Wired To Hunt

It's not hard to find plenty of people willing to recount tales of their amazing deer hunting trips to Iowa, Kansas, or wherever. And if there ever was a way to catch a serious case of whitetail FOMO, it would be listening to hunters talk about their deer travels. While hearing about someone else's trip can prove to be a powerful motivator to plan one of your own, be advised—you're likely hearing a polished, best-version-ever retelling of their...

The sound of falling acorns crashing into the forest floor is music to any hunter's ears. These small-but-powerful fruits can be one of the hottest primary food sources readily available throughout hunting season. Oak trees are extremely hearty, can be found throughout all of North America, and are generally broken down into two families, white oaks and red oaks. However, all oak trees are not created equal, and by doing a quick investigation on...

Imagine a world in which your favorite hunting spot is sold off and covered with condominiums. I mean it. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine this scenario. See your place, hear it, smell it. Now imagine a condo over there and there and there. How does that make you feel? Then, picture your favorite stretch of river or local lake choked out by a toxic algal bloom or slick with oil. Envision a future hike with your son or daughter and say to...

It took me nearly four full seasons of bowhunting to kill my first deer. That clueless button buck, a gift of a deer in late December in Minnesota, changed the arc of my hunting career. He represented a lot of things to me, but most importantly, he showed me that it could be done. Until I walked up to him lying in the snow, I didn't fully believe it. You might not either if you're struggling to get your first deer with a bow. It's not easy, even...

It's long been preached that there are no silver bullets when it comes to improving wildlife habitat. There are no shortcuts, no end-around, no one-size-fits-all fixes. But what if I told you there was an exception? There is one silver bullet for wildlife habitat management. One concept that is applicable everywhere from Maine to Montana to Mississippi. There's one approach that will help deer and turkeys, birds and bees, bugs and frogs and...

Pick an archery range in a populated area and then head there about three weeks before your state's deer season opens up. You'll see folks who can hit a golf ball at 40 yards consistently and others who can't hit a four-foot-square bale blind with half a dozen arrows. The folks in the latter category have problems and probably shouldn't head to the woods until they get their act together. They also, almost to a person, are shooting bows that aren...

The food plot is one of the most utilized, yet perilous, land management techniques used by landowners and land managers alike. At its pinnacle, it's a multi-species food source beneficial to the resident animals, but can simultaneously be used as a strategic chess move by the hunter. At its very worst, it is a bare patch of dirt. Creating the perfect food plot for your property is often a complex and time-consuming chore, where research and...

Dry, damaged bowstrings can blow up in your face, causing significant injury, wrecking your rig, or—worst of all—spoiling your shot at the buck of a lifetime. Bowstrings that are past their prime can also reduce consistent accuracy and have a negative impact on overall performance. Over time, the intense vibration and force of firing wears on strings, leaving them frayed, stretched out, and damaged. Even at rest, strings are under a lot of...

Several years ago, I sat down to eat at a nice restaurant in Indianapolis with a dozen or so industry folks. We were in town for the Archery Trade Association (ATA) show, and I was definitely the lowest person on the totem pole. At one point during that dinner, the topic of the future of hunting came up. The general consensus was that not only were we in trouble, but that knocking on doors to hunt private ground was a thing of the past. The...

L.J. Smith is an expert witness that trial lawyers want on their side. Smith, 72, a former Mississippi wildlife officer, has investigated 550 treestand accidents, given 100 depositions in treestand lawsuits, and testified 30 times when injured hunters took treestand manufacturers to trial in courthouses across the country. Manufacturers who retained Smith as their expert witness are 28-2 in those cases, and he shrugs off the two lost judgments as...

If you're thinking wolves, coyotes, or cougars, think again. The predator deer fear most walks on two legs. A study conducted in 2018 at the Jones Center at Ichauway in southwest Georgia found whitetails were significantly more spooked at the sound of “super predator” humans than any other predator. Dr. Daniel Crawford, the lead investigator—who also happens to be an avid bowhunter—set out to learn if fear of humans prompted deer to change their...

Where turkeys live, so too, do deer. The crossover between pursuing both species is huge, and while you might not learn much about spring turkeys while hunting deer in the fall, the inverse isn't true. Spring turkey hunting can tell you a lot about whitetails. You just have to pay attention when you're out there listening for gobbles. Whether you only bowhunt birds from a blind for hours at a time, or you have to run and gun nonstop because you...

Hunt long enough and you'll make some mistakes. Hunt as long as I have and you'll make a whole bunch of mistakes, some dumber than others. But, regardless of how dumb the mistakes are, they are almost always lessons built in. Here are a few of my past hunting screw-ups. The Brush Buck It had been a long week, which wasn't entirely unexpected. I was hunting an area I'd never been to that's likely to have a fair amount of hunting pressure. I...

It's possible that you're needlessly wasting money on your whitetail food plots and damaging elements of your hunting property just as much, if not more than you're helping. Got your attention? Let me explain. Food plots are a proven means for providing high-quality wildlife forage and are an effective hunting tool. But it's also true that traditional food-plotting practices can negatively impact your soil health, water quality, and surrounding...

A few years back, I decided it was time to change some things—or, I suppose some of that decision was made for me. Life has a way of doing that. One of the biggest changes was the amount of time I could dedicate to hunting. With just weekends and perhaps a week or two of vacation available each year, I knew it was critical to be as efficient as possible and maximize my available hunting time by minimizing the amount of time wasted. And, when it...

Ask any random elk guide what midwestern and eastern hunters tend to get wrong about heading to the mountains to chase bugles, and you'll hear two quick answers. First, they'll tell you that clients rarely get into real high-country shape, and, second, they'll tell you about untested gear and the trouble it causes. While holes in your gear game are easy to identify after a few days of living out of a wall tent at 8,000 feet, the same rules apply...

Mosquitoes, 90-plus-degree temperatures, and humidity so thick you can cut it with a knife—those add up to my kind of whitetail pursuit. Why? Because it's a challenge to mentally and physically prepare yourself for the early season in the South. Season openers across the South range from July to September. This time of year comes with a high chance of being uncomfortable, which is why it's crucial to give yourself an advantage. Many hunters wait...

A while back, a significant portion of my time in the woods was spent creating video content. It was a full-scale endeavor, complete with a traveling cameraman and all the assorted accouterments that go along with it. I won't say I hated it, but I can't honestly say that I loved it either. The experience did, however, teach me a thing or two about what it takes to capture solid footage and tell a story about hunting that someone may actually...

When I turned 11, I didn't realize I was in for the longest year of my life. The wait until 12, which was the legal hunting age in my home state of Minnesota back then, was torture. I wanted to hunt in the worst way, but it wasn't like my dad was going to take me to a state with a younger minimum age requirement. This was pretty standard for a long time in the deer world. Now, there are quite a few states with no minimum age, which leaves it up...

The key to winter scouting effectively isn't just locating as much sign as possible. It is, instead, about filtering your findings through a mental screen to separate them into two piles— nighttime and daytime sign. Since you're about five months too late to have any chance to see when the sign was actually made, this is all about educated guessing. The rub on the field edge? That was probably made at night. The rub 200 yards deep in the timber...

If you're serious about becoming a better bowhunter, winter is a great time to hone your archery skills. To become a better archer, contrary to flashy social media trends, you don't need to test out your bottom pin and send arrows into the next county. The fact is, you can become a better archer right from the comfort of your basement. All you need is your top pin and a 10-yard range. To become a better archer, rather than blind repetition, you...

The devil is in the details. It's a played-out statement, but true. This goes for a lot of aspects of life and certainly applies to bowhunting whitetails. We tend to reasonably focus on the big-picture stuff, like where and when we should hunt, but the heavy lift of actually filling tags tends to boil down to the minutiae. One of the details that get almost no love in bowhunting circles is peep sight choice. This is partially due to the reality...

I came to the realization in the fall of 2021 that I managed to make deer hunting not fun. “I'd lost sight of what makes hunting fun," I wrote last summer about this epiphany. "I'd gotten too goal-oriented, too strung out, too stressed, too worried about what other people think, and too busy for others. And I hated it…When the season ended, I took stock of what had happened and what I could learn from it, and then dedicated myself to...

At any given time of year, you're likely to find Hayden Bailey outside, whether he's catching catfish and snapping turtles, shooting squirrels, deer hunting, or pursuing one of his greatest passions: shed hunting. The Chillicothe, Illinois, resident loves to spend every minute outside, especially with his wife, Abby, and their small children. In fact, Bailey has always been an outdoorsy guy, tagging along with his dad to look for sheds and...

Leaving treestands up for a full year is a bad idea. Leaving them up for several years is far worse. Yet, quite a few hunters do this with both hang-on and ladder stands. Not only is this unsafe, but it's also often not the best strategy if you want to kill nice bucks. A blank-slate strategy with your ambush sites is a much better way to approach the year, even though this does require more work. The effort is worth it, for three very compelling...

Shane Indrebo, lifelong whitetail fanatic and co-owner of the North American Shed Hunters Club, credits a few simple tactics for finding a whopping 129 sheds last year. While many shed hunters wait until the spring thaw, Indrebo typically starts searching in January and begins his recon even earlier. “When I start thinking about shed hunting for the year, I keep an eye out to see where crops have been left for the winter,” Indrebo told MeatEater...

We just can't help ourselves. As hunters, we continually ride waves of trophy obsession, but they always eventually crash. When they do, we usually lean into the experience of the hunt for a few years. But, over time, the swells build, and we find ourselves right back to the antlers-over-everything mindset. The latest example of this cycle occurred within about the last 10 or 12 years. Before that, network outdoor television and print magazines...

We might be living in the golden age of whitetails across America. But the same can't be said for many of the other animals, fish, birds, and bugs that share the landscape with our favorite big game animal. Scientists are now warning of a slow-rolling mass extinction event taking place across the world that's threatening hundreds of thousands of different species, even here in America. This “biodiversity crisis,” as it's commonly referred to...

I'm hitting the road this month to kick off the Working for Wildlife Tour, and I'm hoping to see you there. Unbeknownst to many, there are hundreds of events put on across the country every year by conservation organizations bringing together hunters and anglers to volunteer their time to improve wildlife habitat, restore ecosystems, and clean up public lands and waters. Too many of these events slip by under the radar without the attention or...

In the winter, deer require about 1.5 quarts of water per day for every 100 pounds of body weight. During warmer, summer months, their hydration needs double. This is worth knowing, no matter when or where you hunt whitetails. Even in areas where water isn't in short supply, identifying the most likely spots for a buck to slake his thirst is a solid strategy. Where water is limited, it can be a bigger draw than food, bedding, or any of the other...

This is it. March is the month where, if you want to set yourself up for success this season, you need to hit the woods. Yet, for all of its obvious value, winter scouting seems to be an oft-preached, but little-practiced, aspect of whitetail hunting. The best public land hunters you know of all burn serious boot leather this month. They know the benefits of finding last season's sign while taking a look at the bare woods, and they know how it...

If you're on the outside looking in, shed hunting appears to be a simple endeavor. Just walk some cut cornfields, grid-search a few bedding areas, and then figure out where in your man-cave, or she-shed, you'll display your findings. As if. In truth, shed hunting mirrors the greater whitetail community. If you have primo ground to work with, the whole thing is pretty easy. If you don't, it's not. That's not meant to deter newcomers, but instead...

Shawn Luchtel's shed season looks a little different from the average whitetail hunter's. The founder of Heartland Bowhunter, who consistently puts mature bucks on the ground, almost exclusively searches for sheds on his private hunting land in Missouri. Generally, Luchtel will wait until March—when just about all bucks have dropped their antlers—to scour the 1,500-2,000 acres he shed hunts. “The majority of March I spend shed hunting, and then...

Consistently successful shed collectors are a lot like good treasure hunters. Yes, I'm talking about those folks who miraculously strike gold on the seafloor or find centuries-old wooden chests filled with rubies. Do you know what a treasure hunter never does? Walk aimlessly along the shore, hoping to stumble on what he seeks. A real-life pirate-loving treasure hunter has a map and reference points, and a plan that, all together, makes him more...

Joe Shead is living up to his last name. The founder of Go Shed Hunting estimates he's picked up 1,000 antlers over the years and labels each of them with the exact spot it came from. As a party trick, he allows friends to choose any shed from his impressive collection and then proceeds to recite specific details of the find. The man knows his sheds. For him, shed hunting is about more than just a way to kill time in the offseason or find out if...

The last time I took a deer into a processor was in 1998. I was a senior in high school and had arrowed a clueless two-year-old in September. Normally, my dad and I would have packed that buck full of ice and butchered him ourselves, but we had just butchered a deer my dad had shot a few days earlier and didn't feel like cutting another one up. It didn't take long, once we picked up the meat, to realize that it was subpar. At least the packages...

Many bowhunters these days are turning their attention to heavy-hitting arrows, desiring an arrow that will pass through anything in its path. Of course, this comes at the expense of a slow-moving arrow and an unforgiving trajectory. If instead, you seek an optimal middle ground, you likely find yourself walking a fine line between speed, accuracy, forgiveness, and penetration. Let's take a look at what it takes to penetrate a deer's shoulder...

While it isn't burning as hot as it was a decade ago, the crossbow-versus-vertical-bow debate is still a hot-button issue. Even though the arguments are pretty played out at this point, there are still plenty of folks ensconced on both sides. While there are several points of contention between both sides, one that isn't easily answered asks, is crossbow hunting really archery hunting? To start to suss out the answer, it's best to acknowledge the...

If your 2022 deer season went exactly as planned, read no further. However, if you find yourself here with an open mind, willing to glean a little knowledge from every outlet possible, this one's for you. While there's no one-size-fits-all solution, reflecting on your previous deer hunting seasons and evaluating your shortcomings is a darn good place to start. Last season, did certain wind directions give you fits? Did a lack of scouting prevent...

I know what you're probably thinking; why would anyone bother backpack hunting for whitetails? You don't need to hunt the backcountry to find a whitetail, I can find one within eyesight of the truck. If this is you, backpack whitetail hunting isn't for you. But if you're the type who craves adventure, aspires to backpack hunt the west, or are looking for the oldest buck in the forest, a backpack whitetail hunt may be just what the doctor ordered...

Other than humans, few mammals besides white-tailed deer have the flexibility and fortitude to live wherever they choose. As Rollin H. Baker details in the 1984 book “White-tailed Deer: Ecology and Management,” South America's whitetails thrive from Peru's humid, sea-level tropics to just above tree-line at 13,450 feet in northwestern Bolivia. And whitetails in North America vary from herds thriving in cypress swamps across the Deep South to...

I heard a loud “SNAP” reverberate from my knee like a gunshot long before I felt any pain. It was during a rugby game in my sophomore year of college, and I had just twisted awkwardly while bouncing out of a tackle when my left knee decided to explode like a firecracker, dropping me to the ground. I felt the pain then, writhing in the mud with my teammates gathered around me. It was the first week of the playoffs, and I knew I would be out for...

At one point or another, we've all dreamed about having a property of our own or access to ground no one else can hunt. Heck, maybe you own ground or have this kind of access right now. I've been fortunate enough to have been on both ends of the spectrum. I've spent most of my hunting seasons scouring public land with periodic access to private property. Over the years one thing has become very clear, regardless of access to private, I'll never...

It's hard to find a deer hunter today who isn't using trail cameras. They litter whitetail properties across the country, consume our waking minds, and use a heap of LTE bandwidth and cloud storage too. In short, they're everywhere. But what is rare is the hunter using his or her photos to their full potential. The average camera user, simply admiring trail cam pictures and showing them off to buddies, barely scratches the surface of what this...