Wired to Hunt

It wasn’t intentional, but I’m glad I did it. Over the last couple of seasons, I put out my usual summer trail cameras to gather pre-season intel. Some, I re-upped on batteries, while others just ran until they couldn’t. A few, built with solar panels, kept a charge through the North Country winter. What those year-round cameras did for me was change how I view whitetails, particularly bucks. One...

After hauling my two daughters through spider webs, oppressive heat, and a few meltdowns to drop a new trail camera at one of my hunting spots, I started reconsidering whether or not my summer scouting efforts were worth it. While summer scouting might benefit you come October, do you really need to burn the boot leather during beach season to have success this fall? After all, plenty of hunters f...

For most of my bowhunting career, I've carried a compound bow. But the very first time I toted a bow to the whitetail woods, I carried a borrowed Bear recurve. No deer were harmed on that first day, but I’ll never forget the feeling of walking into the woods with that lightweight recurve at my side. I appreciate the speed, accuracy, and technology that modern compounds offer. You can make shots on...

As an admitted bass geek, I paid somewhat close attention to the latest Bassmaster Classic, which was held on the Tennessee River earlier this year. A relative newcomer to the scene, Dylan Nutt, took top honors in that prestigious tournament with a three-day bag weighing nearly 67 pounds. The win earned him a cool $300,000, and solidified his place amongst the most talented anglers in the world. H...

My son and I were nervous as we made our way from the truck to the front door of a local landowner in hopes of securing hunting permission. The sign by the road said, “Beware of Dog,” but with 100 acres of prime hunting land on the line, we took our chances and headed for the front porch. After a few raps on the door, the landowner opened, and I quickly referred to him by name. The familiarity see...

I was nine years into my public land hunting career when I first dipped my toe in the target-buck pool. The North Carolina hitlister showed up on my trail cameras just before Halloween, with pre-rut in full swing, and a gnarly heat wave set to roll in a week later. With nearly a decade of experience in my rearview mirror, I made one of the dumbest hunting mistakes of my life—I stayed home on Novem...

If finding a deer in the big woods is like finding a needle in a haystack, finding a mature buck is like looking for that needle in an entire hay field. Unlike ag country, the big woods might only boast two bucks per square mile in some areas. Finding big bucks in such places requires a ton of legwork in and out of season. And that starts with summer scouting. It’s a low pressure/high reward activ...

This time of year might not seem relevant for deer hunting, but if you want to find consistent success like some of the best big buck hunters, you might want to change your offseason approach. But don’t just take it from me. I spoke with MeatEater’s Mark Kenyon, who knows a thing or two about chasing mature bucks. Mark has also interviewed the best deer hunters across the country, so he’s a bit of...

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 shot. I couldn’t have been more excited as I walked up to that scrappy six-point. But reality starte...

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 enough time. Which is true, until it isn’t. There are some ways in which a lot of us sabotage our upcomin...

For the first time ever, a captive-raised deer has been released into the wild whitetail population to slow the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The historic move is part of a program instituted by the Oklahoma state legislature in 2024. The Chronic Wasting Disease Genetic Improvement Program is intended to bolster wild deer genetics by releasing captive deer that have a resistance—though...

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 what part of the country you live in, these critters might not pose much of a threat to you. If you li...

You can’t overlook Wisconsin’s No. 1 ranking when scrolling through the Boone and Crockett Club’s 17,465 record-book entries for white-tailed deer in the Lower 48. According to B&C’s “Big Game Records Live” online listings, hunters have entered 2,132 Wisconsin bucks (typicals and nontypicals combined) in “the book” since its origins in 1888. That’s 12% of all B&C whitetails for the Lower 4...

Rifle hunting, specifically for whitetails, tends to get side-eyed compared to bowhunting. There’s an obvious level of skill, dedication, and a learning curve when it comes to bowhunting. The level of detail and minutiae required to locate, hunt, and fling an arrow often takes a bit of the surprise out of hunting. This is especially true if you cast a wide net of cameras to target specific deer. H...

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 season and turkey season, which gives my outdoor-obsessed brain something to cling to in the void. But s...

Baiting is one of the biggest hot-button issues in hunting. Regardless of species, everyone has an opinion. This is especially true for deer hunting, where antler inches can make toddlers out of grown men. Opponents of baiting often raise ethical or moral questions about the tactic itself and the risk of potential disease exposure involved with congregated deer herds. Those in favor of baiting com...

A couple weeks ago, my daughters and I made the drive to southern Minnesota for a weekend of shed hunting. Usually by the third week of February, I expect most of the antlers to be on the ground in my neck of the woods, so I figured out timing was about perfect. The forecast called for cold and windy weather, but the snow cover seemed like it was going to be minimal at most. Unfortunately, a small...

I stopped when I noticed two does feeding about 300 yards off, and whispered to my wife that I was going to practice aiming. Moments later, a few more deer showed up. As I watched them through the scope, a big buck appeared, and my heart raced full-throttle. The buck nosed through the does, and twice when he stood still, I started to squeeze the trigger. However, he started moving again, and I anx...

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 highlights the photoluminescence observed in signposts (i.e., rubs and scrapes) used by deer and indicate...

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 right. I’d stay on the trail for miles, picking my way along like a ninja as I crept through the woods,...