I have been hunting whitetail deer for 40 years, and I cannot honestly say I have ever shot a buck on his scrape line. I might have, I just don’t know. I’m not even sure scrape lines exist. The more I hunt whitetails in different habitats and terrains across the country, the more I believe that scraping is more random and scattered than on some particular line of travel between food and bedding cover. That’s why I don’t scout for scrape lines anymore. From Halloween through November 15 or so, I look for a ridge, draw or creek bottom pocked with a dozen or so dark, stinky scrapes, with fresh rubs nearby.  I set a sit there a few days. [...]

Your strategy starts with a working knowledge of a whitetail buck’s home range and core area. New science reaffirms that the living quarters of most mature bucks are relatively small, especially on lands with good food sources and bedding cover. Researchers from North Carolina State University fitted adult bucks with GPS tracking collars and found that bucks’ home ranges averaged 400 acres in late summer through early October.  Most recently, Clint McCoy, a graduate student from Auburn, tracked 37 collared bucks on a 6,000-acre property in South Carolina. He found that the home ranges of various age classes of bucks, from 2.5 year-olds to 4.5 year-olds, averaged only 300 to 400 acres. One mature buck he tracked lived entirely within [...]

1.Set one or 2 cams in a small clearing in the woods 70 to 100 yards off an alfalfa, corn or soybean field or clover plot. Even before hunting season, many mature bucks hang up and stage in these areas in late afternoon before moving out to the feed after dark. 2. A bottleneck of thick cover on a deer trail that leads into a field is a good bet for a camera. A big buck will usually walk the thickest route in, and you can get a close-up image of him. 3. As you scout the woods, look funnels where two or more ditches or drainages with thick cover come together. Oak trees that drop acorns nearby make this [...]

Short answer, no. I’ve had several bad experiences with does and bucks I’ve shot at last light and, fearing a marginal hit, left overnight. I won’t do it now if the nighttime temperature is 40 or above, which it almost always is in early archery season in most places. And 40 degrees is marginal. I believe you need the night air to dip down into the 20s or cooler to have hope of salvaging good, tasty meat from a deer that has lain on the ground, guts in, for 10 to 12 hours or more. To leave a wounded buck or not all night is the most agonizing dilemma that I hope you are not forced to deal with this [...]

The weather will be warm to hot when you start bowhunting in September or early October. Whether you shoot a doe or 150-inch buck, it is your ethical and legal obligation to properly care for the meat. Allowing an animal to spoil is not only the biggest sin in the hunter’s code of conduct, but in an extreme case a conservation officer could cite you for wanton waste. You want to do right and you want good, clean venison; here are some things to keep in mind when the temperature is 60 to 70 degrees or more. After the Shot Climb out of your stand and go look for the deer as soon as you can after the shot.  The [...]