In part 1 I discussed preparation and general archery practice techniques. Now we get into making practice real and succeeding in the moment of truth. by Mike Strandlund, Editor, Bowhunting World Match your practice sessions to actual hunting situations. A big game hunter doesn’t need to shoot quarter-size groups. What he needs to do is shoot groups the size of a vital zone under adverse shooting conditions. During practice sessions, vary your angles, distances, and shooting positions. Too many hunters shoot again and again from the same place in the same way. This gives them an exaggerated impression of their hunting accuracy. A whitetail’s not going to give you a couple of warm-up shots. You must be able to put that first arrow in there from odd angles and unknown distances. The best practice is to set up a course of targets at varying distances and uphill/downhill angles. If you plan to hunt exclusively from treestands, it makes no sense to practice on the same level as your target. Shoot down a steep bank, from the roof of your garage, or, better yet, from an actual treestand. Practice in the clothes you’ll wear hunting. Practice both quick shooting and holding full draw as long as you can. Again, practice as if your first arrow is your only arrow. As well as a realistic setting, you should use realistic targets. Most bowhunters benefit greatly from using lifelike targets of game animals. They help you pick and hit vital zones and practice visualization. An archery club range with a whole zoo of Styrofoam game animals is an ideal place for a bowhunter to practice. You might even set up your own course with treestands, ground blinds, and different types of animals. The next best thing to lifelike targets is a target without a bullseye. This might be a couple of hay bales, a plain straw butt, or my favorite – sand dunes. (I seldom miss.) The worst thing to use is a target with a bullseye. Turn your target around, or paint the front a solid color. Then pick your own imaginary bullseye, as you’ll have to do when shooting at game. While you practice, learn your effective range. Many bowhunters have a rude awakening when they shoot at life-size targets. Try it, to find your realistic shooting range, or else use this rule: If you can keep five of six arrows in a 9-inch circle (6-inch circle from a treestand), you’re within effective deer-shooting range. If not, wait for a closer shot. If you use a compound bow, make yardage calculation a science. For the archer with a bow sight, shooting accuracy is proportional to accuracy in judging range. You can practice range estimation constantly while walking through the woods. Pick out a tree in your path, guess the yardage, and step it off. When you get there, pick out another tree and do it again. Training really can enhance your ability to judge distance. Note that changes in vegetation thickness and elevation will change your depth perception. This method is even better, of course, if you bring your bow along and do some stump-shooting. Some bowhunters believe in electronic rangefinders. It is very difficult to take a reading on an animal that has entered bow range, but you can get the range of an object in the animal’s path and be ready to shoot when it gets there. One technique few bowhunters practice is shooting at targets behind and just to one side of a tree. The obstruction can create a psychological block (which I don’t completely understand) that causes some archers to shoot toward the tree, others away from it. Test it to see how it affects your shooting – before the target behind that tree is your buck. The Moment Of Truth When taking your long-awaited shot, you must not only be in control; you must act correctly – do the right thing at the right time. Some hunters have a knack for making wise decisions in a split second. Most make mistakes when not given time for deliberation. We can all benefit from planning. Start by placing your stand precisely. Position it so you are concealed as you draw, so you’re not trying to shoot an animal that has spotted you. When using a treestand, try to select a place where you are concealed by a thick mast background, where there are big tree trunks or thick bushes that will conceal your draw. Place an animal or food scent behind the obstruction to pique the animal’s curiosity, so it may pause with its head hidden and vitals exposed. Position the stand for the most comfortable shooting position based on where the deer will likely be when you shoot. Usually, your platform should be on the opposite side of the tree from where the animal will likely approach. When hunting from a treestand or blind, step off distances in each direction and place subtle markers at yardages that coincide with your sight pins. Test the system by shooting practice arrows at the markers. When a deer gets near your stand, you can correlate his position with a marker and know the exact range. When in your blind or treestand, use your time waiting to plan your shot. Imagine all the possibilities of an animal coming by. Would you shoot if it paused between those big trees, or wait on the hope it would take a few more steps and offer a closer shot? If the animal was trotting, or offered only a rear shot, would you take it? Decide now. Being aware of what you can expect, and having a plan for each situation, gives you confidence. Confidence at this moment is what makes the difference between a hit and a miss. Practice drawing, aiming, even shooting in all directions from your stand. I always bring a couple practice arrows when I hunt. As soon as I get on my stand, I take a couple shots at the most likely places a deer will be. Since I’ve just made considerable commotion getting into my stand, the noise of shooting doesn’t have much chance of spooking deer. I’ve found out several times that the calculation on my first shot was wrong – once it was 10 minutes before a deer was standing there. If an animal you don’t care to shoot nears, wait till it’s at a good spot for a shot, and see if you can draw undetected. Aim at a spot near the animal (not directly at the animal, should the string slip) and analyze your performance. This will also tell you if you make too much movement or noise as you draw. When it comes time to actually take the shot, there are several things to consider. Is there brush in the way? Remember the trajectory of the arrow. The shot may appear to be clear, when in reality the arrow would strike a branch above your line of sight halfway to the target. Conversely, a bush just high enough to obscure the target may not actually be in the way – the arrow could rise above it in its arc and drop into the mark. Once you’ve checked for obstructions and decided to shoot, you must ignore them. If you’re worrying about hitting a twig, you probably will, because arrows tend to go where your attention is focused. Read the animal’s body language. Is it extremely nervous or fairly relaxed? A very nervous whitetail will almost surely jump the string, especially if the woods are still and the shot is long. In such cases, aim at the bottom of the vital zone. If the deer doesn’t jump, you’ll hit where you aim; if the deer does react in the typical crouch/leap manner, the arrow will probably strike higher in the zone as the deer coils – still a lethal shot. In essence, mind the details. Minor things, like a heavy coat or a stiff-brimmed hat, that interfere with your bowstring, or a stand that creaks as you prepare for the shot, can be a major blow to your odds of success. Finally, pick a spot. Bowhunters hear this phrase to the point of annoyance, but it’s still amazing how many violate this basic principle of bowhunting. Even experienced shooters can miss, only later to realize it was because they were aiming at the whole animal instead of that certain hair just behind the shoulder. This point is most critical for instinctive shooters, but applies also to sight shooters. The more precisely you aim, the more precisely you’ll shoot. There are other ways of improving bowhunting accuracy. Each archer has his own weak points that he must improve. Find yours and practice hard in a way that corrects them. The confidence you gain will make bowhunting more fun, and the skills you obtain will collect you more venison.

Book Review: the Scent of Fear by Tom Adair by Mia Anstine Recommended I have always enjoyed reading, but if a book doesn't catch my attention from the start, it may take me months or even years to read. It took me just two days to read the Scent of Fear by Author Tom Adair. If you've followed me at all, you know I don't watch much TV, but [...] Read more of this post

Hunters have argued forever over which gun is “the best” for whitetail. Here are tips from an expert on how to pick a good deer gun. by Keith Sutton  While visiting a friend’s deer camp recently, I was amazed at the variety of guns being used by the 15 guys who were members of that camp. My hunting companion was shooting the Rifled Deer version of the Browning Gold 12-gauge slug gun. His brother was shooting a Ruger Model 96/44 lever-action in .44 Mag. A father-and-son team went the bolt-action route. One was shooting a Sporter LT version of Winchester’s Model 70 Classic chambered for .270. The other was hunting with a .243 Remington Model Seven SS. There was one guy shooting buckshot in an old Remington 12-gauge double-barrel, and another shooting an ancient military carbine of some sort. In fact, just about every kind of rifle and shotgun you can imagine was being employed by this ragtag band of deer hunters. This started me to thinking: if a new deer hunter had dropped into this camp, hoping to get advice on what kind of gun was best to use for killing a whitetail, the poor guy would undoubtedly have gone away confused and frustrated after hearing all the opinions floating around. Selecting a good all-round deer gun can be a daunting task for sure. Some hunters prefer a super-accurate long-range rifle, but those are typically heavy, with long barrels. If you have to carry one of these guns over long distances in rough terrain, you might wish you’d gone with a lightweight stalking rifle instead. If you go with a lightweight model, however, you usually give up some of the true “tack-driver” accuracy obtainable with a long-range specialist. Also, light rifles are harder to hold steady for accurate shooting.     Lever-action, bolt action or semiauto? The variety of deer guns can confuse the inexperienced. Which is best?     And that’s just one aspect (weight) of one type of gun (rifles). Then there are shotguns to think about, and different action designs, cartridge power and a variety of stocks and barrels to consider. The variations seem endless, and some hunters become frustrated when trying to choose a gun that incorporates all the features they consider necessary in the ultimate deer gun. Aaron Pass, one of the country’s foremost gun experts and shooting writers, says rifles are the way to go if your state gives you the option — pick a shotgun only where legally required or dictated by special safety situations. “In most cases,” Pass notes, “the new specialized slug guns with rifled barrels and sabot slugs are very effective and accurate out to 100 yards or a bit more. Beyond 125 or 150 yards, the steeply dropping trajectories and loss of energy make even these slugs questionable. Traditional Foster-type slugs from smoothbores are rarely accurate beyond 75 yards. Buckshot is unreliable beyond 35 to 40 yards.” So what about actions? Which is best — lever-action, pump, bolt-action or semi-auto? Hunters generally agree that the time-tested bolt-action is considered to be the most inherently accurate. But Pass adds to that line of thinking: “It is also the action type most easily refined to greater accuracy. Levers, pumps and autoloaders are all capable of various degrees of practical hunting accuracy and allow faster follow-up shots. However, if one of these is not as accurate as a shooter desires, there’s not much that can be done about it.” And then we come to caliber. Pass says, “For truly all-around deer hunting (a national standard), a cartridge that shoots a 120- to 150-grain bullet faster than 2,500 fps is adequate out to 200 yards or so. As velocity increases, so does effective range.     Deer can be hunted with any gun legal where they will be taken, including handguns. Test firing a variety of guns at the range can help in narrowing down the selection.     “My personal favorite deer rifle is a Winchester M70, in .270 Win. with a 1.5x-6x Burris scope and a synthetic stock,” he continues. “I don’t shoot at extremely long range and there’s no ‘normal’ deer hunting situation I can imagine that this rig is not capable of handling. That said, there is no inherent magic in any of the above criteria. There are plenty of other combinations that would work just as well.” Whether you want long-range accuracy, a rifle that’s a joy to carry or some other specialization, Pass recommends buying a new rifle in the configuration you desire. “The well-known rifle models — Browning’s A-Bolt, Remington’s 700, Ruger’s 77, Savage’s 110, Weatherby’s Mark V, Winchester’s 70 and others — designate the action design,” he says. “Gun makers attach a wide variety of specialized stocks and barrels to these basic actions to create a variety of specialized rifles. Hunters should check out the manufacturers’ catalogs, or visit a gun shop, and choose a combination of features that achieve the goals of functionality and design.” In the end, finding the ultimate deer gun is largely a matter of personal preferences. Buy a gun you like that’s legal for your hunting area, one you believe will get the job done where you hunt. That’s the first step toward achieving your goal.

NSSF Issues Statement on 'Operation Choke Point' NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) today issued the following statement: The National Shooting Sports Foundation has been investigating the possible role of the federal government in influencing banks in their lending and business banking relationship decisions regarding companies in our industry. We have heard from several industry members that they had banking relationships terminated by their lending institutions. We respect the right of financial institutions to make business decisions based on objective criteria. It is unacceptable, however, to discriminate against businesses simply because they are engaged in the lawful commerce of firearms, an activity protected by the Second Amendment. NSSF staff has met with members of the House Financial Services Committee and members of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee concerning several documents that have surfaced from the FDIC labeling companies in the firearms and ammunition industry as "high risk." As a result, we have worked with U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) and expect that he will offer today an amendment to the FY15 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which would prevent federal funds from being used as part of "Operation Choke Point" or in any effort targeting companies involved in the lawful commerce in firearms. We will continue to investigate the extent of any improper government involvement and will update our members as more information becomes available. About NSSF The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 10,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's organizations and publishers. For more information, visit www.nssf.org.

When it comes to deer management, a one-to-one match-up is not necessarily the best thing going for either your herd, or your hunting. by Mark Kayser If you’re a do-it-yourself deer manager as most who hunt their own piece of ground are, one recurring theme that you’ve heard about is that a one-to-one buck-to-doe ratio is optimum. Managers of the most famous deer-hunting operations in the country sure push that notion, but is it always valid? One-to-One Ratio Argument There are two main arguments for the one-to-one buck-to-doe scenario. First, it can aid in maintaining a healthy herd. If a property holds too many does and fawns, the nutrition of the herd can suffer as a result of overbrowsing. By keeping the doe population in balance, the overall herd will benefit — ample browse for bucks might lead to better antler growth, under the right conditions. Does and fawns will also benefit, since healthy does birth healthier fawns, and are more likely to birth twins. More food throughout the year also means the deer won’t have to use all their fat reserves to make it through difficult periods of winter or drought. The second reason to work toward a one-to-one ratio is to increase hunting success. If bucks and does are present in fairly equal numbers, rutting activity should be much more pronounced during daylight hours. Bucks in more competitive situations cover a lot of ground looking for willing does. That increases the likelihood that they’ll be spotted by hunters. When One-To-One Isn’t Practical For effective herd management, the majority of the deer that use your property should also stay on your property. In most instances that means the property should consist of at least 500 acres, though many deer managers I’ve talked with actually place that figure higher, even as high as 5,000 acres. Needless to say, it takes a lot of land to keep deer close to home. If your property lacks the fundamental living requirements to keep deer happy, you can also expect them to leave — at least temporarily. Cover, food and water are necessary to hold deer, otherwise they’ll wander across your property and the neighbors’. You’re trying to follow the tenets of quality deer management — harvest more does and let bucks mature — but are your neighbors? It won’t help your management efforts if bucks that bed down on your property get picked off on adjoining land because that’s where they have to go to take advantage of food plots and the does that are attracted to them. It’s not always a bad thing to have a few extra does around. Whitetail expert and outfitter Cody Warne endorses the idea of having MORE does than bucks in the herd. He’s not against a one-to-one ratio under the right conditions, but having a surplus of does isn’t always a bad thing. Warne’s property lies in central South Dakota, where winters can be tough on deer when the snow piles up. “I don’t mind wintering extra does, says Warne, “because I know that if we do have a severe winter and I end up losing deer from winterkill, it’s the does that will be the key to my herd bouncing back fast.” Plant for Healthy Deer If you do decide that a one-to-one buck-to-doe ratio is right for you, be sure to provide the herd with ample amounts of the right feed. After sampling the soil, research the best food plot crops for the area, taking into account average temperatures and rainfall. If you choose clover, remember that the seed needs to be planted in low, moist areas. If you pick the right location, such as a lowland pasture, clover will reseed itself well for about four years. If you plant it in the wrong place, such as a hillside or in dry soils, it won’t last a season. Besides choosing the best growing location, be sure the food plot is in an area where wildlife will readily access it. Placing it in an open field or next to a busy road might deter wildlife from visiting it during legal shooting hours. Plant it where deer will feel secure. You probably live in an area where various types of grains and legumes will grow well. It almost goes without saying that you should plant forage that is universally appealing to wildlife — especially deer — during the longest period possible. Otherwise, choose a crop that is economical. Generally a mixture is better than a single crop, in case one seed variety should fail. Hunter’s Specialties Fall Mix (www.hunterspec.com) is a top example. It includes a mixture of plants with a range of protein from 27 to 35 percent. With the right food, the herd will prosper.

From single the family hunting with @Mia_Anstine By Lars Dalseide February 3 2012 15:13 Colorado blogger brings her family into hunting & the outdoors Mia Anstine runs Wolf Creek Outfitters with her husband Hank. A constant source of hunting fun and information on the social media circuit, I had hoped to interview Mia during the 2012 SHOT Show. That never happened. Not to be deterred, I decided to

TANZANIA: Africa's ultimate hunting destination. Eelephant, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Sable, Roan, Gerenuk, Oryx, Crocodile, Hippo and many more species available. Combine your hunt with a safari to Serengeti National Park to see the wildebeest migration, Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Kilimanjaro and Marlin fishing off the coast of Zanzibar.   Contact me to book your safari now. Carl Strauss : carlstrauss62@yahoo.com

Choose the right kind of scent and technique to attract and stop a buck in his tracks. by Jack Young Most hunting-related scent products are designed to eliminate human odors. Four scent categories include: masking, odor-adsorbing, odor-eliminating, and oxidizing. Each has advantages, disadvantages, and preferred applications. Masking Scents Masking scents are most misunderstood. Covering one scent with another is a poor approach to odor management. Game possess olfactory senses many thousands times better than humans. Dousing oneself with masking scents means game animals simply smell you and the cover scent. Adsorbing Scents Odor-adsorbing products are better solution, but after active ingredients (baking soda, activated carbon, Abscents crystals/powder) reach carrying capacity they will adsorb no more. They’re certainly effective but require frequent recharging. Odor-Elimination/Oxidization Odor-eliminating or oxidizing products prove most effective on a wider variety of odor sources and have become the industry standard. Active ingredients chemically neutralize or oxidize odors. In the first case key chemicals react with odor molecules to turn them into inert, odorless compounds. Oxidizers quickly accelerate the break-down of odor compounds to make them disappear. Scent Lures And Tools Unlike masking or odor-eliminating scent-control products designed to camouflage game-spooking odors, bowhunting lures are meant to attract attention. These contain urine, glands, or hormones to arouse sexual interest from game. Some also contain “curiosity” agents that many deer feel inclined to investigate. The latter are used for early seasons preceding the rut. In general, game lures, like “doe-in-heat concoctions, are most effective during rut periods when males seek female companionship. Many over-zealous bowhunters dump entire bottles of lure around stand sites hoping to attract full-out charges from love-crazed bucks. It could happen, but it is highly unlikely. Effective approaches to sex-lure attractants include creating drag-lines to bring trailing bucks within range and placing scent pods to stop animals in desired shooting lanes. Regarding drag-lines, take care to assure that your human scent doesn’t mix with the scent line. Tie a clean length of cord to a long switch, a wick, or clean cloth saturated with lure attached to the end. Hold the branch at arm’s length. This distance, plus the added reach of the switch, will help leave your drag-lines free of human scent. If you know that your boots are completely scent-free, you can apply lure scent to your boot soles and trail in. Create a multitude of drag-lines around stand sites. Each line vectoring toward your stand can help bring a rutting whitetail buck in for a closer shot. Too, by paying attention to wind direction, you might actually be able direct animals away from your downwind quarter and avoid being winded. Scents Can Stop And Distract Using scents or lures to stop or distract animals is also effective. Place scent-charged wicks or scent pods upwind of your position to create standing shots at preoccupied animals. Placing scent pods behind stumps, tree trunks, or rocks might also stop deer while also blocking their vision, allowing you a chance to draw your bow undetected. Scents of all kinds can prove to be highly effective tools to regular bowhunting success. Use today’s array of scents to disguise your own scent, to better position animals for the shot, but do so wisely. Avoid desperate measures and always, always watch that wind to prevent educating animals in your hunting area—or sending them into retreat at the moment of truth.

The Little Gal becomes a trapper Mia Anstine blogs about her daughter's journey to becoming an outdoorswoman in the mountains of Colorado. In this installment, the Little Gal traps her first raccoon   Read about it at the WON. www.womensoutdoornews.com