The Campbell Outdoor Challenge is a great hunter/cameraman challenge that tests the skills and teamwork of a hunter and cameraman during a fairchase hunt.  Each team gets scored on the size of their deer harvested and a menu of criteria on the attributes of the camera work.  Therefore, a big deer with bad film will not score as well as a smaller deer with quality footage.  This truly takes teamwork and hard work by the teams.

 

For the past 3 years, Team Pine Ridge Archery has been represented in the main archery competition in Southern Illinois.  This year, Pine Ridge Archery president, Jim Broberg, and his wife Marie will compete for the 2009 title.   Marie will be showing us how it is done as the hunter of the team, while Jim will see the competition through the lens of the camera.  Jim has been filming his hunts forever and Marie is no rookie with a bow, so the rest of the teams better come ready to compete!

 

Follow Jim and Marie's progress throughout the competition via this news/blog (below).  Marie will be updating it with their daily events to make sure all of our Team Pine Ridge Archery fans get the up to date scoop from the field.

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Day #8 Friday: (10/30/09)

The rain held out this morning so we were able to get out for our final hunt of the competition. We started seeing deer right at daylight but unfortunately the does didn't come in close and the buck we saw was a small 8 pointer. We left before two of the teams came back but as far as we know, Team Mers won with a doe and no other teams got anything.  That ends the competition for Team Pine Ridge but not the end of our hunting season. We are just getting started. The video cameras will be rolling so be sure to check the Pine Ridge website to follow our progress.  Thanks for joining us in this competition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day #7 Thursday: (10/29/09)
 

This was our final full day of hunting.  As per usual, we were in the stand at 6:00 a.m. We saw our first doe at 7:30 a.m.  She would not come near us. At 8:45 something had chased the deer out of there bedding area and sent them running through the woods to the corn field. One particular deer doe decided to head our way. Jim said there is a doe "coming in hot, get ready". He began filming her. I was at a complete loss of vision because my back is to Jim's back in the tree. So what he was seeing out in front of him I had no sight of. I looked over my right shoulder and saw a doe that appeared to be walking in our direction right in front of Jim. I turned to my left to get ready but waited and waited and never saw her. I turned to my right again and saw a deer still standing there. She then started walking like she was going to go in front of Jim so I turned to my left again to get ready. The deer came out and I drew waiting for the perfect shot. I had to hold my draw for quit some time. Jim said "SHOOT" but I could not figure out what he was talking about I didn't have a shot. I needed to reposition my feet and looked down but while I did so, my finger hit the trigger and the arrow released and hit a tree. Off ran TWO deer not one. The deer Jim was filming was standing 20 yards away wide open. It would have been an easy shot had I known that deer came through. All in all, it was a good thing I didn't shoot the second deer. Tomorrow we are hoping the rain will hold off long enough to get a few hours of hunting in. Wish us good luck.

Day #6 Wednesday.: (10/28/09) 

For those of you who know me and my fear of snakes, you would of loved to be with me today.  I was a basket case as we walked in to our stand. There were holes in the ground every foot. I kept thinking they were snake holes. It freaked me out. I kept telling myself that there just can not be that many snakes. Once we got in the stand, Jim informed me that the tree we were in was DEAD. Of course my mother instinct kicked in and I worried about that. Think about the amount of weight we had in the tree. Plus it was leaning in one direction. I was making my escape plan.  Luckily I settled down and was able to focus on the task at hand - hunting. The wind did not do us any favors. We saw a fawn and had a doe come straight at us perfectly but the wind was directly in her direction. She decided she did not like us and carried on for quite some time. We have word that there might be rain tomorrow afternoon and thunder storms on Friday. Team Pine Ridge is not out yet. We are going back to our original spot tomorrow for an all day hunt. If you are on Facebook, I will update more often. We are going to "dump the string" tomorrow for sure. (LOL).

 

 

 

Day #5 Tuesday.: (10/27/09)

It rained all day. We hunted until 10:00 or so and decided we needed to take a break and dry off. Of course as we came back in our stand we kicked out two fawns. Not too bad but not what we wanted. We got back in our stands around 1:30 p.m. and stayed until 5:00. We were drenched and decided that even if a huge buck came in and I got a good shot on it, with all the rain we would never find a blood trail. Thats fine. Not the way we wanted to get a deer. Tomorrow the rain should stop around 5:00 a.m. the deer will be moving that is for sure. No shots fired by any of the other teams. The playing field is still even.  Gotta love that. Team Pine Ridge is still going strong. We will hope for a great day tomorrow. As I told my nephews who competed last year in the challenge (and got 2nd), Just Have Fun!

 

 

 

 

Day #4 Mon.: (10/26/09)
Things have certainly slowed down our second day of hunting. It was a very quiet morning. Even getting to our stand was a challenge without making a lot of noise. We kicked out several deer while walking to our stand. When I say walking to our stand I mean walking across a corn field, through a bean field, then through a small patch of woods, along a corn field and a 100 yards in to the woods to get to our stand. We are in our stand by 6 a.m. Well before daylight. Today we saw four deer by 8:00 a.m. Two small bucks sparing, a small doe, and a small 8 pointer in the distance. The long day comes in now. We didn't see anything else until 4:00 p.m. We had three small bucks work perfectly in to us none of them shooters. Jim spotted a coyote at 150 yards. He called it to about 60 yards making a mouse/distressed animal sound with his mouth. What ever you call it the coyote came towards it. I really didn't feel like tracking a coyote in the dark but Jim assured me it was fine. (ha, this is where being married and in a stand together comes in to play). All worked out well because the coyote never came close enough. Had several deer in the corn field when we walked out. Luckily we didn't spook them. All ten teams came in mostly the same story. No bucks down as of yet.

We can start to hunt does tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. (Tuesday). This opens up a whole new playing field. It is going to rain tomorrow. We did get our secondary hunting spots tonight but jim and I have chosen to stick with our first location. Team Pine Ridge is still going strong!


Day #3 Sun.: (10/25/09) 9:15 p.m.

 

This is our first day to hunt. Kind of intimidating. There are some very good teams here.  We got in our stand 1 hour before light.  Right at daylight we say 3 does walking along the field edge. About 8:30 a.m. a nice 9 point buck came in. I really didn't even get nervous. I think I was so worried about the 130 inch minimum that I didn't worry about my nerves. This buck was probably about 125 inches. It just didn't seem to have the mass I was looking for.  All in all, we probably saw 40-50 deer. We are very happy with our stand Although some of the deer knew something just wasn't right. We did see another 9 pointer which was also around 125 inches.  A coyote chased some deer out of there bedding area which added some excitement. We put over 12 hours in the stand today (Iron Man Hunting). It went by pretty fast. I am thankful for my IPhone. Being able to connect with my kids and facebook made the day go by fast. Jim also was able to text a good buddy who shot an approx. 145 inch deer. Go Team Pine Ridge. by the way, None of the other teams shot anything today except for a coyote.The playing field is still even. We will put in another 12 hour day tomorrow. 

 

Well, we have practiced and are anxiously awaiting to find out where we will be hunting.  This year a few rule changes have been made. You can only shoot one buck and one doe whereas in previous years you could shoot two does and take the bigger of the two. We have to wait until we get our secondary spot before we can shoot a doe. Once those spots have been assigned, we can hunt does as well. Jim and I both feel this is a good change. Once we get signed in and have our hunting area, we will scout and set up stands today. We also have some interviews to do today as well.  Tomorrow a.m.. we are live. Jim and I have talked over our strategy so we are set and hyped.











Day #1 Fri.: (10/23/09)

The truck is packed and we are headed down to Southern Illinois. It is pouring rain so we will have muddy conditions. I have been really busy with personal/mom stuff and getting ready to leave for a week. I haven't had time to really think about the competition other than practicing every day. Now as we have 7 hours in the car I am getting more nervous by the minute. Really excited but nervous too.

 

Jim is cool as can be since he is a veteran at this. He knows what to expect. I have full confidence in him to pick the right spots and guide me along with the interviews, etc. This is Jim's first year being the camera man. He has been working hard to learn as much as he can about the camera. He is very creative so I am sure the footage will be outstanding. I am anxious to get started tomorrow.