Wired to Hunt

When I first started tracking whitetail bucks in the big woods, things always seemed to go the same way. I’d find a buck track, and then I’d meticulously follow it through the forest all day long without ever seeing the buck that made it. It frustrated me because I thought I was doing everything...

There’s a small section on a particular piece of public I look forward to hunting every year during the peak rut. There’s about a three- or four-day stretch that I know I’ll see bucks chasing in this specific stretch of woods. The first year I hunted this spot, I was nearly trampled by a group of...

I live in a part of the South known as the Pine Belt. Most of the public lands in this part of Mississippi and Alabama consist almost entirely of old-growth or managed pine stands. There’s a running joke that the deer in this area survive on a diet of pine cones. If you’ve ever hunted in some of...

Several years ago, I drew a limited hunt on public ground in my state. Part of that draw required hunters to harvest a doe before filling their buck tags. I went into that hunt assuming I’d tag a doe on the first day and have three days to find a buck. Boy, was I wrong. It wasn’t until my third day...

A few Novembers ago, I set out for a hang-and-hunt on my favorite piece of public land in North Carolina. After over an hour of wandering, I stumbled across a hot white oak that was surrounded by fresh deer sign. Shortly after I set up, a young buck limped up to the acorns and stood perfectly for a...

This is a weird time of year to be thinking about deer. It’s turkey season, the fishing is getting really good across the country, and we are at about the exact midpoint between the deer season’s end and its beginning. The default setting right now, with a lot of us, is that there is more than...

Spring means gobbling turkeys, pleasant temps, and more daylight. It’s also the start of a long offseason of whitetail scouting that spans the summer months and into fall openers. Unfortunately, it’s also the time that insects, spiders, snakes, and a host of other critters resurface. Depending on...

Anyone reading this could look at my daily step counts since early February and know exactly what I’ve been up to. For me, it’s partly a coping mechanism, and partly a thrill in itself to comb the whitetail woods in search of discarded headgear. Peak shed season falls perfectly between trapping...

Hunters drool over fresh rubs and scrapes. They’re thrilling to see during a scouting session or hunt, but deer are drawn to them for other reasons. Research from the University of Georgia shows that fresh rubs and scrapes actually glow for deer like “neon lights.” This first-of-its-kind study...

On December 15, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) announced the end of a controversial CWD control program: a sharpshooting initiative that involved baiting and spotlighting deer in areas where CWD has been detected. MDC Director Jason Sumners announced the news in an open letter. “As...

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...

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...

I can’t run trail cameras in a lot of the places I hunt. I love that, but I also love running a whole bunch of cameras to try to decipher deer movement from year to year on specific properties. This latter tactic was a big part of my fall this year, and I noticed something that has led me to more...

I’m old enough to remember shooting photos with film. In fact, one of the duties I had for my first editing gig at a bowhunting magazine was to scour slides for perfect cover and lead images. Every photo you took back then had to have some intention behind it, because you knew you had limited film...

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...

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...

Patience gets thrown around a lot in general hunting advice. Whether it’s pulling an all-day hunt during the whitetail rut or waiting another hour on that gobbler that went silent, patience usually pays off. You’ll punch a lot of tags if you learn to embrace patience. But sometimes you need to throw...

Roger Maes knows he’ll recognize his grandfather’s nearly century-old trophy buck whether it’s in online photo lineups, hanging in a Northwoods tavern, or fully restored and displayed at a giant hunting/fishing store. But the Madison, Wisconsin, resident hasn't seen the buck for over 30 years, not...

Large blocks of public land appeal to me. There’s something remote, almost mythical about them. The cool thing about these places is that it feels like deer can come from anywhere at any time. Personally, that gives me more confidence in a spot. Often, these places require more walking, which tends...

The modern hunting world is obsessed with long-range shooting. From the rise in popularity of rifles like the 6.5 Creedmoor to thousand-yard gun ranges and shooting courses popping up like new Starbucks locations, it seems like every hunter wants to dial it in at a distance. Now, I’m not saying...