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Off-Season Practice
By P.J. Reilly
Five Tips that will make you a better shot with a bow. The closer the buck inched toward my treestand, the louder my heart pounded in my ears. It was Nov. 1, 2010, and a fine Pennsylvania 9-pointer had found the spot where I’d started the doe-in-estrus scent trail that ended at the base of my tree. My trail was reeling the buck in, but his pr... READ MORE
Where Did He Come From?
By David Hart
Sometimes the biggest bucks show up out of nowhere. When his client said he hit what looked like a heavy 10-pointer in the waning hours of daylight last fall, outfitter Chris McClellan figured it was one of the bucks he had been watching prior to the season. Diligent in his pre-season scouting, McClellan is familiar with the bucks that live on the ... READ MORE
Midmorning Madness
By Mike Handley
Think twice before abandoning your stand for a rendezvous with a cheeseburger! If a buck falls in the forest and nobody’s there to hear the shot, do guns make noise? You betcha. There might’ve been fewer deer hunters afoot or aloft between 10 a.m. and noon on Nov. 15, the second day of Indiana’s 2009 firearms season, but those who... READ MORE
Weathering the Storm
By Ryan Noffsinger
Everybody loses a deer sooner or later. It’s how you bounce back that really counts. Have you ever wanted something so badly that you could taste it? I’d bowhunted west-central Illinois for three straight years without filling a buck tag, and I desperately wanted to dine on venison instead of tag soup. I wouldn’t have minded a tri... READ MORE
Bucks in the Badlands
By Jim Kinsey
Fathers watch their sons tag big bucks during an unforgettable public land deer hunt. Montana’s general rifle season was well under way, but I was in Zimbabwe filming a pilot for a new TV show. You’d think being on safari in a foreign country would have kept me focused, but I was dreaming about big bulls and bucks in the States. I could... READ MORE
Trail Cameras for Dummies
By David Hart
It’s time to catch up and start using this amazing scouting tool. As an outfitter whose business depends on putting clients on big deer, Josh Cobb needs all the help he can get. So when he started using trail cameras eight years ago in an attempt to gauge the caliber of bucks that were on his southern Iowa properties, Cobb was floored. "I was... READ MORE
Plotting Their Demise
By Bob Humphrey
Some food plots are designed for feeding; others for shooting. They’re feeding on beans right now,” our local contact said. So, for two straight afternoons, I sat along the edge of a huge soybean field. The only deer I saw were a few does that came out just as shooting light faded. It was early muzzleloader season in Kansas, and conside... READ MORE
The Ol’ Switcheroo
By Joe Blake
Pose as a rival to throw a mature buck off his game. The big whitetail was closing the distance, but light was fading just as quickly. I wanted to force the issue with a challenge grunt or wheeze, but the openness of the area and the proximity of the 140-inch 8-pointer made me think twice. At 50 yards, the buck stopped and tested the wind. Plumes o... READ MORE
Déerjà vu
By Gita M. Smith
Lightning strikes twice for Ohio bowhunter Ron Lance. A tinkling sound. What could make a tinkling sound? Ron Lance had to think a moment. Then he realized that something — maybe antlers — had been brushing the branches of saplings. The bowhunter from Waynesville, Ohio, couldn’t see a buck, but he got ready, just in case. This was... READ MORE
Pondering Point Restrictions
By David Hart
Are antler point restrictions the answer to quality buck opportunities? In 1995, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law requiring the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to implement sweeping changes to the state’s deer hunting regulations. Among them, hunters statewide were restricted to bucks with at least four antler points. It was a ... READ MORE
Melissa’s First Buck
By Richard P. Smith
Take a kid hunting, and you’ll both enjoy a life-changing moment. Not many whitetails in the Midwest are taken by stalking, but that’s how my niece got her first buck. Melissa and I were in a blind on one end of a large hay field, hoping a buck would come within 100 yards. A spike came out and presented a shot, but Melissa wanted someth... READ MORE
Young Guns ... and Bows
By Mike Handley
Some hunters don’t wait very long to shoot their buck-of-a-lifetime. They can walk into a movie theater and watch “Bambi,” but they’re not old enough to pass through the turnstile for “The Deer Hunter.” Many couldn’t even see “Avatar” by themselves. Except for holidays, they can’t take vac... READ MORE
The Natural Advantage
By Bob Humphrey
There’s a lot you can do besides plant food plots to improve a deer hunting property. I don’t own a lot of land, but it’s enough that there are places I might not set foot on for an entire season or two. It was one such corner that I happened into one warm, blustery November afternoon. With wind and temperatures being what they we... READ MORE
Management Myths
By David Hart
Don’t believe everything you hear about improving your whitetail herd. Deer hunters have become an educated group. Thanks largely to an insatiable appetite for knowledge about our favorite game animal, we know more about whitetail biology, behavior and management than any other generation. While many of the myths and misconceptions have been ... READ MORE
Tips and Tidbits
By Joe Blake
The writer shares a few tricks learned over his 30-plus years of bowhunting. The hunter’s moon was rising in the east, sending millions of light shimmers reflecting off the frost-covered grass along the edge of the meadow. The day was nearly done, and shooting light was fading fast on the last day before the opening of the 2007 Minnesota gun ... READ MORE
Earth, Wind & Fire
By Bob Humphrey
These three elements are the key to every deer hunt. You see the titles every year in hunting magazines: “A Dozen of the Deadliest Deer Hunting Tricks,” “10 Tips for Tall-Tined Monsters,” “Six Can’t-Fail Treestand Tactics,” “Five Sure-Fire Methods for Big Bucks.” You’d think you have to be... READ MORE
Lee Lakosky’s Gentle Giant
By Ken Piper
The timid nature of some big bucks makes them hard to hunt. Fans of “The Crush with Lee and Tiffany” already know the Lakoskys tag some monster deer every year, and their success is no accident. The husband-and-wife hunting pair have farms in Iowa and Kansas, and they work hard to manage the land and the deer with the goal of allowing b... READ MORE
Never in a Million Years
By Jean Willcox
This former anti-hunter can’t wait for next deer season. If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be hunting and loving it, I would have told them they were crazy. That would NEVER happen ... not in a million years. I grew up in an animal-loving, hunter-hating, anti-gun home in Altoona, Pa. To this day, my family doesn’t know th... READ MORE
The Day Shift
By Bob Humphrey
What does science say about big bucks moving in the middle of the day? My morning started badly. Before I even left the cabin, the lid blew off my thermos, splattering me with scalding cocoa. Then my guide and I were late leaving camp. Thirty minutes down the road, we were nearly to the pull-off when we encountered another guide broke down on the r... READ MORE
Keep Your Head in the Game
By P.J. Reilly
Learn to keep your cool in the heart-pounding seconds surrounding a shot. By the time I reached my buddy J.R., he was a wreck. His face was ghost white, his hands were shaking and his voice was stammering — pretty typical symptoms for someone who had just arrowed his first buck and subsequently been bitten by the bowhunting bug. J.R. said he'... READ MORE