Bowhunter的January/February 2019目录

My wife does not shoot a bow, but she is a great cheerleader when we go on hunting trips. She also loves the outdoors and often takes photos of animals while I’m sneaking in another part of the woods. “I SAW A REALLY GOOD ELK this morning,” I told Greta when we met for lunch at the pickup. “The rack was narrow, but the tines were massive and long, with a seventh point on one side.” “That bull bugled below me,” I continued. “He sounded big, so I hustled down the draw. He was cruising fast, and I never caught up. Two miles later, I got one good look when he topped a ridge. Then he shut up, and I lost him.” It was early September 2018, and I finally…

ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2018, I finally got a chance to go elk hunting for myself. I was done guiding clients and had a few days to play before the archery elk season ended. I was in the field with my Hoyt Satori recurve, and it felt great. My friend Jake was with me to film my hunt in case I got lucky, but I really didn’t care too much one way or the other. Ok, that’s not entirely true. I really wanted to take an elk, so I could have some tasty elk meat in my freezer. When I am hunting for myself, I don’t have as many things on my mind as I do when I’m guiding my clients. It’s just more relaxing. Not that I don’t enjoy guiding,…

AFRICA • Zambeze Delta Safaris African game www.zambezedeltasafaris.com ALABAMA • Great Southern Outdoors Whitetails, Hogs www.greatsouthernoutdoors.com ALASKA • Jim River Guide Service Brown Bear, Moose, Bison www.guidedalaskahunting.com ALBERTA • Silver Fox Outfitters Whitetails, Moose www.silverfoxoutfitters.com COLORADO • Hubbard Creek Outfitters Elk, Mule Deer, Bear www.hubbardcreek.com • G R Bar Ranch Elk www.grbarranch.com/hunting FLORIDA • Ross Hammock Ranch Native and Exotic www.floridabowhunting.com ILLINOIS • Harpole’s Heartland Lodge Whitetails www.HeartlandLodge.com KENTUCKY • Whitetails of Western KY Outfitters Whitetails www.whitetailsofwesternkyoutfitters.com • Brute Buck Outfitters Whitetails www.kywhitetailhunts.com MISSOURI • North East Missouri Hunting Company Whitetails, Turkey www.nemohuntingcompany.com MONTANA • J&J Guide Service Elk, Whitetails, Mule Deer, Antelope, Merriam’s Turkey www.jjguide.com SOUTH DAKOTA • Jim River Guide Service Antelope, Whitetails, Mule Deer, predators www.jimriverguideservice.com INTERNATIONAL • Bowhunting Safari Consultants Worldwide Adventures www.bowhuntingsafari.com FOR MORE INFORMATION…

LATE IS GREAT! AS THE RUT WINDS DOWN, change your tactics to match changing conditions in the field. Mid-November marks a time of transition in the whitetail world. Most oes have been bred, so rut activity is winding down. Deciduous trees and shrubs are dropping their leaves, and many food sources freeze, causing deer to concentrate on new feeds. As these changes take place, so must your hunting tactics. Once does get bred and disperse from traditional breeding areas, sign can be deceptive. Every year in Idaho I find dozens of scrapes in one small area, and early in the season it’s a hub of activity. Not so later. The sign remains, luring hunters to set up there. But by mid-November, the bucks are gone. And so must hunters be…

Bowhunters argue a lot about ethical shooting distance, but what I call the “Three A’s for Animal Accuracy” are equally important but often ignored. First, you need to evaluate animal attitude. If your target is tense and suspicious, or looking directly at you, the animal is likely to jump the bowstring and duck the arrow or take a bad hit. You need to wait for a shot at a relaxed, unsuspecting critter. Second, be sure you have a clear shooting alley to prevent a deflected arrow and a miss or crippling shot. It is sometimes possible to shoot through a thin screen of grass, but any stiff weeds, bushes, or tree limbs will almost certainly ruin your day. Third, wait for a proper animal angle. Quartering-away is best for full…

I’M NOT A BIG FAN of late-season hunting, to be totally honest with you. I know there are plenty of whitetail experts out there who will tell you it’s the best time of year to catch up to a half-starved, rut-ravaged buck, but my experience hasn’t exactly jived with traditional advice. In fact, unless you’re dealing with a truly special, tightly controlled hunting situation, you probably don’t have unbelievable late-season hunting opportunities either. If you’re a public-land bow-hunter, you probably don’t have much to work with when it comes to deer action at the tail end of the season. Don’t give up all hope though, because hunting when the odds are low is still better than not hunting at all. And despite how it seems, you don’t have to hang…

I’VE SPENT A CONSIDERABLE amount of time testing bows—not so much in a lab or controlled shooting environment but out in the woods or mountains while hunting and stump-shooting. As the years have gone by, I’ve seen an array of engineering techniques used to make bows faster, smoother, and more accurate. My conclusion is this: A bow is a system and one single detail won’t make the bow better compared to the next one. Instead, the bow’s features, including the shape of the riser, its balance and geometry, and its overall feel in terms of how it draws and anchors, is what determines how well a bow performs. Nevertheless, brace height remains a critical bow spec, and for good reason. Here are the reasons why: Brace height has the ability…

IT WAS INEVITABLE that some hunters would get upset about state game agency actions relative to chronic wasting disease (CWD). You can’t really blame them. In some places, hunters are now being told to shoot lots of does (to slow the spread of CWD), to shoot more yearling bucks (because they disperse and increase the potential spread of CWD), to not use deer urine products, to not use bait, to not put out mineral licks, to not bring home whole deer from out-of-state hunts, etc. To further muddy the water, in recent months we’ve had well-known hunting celebrities and a few outdoor writers telling hunters that the state agencies don’t have a clue about what they’re doing relative to CWD. Some go so far as to say that the game…

Bowhunter Magazine has joined with Nelson Outfitters (Dave Nelson, 307/751-2262, nelsonoutfitters.com ) and a topnotch group of bowhunting equipment manufacturers to sponsor our 2019 Youth Hunter Essay Contest (see the list of sponsoring manufacturers below). This is our 23rd annual essay contest, and we hope youth participants will make it another great one! Last year’s Grand Prize Winner, Jacob VanRisseghem, and his adult sponsor, Nathan VanRisseghem, from Brainerd, Minnesota, spent three days chasing longbeards in Wyoming, and Jacob made a great shot on a beautiful turkey with his bow. Congratulations to young Jacob, as well as to the rest of last year’s prize winners, who we’re confident are putting their new gear courtesy of our generous friends in the archery industry to good use. If you are in the market…

THIS PAST SEASON, I drew a premium deer tag in northern Utah. My friend Shay Mann, who hopes to draw the same tag in a year or two, joined me for a few days to learn the country and help me scout. As the topo map on his iPhone guided us infallibly to another likely hunting spot, Shay paused and thoughtfully said, “These maps are amazing. They make scouting so easy. In a way that’s great, but it also makes me sad. With all the modern technology, everyone is on equal footing. There are no secrets anymore.” When I started bowhunting some 50 years ago, “technology” meant a paper map and a compass, backed by strong legs and lungs. We found quality places to hunt through investigation, intuition, legwork, and…