Nothing is more depressing to a die-hard deer hunter than watching the sun set on the last day of deer season. Regardless of how good or bad of a season it was, you always wish for one more opportunity to sit in the stand. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and once you've accepted the reality of the season's close, it can be real easy to settle into "rest mode" and wait for turkey season. The truth is,...
A not-so concise look at the opportunities available to those who have decided to come out West for an elk, deer or antelope hunt and don't know where to start. This won't address bighorn sheep, mountain goats, or moose as those are typically once-in-a-lifetime hunts. This is also designed for DIY hunters, not for those looking for private land or outfitted hunts, as there are various other aspects regarding transferable tags that...
The advent of the digital trail camera has probably done more to change the way people scout than any other product. Nothing solves the mystery of what went down a trail better than an image of that exact animal and incorporating the trail camera technology into your scouting arsenal can greatly improve your success.
"Always hunt into the wind" - Sage words of wisdom, this is perhaps the single most important tip any neophyte hunter learns at the outset of their hunting career. Deer rely heavily on their sense of smell. So it stands to reason that if we're to avoid detection, we should use the wind in our favor. Combine this with the appropriate use of scents or scent-blockers, and you're off to the races!
Every hunter alive has probably read, heard or watched on television about the importance of personal scent control. It has been drilled into our heads to wash our clothes in unscented detergents and wash our bodies with soaps produced specifically with the big game hunter in mind. Unfortunately, there are still some hunters out there that know very little about the subject, and others that are still disbelievers as to how important it is to...
As a bowhunter, I spend most of my spring and summer dreaming about the return of fall. It may appear on the outside that I'm in a thoughtless daze, but inside my mind is filled with a longing for the solitude and joy that can only be found 20 feet up a tree. Then one day, it inevitably happens. I walk by the calendar and realize that deer season is quickly approaching. The adrenaline starts pumping, but I take a deep breath and try to take the...
I'm not much of a gambler and like to know my odds, including knowing my chances on a hunting trip. With that in mind my fingers tightened on my bowstring as a group of twenty caribou passed my brush blind late on last year's Alaskan hunt. They were mostly cows and calves, with one small bull hanging in the back of the pack.
We have all read articles and watched TV shows that have shown us how to do certain things to have a successful hunt. But how did the people that were handing out all that advice come to have such knowledge? All of us have been handed information in various forms on how to be successful whether it was from our elders, television, articles, books or other sources and the information that any of us have learned at some point or another, has come...
