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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
6 Ways To More Deer Hunting Access
By Buckmasters
Mark Herr, left, and son Kyle Herr with a stud of a suburban buck.
Looking to get a leg up on the deer hunting competition this year? One way is to be the first to ask for permission on a promising private tract, and the off season is the time. But as many know, not just any approach will work.
Luckily, I’ve got a couple of budd... READ MORE
5 Ways To More Ground Blind Success
By Mark Melotik
While it’s true that treestands offer many advantages, portable ground blinds are dependably deadly when conditions are right. For many private landowners heavy-duty, hard-shell blinds are all the rage, but lightweight, ultra-portable fabric blinds offer extreme versatility.
The vast majority of my own deer hunting occurs from a tree, but I&... READ MORE
Now’s The Time To Sweeten Fall Stand Sites
By Mark Melotik
Got a day or two over the coming weeks to roam your favorite deer hunting area? Searching for sheds and marking last fall’s still-visible deer sign are winding down, but another wise project looms: Creating new and better treestand sites.
What follows are a few proven ways to increase the deadliness of your current (and future) setups.
... READ MORE
Tinker Season Treestand Prep
By Mark Melotik
What’s your favorite off-season whitetail project? For many it begins and ends with rigging and tuning bows, but an often-overlooked chore is treestand (and similar) gear prep.
Fact is, treestands, climbing sticks and other tree-hunting gear eventually wears out. And when we’re talking about a piece of gear that holds your body... READ MORE
Whitetails & Waterways
By Mark Melotik
Have you seen them? Of course you have. Each year avid deer hunters are inundated with new-gear innovations and improvements touted to lead you to your next big buck. Now, there’s no denying that some of the “latest and greatest” can help make you a more effective hunter this fall. But I also know that many deer hunters remain lat... READ MORE
Build A Digital ‘Trapline’ For Bucks
By Mark Melotik
Still on the fence about investing in a hunting app? Late winter into spring is one of the best times to lean on this technology, which can help lead the way to tagging your next mature buck this fall.
It all starts with a spring scouting mission or two. Whether you choose to walk your favorite public or private tracts — or tap into the app&... READ MORE
Tag Team For Turkeys
By Ken Piper
When I first started editing hunting articles, one of the first stories I had the pleasure of working on was about a father and son who teamed up to take a stubborn old gobbler on the last day of the West Virginia turkey season.
Both had hunted the bird independently over the course of the season, but work and school had kept them from hunting to... READ MORE
Sunshine Can Make You Cry
By Ken Piper
With turkey season just around the corner or already started in some states, deer hunters can look to their spring brethren for some tips. It's not a coincidence that most turkey guns today come already coated in camouflage. And turkey chasers who use blued shotguns almost always cover their guns with camo tape or the special gun socks ... READ MORE