From our friend and Indiana hunter John Deem: “Weather conditions have been perfect in the Midwest. I rarely even hunt this early, but killed this old 13 pt. first night out. Biggest bodied buck I’ve ever seen. Field dressed 232lbs.” What a tank, congrats John!
One summer the talk of Waupaca County, Wisconsin, was a ginormous buck on the prowl. The giant was feeding in beans and alfalfa on a farmer’s property just ½ mile from Paul Keller’s 80- acre hunting spot. Through observation and low-impact scouting, Paul confirmed that the buck was walking a timbered ridge on his property to get to a patch of standing corn, also on Paul’s land. Paul hung a few tree stands on and near the ridge, and one day in September he killed one of the top bow bucks of 2012—the massive 27-pointer grossed 244! The buck was walking a timbered ridge within ½-mile of the fields… A spot like that is one of the best for early-season bow [...]
Here’s your 6-step plan: Stay sharp: It’s tough to keep your edge for hours when you haven’t seen a buck for a while. But do it. The minute you drop your guard and start daydreaming a monster will pop up within 50 yards. You never want that. When a big deer surprises you, you tend to get rattled, make a foolish move and spook him. So concentrate as much as you can. Scan the woods and try to pick up the flash of antlers or hide as far out you as can. That way you’ll have time to calm your nerves, stand up, shift into position and plan your draw and shot. Read A Buck: You glimpse a stud 120 [...]
Indigo Urgent Care reports an estimated 85% of Americans, many of them hunters, fishers and hikers like us, are allergic to poison ivy and/or oak. You know a bad case of the rash can put a damper on summertime, but don’t let your guard down in the fall. I’m one of the 85%, and the worst case of poison ivy I ever got was during bow season one October. My climbing stand cut a vine that I stupidly did not see as I worked my way up a tree. Bits of vine hairs and bark and sap slid down my neck and around the sides of my head. My head swelled and a horrendous bubble of blisters broke out around [...]
Wildlife officials in Tennessee note that hunters flocked to the turkey woods in big numbers this past spring when life as we knew it shut down due to the pandemic, which left people out of work and looking for something to do. Fishermen followed suit and converged on Tennessee lakes and rivers this summer, too. The number of people in the state who purchased hunting and fishing licenses has risen by nearly 20 percent so far this year as compared to 2019. With the pandemic lingering into late summer and fall, TWRA officials believe a similar scenario could play out when deer seasons open. "The pandemic is still going on and we imagine people still have a lot of free time [...]