Smalltown Bucks

Snow Falls in the Catskills

Snow Falls in the Catskills

By Vincent J. Prybeck

To-the-point New Yorker has enough go for one more season. Nov. 17, 2018, Upstate New York. A Catskill Mountain deer season starts. Snow fell 24 hours earlier. Cloudy, windless, good snow, 28 degrees. In darkness, we hike uphill. With John settled, I head farther uphill. At 2,100 feet, I climb the ladder. Now wait. Season 48 now. How many do I have... READ MORE

Kansas Has a New Hunter!

Kansas Has a New Hunter!

By Derrick Schreiber

Two years ago, my son Bryce wanted to try deer hunting. At age nine, he wasn’t quite strong enough to draw poundage adequate for bowhunting, so we chose a rifle. During several outings, Bryce endured some very cold and harsh Midwest winter conditions, but he fared much better than I’d expected. On our first rifle hunt, he passed on a ... READ MORE

Hunter Does Papa’s .30-30 Proud

Hunter Does Papa’s .30-30 Proud

By Penny Robertson

My husband, our two sons Hunter and Seth and I moved from Tennessee to Moneta, Virginia, in May of 2013. We’d been looking forward to the chance to go hunting together as a family all year long, so we decided not to travel back to Tennessee for Thanksgiving. Hunter, our 13-year-old son, had been bowhunting earlier in the season on our ne... READ MORE

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

By Amanda Baker

Every miss and close encounter brings you that much closer. I have been deer hunting in Wisconsin for about 15 years. I started with a rifle and took up archery about three years later. I hunt public land and private, and until 2018, the biggest deer I had taken was a small 6-pointer. Some years, I didn’t shoot anything, and there were severa... READ MORE

One for the Can

One for the Can

By Mike Kochheiser

Three generations of my family hunt on my father’s farm — my father, myself and my son. Until Ohio’s 2013-14 deer season arrived, none of us were aware of the huge, 196 1/8 inch buck with the 25 1/2-inch spread that my father would take before the season ended. The first time we saw the buck was when it appeared on a trail camera... READ MORE

Velvet Surprise

Velvet Surprise

By David M. Cole

I wasn’t a white-tailed deer hunter until I met Donna Shuman at Georgia Southern University. The first time I traveled to her hometown to meet her family, I was instructed to go to their hunting club. I arrived just after dark, just in time to see my future wife dragging a nice buck under a fence. After we were married, I became an avid deer... READ MORE

Never Give Up

Never Give Up

By Ray Thiel

It only takes a second for an entire season of frustration to turn amazing. The 2018 deer season in eastern Connecticut was slower than normal. After two years where gypsy moth caterpillars ate nearly all the leaves off the oak trees, they just didn’t produce acorns. Unfortunately, on property I have permission to hunt on in Griswold, acorns... READ MORE

Madison’s Big Doe

Madison’s Big Doe

By Jeffery Rishel

As a father of five kids ranging from 8 to 23 years old, I’ve been introducing them to hunting after they turn 6 years old by taking them with me. Now, four of my kids all want to go hunting every year. September 22, 2013, was a special day when my daughter Madison took her first deer. We were in Washtenaw County in Saline, Mich. Our hunt sta... READ MORE

The Brow Tine Buck

The Brow Tine Buck

By Brandon Carter

The fall of 2012 was one of the toughest whitetail seasons I had ever seen. EHD outbreaks across the Midwest during the drought-plagued summer significantly reduced buck numbers. Weather conditions were not favorable for daytime movement or rut activity, you had to make every encounter count. Of course, luck always plays a part. Anything and everyt... READ MORE

Back to Basics

Back to Basics

By Christopher Kunkel

Michigan bowhunter can’t resist the call to return to archery’s roots. My archery journey started about 18 years ago. Like most new archers, I was introduced to bowhunting through other archers, in my case it was coworkers. My first bow was a used Browning compound with 60 percent letoff. The draw length was 3 inches longer than it sh... READ MORE

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Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd