Wired to Hunt

President Ronald Reagan was heading into his final year in the White House when Vermont hunters last shot antlerless deer during November’s 16-day firearms season. Vermont’s no-doe hiatus, which began after the 1987 gun-deer season, will end at dawn Nov. 14 when roughly 77,000 deer hunters hit the woods for opening day of the gun-deer season. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Board voted 7-5 in July 2...

The wind wasn’t blowing right for my favorite treestand, so I set up that morning in a ground blind downwind of the bedding area. I was watching an old logging road. It was thick on both sides, but I figured I could still get a solid broadside shot as deer crossed the road heading back to bed after a late-night buffet in the beanfield on the neighbor’s property. I watched three does saunter past r...

You probably have some words of wisdom from whoever taught you how to hunt, and I’m willing to bet it still sticks with you in some way. My grandfather loved to still-hunt with a rifle. When I first started learning how to do the same, he told me if I wanted to see deer, I would have to slip through the woods with the wind in my face. But if I wanted to kill a deer, I’d better have it blowing in m...

Most deer hunters dream of having their own, or at least joining, a good hunting camp. It’s where formative hunting memories are made, and logistically they just make things more convenient. I’ve been to hunting camps with multiple bunk rooms, flat screens, and fully furnished kitchens. Another had nothing more than a pin-out board, skinning rack, and dilapidated camper where the first to arrive h...

If I’m being honest, the whole idea for this article came from something that is totally understandable but also kind of annoying. People love to ask me what it’s like to hunt with Steve Rinella, and I get it. He’s one of the biggest names in the sphere, and he has a wealth of experience. But, I never know if they are asking me what his personality is like, if he’s a good hunter, if he tells amazi...

A few years ago, I spent my whole opening week in Kansas hunting a green soybean field full of browsing scars but didn’t see a single deer. When I finally stepped into the woods to find them, I found an area that looked like a feedlot—trampled to bare dirt with a healthy amount of whitetail poo sprinkled throughout. I heard the reason for the scene before I spotted it as a few bur oak acorns tumbl...

Matthew Kufahl, 46, of Hayward, Wisconsin, killed an impressive Booner buck last season. After tagging a 181-inch 12-pointer on November 12, he figured he could sit back and relax for the rest of the season. Five days later, he checked his trail cameras and found pictures of an even bigger buck. “I was like, oh, I didn’t kill the biggest deer up here,” Kufahl told MeatEater. Kufahl was running tra...

Question: In Hot Weather, How Much Time Do You Have to Get Your Deer to the Processor? Answer: Like all good questions, it depends. Generally, the faster you can break down an animal and get it cold, the better. In hot weather, you should prepare ahead of time so you don’t risk meat spoilage. While “hot” might be relative to your geographical location, anything above 40 degrees requires special ca...

It was already 80 degrees before the sun peeked over the horizon. I had sweat rolling like the Mississippi between my shoulder blades, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. A cloud of mosquitoes found me, buzzing in from off the pond like a formation of B-52 bombers taking aim at their target—me. Early season deer hunting in the South is a special kind of misery. It’s hot and humid, and you sweat...

Logan Beach of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and his wife, Kaylin, had a problem. It was the afternoon of September 6, the second day of Kentucky’s archery season. The couple was hunting the same ridge from different trees 16 yards apart, Kaylin with her recurve and Logan with a Prime Divide 31 compound bow. They were close enough to see each other, but not close enough to talk. They were hunting speci...

Summer is an unbeatable time of year for trail cameras in the whitetail woods. Deer are calm, movement is consistent, and patterns are easy to find. Unfortunately, the easy living of summer never lasts. Every year, nose-diving camera feeds make hunters across the country question everything in the critical weeks before September openers. As sudden and confusing as the photo drought often seems, th...

This week the Jordan Buck was officially supplanted from atop the Boone and Crockett record books. The Aiuppa Buck, a 207 ⅞-inch Illinois typical whitetail with foot-long eye guards, takes its place by 1 6/8 inch. But it didn’t dethrone the Jordan Buck overnight. In fact, it might have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for an electrician who spotted the buck passing slowly into obscurity 32 years after...

Nineteen-year-old Ethan Owen, a wildlife and fisheries management student at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, rushed out of his general botany class at 12:50 on the opening day of Tennessee’s three-day velvet season. He had an hour-long drive between him and a big velvet buck he’d been watching all summer. He made it home to Watertown, scarfed down something to eat, grabbed his Mathews Tra...

Question: I live in Michigan's lower peninsula and recently purchased a property in the upper peninsula. I love hunting up there but have had a hard time patterning deer. I’ve always looked for food and bedding and then found their paths in between. However, where I am in the UP, there are no significant mast crops or ag. The deer primarily feed on browse in the cedar swamps and maple stands that...

A lot of state’s bow openers will start in a matter of days. Just because deer season opens doesn't mean the thermostat will drop. Prime velvet destinations or states with September openers might include hot, buggy conditions. While these aren’t ideal deer hunting conditions, that doesn’t mean you can’t find success, you just might have to sweat a good bit to do it. Hot weather hunting isn’t easy,...

Question: I’m a new bow hunter who doesn’t have access to private land or a hunting mentor. Where should I start? Answer: Learning to hunt on your own can seem intimidating. From figuring out your effective archery range to picking a spot on opening day, there are a lot of moving pieces in between. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be complicated—even if you’re starting solo. Luckily, there are pl...

Question: Should I use a mechanical or fixed blade broadhead, and what brands do you recommend? Answer: If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked this question, I could probably start manufacturing my own broadheads. Back when I was more of a fixture on the seminar circuit, I fielded this inquiry during every single show. My answer used to be pretty simple and straightforward: Shoot a sharp...

If there’s one disease that needs no introduction in the whitetail world, it’s CWD. Since its first detection in wild deer herds, chronic wasting disease has been a constant source of contention and uncertainty within the hunting community. Studies have repeatedly shown that a high prevalence of chronic wasting disease can tip population growth rates into the negatives, since CWD is categorically...

Trail cameras have become a staple for whitetail hunters, especially over the past decade. Where legal, they can be handy tools for locating and hunting deer or other game animals. They’re especially effective if you’re interested in targeting a specific size or age structure of deer (i.e. a target buck), and can help you hone in on that deer’s home range. Consider that cellular trail cameras make...

On a recent ride to the grocery store, I pointed out a flock of geese to my daughters. My five-year-old piped up and told me she wanted to shoot one of them with her bow. I didn’t point out the legal or logistical barriers to her endeavor, but I did feel a huge sense of pride welling up. I knew it was a sign that maybe I was doing something right. If you have a family or little ones, you know how...

Logging cuts, also known as clear-cuts, are some of the best places to find mature bucks in the big woods. They provide a focal point in an otherwise monotonous landscape. You can also readily spot them while e-scouting. The problem is, everyone else realizes this too. While clear-cuts attract deer for bedding or browse, they also attract a lot of pressure. Luckily, whitetails adapt regardless of...

When most people think of New York, deer hunting might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But this fall, roughly 500,000 resident hunters and another 40,000 nonresidents will take to the state's woods in pursuit of whitetails. This year, however, they'll have a few new regulations to follow before heading into the field as well as some new opportunities. In June 2026, the New York State De...

Moultrie’s new Edge 4 Solar looks to mitigate the problem all trail cameras share—battery life. Between the new, larger solar panel and the included rechargeable battery, you can reduce your battery budget and trips to change them out. Moultrie’s newest version of the Edge doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, it makes subtle, thoughtful improvements to an already feature-rich trail camera. I was a...

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...