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BuckMag Features
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Making It Count
By Kristopher Havelka
Missouri teenager makes the most of his last season as a youth hunter. I’ve been hunting with my dad since I was 8 years old and fishing for as long as I can remember. I have been fortunate enough to take a doe and a nice 6-pointer during previous youth hunts, and I harvested my first turkey a few years ago during the youth turkey hunt. The ... READ MORE
If Mama Ain’t Happy
By Bob Humphrey
Bucks get all our attention, but the life and habits of does are just as interesting. The afternoon’s first hours passed slowly and uneventfully, as they so often do. I could almost feel the temperature drop when the sun disappeared behind the treetops. That’s when I heard the first distant footfalls pattering on the crusty snow. Scanni... READ MORE
New Year’s Eve Bonanza
By Paul Olsen
Talk about waiting until the last minute to make a deer season! December 31, 2006, dawned clear and cold in south-central Iowa — the stuff of a whitetail hunter’s dreams. A winter storm was forecast. We had planned to hunt the late muzzleloader season in Madison County (as in “The Bridges of …”) for some time. The wea... READ MORE
Burnin’ Down the House
By David Hart
Fire can be scary and dangerous, but controlled burns really help deer habitat. The very notion of dropping a lit match onto a dry forest floor is as frightening to some as looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. The fires that swept through Yellowstone National Park in 1988 and the wildfires that have caused so much destruction in southern Califo... READ MORE
Dorothy Was Right
By Mike Handley
Kansas really is the Land of Oz when it comes to deer hunting. By the time I reached the pick-up point well past sundown, headlights were igniting the tall grass at the edge of “Buckzilla Woods,” so named for a 200-plus-inch whitetail a friend videotaped there the year before I fell in love with Jefferson County, Kan. As soon as I... READ MORE
He Could Do No Wrong
By Ken Piper
Sometimes taking a deer seems like it was just meant to be. Some hunters get a reputation for their passion for the sport and respect for the wildlife they hunt, and that was the case for Colchester, Ill., buddies Daryl Sidwell and Kerry Foxall. The two have been hunting together for years, sharing views about the right way to do things, but neithe... READ MORE
Don’t Lose That Buck
By Jeff Murray
Whether or not you recover a deer often depends on what you do right after the shot. There’s an old lover’s proverb that says you can’t lose something that you never had. No question, tracking wounded whitetails is an ordeal every hunter worth his salt lick must confront. While there are no shortcuts to a quick recovery, there are... READ MORE
Never Say Never
By Ray G. Snyder
How even a 65th year of hunting can be the best you’ve ever had. I’ve been a hunter for more than 65 years, and 2007 was the best season I’ve ever had! The adventure started two years ago when I was visiting my family at their home near Ashland, Va. I saw a big buck and decided that I had to return. The following year, as promised... READ MORE
One in a Million
By C.J. Winand
What causes the various mutations like albinism in whitetail coats? Just about every hunting season, I get a call from a hunter who has harvested an all-white (albino) or partially white (piebald) deer. And every year I hear many of the same questions: “What causes this condition?” “Are such deer legal to harvest?” “Ho... READ MORE
Confessions of a Trail Camera Hater
By Jeff Murray
New technology isn’t always good, but trail cameras are one tool that’s here to stay. When Holless Allen’s compound bow first appeared in 1967, I was bowhunting with a Bear recurve and loving it. When Bill Scott’s caliper release hit the market about 25 years ago, I was shooting my compound bow with fingers and having a huge... READ MORE
Rather Be Lucky
By Robert Young
Just about every big buck story has at least a little element of luck involved. It wasn’t all dumb luck as some of my buddies have teased, but I guess I had at least a little bit of luck that November evening in Indiana. I’ve been hunting whitetails and other big game for 25 years and was making homemade treestands and dragging deer out... READ MORE
Anatomy of a Scrape
By Bob Humphrey
A bare patch of ground can be a valuable piece of deer hunting real estate. Sneaking through the dense conifers of Anticosti Island, I caught flash of brown and a glimpse of movement off to my left. Deer! My guide had dropped me off hours earlier with a map of what would be my exclusive territory for the day. Besides me, the only living thing there... READ MORE
Needle in a Haystack
By Steve Bartylla
Sometimes finding a wounded buck can seem almost impossible. In at instant, I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. I’d watched the huge 10-pointer for about 10 minutes while the doe he followed stood in my shooting lane. As the monster buck put on an impressive display of sapling trashing and dirt-clod kicking, I knew the odd... READ MORE
Destined To Be a Legend
By Keith Snider
If Ben Knisley had a doe tag, this story might never have happened. If Ben Knisley had drawn a doe tag in 2006, the winner of Buckmasters’ Golden Laurel Citation would not have hailed from Minnesota. But the 23-year-old from Paynesville couldn’t shoot any of the does that came his way on the afternoon of Nov. 4. He was forced to w... READ MORE
For Better or Worse
By Braden Arp
Whitetail hunters should know better than to schedule a wedding during deer season. With this ring,” “‘til death do us part,” “through sickness and in health” are things we remember saying when joining in solemn assembly with the one we vow to spend the rest of our lives with. There is one line that most of us fo... READ MORE
Anatomy of a Buck Rub
By Bob Humphrey
Not all rubs will produce bucks, but they all tell a story about the deer who make them. Over the last 25 years, I’ve been fortunate to find a handful of deer hunting gems — special places with just the right ingredients to make them consistently productive. I discovered one while scouting one day after the season had already begun. A 2... READ MORE
Why QDM Isn’t Working for You
By David Hart
There are plenty of reasons QDM works ... and just as many as to why it can fail. A basket-racked 8-pointer steps into an opening 50 yards from your stand. It’s late in the season and you haven’t tagged a buck. For a fleeting moment, you consider raising your rifle and centering the crosshairs behind the shoulder, but that’s not w... READ MORE
White Smoke and Winter Whitetails
By Chuck Smick
You can still fill your tag with a late-season blackpowder hunt. I was up a ladder stand at the end of an oak-studded finger on opening day of Kentucky’s December blackpowder season. The doe walked cautiously along the bottom of the steep ridge, but I saw her 30 yards from my stand and I clicked off the inline muzzleloader’s safety. At ... READ MORE
Rubbin’ Up the Wrong Tree
By C.J. Winand
Not all rubs are created equal. Here’s how to determine which you should pay attention to. Are rubs the key to hunting the rut? Are there different types of rubs? What behaviors do bucks exhibit at rub sites? Do bucks prefer certain types of trees for making rubs? Most hunters have more questions than answers when it comes to buck rubs. Years... READ MORE
Lessons Learnt
By Steve Bartylla
Following are a few pearls of wisdom from a professional deer manager and hunter. Just that quick, things had gone from bad to perfect. The buck, sporting well over 150 inches of antler that had veered off just before hitting my shooting lane, was now being led back on a string. It was poetic justice in a way, since the doe that led him astray in t... READ MORE