Wired To Hunt

In mid-September, I saddled up for my first whitetail hunt of the season. I'd yet to shoot a public land animal with my bow, but I was full of piss and vinegar. I live in Kansas—the heart of deer country—and I wanted a big buck. One week later, I was a shell of a woman, begging the universe to send me anything resembling a deer so I could remember what they look like. If you hunt long enough for pretty much any game, you'll eventually find...

When mid-September hits, deer feeding patterns start to shift, and you can take this as one of the few nearly-true blanket statements in the whitetail world. So, no matter where you live, fall brings change. Whether you're hunting deer in ag country or the big woods, once acorns start dropping, the deer will find them. If you want to punch a tag, you need to do the same. The term “feed tree” gets thrown around a lot. Loosely, it refers to a...

This title might seem a little misleading. It probably ruffles a few feathers, but hear me out. There's a whole market of deodorants, detergents, and, yes, even mouth spray that promises to fool a big buck's nose. I'm not saying they don't work in some capacity or that, if compounded, they might not reduce or your scent. Nor am I suggesting that you should disregard a deer's nose. It'd be foolish to do so. However, most hunters have limited time...

The votes are in, and we have a winner! Wisconsin has officially been crowned the “Best Whitetail State” after beating out Minnesota with 54% of the votes. With an estimated deer population of 1.6 million and over 6.6 million acres of public land, it's no wonder The Badger State is a whitetailer's paradise. To see the full rundown of the October Madness, Best Whitetail State bracket, click here. Janis Putelis repped Wisconsin in this bracket and...

I stood up, swearing, as I watched the buck I'd been tracking all morning finally catch my wind and sprint for the private land downslope. The does that were with him scattered, bouncing downhill and out of reach. The buck bounded over the barbed wire and then, as if he understood the meaning of the property line he'd just crossed (he probably did), he stopped and looked back at me, smug and handsome. Eight tines gleaming in the sun. I was...

This probably says more about me than I care to face, but I really want my daughters to be good deer hunters. I don't want them to just love going hunting; I want them to love the process. The anxiety I feel around this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have facilitated pretty much all of their success in the deer woods to date. Yet, I know that if you do everything for kids, they don't learn to do anything for themselves. If you don...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

I have never had more trail cameras out in any given season than I do this year. It's weird. While they are all out on private land, my season is split up pretty evenly between hunting those parcels and setting out on public where I have zero digital intel going. The difference between planning a private land rut hunt where I've had nine cell cameras going since July, and walking into some tract of public land in Wisconsin or North Dakota totally...

We were belly-crawling down a dirt road when Newt paused, raised his binos, and whispered, “I think they're whitetails.” I couldn't see anything, and my hands were too cold to break out the binos. It was a sharp November morning during the beginning of Nebraska's week-long rifle season. A mountain boy from Colorado, I was entirely out of my element in Western Nebraska, where I'd come to spot and stalk rutting whitetails—and hopefully kill my...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

I spent quite a bit of my career as mostly an outdoor writer, before filming hunts and recording podcasts took over. That early role taught me how to use weasel words like a champion. Actually, it was reader responses that taught me to cover my ass with generalizations. What happens when you write hunting articles, even benign hunting articles you assume won't piss people off, is that you end up pissing people off anyway. So, you start to think...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best? Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of...

Southeast Ohio's deer population is experiencing a serious epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) outbreak, forcing wildlife managers to consider adjusting hunting regulations before the state's rifle season opens. EHD is a virus transmitted by biting flies such as no-see-ums. Deer killed by the disease are typically found near water after experiencing high fever and dehydration. Historically, the virus has been found in parts of the Southeast U.S...

Late last month, I pulled up to a field site at first light to start a long day of turkey habitat surveys. My work as a wildlife research technician takes me to both public and private land, but this site happened to be on one of my favorite wildlife areas: a lakeside section with forested draws and fields of native tallgrass. I slowed my truck to a crawl so I could scan the fields for a reddish-brown back or a tail flicking. I usually spot a doe...

Like most whitetail hunters, I learned to hunt with company. For me, it was my dad, his brothers, and a few of their buddies. Swapping stories around a campfire, ribbing each other about misses, backslapping over notched tags, and arguing about where the deer are moving have always been part of deer-hunting culture, but if you always have someone in the next stand over, you're missing out on a different side of the game. Hunting alone changes the...

Other than the rut, I can't think of a more exciting time of deer season than opening day. Aspirations are high. Weather patterns start to turn. Those bucks you've cleverly nicknamed are still stuck on their patterns and sporting more headgear than your favorite football team. If opening day dreams always unfolded according to plan, there'd be a lot less mature bucks on the landscape. Unless you have a tightly manicured hunting situation, your...

The hunting industry is chock-full of good advice. From bed hunting strategies and how to read mature buck sign, to adopting a mobile mindset to surprise a deer in its core range, there is no shortage of content that can teach you how to get better at the whitetail game. There is also a lot of content designed to get you to buy something, and I know this well, because I've created a ton of it. While buying the latest deer call or decoy can...

Sometimes the biggest hurdles in the woods aren't other hunters or natural predators but ourselves. That's right, the thing keeping you from leveling up in the deer woods is probably yourself. I hate to admit it, but I've screwed up more hunts for myself than other folks or coyotes have. In my earlier years of hunting, a lot of those mistakes stemmed from bad habits like hunting historical spots or trying to outwork the competition, only to run...

Big rubs and community scrapes get all the attention when it comes to deer sign, and I get it. They're cool, and in some way, they're a good indicator that you're on the right scouting path. However, they can be misleading if you misinterpret the surrounding clues or landscape. On the other hand, deer tracks don't quite get the love they deserve. They might not be as exciting as other sign, but they can tell you a lot more than a pawed-out spot...

Most deer hunters aren't living the dream of unlimited time in the woods. Tony Peterson recently pointed out in an earlier article how easy it can be to fall into the "must be nice" crowd. The reality for almost all deer hunters is a full-time job, kids, and obligations that thin our time in the field. Everyday life makes us weekend warriors with hunts squeezed into short vacations and a random day here or there. The simpler question is...

Modern whitetail hunters worship treestands like they're God's gift to deer hunting, but plenty of hunters have killed deer with their boots on the ground. Just because those old-timers who chain-smoked in red plaid decided to hunt at eye level doesn't make it outdated. It can be a great strategy when you need to move fast and stay flexible. Luckily, it doesn't demand much. As long as you understand the wind direction, scent (definitely ditch the...

There's something alluring, almost sacred, about the idea of finding a buck's bed, especially if it's still warm or matted with white hair. It's kind of like the scene in No Country for Old Men when Sheriff Bell finds the still-sweating glass of milk that Chigurh, the ruthless mercenary, drank from just minutes before. It's an indicator that you're on the trail, even if you're a few steps behind. As tantalizing as a fresh buck bed is, do you...

August might as well be "drive around and look at deer" month. The long, warm evenings are the perfect time to hop in the truck, roll the windows down, and start scanning the fields with your hunting buddy or a good dog riding shotgun. Maybe the kids tag along and point out every cow like it might sprout antlers. Either way, you can coast by fields and glass for those velvet antlers in the golden hour. For a lot of folks, driving and...

Saddle hunting has quickly evolved from a niche tactic to a mainstream method of chasing whitetails, especially for mobile-minded hunters seeking stealth and efficiency. The system's lightweight, minimalist nature allows hunters to access hard-to-reach areas with less noise and more versatility than traditional treestands. But success in the saddle hinges not just on the saddle itself, but on the essential gear that completes the system. Now...

You might be a pro at ambushing whitetails from a tree, but ground hunting in open country presents a whole new set of challenges. When it comes to drawing your bow and not getting busted, you don't have a ton of room for error. If you're familiar with K.C. Smith and Tyler Jones of the Element crew, then you know they spend a ton of time chasing whitetails all over the country, especially the plains states. You can check out some of their cool...

We used to kill trophy bucks. Now, we harvest mature bucks. The game hasn't changed a whole lot, we just softened up the messaging to be more palatable to the general public. The truth is, we are all about big antlers and always have been. And, that's okay. I'm sure whoever figured out they could use ochre to leave a record of their successful hunts on the walls of caves thousands of years ago didn't care much about public perception. Oversized...

If you're like most of us at MeatEater, you've been listening to the new Turnpike Troubadour album, The Price of Admission, on repeat this summer. The first track's, opening line, “There's a mid-July whitetail in velvet, red as your old Chevrolet,” is inspiration enough to get out and check your trail cameras. Seeing velvet bucks this time of year is kind of like walking by a closed bakery. You can admire all you want, but that's about it until...

A lot of deer hunting media includes B-roll footage of huge farm equipment creating massive food plots. It paints a cool story that supposedly shows the hard work that went into killing a certain big buck. However, that reality doesn't relate to most hunters. If anything, it makes food plotting feel unattainable. The truth is you don't need large acreage or large equipment to create a small food plot for whitetails. With a few acres and some hand...

You can only plant so many food plots and hang so many tree stands or trail cams. Once you check off all the glamorous offseason whitetail duties, you have to tackle the less exciting ones or ignore them altogether. You can think of this list of chores as the leg day of scouting. It requires a bit more effort; most people want to avoid it, but it's glaringly apparent when you skip it. Whether you're looking to improve upon last season or you need...

As a high school kid, I spent most of my Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at my grandparents. I had almost zero responsibilities and ample hunting time. When I wasn't in the woods, I would thumb through stacks of Outdoor Life or Field & Stream that my grandfather hoarded over the years and kept in a wicker basket beside his recliner. In the evenings, he would formulate the next day's hunting plans for me and my cousins as we watched...

So you've tagged a respectable animal, and the big tasks of packing out, skinning, and butchering are done. Next comes the familiar dilemma of how to commemorate your kill. Maybe the price tag or a lack of wall space talks you out of a shoulder mount. Or, maybe you're just a minimalist at heart. Regardless, a European skull mount is a great low-cost alternative to preserve the memory of your hunt for a lifetime. Behind a skull cap for antlers or...

Good hunting buddies are hard to come by. Great ones are rare. Bad ones, unfortunately, show up more often than they should. Three days into a seven-day hunting trip is a bad time to realize you brought Debbie Downer to the woods. Bad hunting partners can turn dream hunts into nightmares faster than you can punch the trigger on your release. If they don't notch a tag by the end of the trip, you can bet they'll kill plenty of joy along the way...

For a dedicated whitetail hunter, there is no off-season. There are food plots to plant, stands to hang, cameras to run, and new spots to scout. You want to enjoy every second spent outdoors in pursuit of your hunting goals. But in the summer, the outdoors like to fight back. You're probably pretty familiar with the unholy trinity of summertime beasts–ticks, mosquitoes, and chiggers. But the plant kingdom can also be a formidable foe in the peak...

Back in 2020, I spent some time in Michigan with Mark Kenyon filming our Back 40 series. At one point during a mid-summer stand hanging mission, he decided to check a few trail cameras. I watched as he swapped out SD cards, and then doused each camera with scent-eliminating spray. At the time I thought he was being just a bit too neurotic. Now, I'm not so sure. As trail cameras become more and more ubiquitous across the whitetail sphere, it seems...

Ever considered your career choice based on hunting seasons? You're likely not the first. In fact, a lot of serious hunters will admit that their career choices revolved around hunting. After all, if you have to work, why not do something that allows you to hit the woods as much as you want? You could brave the content creator waters and try to make a living through YouTube, but that route has become oversaturated and highly predictable. If your...

Trail cameras don't always take pictures of that nice buck that's on your hit list for this fall. In fact, sometimes they can capture strange and downright funny moments in the woods when no one is looking. So we want to see the most hilarious frames your trail camera has snapped. You can upload them right here in the comment section or email them to radio@themeateater.com. To view the official rules of the contest, click here. The winning photo...

I used to give whitetails a lot more credit than they probably deserve. This led me to be a little neurotic, and often, plan my summer stand-hanging missions during rainstorms. The logic was pretty simple, really. I figured that the rain would cover up my intrusion, and more importantly, wash away all of my scent. That may have been true, I don't really know. What I do know is that heading to the woods during summer rain showers kept producing...

Like most rebellious teenagers, I wasn't much for rules. But the Thanksgiving weekend of 2007, I played it by the book. My dad gave me strict instructions not to leave my hunting blind until dark, especially if I shot a deer. And, Buddy, did I keep that bucket seat warm. My ears were still ringing when I peered through the new hole in the blind's shoot-through mesh. The buck I shot dropped in its tracks, and I could see its white underbelly lying...