Deer Hunting Articles

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The 2021 Southeast Deer Hunting Forecast

July 7, 2021   |  From Articles

Deer hunting in the Southeast isn’t what it once was. It’s now much better. Many southern states have taken aggressive steps — at the urging of hunters — to better manage their deer herds for older bucks and better opportunity. It’s paying off, too, as more monster deer stories are...

18 Secrets From Deer Scientists

June 7, 2021   |  From Articles

When deer scientists talk, I listen. Men and women who make a career of studying the whitetail don’t do it for fame or money. Having worked for years to obtain a master’s degree in wildlife ecology, and in many cases a PhD to boot, they are passionate about learning all...

Prep Now For Your Best Deer Season Yet!

May 24, 2021   |  From Articles

Depending on where you live and hunt, whitetail season will open in four or five months. Plenty of time to get ready, right? But you know how time flies. This year it’s especially important to start getting ready early. The more planning and prep work you do over the next...

How to Plan an RV Hunting Trip

April 8, 2021   |  From Articles

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, hunting license sales skyrocketed across the country in 2020 as folks turned to the fields and forests to enjoy outdoor recreation away from large crowds. Hunting is a great option for entertainment and low-risk for COVID-19. But if your hunting destination is a long distance...

What Will Deer Hunting Be Like in 10 Years?

March 30, 2021   |  From Articles

When I moved on from squirrels to hunting deer with my dad in the 1970s, there were about 200,000 whitetails in Virginia. Today, we’ve got five times that many. In the 1980s and ’90s, we went from “if it’s brown it’s down” to the “big buck” era. Whitetail management was...

Why January is the Best Month for Deer Scouting

January 26, 2021   |  From Articles

It was a gray, bone-chilling evening, one of the last of the Virginia gun season. Steve Reynolds was fixing to climb down from his stand and call it a year when he looked up and saw a 150-inch buck inching out into the plot of brassicas he was watching. Boom!...

When a LifeLine Saved a Life

January 15, 2021   |  From Articles

Scott Bestul was looking forward to an evening hunt in southern Minnesota. It was a 25-degree November afternoon with snow on the ground, and Bestul — a 40-year veteran of the deer woods and longtime whitetails columnist for Field & Stream — knew it was likely to be a good...

Three Giant Bucks in One Incredible Season

December 29, 2020   |  From Articles

Travis “T-Bone” Turner knew his 2020 deer season was going to look different than most, but he had no idea what was in store. As co-host of Michael Waddell’s Bone Collector , Turner typically spends deer season traveling across the country, but this year the COVID-19 pandemic changed things. Like...

7 Serious Field-Dressing Mistakes

December 22, 2020   |  From Articles

If you really want to annoy a veteran deer hunter, tell him or her they’re gutting a buck all wrong. Good hunters know to never bust stomachs, spill bladders, or cut the wrong spot because those mistakes ruin the meat. Right? The internet can leave you thinking that, since the...

6 Killer Strategies for Late-Season Deer Hunting

December 15, 2020   |  From Articles

It’s mid-December, and a buck tag is still burning a hole in your pocket. Most of your buddies have killed their deer, and you’re starting to worry. Maybe even panic. I’ve hunted hard like I always do every year. What am I doing wrong? Did I miss the rut? Will...

Help a Brother Out: Story of a Mega Ohio 9-Pointer

November 19, 2020   |  From Articles

Buck: 186 4/8 green gross, 172 2/8 green net including a 14-inch G3 Time of Year: Nov. 2, 2020 Place: Clark County, Ohio Weapon: Diamond bow with Montec broadhead To kill truly huge bucks, you sometimes have to pass on bucks most of us would consider a trophy. Johnny Ferrell...

5 Best Places for Snow Tracking Bucks

November 17, 2020   |  From Articles

Many of us dream of hunting bucks one-on-one with snow on the ground. You can find plenty of instructions on how to do this in the popular press, but no one ever tells you where to go. To track a buck, you need room to follow him, an open gun...

31 Best Tips for Hunting the Rut

November 8, 2020   |  From Articles

You’ve waited all year for this. It's the rut, baby! No matter which week in November you take off work, your No. 1 strategy is simple: Spend every minute you can in your best stands because you never know when a good buck will prowl by, or come running hot...

The Best Shot Placement on Deer

October 26, 2020   |  From Articles

Look at the vital zone outlined on the average 3D deer target, and you’ll see an area that reinforces what most of us have been taught about aiming at a broadside deer: Hold behind the crease of the shoulder, slightly below centerline of the chest. Most of the time, if...

15 Tips for One-Shot Kills

October 18, 2020   |  From Articles

One morning in the Clearwater Mountains of Idaho, I watched two whitetail bucks skirting a hillside trail across a canyon. “Two hundred sixty yards,” my friend Bob said from below his rangefinder. “Buck in back is bigger.” I rested my .270 in the crotch of sticks and watched as the...

How to Hunt Big Buck Bedding Areas

October 7, 2020   |  From Articles

Just a few days ago, I slipped into a bedding area, climbed a tree, and settled in for the last few hours of daylight. Right after sunset, I watched as my No. 2 target buck rose from his bed a mere 50 yards away. That buck stayed within a few...

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12 Reasons Why Your Venison Tastes Like Hell

September 21, 2020   |  From Articles

I’m often amazed at the people, deer hunters included, who tell me they just don’t like venison. That statement is usually followed by a qualifier: it’s tough; it’s gamy; it’s dry. And so on. I’ve eaten a lot of good deer meat. But I’ve eaten some really bad deer meat,...

8 Deadly Ambushes to Try This Bow Season

August 25, 2020   |  From Articles

One October I scouted the bends and points of a 400-acre stretch of the Milk River in northeastern Montana and located four good whitetail bucks, two of which would push 140 inches, about as good as the racks get out there. I hunted hard for four days from three lock-on...

Boats and Bucks

August 6, 2020   |  From Articles

It’s the eve of opening day of Maine’s 2019 expanded archery season, and John Altman is listening to news he’d rather not hear. A NOAA weather radio reports wind speeds of 20 knots and 13-foot swells. Altman and his hunting crew specialize in hunting coastal islands in the expanded archery...

Metadata Bucks

July 31, 2020   |  From Articles

Biologists have researched the habits of whitetails for decades, and there’s a lot of data available. But how much of the information out there is actually relevant to deer hunters? As with many scientific discussions, the answer is: It varies. But when hunters collect their own intel and then pair...

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