Bowhunterの November/December 2018 - WhiteTail Special の目次

SO MANY TIMES, hunting whitetails turns into a game of cat and mouse. And whether we like to admit it or not, too many hours on stand are wasted because many of us are too stubborn to try new strategies. After the season ends, we conclude with something like this: “That buck must have moved out of the area onto the neighbor’s property. If I only owned or had permission to hunt that acreage!” Does this sound like you? Do you really need thousands of acres to effectively manage and keep deer on a property? Before we answer that question, you must know that a deer’s yearly home range is generally one square mile, or roughly 640 acres. Biologists know the size of a deer’s home range is regulated by…

My monster Coues buck had escaped death by bow and arrow three times before I was finally able to seal the deal. While scouting for desert bighorn sheep in 2015, I hiked two hours into the middle of a remote mountain range where I never saw another hunter. I was glassing the desert mountains when my panning came to a screeching halt at the top of a distant ridge. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at! But I could clearly see the absolute monster Coues buck from nearly a mile away. In a heartbeat, my focus went from finding big rams to hunting a huge Coues buck. Unfortunately, guiding has been a double-edged sword for me. I meet amazing people, see gorgeous country, and stumble upon incredible animals from…

IF YOU’RE NEW to hunting whitetail deer with archery gear, it won’t take long to learn that deer can use complex body language to rob you of even the easiest shot opportunities. If you happen to be a veteran whitetailer, chances are about 100 percent that deer have used that cunning to leave you cussing after a blown shot at a wall-hanger buck. Studying all the nuances of whitetail body language, from the most sub tle acts to the obvious, will turn possible failures into future bowhunting successes. Let’s start with the whitetail hunter’s body language nightmare — spookiness. Deer that are hunted frequently quickly learn to vacate stand sites at the slightest sign of hunters, whether it be via the whitetail’s ultra-sensitive snout, finely honed hearing, or eyesight. How…

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QUESTION I recently purchased several trail cameras to hang on my property. What strategies do you implement during the rut to locate mature bucks? J. Williams, via e-mail ANSWER Trail cameras are a great tool for monitoring deer activity. Where legal, using an attractant or bait is popular to inventory the deer herd, but I’m going to focus on other tactics to help locate mature bucks on your property. During the pre-rut, I focus on scrapes. I set cameras on different quadrants of my property to determine if bucks are using certain areas more frequently, or at different times of the day. If you are new to a property, it will take time to identify traditional scrapes that are opened every year, so hang cameras in locations that are easy…

THE TENNESSEE WILDLIFE RESOURCES AGENCY did a fantastic job hosting the 41st meeting of the Southeast Deer Study Group earlier this year. There were 38 presentations of the latest science on whitetail deer biology and management. Obviously I can’t cover them all here, but what follows is a summary of the critical presentations that should be of interest to most serious bowhunters. The opening session is usually material not directly related to deer biology but more toward hunting in a modern society. I usually don’t cover these studies, but the presentation by Steve Williams with the Wildlife Management Institute was extremely pertinent to the future of hunting. We all know that we live in a changing world, but we don’t tend to relate that to the decline of hunting. We…

THE ALL-DAY SIT seems easy while daydreaming during the preseason, when November is still far enough into the future that it doesn’t feel quite real. It’s no problem at all conjuring up images of barrel-chested bucks slipping through at noon, when the rest of the bowhunters are at home munching on a sandwich, or taking a nap. It’s a different story when the alarm goes off for the fourth day in a row, and your back is sore before you even get out of bed. Add in the fact that it might be windy, rainy, super cold, or unseasonably warm, and the illusion of perfection in bowhunting dark to dark can shatter quickly. Sitting all day is a grind. It just is. But, it is also a calculated Hail Mary…

THE PREVIOUS NIGHT’S RAIN softened my approach as I eased along the dilapidated fenceline through the carpet of golden poplar leaves. The rich smell of autumn was filling the air, and the bluebird October day promised a pleasant evening vigil as I neared the giant oak that cradled my ladder stand. Rounding the last bend before reaching my stand, I slipped the spray bottle of doe scent from my pocket, intending to cover the old barn rope guarding the mock scrape with the sweet smell of an amorous doe. But the sight before me caused me to pause. My mock scrape, which I just tore up the week before, looked like a bomb had exploded in the middle of it! The scrape had doubled in size and was now nearly…

WHEN I WAS A KID and first started hunting, life seemed simpler. My friends and I didn’t think about scent-control products. We were taught to keep the wind in our face and the deer in front of us. There were no scouting cameras. The only bucks in our hunting areas that we knew about were the ones we had seen firsthand, or heard about from our buddies. Our clothing was old Army camo and hand-me-down boots that we oiled up to keep our feet dry. We didn’t have smartphones with high-tech hunting and weather apps…you get my point. I really didn’t have much of a strategy at all to be honest with you. I simply ventured into the woods with my bow in hand, found a nice-looking trail, and climbed…

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