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Scout
Why You Should Summer Scout for Whitetails in Bad Weather
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...
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New Study Tells You How Far to Look for a Matched Set of Antlers
Every shed hunter knows the feeling: the exhilaration of picking up an antler and the instant curiosity about where the other side might be located. It could be resting a few feet away; it could be hidden in a brushy draw a half mile away, or it could be in the next county. There’s no way of knowing...
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How to Find New Whitetail Spots Now
It doesn’t matter how much post-season scouting I do, I always regret not adding more deer hunting spots to my list. While I think there’s merit in compiling historical data and spending time on a few properties, you can never have too many hunting spots for various reasons. Habitat changes from...
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Featured Gear
In-Season
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3 Lessons You Can Learn from Whitetail Rubs
I can clearly remember the excitement I felt following in my grandfather’s footsteps some 30 years ago as he pointed out whitetail rubs strewn across the forest surrounding our family deer camp. The bright orange slashes stood out among the trees like red lights in the distance screaming, “STOP! A...
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Scout
How to Find Buck Bedding on Aerial Imagery
You’ve graduated whitetail pre-school if you’re using satellite imagery to identify a buck’s destination food source. E-scouting for and successfully finding a mature buck’s bedding area is a different story. This is higher education stuff and starts with a 30,000-foot view of your hunting grounds...
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How to Identify a Big Buck Track in Snow
When there’s snow in the forecast during hunting season, you can bet I’ll be heading to the whitetail woods. That’s for one simple reason: Snow shows deer patterns like a black light exposes invisible ink. Tracks are what tell the story.
Whether it be to follow a buck on foot or verify the presence...
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Whitetail
The Struggle of a Colorblind Outdoorsman
I’m a hunter and I’m colorblind. For a guy who has to follow a lot of blood trails, this is not a good combination. But I’m not alone.
According to reports from San Francisco State University, about 5% of females and 8% of males have some form of colorblindness. This means there are likely hundreds...
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Scout
Video: How to Identify Oak Trees
Anyone planning to be an all-around woodsman needs to be able to identify oaks. In this video, I’ll go through the main ways to distinguish white oaks from red oaks and why it matters. Both have unique properties that cause wildlife to interact with them differently. This is an important skill to...
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Scout
The Best Public Land Food Sources for Whitetails
Whitetail hunters often think of food sources in a way that doesn’t do the deer’s adaptability justice. More often than not, this involves a serious focus on agricultural fields or food plots. Everyone knows deer love a picked cornfield or lush food plot full of clover, but what if you don’t have...
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Offseason
Scout
4 Tips to Locate Mature Buck Home Ranges in the Offseason
Hunters have an undeniable fascination with giant antlered, big-bodied bucks. If you've decided to take on the challenge of understanding mature bucks, you're in danger of becoming addicted and obsessed. However, studying mature bucks can also increase your fun in the woods.
Mature bucks are king in...
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The Underappreciated Art of Trimming Shooting Lanes
Shooting lanes are not sexy. Whitetail fanatics don’t binge-watch shooting lane videos on YouTube or drool over artsy tree trimming pics on Instagram. Wow factor be damned—the art of trimming shooting lanes is crucial to deer hunting success.
Yes, it is an art. Determining just the right time to cut...
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Scout
The Fool's Gold of Deer Scouting
Summer is the whitetailer’s season of anticipation. At no point during the year does the excitement rise more rapidly or to such a fever pitch than those last months leading up to opening day. For that reason, we deer hunters exert a whole lot of energy each summer seeking out, watching, and...
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Whitetail Hunting’s Best Kept Secret
If you give hunters a platform to gripe, you’ll hear a wide variety of complaints that generally fall into a few categories. One of the most popular centers on access to ground, or lack thereof. It’s true that outbreaks of strip malls and McMansions are eating up whitetail habitat on a daily basis...
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6 Scouting Habits of the World’s Best Deer Hunters
“Scouting is the name of the game,” said experienced whitetail bowhunter Jesse Coots. “It’s kind of like training as a wrestler. If you skip your whole training season and go right to your first match, you’re going to get pummeled. Bowhunting is no different.”
Coots is not alone in this belief. Of...
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Sheds
Scout
The Truth About Shed Dogs
A few years ago, shed dogs were all the rage. A lot of the big whitetail names were running retrievers, that by social media standards, appeared to be antler finding machines. Average Joes were getting in on the game, too. And just like with a lot of outdoor fads that burn hot, it appeared that if...
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3 Things You Can Learn from Whitetail Sheds
Shed hunting is a dang good time. Let’s be clear about that right out of the gate.
But there’s more to it than just scooping up antlers. Whitetail sheds can hold a treasure trove of information if you know what to look for. Here are three valuable pieces of intel you can glean from the antlers you...
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4 Tricks for Finding More Whitetail Sheds
The basics of shed hunting are well known, but the devil is in the details.
Efficient use of time is the golden rule of shed hunting, so let’s not beat around the bush. Here are four simple tricks that will help you gain shed hunting success.
Scout Like it’s Hunting Season
The best DIY whitetail...
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How to E-Scout for Shed Hunting
Shed hunting, from the outside looking in, can seem quite simple: walk a lot, look on the ground, and find antlers. But the search for whitetail sheds is rarely this straightforward.
Consistent shed hunting success requires both an understanding of deer habitat and behavior, and a smart strategy...
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3 Reasons You Suck at Shed Hunting
Shed hunting is one of those outdoor pursuits that sounds easy: Walk some trails, check some fence crossings, and fill up your backpack with antler. If you’ve got primo spots and plenty of time, this is probably true (and you likely don’t need to read an article about why you suck at shed hunting...
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Scout
3 Guaranteed Places to Find Whitetail Sheds
Son of a bitch. That’s typically what runs through my mind when I see a buddy walking towards one of those spots while shed hunting.
Maybe you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve shed hunted long enough, you’ll recognize that those spots almost always hold an antler or two. When this kind of...
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