Any time spent in the woods is valuable, but let's talk about the target goal of shed antlers. Days filled with work meetings aren't always a lost cause. A few short minutes could be all you need to grab a few antlers this spring.
Shed hunting doesn't always need to take place where you want to hunt. It's beneficial to zero in on areas known for wintering bucks. A little map reading and an evening drive to learn local buck habits will go far...
I grew up thinking that big bucks were almost unkillable. While I was surrounded by people who hunted, almost no one ever killed a deer that was even 3.5 or older. When someone did, it was a big deal.
Our lived reality was in stark contrast to the hunting videos and magazine articles we consumed. It didn’t make sense, and for years, I struggled with that disconnect. How could some people consistently kill big deer? I couldn’t even find one most...
Fail upward? What kind of corporate jargon is that? How could this possibly help me become a better hunter? Hear me out.
Every hunter that I know with at least a dozen seasons under their belt goes through a natural evolution. That evolutionary path is different for everyone because everyone has a slightly different situation and different personal goals. For example, you might come to a fork in the road after having some success here and there...
In the whitetail-sphere, it’s common for hunters to proclaim that their deer are harder to kill than the deer found in other places. It’s kind of like bitching about local weather. We all like to present a life of struggle and, of course, perseverance.
With whitetails, no one region or state can claim its deer are the toughest to kill. The truth is deer that don’t suffer hunter mistakes live all over, and they share a few things in common. The...
It was early October 1992, and I was sitting in a wooden treestand overlooking an oak-lined ridgetop. I wanted my first deer in the worst way, and she was heading in my direction. The young doe was on the hunt for a few acorns, and when she posed up at 10 yards, I drew and shot. What I didn’t do, was aim.
When my arrow passed over her back, my rising panic hit a fever pitch. Another arrow sailed high and buried into the dirt. With a 0 and 2 count...
On a brisk weekend in October, I had an epiphany. After three seasons of shivering, sweating, waiting, watching, and throwing the occasional hissyfit—I was standing over a mature, nine-point deer. Was it a record-breaker? No. Did it come at a high price? Yes and no.
This particular instance worked like perfection. The arrow hit right where I wanted it, from about 25 yards. It was a quick, clean kill. I even had the self-control to resist shooting...
It’s a rare day that I focus my hunting efforts on individual bucks. It’s just not my style, and I don’t have much ground to work with where it’s a feasible strategy. It’s not that I haven’t gone down that road in the past—because I have—it’s just that today, it doesn’t make much sense for me.
What does make sense for me, and probably for you as well, is to learn to identify general mature buck core areas. These locations, provided the habitat...
Hunters have an undeniable fascination with giant antlered, big-bodied bucks. If you've decided to take on the challenge of understanding mature bucks, you're in danger of becoming addicted and obsessed. However, studying mature bucks can also increase your fun in the woods.
Mature bucks are king in the big woods. They live in constant survival mode due to hunting pressure, predators, and the drive to carry on their bloodline. It's no wonder that...
There’s a saying for folks who work in marketing that goes something like this: the minute you sign a new client is the minute you start to lose them. This general rule applies to hunting spots as well. The minute you get permission to hunt a property is the minute you start to lose that property.
Unless you’re the title holder to a piece of deer ground, the grip you hold on permission is tenuous at best. Farmers pass away, leaving their ground...
Too much hunting media preaches a conservative approach to whitetail hunting that just doesn’t work for most hunters. This message has largely dominated the conversation around hunting mature whitetails. Minimize pressure, hunt the fringes, wait for the stars to align—the same jargon that’s been recycled every hunting season and convinced hunters to hold out for bigger bucks that just aren’t coming.
It’s a top-down message that says, “If you work...
Growing up in southeastern Minnesota, I thought we had the laziest hunters. During gun season, the amount of trucks creeping along gravel roads with the windows down was a sure sign of a road hunt in progress. It never made sense to me to take the hunt out of the hunt and shoot one from the ditch, but I naively thought it was a local issue.
I thought a lot of things about the average hunter from my home state when I was young, and it wasn’t until...
I've spent a substantial amount of time hunting whitetails in the big woods. Understanding scrapes has, without a doubt, led me to more consistent encounters than any other hunting tactic.
Their basic framework is an open patch of dirt with an overhanging licking branch. The size of a scrape might tell you that many deer use it. A scrape with more depth and a foul smell is a telltale sign that a mature buck frequents it. Its location could tell...
A few years ago, we redid our basement floor. According to my wife, since there were new floors going in, we also needed new furniture and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. While she was right, I mostly felt like my time in the boat throwing topwaters for smallies was disappearing a little more with each one of her wishes.
While we flirted with divorce a few times during that lower-level house overhaul, what really struck me as interesting was...
Yes, I know. Hunter success rates depend on filled tags, but I’m not simply reducing success to dead deer. The playing field is anything but level for deer hunters. From weekend warriors on the local WMA to those who have clawed their way into privately managed honey holes, the circumstances are different. Everyone is also at a different point in their hunting career. A one-size-fits-all blueprint for success just doesn’t work.
If this past...
Hunting is a sport of continually changing variables, with every decision you make compounding on the next and altering the outcome of the day. The uncertainty is what makes hunting so exciting. The best hunts are usually days when success is completely inconceivable, and when you least expect it, things take a turn for the better.
But as we all know too well, more often than not, Murphy is bound to show up and hand you a low blow. The ones that...
This time of year should be a time of reflection on last deer season. While you might turn your attention to shed hunting and winter scouting, it’s reality check time for those lofty goals you set in October. Did you tag your “target” buck? Check out that new piece of ground? How many deer did you miss? When you did drag a deer back to the truck, were you winded and gasping for air?
This last one, which pertains to your hunting fitness, should be...
When it comes to buyer’s remorse, we tend to think of junk. Like paying good money for something that just doesn’t deliver on its marketing promise or maybe breaks right out of the box. Cheap hunting gear, and unfortunately some not-so-cheap hunting gear, is not immune to this frustrating issue.
There’s a sneakier and probably more damaging category of gear that should concern hunters, as well. This includes products that function just fine, but...
Aside from in-season scouting, if I could only scout once per year, you can bet it’d be during the month of February. In fact, the weekend after my state’s deer season closes for the year, I’m blowing through all my hunting spots, trying to connect the dots and confirm or disprove any of my in-season inclinations.
Here in the South, some deer seasons run a couple weeks past Groundhog Day, and unlike the majority of deer country, the South isn’t...
It wasn’t that long ago when you never really heard about mature bucks the way you do now. Sure, maturity made it into the conversation sometimes when people talking about big bucks, but it wasn’t the reason for the season, so to speak.
Today, the whitetail-sphere is dominated by hit-listers with cute names and the idea that a buck is only worthy of an arrow if he’s mature. The reason we’ve gone this way is because pure trophy hunting is...
The term “cull buck” used to be pretty common in deer hunting circles. Two types of hunters used it the most. In the first group, we had the aspiring land managers who truly believed that they could influence antler size by removing inferior bucks from the breeding pool. In the second camp, we had folks who wanted to avoid the perceived shame of shooting small bucks.
This was a hot topic back in the 1990s, which led quite a few legitimate deer...
