Drinken my coffee this morning watching some good hunting shows. When "On Assightment" had John Barsness, with a Benelli R1 30-06 in hand shooting a big Montana bull elk. Congratulations on that awesome hunt! That was cool ......

Just watched it myself and what a great bull. After all this talk of Hot vs Cold chambers, I was just wondering?? especially with the semi-auto..

Great bull and great shot

Would be nice if these shows repeated...I looked on the web site and it only seems to be on once. Plus this show isn't listed under the videos they let you see on the web site after the fact...

Also, Sunday morning seems to be an awful time to put a hunting show on when it's the middle of hunting season...

I saw it too. Congrats on a fine elk MD.

I'm not sure who your cable provider is but here on Comcast you can find the show shortened to 10 mins "On Demand"

Thanks, guys. I just saw the show myself recently, after they sent me a CD. (I tried to catch it on Versus, but it didn't come on at the times they said it was supposed to, at least in my area.)

By the way, that big bull tastes great. We aged him two weeks before cutting him up, and while he is not quite as tender and tasty as a raghorn, he does just fine on the plate!

What time is dinner John? Can you handle 5,000 visitors?

I suspect we'd have to empty out all three freezers to feed 5000!

It has been done before with just 3 fish and a couple of loaves of bread.

Congrats on the nice bull John. I have actually seen that episode several times over the last couple of months. That's the good side of being laid off - plenty of time to watch hunting shows.

I actually did two shows with Benelli last year, the elk hunt and a pheasant hunt in South Dakota. I dunno if that one has been aired yet or not--and I javen't even watched my CD of it yet. Might have to do that tonight!

Dang it! I was out and about Sunday morning and flipped on the TV when I came in and only caught the last minute of that show. That was something I really would have watched, seeing as how one of my buddies got himself a Colorado elk the week before. He recently got back but I haven't talked to him yet. But for all fellow rifle loonies, I do know that he was using his 300 RUM and I'm pretty sure the bullet was a 180 gr. Barnes.

I noticed you said didn't say you couldn't or wouldn't...

What did you think of trying to get a hunt like that on film? I, like most, think that it looks like it would be great, but just wondering if having to hunt like that all the time wouldn't take some of the 'good' out of it.

John on your first shot looked spot on with that bull but he didn't even act like he was even shot? I have only see something like that with a passwhew shot bowhuning. Do you thing the bullet opened like it should?

Pointer,

It's a lot more work than it appears. It took three days of filming (with two cameramen) to get the 20 or so minutes of the show. That includes at least a couple of hours of on-camera interviews; they only used a few sentences of those. It can easily take even longer to film a hunt, of course, because some hunts take longer.

We got lucky on the elk hunt, partly because there were plenty of good bulls on the ranch. But even with a lot of game around things can go wrong, especially when you're trying to get everything on two cameras (many shows use just one). Aside from the actual shooting of the animal a lot of stuff gets filmed several times. I had to crawl to the point on the ridge where I shot from four times, as close to the same way as possible each time, so they'd have several angles to use in the show.

It also wasn't easy hunting with six people, which is what we had on the elk hunt: the hunter, guide and TV host, plus two video camermen and a still photographer. Luckily they were all experienced hunters. Otherwise it would have been very difficult to get within 250 yards of 8 wild elk--the total number of bulls in that draw. (You can see some of the other bulls streaming by after my first shot.)

As somebody wisely pointed out during a conversation about TV hunting shows a few years ago, "We are not just hunting. We are making a film about a hunt."

It's sort of like the difference between just going hunting, and going hunting and then writing about it. The TV show or the magazine article has to be a composition made out of what we generally term "reality." The reality of the hunt has to be afterward condensed into a logical story that's hopefully entertaining as well as instructive.

Luckily hunting lends itself to telling a story, because a hunt naturally has a beginning, middle and end. But just showing (or writing) everything that happened would be not only way too long but be incredibly boring. (There is a lot of boredom in most hunting, whether we like to admit it or not.)

So between the actual hunt and a finished TV show or article there is a lot of condensing/editing of the experience in order to tell a good story. This is where many would-be writers make their first mistake. They try to tell everything that happened on their Big Hunt, including what they ate for breakfast at the airport, and that is one of the boring parts of hunting.

Personally, I would not want all my hunting to be in front of video cameras. I am a writer, and there are levels that can be touched in writing that are very difficult to achieve on film. Writing can evoke all our senses, not just sight and sound, and done well can also evoke our thoughts and feelings more effectively than 20 minutes of TV time.

Hunting with a bunch of other people devoted to making a show interferes with my own concentration on the hunt, especially the details of the setting and my own thoughts and emotions, because I'm somewhat distracted by always having to be aware of the needs of several other people, especially the cameramen.

I have done just enough video and TV work over the years to like it occasionally, but it's a different process than just hunting, or hunting for magazine publication. When I am hunting with magazine writing in mind (which is all the time) then I have to really pay attention so that I can create that scene for readers--and also think about what photos might add to the story, and take them. This, like filming a TV show, can take up a lot more time than just the hunt itself. And in the evenings I am also usdually making notes to remind myself of good details, especially since my memory quit working quite as well as it did before I turned 50.

So no, hunting in front of a camera isn't my favorite hunting. But if you keep in mind that you are making a film about hunting, then it can be very interesting and even, on occasion, be fun.

Randy,

Oh, yeah, the bullet opened. It was a 180-grain Tipped Trophy Bonded, one of the new nickel-plated ones with a grooved shank.

The angle I shot from wasn't a severe as the camera's angle. The bull was quartering away but not as much. I aimed for the middle of the ribs, in line with the front of the shoulder on the far side, and the bullet went right where I aimed, through both lungs, tearing a big hole in them. The bull was dead but didn't know it, which often happens with elk.

He didn't move after the shot, as you noticed, and in fact only trotted a little way and stopped when the other bulls started running by him. He wanted to run with them but simply couldn't. He would have soon toppled over without the second shot (which went broadside through both lungs, right behind the shoulders) but I am never against shooting again and making sure.

I read some ware that the Benelli R1 stock cut the recoil down say a 30-06 to the recoil of a 243win?

The R1 is also a gas-operated auto, which cuts down on recoil sensation itself, so it's hard to separate that effect from the stock's.

I wouldn't quiter put the .30-06 R1's recoil in the .243 class, but it is lighter-feeling than a fixed-breech .30-06's. I've also shot a .300 Winchester R1 and the reduction was there as well.

Mule Deer- Thanks for the reply! That was sorta how I thought you might feel and how the reality of filming a hunt would be. But, you made it very clear why you get paid to write about stuff and I get paid to count cows and grass.

MD,

I have never owned a gas-operated auto rifle. Have always been a little scared of a pited chamber "over time" and then having feeding & accuracy issues. Are the new rifles getting better you think? Thanks agen randy...

Randy,

No need to worry about a pitted chamber if you maintain the rifle correctly.

Accuracy with the newer autoloaders is amuch better than it used to be. The best overall accuracy I have experienced is with Browning BAR's, but many Remington 7400's shoot well too. In my limited experience (4 rifles) the Benelli R1 seems to be more ammo-sensitive than the Browning or Remington but once you find the right load they can be very accurate as well.

John, Here's another one who enjoyed seeing you on Versus!

-Great episode with a great Star! ( )

I've also been enjoying your writings in "Sports Afield".

Thanks very much! But I am just an average Montana guy who got lucky....