Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Bowhunter

“I’M NOT SURE you want to shoot a sheep,” my guide whined as we hunkered in the tiny two-man backpack tent. “That big ram is right over the hill, and you could be on him in less than 20 minutes. ” I just rolled my eyes. Sure, we had been stuck in bad weather for a couple of days, so I could understand the guy’s frustration. But the prevailing good-weather wind direction in this part of Canada’s Northwest Territories had reversed with the storm, and was now blowing straight into a big, high-walled canyon where 10 Dall rams were hanging out. One of those was a dandy. My young guide had never bow-hunted, or guided an archer, and I finally stopped trying to explain. Wild sheep have frighteningly sensitive noses.…

THIS PAST SPRING, I was so busy guiding turkey hunting clients and working on the ranch that I didn’t get to hunt until the last week of the season. In fact, it wasn’t until the second to the last day of spring turkey season in Colorado that I made some time to go out and see if I could get a bird. It was the afternoon and I knew the odds were against me, but I was tickled to be getting out and was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon by myself. I set up a Montana Decoy strutting tom decoy in our alfalfa field and then crawled into my Ameristep blind. I had set the blind up the day before, after a scouting tip from my wife. She had…

WE HAVE ALL HEARD the saying, “knowledge is power.” This saying definitely relates to deer hunting and the creation of the Deer Hunt App. Developed by the Mississippi State Extension Service and Mississippi State University (MSU) Deer Lab, the Deer Hunt App runs on either your iPhone or Android smartphone. Under the leadership of Dr. Steve Demarais and the researchers at MSU, this free app is becoming the gold standard for hunters and state deer biologists. Back in the 1980s, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks developed a statewide program geared toward private landowners who needed help in managing deer. From this need, the Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) was born. DMAP has been one of the most successful programs affecting deer management in Mississippi, and it has…

FOR TWO STRAIGHT HOURS, the only thought running through my head was, One more step. After repeating that mantra several thousand times to myself in encouragement, I had finally reached an elevation above the last known location of the mature Dall ram my guide, Scott, and I had been after since the previous day. We dropped our packs and started side-hilling along the junction between sheer rock walls and patchy grass and shale. After a couple hundred yards, we spotted a white dot 200 yards below us. It was him! After crawling to within 65 yards of the bedded ram, I decided this was as good a spot to wait as we were going to find. The ram was looking downhill, and he had three small pines protecting him from…

IT WAS 10 A.M. when I pulled into camp and started setting up my tent. My hunting partner had arrived a day earlier, and he was out in the Badlands looking for a mule deer worth stalking. It was clear by the lack of wind and the dry conditions that stalking within bow range of any deer was going to be a challenge, but little did we know that we wouldn’t be dealing with calm conditions for much longer. That evening, I set out to glass a familiar riverbottom and check in on the local whitetail population. With the sun resting on the horizon, deer started to pop out everywhere I looked. Most were does, but a few sported racks that got my attention. The deer movement up and down…

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ON A MULE DEER HUNT in Utah, a friend of mine was watching his brother stalking a big buck. The brother had sneaked within bow range, and was just waiting for the buck to stand to give him a shot. About that time, some other guys drove up. “What’s up?” they said. “My brother is sitting on a big buck, waiting for a clear shot,” my friend replied. Hearing that, the newly arrived guys grabbed their bows and took off down the hill — straight toward the deer. “Hey,” my friend called. “My brother is stalking that deer!” “It’s public land,” the guys shouted back. “See you later!” They surrounded the deer (and brother) and eventually killed the buck. As hunting land shrinks and more people take up bowhunting, conflicts…

Testing The Wind Experienced bowhunters automatically monitor moderate to strong breezes by the feel of air on their skin. It is only when air currents are slight that detecting wind direction gets tricky. Hunters use a variety of wind indicators as they move or sit on stand. Some tie a sewing thread or feather to their upper bow limb, or a handy branch near their stand. Others sift dust or dry grass through their fingers, or keep a sharp eye out for wind-blown debris like leaf fragments, weed seeds, spiderwebs, or pollen. Perhaps the most common method of testing the wind is powder. One squirt from a squeeze bottle of talcum powder or corn starch will instantly show you wind drift. Some bowhunters take this to an extreme. One friend…

THIS PAST SUMMER, a good buddy of mine sent me a text. It contained a screen shot from a video of him shooting a great axis buck in Texas. You could clearly see his arrow’s point of impact via the lighted nock. Everything looked perfect — absolutely perfect. That night he sent me another text saying they couldn’t find any blood, so they backed out. When he finally called me two days later, he filled me in on the story. The only thing they could figure was that his broadhead had deflected off a rib, causing his arrow to take a sharp turn into the buck’s guts. My buddy is no stranger to bowhunting, and he has a pile of critters under his belt. When he followed the buzzards to…

BOWHUNT LONG ENOUGH AND BAD SHOTS WILL HAPPEN. HERE’S WHAT YOU SHOULD DO WHEN THAT OCCURS. WHAT HAPPENED? It’s a question we all ask ourselves at some point. A lack of preparation, buck fever, and inexperience all may lead to a shot that is anything but perfect. All you can do is try to minimize those factors with regular practice sessions that are as real as possible and by hunting as much as you can. Nevertheless, other demons can and will rise up and interfere with the trajectory of your arrow, regardless of how well you shoot at targets. Whitetail hunting experts and outfitters harp on “clear your shooting lanes.” It’s good advice, since a tiny limb or branch has the ability to send an arrow off course. That alone…

THE PLAN WAS SIMPLE ENOUGH. THERE ARE NO HIGH-MOUNTAIN ROADS IN THE ALPINE COUNTRY OF NEW ZEALAND, SO A HELICOPTER WOULD TAKE US TO THE TOP OF A RANGE AND PICK US UP DAYS LATER. EASY, RIGHT? My hunting partner, Mark Penninger, and I had hooked up with our old Kiwi friend Phillip Commins for a free-range tahr hunt. With optimism high, we landed, set up camp, and then headed out to scout. Phillip had been here several years prior, and the area was crawling with tahr at that time. Apparently, the “gunners” had paid a visit in the interim. The government occasionally sends in sharpshooters in helicopters to eradicate the non-native species, especially if they feel the tahr are being too hard on native vegetation. We did spot a…

I CAN’T TELL YOU how many times I’ve surprised myself when shooting a bow, particularly when producing a rough release yet still managing to hit the 10-ring. For the most part, I attribute such an outcome to shooting a forgiving bow design. However, there are certain elements beyond this that play a critical part in shooting consistency, especially when sending arrows well downrange. With that in mind, here are four factors that seem to make the most amount of difference beyond the 50-yard line. THE GRIP This is your only contact with the bow, so in many ways this is where accuracy begins or ends. As written in my October 2017 column, you must “set” your bow hand prior to drawing your bow in precisely the same location on every…

BY FAR THE LARGEST threat to our future deer populations, and deer hunting, is chronic wasting disease (CWD). Recently, there have been several very important scientific reports on this terrible disease. First, the good news. Veterinarians and biologists in Wyoming and Colorado released data from a 10-year study to determine if CWD is transmissible to cattle. They used two approaches: inoculating calves orally with brain tissue derived from CWD-infected mule deer, and housing cattle for 10 years in a captive cervid research pen that formerly housed CWD-positive deer. Two groups of cattle were housed for 10 years in pens where infected deer had lived. They also had daily contact with known and potentially infected mule deer or elk, yet no cows got CWD. After being euthanized, none had lesions —…

GETTING YOUR NEIGHBORS ON BOARD WITH QUALITY DEER MANAGEMENT PRACTICES WILL PAY BIG DIVIDENDS. When I talk to hunters about quality deer management (QDM), I often hear, “We would love to manage the deer on our property, but our neighbor will just shoot them.” If the two neighbors would just sit down and discuss the concept, it’s very possible they’d come to some kind of agreement. Managing properties for better quality deer, and better deer hunting, has gained in popularity in recent years. Certainly, the more land and quality habitat you have the better. But, just because you aren’t a land baron doesn’t mean you can’t come up with ways to achieve a better hunting experience. One way to do this is by forming a deer management cooperative, which is…

The majority of states now allow tracking dogs to aid in the recovery of wounded deer. Regulations vary, but most states require dogs to be leashed, some require handler certification, and some regulate the use of weapons during the tracking process. Regulations aside, having the use of one of Mother Nature’s best noses at your disposal exponentially increases your chance of finding a fatally hit deer. Researchers believe a dog’s ability to smell could be up to 100,000 times greater than your own olfactory abilities. The practice of using dogs for blood-tracking can be traced to Germany. One of the more popular breeds is the German Wire-Haired Dachshund. Other breeds commonly used to track wounded deer include the Deutsch Drahthaar, Dachsbracke, Basset Hound, Cur, Bloodhound, and popular breeds such as…

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