Throughout August, you scout and glass a couple of small bucks, a decent 8-pointer and a shooter 10 coming to a bean field like clockwork in the evenings. Will those bucks, and especially the 10-point, be around when bow season opens in a month or so?   That bachelor’s club will start to break up in mid-September, but a few of the bucks may still run together into October. In what is known as the “fall shuffle,” some of the bucks will shift a mile or more to winter range while some of them—maybe that big 10--will stay right there, close to where you’re spotting them now. Keep glassing the fields and edges, and hang a tree stand or 2 [...]

For those of you who are getting ready to bowhunt whitetails in September... In my travels over many years, I have run into quite a few bowhunters who do not and will not hunt the mornings during an archery season that opens in September. Their thinking is actually pretty sound. First, it’s less risky and easiest to hang and access tree stands near crop fields and plots in the afternoons. In morning darkness, it’s tough to sneak back to stands near a bedding area without bumping deer that are already home and tucked in after a night of feeding. Why risk spooking a buck in the predawn when your odds are better of seeing him and getting a shot in [...]

I first wrote about this giant way back in 2008, and thought I’d post it again to get you fired up for early bow season. Colin (who would be 32 today) if you see this shoot me an email!--MH After supper on August 29, 2007 Colin Bourrier, who had just turned 15, dressed in unscented hunting clothes and pulled a scent-blocking suit over them. He reminded his younger brothers to keep the noise down and especially not to rip and ride the trails on their dirt bikes because he and Pete were going hunting out back. He packed up his bow and arrows and other gear and headed for the tree stand he and his dad had set. They only [...]