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During September all of the deer are bulking up for the rut and winter; feeding on alfalfa, clover, green forbes, ripening soybeans and corn in some areas, and mast (acorns, beechnuts). You can put out mineral licks and deer attractants in areas where you want deer to come during the hunting season. Early in the month the bucks should be shedding velvet, and creating rubs and scrapes near late summer nighttime food sources. They may be still traveling together, and may begin sparring at this time. Later in the month both the bucks and does may move to fall home ranges.

Continue reading "September Whitetail Management" »

Posted by T.R. Michels at 08:00 AM | Permalink

During August the bucks may be traveling to food sources together, and getting ready to shed velvet. It's time to begin clearing deer trails, shooting lanes and stand sites for the hunting season. It's also time to start your archery practice.

Continue reading "August Whitetail Deer Management..." »

Posted by T.R. Michels at 08:33 AM | Permalink

By July most of the does should be done fawning. The fawns should be growing and following their mothers some of the time. The bucks are growing racks, and all the deer should be feeding on preferred foods.

Continue reading "July Whitetail Management" »

Posted by T.R. Michels at 08:00 AM | Permalink

It’s getting to be that time of year again. The season ended just a few months ago, but for diehard whitetail hunters such as me, the offseason is a short one. It’s time to get the trail cameras back in the woods and take care of spring food plots.

Continue reading "Whitetail Season Begins" »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 08:00 AM | Permalink

I can hardly believe the season is over in less than a week. It seems like just yesterday I was preparing to hunt in my favorite early season spots and complaining about hunting in 60 degree weather. Well the season has certainly flown by, but not after being very eventful. Spending countless hours in the woods has taught me some valuable lessons this season that will stay with me for years to come. As gun season came and went, I was feeling discouraged about not taking a deer, and after Christmas I decided it was time to get even more intense.

Continue reading "Late Season Whitetail Lessons..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 01:00 PM | Permalink

Now that gun season has kicked in I’m starting to switch to some other types of hunting. I only gun hunt a few days a year, so I try to find some other ways to pass the time until bow season starts back up. Two years ago a good friend of mine introduced me to predator hunting and ever since my first time out, I’ve been hooked. Nighttime predator hunting is a thrill that is completely different than any other hunting I’ve experienced.

Continue reading "First Night Out – Fox Hunting" »

Posted by E. Jones at 01:00 PM | Permalink

Over the last few years of duck hunting my philosophy has drastically changed. When I first got serious about duck hunting I was all about hunting in big open water. Several hunting buddies and I would meet at the local waffle house at 3:30am and drive almost 45 minutes to a local river where we would take a 30 minute "body beating" boat ride to our blind (which was not what most would call a "hot spot" for ducks). All of this seemed like a lot of work for the small amount of birds we saw each morning.

Continue reading "Change in Waterfowling Approach..." »

Posted by M. Norfleet at 10:00 PM | Permalink

This past Friday was the opening day of the shotgun season in Illinois. I’m not real big on gun hunting, but I do like to go out and shoot some does. I would much rather take a buck with my bow. If a monster whitetail presented itself, I probably couldn’t resist taking him, but it would have to be a true giant.

Continue reading "Shotgun Hunting Season" »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 07:00 AM | Permalink

Friday marked the end of the bear hunting season in Virginia. This was my first hunting season that I focused more on killing my first bear, than chasing big whitetails. After a good buddy killed a 382 pound bear on our property last year I decided I was going to attempt that feat this year.

Continue reading "Bear Hunting Season..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 10:00 AM | Permalink

I always look forward to the first good snowfall of the deer season. Snow on the ground not only makes the deer easy to see against the white background it also makes for easy tracking. The story of where the deer moved and what they did is very evident in new snow. So when we got 6 inches of snow on November 26 I was out in the woods, not hunting, just looking, yet anxious to find and follow the trail of one of the bucks in the area.

Continue reading "First Snow..." »

Posted by T.R. Michels at 07:00 AM | Permalink

This was going to be an evening in the whitetail woods to remember. My computerized scouting almost seemed to pay off already as I slipped down into the new found funnel that was littered with rubs, and a few scrapes. I tried not to get too close to the dirt trail as a walked through and the excitement of the evening to come was almost too much to take.

Continue reading "A Night in the Whitetail Woods…" »

Posted by S. Johnson at 11:00 PM | Permalink

As I entered my treestand on Saturday morning, there was a cold light mist falling. I was hunting the downwind edge of a known whitetail bedding area. A cold front had moved through the night before and temperatures were nearly 35 degrees cooler than just 12 hours ago. I settled into my treestand nearly an hour before legal shooting light and about a half hour after getting set up, I heard movement to the southwest on the edge of the food plots.

Continue reading "So Close to Monster Whitetail..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 10:00 PM | Permalink

On the evening of November 5, I went out to a stand location I have been hunting actively all year. It is located near a food source. Well there is a whitetail buck that I estimate to be about a 145-150 class brute. I have been looking for this buck all season long. I have had pictures of him on my trail cameras from the first week I put them out in August until I took them out 2 weeks ago.

Continue reading "Minutes Too Late on an Awesome Whitetail..." »

Posted by T. Briggs at 09:00 PM | Permalink

This is supposed to be the time of year when the whitetail woods are full of booners chasing does and deer all over the woods and hunting is at it's peak. Such was not the case this weekend where I was hunting.

Continue reading "Bad Weekend in the Whitetail Woods..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 10:00 AM | Permalink

Friday afternoon was definitely a hunting trip to remember. Conditions were horrible for being outside, but great for deer hunting. There was a gusty northwest wind and it was raining as I entered my ladder stand.

Continue reading "Brute Whitetail Encounter..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 07:00 AM | Permalink

As the sun comes up on yet another October 30th, I can’t help but remember my hunting trip on this day, 2 years ago, when I was able to arrow my biggest buck to date. The Pre-Rut is in full swing and the 35 degree temps have the whitetails moving everywhere. As daylight starts to break and I can just begin to see the pins on my sight, I hear that familiar sound of the squirrels hitting the leaves for the first time this morning.

Continue reading "November Whitetail Rut..." »

Posted by S. Johnson at 02:00 PM | Permalink

It seems that for the last few years I am always finding myself looking for some more sun block during the duck hunting season. I can’t keep enough of that SPF-100 around. Last fall I sat on top of my pit over looking my decoys like a weathered lifeguard, it was miserable. Obviously not killing birds wasn’t enough torture, so I let a large group of mosquitoes drop into the deks and consume my face.

Continue reading "Opening Day Ducks..." »

Posted by T. Fanning at 11:00 AM | Permalink

The long awaited time of year is fast approaching, and as much as hunters are trying to guess which days spent hunting will be best, the bucks are starting to make their rounds, guessing which doe will be the first to come into estrus. Yes the Pre-Rut is upon us, and that magic few days of hunting the whitetail rut will be here before we know it.

Continue reading "Pre-Rut Is Here...." »

Posted by S. Johnson at 09:00 PM | Permalink

I’ve been hunting hard the last 3 weeks, spending at least 4 days a week in a tree watching and observing the whtietail activity on our farm. This year we are faced with a very atypical situation, unseasonably cool weather, and this has got the deer fired up.

Continue reading "Fun in the Whitetail Woods..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 03:00 PM | Permalink

Saturday morning I made my first hunting trip to the main property I have access to. The corn was still standing, but I was made the decision I was hunting it anyways. I chose a stand that was 100 yards downwind of a bedding area.

Continue reading "Whitetail Woods Starting to Heat Up..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 11:00 AM | Permalink

What is going to become more apparent to you as you read more of what I write this hunting season will be the enormous black cloud that hovers just above my head. I’m not talking good ducky day black cloud. No, oh no. I’m talking jet black-everything that can go wrong today will- kind of cumulus.

Continue reading "Black Cloud over my Hunting Season" »

Posted by T. Fanning at 08:00 PM | Permalink

Saturday was a cool blustery afternoon. I was hunting the farm where I videoed the two big bucks the week before. This time I was set up in the area we saw them come out. I was in a nice staging area full of rubs and a few scrapes.

Continue reading "Another Shooter Buck..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 12:00 PM | Permalink

Friday afternoon I left the house early to move some cameras around and freshen my mock scrapes. I had several different stands to hunt according to the wind direction that day. Depending on if the farmer had the corn out on one farm was the determining factor as to which stand I would be hunting.

Continue reading "First Turkey of the Season" »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 07:00 PM | Permalink

The hunting day started off like any other, with a lot of excitement and optimism of the day ahead. This morning was a special Duck Hunting trip to Maryland’s Eastern shore that began about 3 O’clock in the morning. It was a two-hour drive to our spot and we were meeting a couple other people at 5am. My partner showed up right on time, and we pulled out of the driveway at exactly 3am.

Continue reading "Bad Opening Morning to My Duck Hunting Season..." »

Posted by S. Johnson at 05:00 PM | Permalink

Well I had been waiting for this past weekend for a long time. I heard earlier in the week that the temperatures where suppose to get down into the lower 40’s which should make for some great hunting, but when the weekend got here it was actually a low of 45 and a storm front was approaching. I was so pumped to get in the woods, when Saturday morning rolled around I was in the stand 30 minutes before daybreak.

Continue reading "First Whitetail of the Season..." »

Posted by T. Briggs at 08:00 AM | Permalink

It’s the third week of hunting season here in Georgia and I haven’t seen much activity thus far. I have only seen 11 deer and been out nearly 20 times. It’s frustrating for me this time of year. The deer just don’t seem to move down here early in the hunting season.

Continue reading "Early Season Motivation..." »

Posted by T. Briggs at 09:00 AM | Permalink

My weekend started Friday afternoon about 4. I was late getting to the farm, but luckily I didn’t have far to walk to where I was going to be hunting. I had never hunted this property before. Its a 3 acre piece of a 300 acre tract of timber that my fiancés father owns.

Continue reading "Full Moons are "No Good" for Whitetails...??" »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Worry and happiness comes over me as I stumbled onto hunting permission for 300 acres just down the road. Happiness because now I have a totally new piece of property to spend time hunting on, which will allow me to put less pressure on the other properties. Worry because it’s October 1st. and I have not set foot on this property yet.

Continue reading "Computerized Scouting works on Whitetails…" »

Posted by S. Johnson at 01:00 PM | Permalink

I sprung out of bed faster than I ever have this morning. No more than my alarm sounded, I was in the shower getting prepared for the season’s first hunting trip. I had all my equipment in my truck the night before so all I had to do was take the twenty minute drive to the cut corn field edge I had planned on hunting.

Continue reading "It's Good to be Back in the Whitetail Deer Woods..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 10:00 PM | Permalink

October 1st of the 2006 Hunting season found temps in the high 70’s in MD, not the type of weather we think of when the whitetail rut comes to mind. However the whitetail bucks in the area are already gearing up for what is sure to be an awesome time to be a Bowhunter.

Continue reading "First Mock Scrape of 2006..." »

Posted by S. Johnson at 10:00 PM | Permalink

It was opening day of the turkey season in Louisiana. I had a good night’s rest and slept in late. I woke up, sat in the living room, and talked to my mom about turkey hunting. She suggested going given that we have an abundant flock nearby.

Continue reading "Turkey Season Revisited..." »

Posted by Z. Hall at 09:00 PM | Permalink

Many hunters have debated over the use of fawn bleats as a way of calling deer. Some argue that it spooks the deer and ruins future hunts, while others make the point that it works remarkably well. Fawn bleats are used with the intention of calling does directly to the hunter.

Continue reading "Fawn Bleat in the Early Season..." »

Posted by J. Ansley at 08:00 PM | Permalink

This past month has proved harder to hunt than I could have ever expected. Let alone to keep a journal about it. Every week I would run home, try to work on my blind, hunt, then fix whatever I broke trying to hunt out of the blind I am still building- only to rush back up to school.

Continue reading "Working Hard and Rushing for Hunting Season..." »

Posted by T. Fanning at 07:00 PM | Permalink

Well everybody, we are almost at the two week point here in Maryland, and what a great two weeks we’ve had. The weather has been perfect for early season hunting, the strong arctic cold front made it feel like mid-October last week, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. I have been able to make it out in the woods six days so far and have been seeing plenty of deer.

Continue reading "Good Start to the Deer Season..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 02:00 PM | Permalink

Well everybody, we are almost at the two week point here in Maryland, and what a great two weeks we’ve had. The weather has been perfect for early season hunting, the strong arctic cold front made it feel like mid-October last week, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. I have been able to make it out in the woods six days so far and have been seeing plenty of deer.

Continue reading "Good Start to the Deer Season..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 02:00 PM | Permalink

I had gotten permission to hunt some property in NE Texas just a few days ago, 684 acres to be exact. 60 percent is in pasture, mixture between hay fields and corn. The other 40 percent is wooded. The owner told me he had a lot of hogs tearing up his pasture and asked me to go wreck havoc on them. So, I called a buddy of mine, Case,y who loves to hunt the piggies almost as much as I do to set up a hunt.

Continue reading "Texas Pig Hunt..." »

Posted by C. Jeans at 05:00 PM | Permalink

Anticipation is at an all-time high on opening morning. As I gather my gear and load it into the truck, thoughts of the big bucks caught by the trail cameras all summer long run through my mind. The adrenaline already running through me is the feeling that drives most hunters out of bed at 4 o’clock in the morning. As I arrive at the property I will be hunting, the excitement and possibilities of the hunt are almost too much to handle.

Continue reading "Decisions for Opening Morning of Bowhunting…" »

Posted by S. Johnson at 01:00 PM | Permalink

After watching, waiting, and scouting all summer long, the season is finally upon us. Tomorrow is opening day, do you know where you going to be watching the sun come up? I know where I’ll be. There is a sweet little spot where a thick bedding area opens up to large oak flat. The beauty of this spot is the fact that it is on the tip of a peninsula, surrounded by marsh and thick cover. The deer ease in out of the bedding areas and feed most of the morning on the sweet acorns from the numerous white and black oaks.

Continue reading "The Oaks Have It, The Whitetails Love It..." »

Posted by E. Jones at 09:00 AM | Permalink

The anticipation of the approaching archery season is better than the night before Christmas. I’ve been scouting since April, my stands are hung (hopefully in the right places) and my food plots are planted. My cameras have been getting pictures of countless numbers of deer, some of which would look great on my wall. The long hard hours through the summer heat are behind me, now it’s time for freezing, lightless mornings. As I prepare for another season, I can’t help but recall past hunts and the excitement that fills me when I see antlers moving through the brush.

Continue reading "Here we Go, Bowhunting Season is here..." »

Posted by B. Hagemeier at 10:00 AM | Permalink

It’s 100 degrees outside with flashes on the TV warn the general public about the humidity. One would think all these factors would be enough to detour any rational person from heading out on a hiking adventure with 50 pounds of corn and a 20 pound pack on his back filled with the latest scouting camera technology. For the truly addicted whitetail hunter there is no detouring the upcoming season and things must get done whether it’s 100 degrees outside or not.

Continue reading "Scouting for Whitetails" »

Posted by S. Johnson at 09:00 AM | Permalink