycle.

You may also have heard about yellow eels and silver eels. These are both stages in the metamorphosis of the eel. Yellow eels are younger eels not yet ready for reproduction. Once they start migrating back to sea, they change in color and are appropriately called silver eels.

Read about my first encounter with an American Eel.