Sommaire pour November/December 2021 - Whitetail Special de Bowhunter

ONE OF THE great attractions of a life in the outdoors is the promise of the unknown. Whether we are casting a lure for bass or calling to a bull elk, something exceptional could happen at any moment. A giant musky could snatch your bass lure, or the bull elk of a lifetime could strut right into your shooting lane and stand broadside. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of whitetail hunting. With every flash of antler and every hoofbeat in dry oak leaves, the mind of the whitetail bow-hunter instantly goes into fantasy mode — that millisecond when you believe there’s a chance it could be the buck of a lifetime. The heart is involuntarily swept into the maelstrom of excitement and beats wildly. Yes, odds…

Ihaven’t been looking forward to writing this article. Doing so requires me to dig up memories I don’t want to relive. No, that’s dishonest — I’ve relived them a thousand times over the past year. Deep down, I don’t want people to know about my most painful failures. But alas, I’m going to share the calamity with you. The following is the story of what turned out to be the best, and worst, whitetail hunt of my life. I was hunting whitetails in the peak of the rut with my good friends Cordell Turner and Bill Jackson. Cordell owns and operates Circle Cross Outfitters in Southwest Iowa, and Bill is an outstanding photographer and videographer who would be documenting my hunt for an episode of Bowhunter TV . Cordell had…

I VIVIDLY RECAll my first time laying eyes on the South Dakota riverbottom, nestled in the prairies, a decade ago. I’ve driven past it countless times on the way to other hunting destinations, but it wasn’t until recently that I finally noticed a public-land sign and a parking lot. My eyes widened, and I soon started virtual scouting via onX Hunt. The riverbottom’s snaking layout lined by colossal, weathered cottonwood trees and other generous cover had “whitetail hotbed” written all over it. My wife and I made a special trip to scout and shed hunt along it in the spring of 2020. During our shed hunt, we logged many boot miles while checking waypoints I’d previously dropped across the area on my onX app. Being that it was late-March and…

QUESTION As a nonresident, I want to hunt whitetails out west, but it just seems intimidating. Any advice you can share on how to make the experience worth the effort. Chuck Shaw, via e-mail ANSWER Western whitetails truly are the “forgotten deer,” and it’s nice to see traveling bowhunters willing to give them a try. Although most Western hunters tend to focus their attention on mule deer and elk, there’s no shortage of whitetails either — and there are plenty of places to find them. That said, anything you do with a stick and string out west takes planning, preparation, and even a little luck if you expect to strike gold. The first step is deciding where to go. With pockets of whitetails found in Colorado and Wyoming, as well…

EVERY WHITETAIL HUNTER dreams of being able to hunt and harvest a giant buck. As an Illinois resident, my whole life, aside from my stint in the Marines, I have watched the quality and size of the deer herd diminish rapidly during the mid to late-2000s. So, in 2012, when I had the opportunity to relocate, I headed to Iowa to chase my passion for living with and consistently hunting giant whitetails. In my opinion, Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) should be looked at by all DNRs as the guide for how to correctly manage a whitetail deer herd! Fast-forward to the spring of 2019. My son, Hunter, and I were combing side roads and looking at aerial photos for potential places to ask for permission to hunt. We came…

“The spirit of the woods is like an old good friends. It makes me feel warm and good inside.” Ted Nugent,Fred Bear I love September. As a bowhunter, it is a most wonderful time of the year There are so many critters to bowhunt, and so little time. An ambitious bowhunter can hunt pronghorns, elk, moose, caribou, mountain goats, bears sheep, mule deer, blacktail deer, and Coues deer all during the ninth month. But then something happens in the tenth month The sight of speeding pronghorns and the sound of bugling bulls are cached into our memory bank to be recalled in anticipation of a future autumn Now, in mid October, the daydreaming turns to an old friend the whitetail That first step into the whitetail woods, replete with the…

1 KUIU® CHUGACH TR™ RAINGEAR • Packable top and bottom • Increased abrasion resistance • Excellent stretch/breathability Demanding bowhunts require the “right stuff,” and that’s exactly what you’ll get with the Chugach TR Rain Jacket ($299) and Pants ($249). Don this stuff and you’ll be dry, mobile, and in the backcountry while others are hunkered down back at camp. The fabric is cut just right, resistant to abrasion, breathable, and scrunches down to a ridiculous small size for stuffing in your pack. Both are available in sizes S-3XL and in KUIU’s Valo™, Verde™, and Vias™ patterns, as well as Gunmetal. Contact: KUIU, kuiu.com. 2 BROWNING TRAIL CAMERAS® RIDGELINE™ • Innovative Dual Carrier Technology® • 20 MP images/1920x1080 FHD video • Adjustability on many levels Options and adjustability best describe Browning’s…

This story began in the summer of 2019. I was running multiple trail cameras like I do every year, when I came across pictures of a decent 3½-year-old buck. He was a nice buck, probably in the low 140s, and one I figured would be well worth chasing in a couple of years. I saw this buck several times that fall, and it was apparent he was a homebody on the farm I was hunting. For just 30 acres of timber, he stuck around a lot. The fall came and went, and we entered the 2020 shed season. I happened to pick up one of this buck’s antlers roughly 100 yards from where I had summer pics of him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t manage to find…

I had pictures of a heavy, tight-racked 6x6 whitetail with several extra character points In the summer of 2019, I’d located the buck and hunted him hard I had multiple close encounters that nearly ended with an arrow in his lungs, but it just wasn t meant to be. It was mentally ex hausting, but I was committed to doing the same thing in 2020 if that unique buck was still around. Luckily, I got the confirmation I needed when the buck walked in front of my trail camera, triggering my obsession full bore again. In 2019, the buck frequented a mineral site I’d established, yielding lots of photos. However, in 2020 he followed the script of “the year we all want to forget,” and he rarely visited the mineral…