Welcome to the SoCal Bowhunter blog!

Greetings and welcome to the SoCal Bowhunter blog! My name is Al Quackenbush and I am a lifelong bowhunter. Whilst searching forums and the internet I couldn’t find specific blogs dedicated to Southern California hunting, so I decided to start one. Let’s call it an experiment of sorts. I want to try to share information I find, but also do gear reviews for us DIY guys who are on a budget.

For those of you who want it, here’s little background on me. I was born and raised in western NY. I have been a hunter for 26+ years and I absolutely love it. I would say it’s my passion and my wife would call it an obsession. I have hunted big game and small game, but my main target was the whitetail deer. I have hunted them since I was a young pup. First deer at 14 years old at about 10 yards and I was hooked for life. I come from a family of hunters and we all love what we do. I won’t make an excuse for being a hunter. It is who I am.

I moved out to Southern California in 2006 chasing another whitetail – my wife! I think she hunted me down, but we could argue that point all around. Either way, I stayed and married her. I am a family man, I believe in God and feel truly blessed with each day I have on Earth.

Moving to SoCal was a tough decision and even harder to find places to hunt. I had to do a lot of searching, make a lot of phone calls and finally found a couple places to hunt. I dug in, met a guy named Steve and he helped get me accustomed to the rules and regs out here. Let me tell you, it is TOUGH trying to figure out all of the DFG rules and regulations! In NY it was clear cut, but out here they make your work for it ten-fold. I hunted mule deer for the first two years and although it is tough, it is also very rewarding. I wanted to hunt pigs and bear, but was stuck. I had no idea who to talk to or whom to approach. I tried the local bowhunters league and they were nice enough, but of course no one wanted to give up their hunting spots. I never asked where their hunting spots were, just a helping hand in the right direction.

Enter www.DIYbowhunter.com. Great group of guys and gals willing to help out their fellow hunting neighbor and just share some stories, tips and get good insight on successful tactics. I have been given some great info, shared some and made some good friends off of the website. You’ll see many of my posts under the name of Forest_Crawler.

So it begins. I will start to share info on my blog. Stories, tips, reviews and tactics I find work well in the field. I encourage each of you to write me if you have a suggestion for a topic, review or just want to leave a comment. I welcome them all. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, inf act I hope some disagree with me from time to time. It will only help make us all better hunters.

Thanks for checking out my blog and I hope to see you all soon.