If you’ll be setting out or moving cameras this weekend, try: A small clearing in the woods 50 to 75 yards off an alfalfa, soybean or clover field. Mature bucks like to hang up in these areas in late afternoon before moving out to a field at dark. Any bottleneck of thick cover on a deer trail that leads to or from a feed field. Back in the woods toward a bed area where two or more drainages with thick cover come together. Oak trees dropping acorns nearby make the set even better. Having spotted or photographed a big buck in a field or food plot, sneak in and set a camera on the nearest creek crossing, swamp edge, pond edge, etc. [...]

If a big fat doe walks 30 yards under your stand during opening week, should you shoot it? This QDMA article makes some solid biological points about why you should, but the first comment that follows the article makes, I feel, an even better point about why you shouldn’t: ELPzee wrote: I'm still waiting until December to fill my freezers. Here's why. Pressure! If you shoot does early in the season you're pressuring your herd before the rut, reducing your chances of killing that monster buck. In regions where (hunter) densities are high and tracts of land are small…waiting to harvest does makes your land become a sanctuary, especially if you are surrounded by trigger happy hunters (on neighboring lands). [...]

From our friend Danny: It’s a little hard to see him, but the deer on the right has earned the name “Junior.”  I haven’t gotten a close-up picture of him in about 3 weeks.  The last clear pic I got, I was able to study his rack pretty good.  By everything I can tell he has Spike’s genes (hence Junior). Right now he is a main-frame 9 with a kicker off the right brow tine (same as Spike had). I believe he is 3 years old. It’s going to be hard to pass him up if he walks by. But, I know what he could potentially turn into next year. Pic #2 from Danny: This is what “The Freak” has become.  He and Junior [...]