The 2008 Indiana Predator Challenge was once again a record setting event in every way!

Registration opened on July 15th and was closed on the 29th of September, jamming the contest full with 56 registered hunters in record time! At Fridays initial check-in we saw 52 of those participants on hand; making this the largest field of callers we’ve ever had.




Hunters were anxious to get in the woods, chasing predators that could put them within striking distance of the $2,858 worth of prizes displayed at headquarters! This prize package contained dozens of the finest custom calls and cow horn howlers on the market, 4 shiny new 22-250 rifles, truck decals, magazine subscriptions and beautiful laser etched plaques. With the help of some generous companies offering us price breaks and awesome donations; we were able to offer the largest prize package in IPC history!





We had a weather scare for the beginning of the competition, with weathermen anticipating 1-2 inches of ice and a few inches of snow overnight Thursday and into Friday. As usual; the weathermen were wrong and roads were dry with a light dusting of snow sticking only in wooded areas. High winds were a factor as contestants rushed off to their favorite stands, but it didn’t take long for The Hoosier Daddy team to tag a coyote. Team K-Nine also hammered home their first points with a 31 pound coyote. Team Savage also struck an early lead with a Friday afternoon Red Fox just a few miles from the Headquarters building!

Friday night was chilly and very dark so several teams hoofed the hills all night making stands. The Regulators would score big with a Grey Fox around 11pm Friday and a coyote just before daylight Saturday. The Howlers knocked down a hefty 45 pound mail on Saturday morning just before the mandatory check-in: putting 5 teams on the board with fur!



Saturday Check-in

Hoosier Daddy's and their 36 pounds of luck.



Team K-Nine with their 31 pounder.



Team Savage with their 9# Red Fox



The Howlers with their 45# whopper!




The Regulators with their 9# Gray and 35# Coyote



Saturdays Collection:



As animals were weighed and scored by volunteers, teams gathered inside the HQ building for some great food prepared by the Chef. After gorging themselves to the brink of misery; contestants marveled at the prizes for a little motivation then congregated outside for the infamous IPC Rifle Contest.





The Indiana Predator Challenge Rifle Contest was once again challenging for all involved and entertaining for those in attendance. 5 targets were placed at various ranges in random positions on the course; shooters were given 5 rounds and/or 60 seconds to attack the course from one location.

It didn’t take long to set a benchmark, as Jason Brunner (Regulator) stepped up to the plate second in line and knocked down 4 targets in 46.93 seconds. One by one, a representative from each team addressed the course with his favorite rifle. It wasn’t until The Howlers stepped up that we saw some competition for Regulators blazing speed…. As Patrick wielded his single shot rifle knocking down 4 targets then struggling to find the 5th critter hidden in the woods!

As he searched for the remaining fox, Patrick’s 60 second time window elapsed, and he was awarded 2nd place. If he had fired his 5th round into the air immediately after knocking down the 4th target- he would’ve taken first place! Fortunately for The Regulators, he didn’t empty that round… and the rest of the field failed to match their 80% kill ratio.

Other points of interest: Team Savage managed to whiff on all 5 targets 29.67 seconds, while Team Clark took twice as long to miss them all. (Sorry Gary)

08 IPC Scoring Sheet


Regulator preparing to blaze through the course.


A tough one up on the ridge.



Hntr4life wishing B&GHunter could shoot



A chipshot coyote that not everyone saw.



After the rifle competition we had a clear leader and an offset tie for second; The Howlers held 2 points with their coyote and a second place finish in the rifle contest while Savage had two points from their Red Fox. The tie breaker (weight) would throw the position in favor of the Howlers but there were two teams that could overthrow that balance by popping any fox or coyote out there! We didn’t know how 2nd-5th would pan out- but we knew someone would really have to step up to catch the Regulators.

As they say, you have to crawl before you can walk… and Cucvblazer was feeling pretty low after missing all those targets but he was flying high just hours later when he popped a beautiful male Gray Fox! Dtrain defied all odds by killing the female of the pair, on the daytime stand, giving their team a shot in the arm and propelling them into the lead!

Knowing that other teams were out there hunting hard; Team Savage couldn’t afford to rest on a one point lead. Their foxes were lightweight critters compared to the coyotes being checked in; so they would lose any tie that came about. Not to be outdone; The Howlers came through with a 272 yard shot on a nasty little female coyote just before dark to keep themselves in contention. As the sun went down we had no idea what would show up at the final check-in on Sunday afternoon.

Despite hunting hard, and nearly nonstop, nobody connected on fur overnight! Sunday morning Team Savage was able to seal the deal by calling and killing one more coyote; The Howlers called several but couldn’t knock any down to clinch a runner up position. Team Savage would win, Regulators taking second place!





Sunday Check-in

The Howlers and their 27# mudball.


Team Savage with their 7# & 10# grays and the 33# coyote for good measure.



Sundays Collection:




WINNERS: Team Savage: TrapperKevin, Cucvblazer & Dtrain



2nd Place: The Regulators: Regulator, Rem22 & Friends.




Last but not least, Casey won our youngest hunter award and took home a subscription to Predator Extreme magazine!

Youngest IPC Contestant: Rawdawg



Also; Patrick Byrum from The Howlers will recieve a subscription to the Trapper & Predator Caller for his valiant effort and second place in the IPC Rifle Contest. Anybody that can shoot like that deserves a prize... even if he did miss a REAL coyote at 40 yards! LOL!

In short, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out and especially all those who volunteered or contributed to this prize package in some way! I had a great time and hope you guys did too.... there are hundreds of pictures to come; keep an eye on the Indiana Predator Challenge website for those in the near future!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jrbhunter,

Wow,what a weekend!Sounds like it was a great time.Congratulations to Team Savage

Congrats to everyone!
I had a feeling those Lafayette boys would be hard to beat.

Congratulations to all the competitors in this years hunt. This was truely one of the most enjoyable weekends I have had.

Regulators, I feel sorry for anyone trying to stack up against you guys. I think our exact comment saturday night was..."We know those guys are going to hunt their $#@ off, so we have to keep at it." Congratulations guys, look forward to it again.

I want to take this time to thank everyone that contributed to the success of this event. From the all the hunters to the organizers. Fireman, thanks for all your support throughout the weekend. The cooks did a great job. Thanks to all the Conservation Officers that made there presense throughout the weekend. All the voluteers skinning, weighing and taking the fur. Picturetakers (Ronnie)....etc you can't imagine all the people it takes to put this together. Lastly, Jason, thanks man, your time in this event is underrated. You put on a great show.

As for the rifle shoot...
It was obviously not very field like conditions!!! I shot five times in the rifle shoot and missed everyone, but that Savage shot 3 more times during that weekend, and gained us 5 points if I recall!!! LOL... I truely did suck at that rifle competition, you can bet I will not be shooting it again, we will let "figure 8" (trapperkevin) shoot.

Thanks to all involved, we had a great time.

Did the teams hunt all night long, from friday night,to sunday morning? 24/7?.

Or did one guy sleep and others kept the team in action afield? How did you guys do it?

I'm fairly tough but,i'm not sure I can stay awake for 2.5 days.......lol

Big salute to the winners!

Weapon x
We slept about 4 hours Friday night/Saturday morning, mainly to let our batteries charge up. On Saturdaynight / Sunday morning we slept for about 1.5 hours. I think it was 3am to 4:30 am.
I think other teams had some sleeping while others hunted...not sure though.

That was our plan, hunt pretty much non-stop. With uncontrollable problems, that started Thursday night/Early Friday morning and kept escalating through the weekend causing all of us to miss the big game. We didn't get to hunt nearly as much as I would of hoped. The mental drain of the problems and the physical drain of the terrain was too much for us. We ended up hunting through Friday night and all day saturday but ended up sleeping on the night we should of been hunting. Even with the "good" bad luck we had a blast. My eyes are still half open right now and I know for a fact I got more sleep than the two winning teams.

The event was a success, and most of my team is going to come back next year. We are going to make a few roster changes though. Thanks to Jason and everyone else involved in the planning and execution of the event.

As always, Jason put on a great hunt!! Everything went very smooth, the food was good and the headquarters building was perfect for the cause. Based on the laughter and tall storiies that were floating around the headquarters, I think everyone had a great time, I know our team did. Sawmiller did a incredible job designing and laying out the rifle competition. Finding the targets in the woods proved to be tough enough, little lone hitting them.

We (Team Savage) hunted pretty hard all weekend and were fortunate enough to have luck on our side on a few stands. We knew that we were in a tie for 2nd after the Saturday check in, so we pushed ourselves to hunt thru the night in an effert to catch up to the Regulators. It's pretty exciting to work yourselves into a position that you know you "have a chance". You constantly speculate on how many kills everyone else is making, and what it will take to win. I don't know how many times I said "If we kill one more animal, we have a chance". Like the name says, it's definately a "Challenge", with a whole lot of excitement built it.
Thanks to all those who donated prizes and food and to Jason and all those who helped him put this event on, it is truely a blast!!

I was a volunteer and helped out setting up the range,did some skinning,and a lot of other little things here and there.
It was definatly a heck of an event.I really enjoyed myself.Great bunch of guys that attended.
You could tell by the final check in Sunday that most everyone was wore plumb out.
Lack of sleep and these hills here really took a toll on the hunters.
I am definatly pumped to enter this thing next year,if I aint huntin' in it I will definatly make myself available to help out again.
Jason definatly deserves a big pat on the back for organizing all of this.
I did have a couple complaints of my own.

1)Game Chef gave me a cup of hot water and tried to convince me it was coffee.

2)Some of you guys need to get smaller guns.I think a couple of them foxes were took with grenade launchers.

Awesome re-cap Jason!!! SOunds like everyone had a ball!! Congrats to the winners!!!!

WOOOWWWEEE!!!!!!! I gotta tel ya that sounds like one heck of a time gonna have to get involed next year for sure!!!!!! Big Congrats to the winners and every one who put down some fur down here good jobs fellas.

Thanks for the kind words guys!

It's also noteworthy that we were able to offer each participant $27 worth of free doorprizes and feed them that killer meal! Not bad for a $50 entry fee; and we expect to do even better next year!!! Heck, I think we'll have to pay some of these guys to come back and tackle these hills!







Somebody will have to get me a picture of the Indiana Predator Challenge vinyl decals we handed out... I didn't get a pic before they were all gone!

i was just wondering if it is room for guys that are getting older and cant travel like a mountain goat at the ipc?

quote:

Originally posted by willie:
i was just wondering if it is room for guys that are getting older and cant travel like a mountain goat at the ipc?

Take a look at the winners picture... that ancient guy on the left has a failing gaul bladder, a bumb leg and nonstop heartburn! If he can do it- anybody can!! LOL!

That is too funny, you are right Jason, Kevin has some serious health issues. Everything you described is what he contended with. I have to say, he hung in there pretty well. The doc told him the next step is to have the gaulbladder removed. I am kind of glad that did not happen when we were a few miles from the truck. Although if you point me in the right direction I could probably manage with my pocket knife!!! Don't know if he noticed or not, but on the trip down I was sharpening my knife.
Did he make every stand...no, but he was there for a lot of them, and I think he had just as good of time.
Having a few in shape or "younger guys" does not hurt...not sure where I fit in those two descriptions, but we managed.