Nugent: Trigger Time in Texas

There’s Happy New Year then there’s Happy Nuge Year! I celebrate both with all the gonzo gusto I can summon but the Happy Nuge Year has just that much more vitality down here on the ranch!

Quite honestly, since the years of our fire-breathing Ted Nugent Whiplash Bash concerts every holiday season into the New Year, my idea of a New Year’s Eve party consists of an early backstrap dinner on the grill at home with Mrs. Nugent and maybe a few friends, a little hot toddy and some buttery popcorn around the fireplace listening to the neighbors as they touch off a flurry of small arms fire, then I usually hit the sack sometime around 9 p.m.

Ted Nugent mature buck
Ted Nugent

Even though it is indeed a new year, I tend to continue the ongoing seamless deerseason without as much as a hiccup in my daily deerhunting routine.

Why mess with perfection!

And like my dedicated deerhunting brethren in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and elsewhere, we Texans are still at it hot and heavy for the continuing backstrap dreams of January and beyond.

Less hunting is way better than more hunting,” nobody ever said!

With our wonderful and proper Managed Land Deer Permit system in place down here in Texas, landowners are able to determine our own bag limits, and tags are issued according to real world boots on the ground herd evaluation by those of us who know best about the wildlife science of our own lands.

I do believe this is exactly what our Founding Fathers had in mind when we sent the king our we the people terminal directive that kings no longer own our deer.

With the vast holdings of many Texans, we are talking many instances where landowners have 100s and 100s of buck and doe tags that need to be filled, and such a responsibility can sometimes turn into quite the chore.

Chores have always been my specialty since I was a little tyke, so I am more than ready to assist any of my ranching friends here in the deerhunting epicenter of the mighty Lone Star State.

Ted Nugent deer hunting
SpiritWild VidCamDude Kris Helms

SpiritWild VidCamDude Kris Helms and I ventured once again down to South Texas around the legendary deerzones of Uvalde, Sabinal, Knippa, Bracketville and beyond to join our good friends Greg Mosing at his families’ historic 4M Ranch and Mike Stroff of Southern Outdoor Experiences (www.soehunts.net).

Greg’s family has owned 1000s of these deer heaven South Texas acres for more than 50 years and Mike operates numerous hunting operations in Texas and South Dakota. Mike is also the host and producer of two killer TV shows, Savage Outdoors on Sportsman Channel and The One on Outdoor Channel.

Mike’s www.soehunts.net books, guides and outfits some of the best deerhunting there is. The guy is gungho!

I was able to ambush a stunning freak of a buck with Mike bowhunting classic South Texas wild ground outside of Bracketville and both Kris and I rifle hunted with Greg near Knippa.

Both hunts were absolutely wonderful and we were able to film some killer Spirit of the Wild TV shows.

But being the gungho bowhunter that I am, when it came time to whip out the sniper rifles for some longrange marksmanship fun, it reminded me how similar the two methodologies really are.

Of course bowhunting is mostly a close-range proposition while rifle hunting is all about reaching way out there and putting our bullets precisely where we want them at sometimes very long-range distances.

However, when that nano-second moment of truth arrives when we wish to unleash our projectile of choice, it all comes down to a very exacting muscle memory function and feel that is exactly the same.

Ted Nugent hunt deer
Mike Stroff, of Southern Outdoor Experiences, is pictured at right.

Even if an archer still uses fingers, tab or glove to draw and release the arrow, when that string leaves the fingers and drives that arrow forward, it is much more than just hand-eye coordination. It’s more like hand-eye-spirit-mind-body and soul coordination.

And that applies to sniper rifle marksmanship just the same.

With more than 90% of archers using mechanical trigger releases to unleash our arrows, the similarities between firearms trigger accuracy and archery trigger accuracy are almost indistinguishable.

The only real difference is that a firearm just needs to be held while an archer at fulldraw is muscle tensed and therefor much more prone to movement.

The procedure for both methodologies can be practiced the same way with a regular regimen of focused, diligent triggertime.

Dry firing a gun is some of the best practice we can endeavor, while dry firing a bow is a no-go!
People have always laughed at me and scoffed when I explain how the Nugent family have always practiced archery in our living rooms, shooting at a proper target at 10 feet or less just to train the muscles for memorized shot sequence.

Ted Nugent Deer Hunting
“People have always laughed at me and scoffed when I explain how the Nugent family have always practiced archery in our living rooms, shooting at a proper target at 10 feet or less just to train the muscles for memorized shot sequence”

Why not! Especially during the cold winter months when access to outdoor ranges is all but gone for many.

Same goes for great firearm trigger practice. The experts all agree that dry-fire triggertime is great practice and training, and I encourage my fellow aim small miss small snipers to do so with guns and bows throughout the year.

Needless to say, SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY is always paramount when doing so. I really don’t believe I have to outline the basics of safety 101 to my BloodBrothers here at deeranddeerhunting.com.

I will still be deerhunting for another two months, and then of course hogs and exotics keep the ultimate triggertime boogie throttling on here in Texas, but even so, I hit the range pretty much every day with my bow and guns just to keep my trigger-dreams honed to perfection.

I would encourage every hunter to head down here to Texas for the incredible hunting opportunities that never end here, but even if you can’t make it, do all you can to keep your trigger-finger exercised and tuned-in for the execution of the best shot everytime.

It doesn’t come easy and shouldn’t be relegated to just pre-season warm-ups. Trigger control could be, should be, can be a year-round responsibility and fun activity.

Aim small, miss small, breathe and squeeze like you mean it!   

 

With more than 40 million albums sold, rock legend Ted Nugent is equally well known as the nation’s most outspoken proponent of our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, conducting thousands of pro-gun, pro-freedom, pro-American interviews in major media worldwide. Nugent is a New York Times best-selling author whose works include Ted, White & Blue —The Nugent Manifesto; God, Guns & Rock ‘n’ Roll and Kill It & Grill It.This year, his award-winning Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild TV show celebrates its 500th episode!  For all things Nuge, visit www.tednugent.com
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