Deer, Bear, Elk, Airplane

My Aunt Rachel Sauder is a photographer out near Hanna City, Il. Anyhow on Tuesday I sent her up in an airplane to snap some aerial photos for a client to see some progress on his lake and land renovation project.

I was amazed at how reasonable it was to rent an aerial photography airplane from Canton Airport! We will be doing a bunch more aerial photography in the very near future, just let me know if your fairly close to Canton, IL and I am sure we can snap some pics of your place too.

Here are some cool trail camera pics sent to me recently from the tri-county area.

Coming through, get outta dad's way!


On Wednesday night I made it out to Edwins place just before dark to start sighting in our rifles! Their pond is perhaps the best trout fishing pond in Illinois come October, but not this year. It is getting completely drained, scooped out and enlarged....... Edwin, Rand, Dave, Jared, and I are headed to Colorado this November to hunk Elk!! My first trip out west hunting and I am very much looking forward to it! November 5-11th. We only had enough time to get our guns sighted in about 2 inches high at 100 yards. Next week or two we will start zeroing in at 200 yards!

Thursday night I finished up near Lewiston and was in the mood to snap some photos. Here is the backyard of a new cabin a client is building on his awesome pond.

If you walk in the cabin and turn to the right you are greeted by this amazing grizzly bear and mountain scene!

Here is a pic of the cabin from the front:

Earlier in the week Allen and I finished building this sweet dock out near Congreville. Still some landscaping to do leading up to the dock, but man is this ever a cool lake with a little island off to the right. This lake has got boone and crocket gills, great crappies, catfish, walleyes, perch, stripers, walleyes, tiger muskies, and rainbow trout. You know, the typical midwestern pond gamefish!

We are building this pond this week as well. This is actually for my brother Chad behind his house. It is going to be 1/3 acre swimming and smallmouth pond. Just wait about 2 years and I am gonna have a bunch of 3 lb smallmouth bass and 1 lb yellow perch swimming between your legs when you jump in! (his wife Julie doesnt read the blog, I dont think she has an idea how many fish are going to be in this baby!). Should have some updated pics of this project early next week it will be filling with water hopefully. I already have been raising the smallmouths for this pond all summer so I cant wait for water!!!

Looks like we are finally getting some rain! We might have a chance at actually growing some deer crops this fall! Speaking of that, I was in Paris, Illinois electrofishing a 6 acre pond today and the guy had some of the most amazinhg food plots imaginable!! His 9 acre bean plot and 4 acre clover plot looked tasty even to me....I was thinking about some ranch dressing and a fork for a nice salad, they looked delicious. Unfortunately his fish and pond wasnt in such good shape. They need some help, but with just a few tweeks like a bunch of harvesting, some fresh genetics, a winter drawdown, an aeration system and a bit of bass structure and his pond will be hopping in no time.