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4 Bow Stands To Avoid
By Mark Melotik
The desire to hunt your best morning and evening stands as soon as the season opens is a temptation few can resist. Unfortunately, it’s typically a mistake. The truth is, the sooner you educate deer to the fact they’re being hunted, the tougher the hunting becomes later on when the rut kicks in and the odds swing back in our favor.
I... READ MORE
Speed Scouting with Hunting Apps
By Mark Melotik
Where will you be hunting come the early season? Some states have already kicked off their deer seasons, and many will follow in the coming weeks. Do you have a solid plan? If you own a hunting app subscription, your smartphone can help lead the way.
As many of you know quality habitat and food are two of a whitetail’s greatest needs, and ... READ MORE
Hunting and ATVs: Finding A Balance
By Mark Melotik
Can today’s modern ATVs and side-by-sides help you be a better deer hunter? Or at least be more efficient? Well, they can, but in most cases it comes down to following a set of fairly standard rules in the deer woods. Most of them are centered on one thing: Can your ATV of choice help you access your stand undetected?
When it comes to mode... READ MORE
Early Season: Stay In The Game
By Mark Melotik
Summer is winding down and bow seasons, in some cases, are just days away. Do you have a plan for the opener? If hunting early is your thing, sitting on fresh sign is the way to go, according to Andrae D’Acquisto, founder of Lone Wolf Custom Gear.
D’Acquisto, who has bow-bagged recordbook bucks in the dozens, has seen what he believe... READ MORE
Better Broadhead Tuning
By Mark Melotik
A big part of preparing the bow-and-arrow combination you’ve shot all summer for hunting season is tuning that rig to your broadhead of choice. Unfortunately, broadhead tuning continues to be one of the last things on most bowhunters’ minds, but it’s a critical step to better in-the-field accuracy. As opening days approach, now is... READ MORE
Rut Trail Cam Placement
By Mark Melotik
With summer in high gear, the whitetail rut might seem a long way off, but it’ll be here before you know it. Will you be ready? If you’ve followed our little mini-series of tips on trail camera placement, you know we’ve already covered early summer and late summer strategies. The goal of the next major camera movement on your sele... READ MORE
Nature’s Wind Detector
By Mark Melotik
Late summer is a great time to collect a supply of nature’s wind detector, a useful addition to any hunter’s gear, particularly bowhunters. And it all starts with a simple trip to an overgrown grassy field.
You’re looking for mature milkweed plants that produce distinct, horn-shaped seed pods in late summer. As you ... READ MORE
Covering Ground With Your Crossbow
By Mark Melotik
There are lots of variables when it comes to toting your crossbow afield while hunting, but safety should always be a priority. Let’s consider a couple scenarios that crossbows users encounter regularly.
If you’re on the way to your deer stand in the predawn, your crossbow should be uncocked and unloaded, and a smart addition is a slin... READ MORE
Pack An Emergency Bow Repair Kit
By Mark Melotik
The off season is a great time for bowhunters to assemble an emergency repair kit that can thwart some common in-the-field mishaps, and help ensure you’ll make the most of your hunting time this fall. Here are a few of the things I carry with me most every time I travel.
Spare Bow
After bowhunting for several decades, I’m still am... READ MORE
Make the Most of Mock Scrapes
By Mark Melotik
Most avid deer hunters know mock scrapes are one of the best ways to capture trail camera images of big, rutty bucks, with the height of this annual frenzy typically kicking into high gear beginning in the late pre-rut. Bucks are making and visiting scrapes regularly then, but I believe many hunters, especially bowhunters, fail to fully capitalize ... READ MORE
Prepping For Early Success
By Mark Melotik
Searing heatwaves in the depths of summer mean one thing to deer-hunting fanatics: We’re creeping ever closer to whitetail season. Better still, the first few days and weeks of the season offer a prime opportunity to ambush a good buck in one of the easiest places to hunt them — field edges.
As you might guess, there is much more to ... READ MORE
Late-Summer Camera Placement
By Mark Melotik
With summer upon us, most trail camera users likely have at least a few cameras in the woods gathering intel. That’s all well and good, but another important trail camera window is approaching quickly. We’ve previously covered early summer strategies, but according to Justin Lanclos of Spypoint, you would be smart to move some of your c... READ MORE
Extend Your Range
By Mark Melotik
I got one of my best bow bucks 10 years ago, and while some details of that hunt are now fuzzy, one of the lessons it taught never fades. The takeaway? Extending your effective shooting range can pay huge dividends, and now is the time to get it done.
The buck that got me thinking was a heavy, mainframe 10-pointer that I arrowed during the peak ... READ MORE
A Deer-Tracking Breakthrough
By Mark Melotik
Several years ago I arrowed a brute of an Illinois buck that continues to haunt me today. The haunting aspect stems from the fact that I never recovered that deer, but the experience went a long way toward forming my current thoughts on hiring professional trackers. In short, I’m a huge fan.
If things look bleak on your next trail, I recomme... READ MORE
The E-Bike Advantage
By Mark Melotik
Serious whitetailers are always looking for ways to make their hunting and scouting more efficient. One great answer? The e-bike advantage. Today’s electronic or e-bikes open up a new world of possibilities for serious deer hunters. Their many advantages include shaving hours or even days off your scouting efforts, and allowing you to access ... READ MORE
Early Summer Trail Camera Strategies
By Mark Melotik
Spring is fading fast, and whitetail hunters will soon start thinking about a summer staple — trail cameras. To make the most of your early efforts to capture bucks on camera, we tapped some wisdom from longtime deer hunter and trail camera guru Tom Rainey of Browning Trail Cameras.
Q. Lots of whitetail hunters will be getting their ... READ MORE
Build Your Own Stand Pack
By Mark Melotik
Most of my whitetail hunting takes place on public land, often where stands must be packed in and out the same day. And while I’ve jumped on the current saddle-hunting craze for its ultralight versatility, I still depend on compact hang-on stands quite a bit.
It’s a big reason why I developed a homemade, easily affordable treestand-t... READ MORE
Avoid These Food Plot Fails
By Mark Melotik
Most every avid deer hunter who owns or manages land has considered adding a deer-attracting food plot or two. The sad reality is many of these initial plantings fail. Worse, the loss of invested time and money is often compounded, because most well-meaning hobby farmers have no idea exactly how or why things went wrong.
To get more insight I sp... READ MORE
How To Get Aggressive for Big Bucks
By Mark Melotik
As a longtime whitetailer and writer/editor, I’ve had the pleasure of picking the brains of some of the nation’s most-successful deer hunters. One of them is Lone Wolf Custom Gear founder Andrae D’Acquisto. He’s often eager to share his extensive knowledge and consistently offers outside-the-box strategies that have helped m... READ MORE
Wisdom From a Big-Woods Master
By Mark Melotik
Hunting big-woods deer has been a passion of mine since I first began whitetailing some 40 years ago, and the excitement hasn’t waned. One who would agree is Brad Kuhnert, who has lived in far northern Wisconsin for the past 40 years and has bagged some very impressive bucks there.
Now in his 60s, Kuhnert has worked with Lone Wolf Custom G... READ MORE