Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i Deer & Deer Hunting

My heart was literally in my throat. After watching the specific buck I was after drop down the point, of course he had to stop and work the truck hood sized scrape, as I was sure he would. Unfortunately, the only trees that covered the scrape offered very unsafe winds. So. I’d setup another 70 yards “downwind” of the scrape. Though doing so was mission critical, it was causing me an awful lot of stress right now. Of course, that wasn’t helped by the doe and fawn that were literally looking through me, at the buck refreshing the scrape. Finally, he was done and still following the script. Hitting my shooting lane, his attentions shifted to the alluring scrape odors dripping from the Magnum Scrape Dripper I’d hung over my…

I am often asked by my non-hunting acquaintances, “What can be so enamoring about sitting out in the woods through all kinds of adverse conditions just for an opportunity to shoot a deer?” They become even more perplexed when I explain to them that for the overwhelming majority of outings, I return home with an empty truck bed. What they cannot understand is — for us hunters — the kill is only a part of the overall experience. At the risk of sounding cliché, time spent afield is incredibly rewarding whether or not you have game in the bag at the end of the day. Observing nature, in all its complex and intricate wonder, spawns a host of emotions from awe and exhilaration to peace and humility. Spend enough time…

Jack O’Connor was North America’s original gun writer, and I still enjoy reading his works and think that much of his shared knowledge is still relevant today. Back in the early days, he shot a rifle equipped with open sights and would try to “push up a deer” so he could shoot it on the run. For him, it was the ultimate challenge, and his ability to connect on running game with open sights inspired sportsmen to master their marksmanship. Nowadays, it’s rare to see a hunter who uses open sights. Optics have helped fine tune shooting ability by narrowing the field of adjustment and human error. We have rifles and calibers that shoot farther and flatter than ever before, and high-quality scopes that allow shooters to take advantage of…

Throughout its life Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine has grown, and in recent decades navigated the various digital media streams including websites, online marketing, video production, television programming, and social media — without losing focus on white-tailed deer. D&DH stands without peer in the world of deer hunting. No other magazine provides so much information to everyday deer hunters. It is such good news to hear that D&DH was bought by Media 360, LLC, (a small business in deer country operated by Brad Rucks, Dan Schmidt and Steve Bartylla) from the F+W Media corporate conglomerate headquartered in New York City. This is big news for deer hunters, but for everyone it’s a lesson that big business doesn’t have all the answers, and that a few grass-roots guys who are committed…

My friend Lou Kindred had his suspicions of swamp potential confirmed several years ago, when he and family members headed for a wetland near where they’d been hunting on dry ground. “The first couple of weekends of the season had quite a bit of hunting pressure,” he told me. “None of us were used to it or liked it, so we headed back into a nearby swamp, primarily to get away from as many people as we could. “That’s no different from what bucks do, especially the good ones, which we realized shortly after we started hunting the swamp seriously and began to know our way around back in there.” The more time they spent out in the swamp — on the dry islands, specifically — the more deer of…

How many times have you shot an arrow at an animal, had it run off, and wondered, “Where did my arrow hit? Did I miss? Was it a good hit? What just happened??” Back in 1998, the same thing happened to Curtis Price, who grunted up a whitetail buck, shot, watched the deer race off, then didn’t know if he’d hit or missed. It took him a long time to find his arrow and confirm that it had been a clean miss. As he drove home, his mind began racing. “Wouldn’t it be great if I had a nock that lit up, allowing me to not only see my arrow in flight but to also mark the location of the arrow if I missed?” he thought. And then — no…

I’ve never been a big advocate of magnum cartridges. As a young big game hunting tyro, I used a .243 Win. to tag everything from prairie dogs to bull elk — as well as my first dozen deer. I never found it lacking. Rifle hunting for me has always been about shot placement and choosing the right bullet for the job at hand. Later in life, attending Texas Tech University and involved in range and wildlife management projects, aggressively culling herds to create marked increases in antler and body size on large Texas ranches, I shot many so-called varmint cartridges to put deer down. I had become a hard-core bowhunter by then, the only rifle shooting I did directed at coyotes and small varmints such as ground squirrels and prairie…

It is hard to keep great news quiet. When I found out that a newsworthy buck had been shot in my home state of Virginia, the same county that I hunt, I immediately had to find out more. Sure enough, social media was bombarded with pictures of this Pittsylvania County giant. Knowing the incredible buck was from the same county I had to get in contact with the very fortunate hunter. James resides in a small town in southwest Virginia where oftentimes a hunter can find a big buck or two. Now, it’s nothing like your Midwestern states where a 150-inch class deer is seemingly a frequent encounter. However, a 130-inch deer is a gem in these Virginia woods. James didn’t expect to witness a world class deer from his…

I firmly believe that all whitetail bowhunters should use lighted nocks (where legal) for the simple reason that they assist with shot recognition and, obviously, in finding the arrow afterward. The most critical decisions in blood trailing — when, where and how to take up the trail — are often made by the evidence indicated on the arrow. Notice how I say, “where legal.” There are still a handful of states and local regions that ban the use of these highly effective arrow-locating tools. That is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve made the plea several times on social media: “Give me one good reason why lighted nocks should be banned,” and I have yet to receive an answer. One hunter said something to the effect that lighted nocks, although helpful in making…

Love it or hate it, standing corn is a crop that bowhunters must deal with. And while most of them prefer that corn is harvested before the rut phases to improve their kill opportunities, if it’s not harvested by then, they would rather have it left standing through gun season to improve the odds of mature bucks surviving until late bow season. Under normal seasonal weather conditions, cornfields are typically cut for silage or picked by mid- to late-October. However, during unseasonably wet seasons, many cornfields are left standing well into or even throughout the hunting season. Other than the rare dry cattail marsh, a standing cornfield is in a class of its own because it’s tall and dense enough for mature bucks, headgear included, to bed in and transition…

Many years and deer seasons ago, long before camo was cool, and technology and social media took the hunting community by storm, I can recall watching a hunting show where the hosts were discussing how a hunter could get rid of inferior antler genetics on his or her property. The process, known as selective culling, seemed simple. The gist of the theory was that if a buck’s antlers were small with undesirable characteristics, the buck should be selectively targeted and removed from the herd, preventing him from passing his lackluster antler genetics on to future generations. Frankly, the idea sounded a bit illogical; but then, I’ve always been of the mindset that ultimately, there’s a much larger hand residing over nature, and we are in no way meant or supposed…

Archers are always looking for a way to make their arrows fly faster and more accurately. When the cedar shafts shot by Doug Easton in the 1940s and 1950s proved more inconsistent than he wanted, he gave us aluminum shafts. Then, as compound bows improved, aluminum shafts changed to meet the performance potential of better bows. Aluminum shafts were then challenged by a carbon. Although carbon shafts had some initial problems with straightness and durability, it wasn’t long before they became the dominant option. As arrow shafts evolved, they became lighter and smaller in diameter. Broadhead manufacturers also began using modern materials, replacing heavy steel ferrules with aircraft-grade aluminum. Inserts that allowed broadheads to be easily screwed into the end of the arrow rather than glued on also saved weight.…

The greatest asset you can have as a deer hunter is that of knowing your quarry intimately. The more you know about whitetails, the greater your success will be. White-tailed bucks are not the same animal in September and October as they’ll be in November. They may appear the same, but they are not, not by a long shot. For starters, the full effect of testosterone has not taken place before the leaves fall from the trees, so they are far less active during the pre-rut than they’ll be in the rut. Because of this, it’s important for hunters to understand pre-rut deer behavior if they expect to be successful during this time. 1. THE SHIFT IN THE SEASONS When a buck peels velvet, he begins transitioning toward the rut.…