The 2023 archery opener started with very warm and humid weather in most states, but after that first week, the bowhunting has been golden. The best early October archery season I have seen in years. Why? A wave of cold fronts has swept across the country the last couple of weeks, dropping temperatures from 70- and 80-degree highs to the 40s (early mornings) and with clear, high-pressure afternoons in the upper 50s and 60s. That trend is expected to continue for at least the next week. Deer are moving, bucks are rubbing madly and scrape-making early. Bowhunters from Iowa to Ohio to Virginia are capitalizing on the cooler weather and shooting some massive whitetail bucks (like the hog Andrew Schram [...]

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 late September or October?   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 in the [...]