If you haven’t tried a fixed-blade knife with a gut-hook, you should this season. Roll a buck or doe onto its back and use the knife point to make a small incision in the white hair and abdominal wall of the lower belly. Turn the knife over, insert the sharp hook into the slit and zipper the animal open up to the sternum. With a hook, there’s no exposed knife tip to pierce a deer’s paunch and make a mess, or clip your finger. Be careful and wear rubber gloves. Once you’ve finished the incision and rolled the big bubble of innards out of a deer, you can put leverage on a sturdy fixed knife, which is typically 8 inches [...]

The first days of your bow season in September or October are second only to the November rut for best time to kill a big deer. Right now, the bucks have not been pressured for a year; they’re using small home ranges; and they’re walking predictable bed-to-feed patterns. A gnarly 8- or 10-pointer might be in your future if bowhunt hard and smart in a few weeks. Food is the Key Hang a couple of tree stands on the edge of alfalfa, corn or beans where you’ve been seeing some bucks come to pig out the past few weeks. You have been scouting and glassing right? If not, get out there. You’ve still got time. Watch a field from several [...]

In early August velvet deer antlers begin to morph from soft and pliable to hardened bone. “A buck’s antlers will change from looking swollen or bulbous at the tips of the tines to a more normal diameter,” Missouri biologist Grant Woods told me. “Once this change in appearance occurs the buck won’t add much beam or tine growth.” By mid-August most of the antler growth for the year is done. Sometime between September 1 and 15 bucks will shed velvet in most areas. The cue for antler hardening and velvet shedding is the change in photoperiod caused by decreasing daylight and increasing darkness, which results in a significant increase in the bucks’ testosterone. Velvet shedding typically takes only a couple [...]