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Entries for 'Gray Loon'
Over a Barrel
By Ken Piper
A free-floating gun barrel is accurate, but also susceptible to contact. Most of today’s hunting rifles are manufactured with free-floating barrels. This means nothing touches the barrel much beyond its connection to the gun action. While it might look like the forearm of the stock touches the barrel, it doesn’t. There are many benefits... READ MORE
Are Long-Range Crossbow Hunting Shots Worth the Risk?
By Bryan Zabitski, TenPoint Crossbow Technologies
Modern hunting crossbows shoot harder and faster than ever before, with many shooting beyond 400 feet-per-second. As a result of this evolution of performance, many crossbow hunters now wish to extend the effective hunting ranges of their crossbows out to distances greater than 50-yards, which has been the distance accepted by most crossbow hunters... READ MORE
Corn Stalk
By Ken Piper
Standing corn is a blessing and curse for bowhunters. Agriculture fields draw whitetails, and lots of them. That's the good news. The bad news is deer also use those fields for cover and bedding areas. Standing corn is an excellent and oft-used whitetail sanctuary. And you'd be amazed how even a big buck and simply lie down and disappear in soybean... READ MORE
Expect Success
By Ken Piper
A positive mental attitude leads to better results in the woods. There are many factors that go into a successful hunt: scouting, practice and equipment are just a few. In addition to all these physical elements, there are important mental aspects of deer hunting that separate the average from the best. There’s nothing like experience to help... READ MORE
Fishing for Bucks
By Ken Piper
Think like an angler when looking for deer on a new tract of land. Because a majority of deer hunters spend at least some time fishing, we’d like to point out that fishing skills can come in handy in the deer woods, too. One of the first things bass fishermen learn is to look for underwater structure – changes in the lake bottom that di... READ MORE
Know Your Nuts
By Ken Piper
Acorns are not like wine, and white is definitely better than red. Acorns are one of the white-tailed deer’s favorite foods, but getting a buck isn’t as simple as finding an oak tree and setting an egg timer until a bruiser walks in. There are several different types of oaks, and the subtle differences are important. Deer prefer white o... READ MORE
Stand Firm
By Ken Piper
It’s chic to take a stand these days, and that’s certainly true in the deer woods. With all due respect to still-hunters, the most effective way to hunt white-tailed deer is to take a stand in a productive spot and sit there quietly. Stands work for a number of reasons. We play a cat-and-mouse game with whitetails. Deer are using all t... READ MORE
Bottlenecks and Funnels
By Ken Piper
Anything that brings more deer into less space increases your odds of success. Last week’s tip about fences was an example of the funnel effect, where a natural or man-made feature concentrates deer travel. But there are many types of funnels and bottlenecks that give you a better chance of seeing deer. When studying aerial photos or scouting... READ MORE
Fences Concentrate Deer Trails
By Ken Piper
Use these obstacles to your advantage when selecting stand sites. Fences are common in many deer hunting areas, and it’s easy to find heavily used crossings. Deer cross fences by ducking under or jumping over. Either way, they tend to leave hair on the wire or wood. Where they duck under, they wallow out a distinct depression and kill the veg... READ MORE
Water, Water Everywhere
By Ken Piper
The more water on a property, the less important it is for hunting. Deer don’t have to drink every day to survive, but they will drink regularly if water is convenient. Water is particularly important to whitetails in the South and Southwest, where it can be hot during deer season, and in the West where water sources tend to be scarce. For hu... READ MORE
Doe-Re-Mi
By Ken Piper
Which does are best to target for removal, young or mature? You’ve probably read many articles recommending taking big, healthy does to help reduce deer populations. And that’s not bad advice. It’s just not necessarily the best advice in all situations. Some biologists are taking a new approach to thinning herds and are recommendi... READ MORE
Lightning Score on the Hoof
By Ken Piper
Score isn’t everything when it comes to whitetails, but there are times (like when hunting with an outfitter who has minimum scores for bucks) that knowing a buck’s score comes in handy. If you need to quickly guess a buck’s score, consider that an average 8-pointer that is just outside its ears and isn’t deficient in any wa... READ MORE
Smooth Is the Groove
By Ken Piper
We’d all like to improve our shooting, whether we use a gun, a bow or both. We owe it to the animals we hunt to make the best shot possible, and nobody wants to miss the trophy of a lifetime. There are books on proper shooting, but everyone can benefit from this simple tip: The moment of release is critical to a good shot. "Punching" the trig... READ MORE
Game Wardens Can Help
By Ken Piper
State game and conservation officers often get a bum rap since part of their job is enforcing laws, but most of them are open to sharing information with considerate hunters. If you’re planning to hunt on public land, call your local game authority and ask to talk to the officer who covers the given area. Ask him or her about good places to h... READ MORE
Rubs Can Show the Way
By Ken Piper
Everyone gets excited about a big, gnarly buck rub. Evidence that a rut-crazed bruiser buck is on the prowl helps us get out of bed at 3:30 a.m., and it keeps us in a stand on cold, boring days without deer sightings. On the other hand, you’ve probably read in Buckmasters magazine that rubs don’t mean a whole lot in terms of scoring on ... READ MORE
It’s Deer Hunting, Not Deer Seeing
By Ken Piper
We often preach the importance of checking distances to likely shooting locations after settling in for a hunt. And while double-checking distance is always a good idea, it’s at least as important to have a good idea of general distances before you even set up a stand. Bowhunters frequently set up too close to trails and get busted when tryin... READ MORE
You Have Instincts, Too
By Ken Piper
Hunting is like many sports in that there are certain practices that are the accepted standards for success. In other words, there’s a correct way to throw a football or swing a golf club, just as there are correct ways to set up a treestand or to shoot a gun or bow. Another way hunting mirrors sports is that when crunch time hits, there&rsqu... READ MORE
Aim According To Your Weapon
By Ken Piper
All hunters want to make the quickest, cleanest harvest possible, and that’s why we spend so much time practicing and studying deer anatomy. While learning more about deer is great, there are more things to consider than the location of a buck’s vitals. In short, optimum shot placement changes with the weapon being used. Broadhead-tippe... READ MORE
A Little Off the Top
By Ken Piper
Sometimes we focus so much on what we can see from a stand that we forget to consider what a deer sees from his angle. Whether you’re hunting with a gun, bow or muzzleloader, you will almost always have to make some kind of movement to get a shot. While a whitetail’s sense of smell is his best defense, ignore his vision at your peril. C... READ MORE
Scouting Is More Than Putting Out a Trail Cam
By Ken Piper
For many of us, scouting is half the fun of hunting – and with good reason. There’s nothing like the feeling of finding concentrated buck sign and trying to picture the buck that made it. But scouting is more than just finding good sign and picking a nearby tree on which to place a stand. Many of us spend a lot of time hunting stands th... READ MORE