North American Whitetail December 2016 - January 2017

WEEK OF 11/28 G.O. Heath heads to Texas to pursue rutting whitetails, and Dr. James Kroll talks about the impact of EHD and bluetongue on today’s deer herds. Our “From The Stand” segment addresses effective rattling strategies. WEEK OF 12/5 It’s crunch time for Jeremy Moore as he goes down to the wire in pursuit of a Wisconsin whitetail. In our “Dr. Deer” segment, Dr. James Kroll discusses the influence of changing human demographics on our hunting heritage. Finally, Pat Hogan explores winning strategies for using deer scents. WEEK OF 12/12 Stan Potts carries his bow back to South Texas to square off against a giant buck. In addition, Dr. James Kroll gives his thoughts on the issue of public hunting land access. Haynes Shelton also explains his strategy for…

LOOKING FOR GREAT WHITETAIL FUNNELS? Here’s some solid advice. northamericanwhitetail.com/  pinch-points FIND, TARGET AND TAG MATURE WHITETAILS Here’s your guide for finding and shooting bigger bucks. northamericanwhitetail.com/  bigger-bucks NAW COMMUNITY Submit your best photos for a chance to be featured on our Facebook page. northamericanwhitetail.com/  photos HUNKER IN THE JUNK Some of the best ground blinds are a bit rotten or rusty. northamericanwhitetail.com/  hunt-junk NORTHAMERICANWHITETAIL.COM…

Back in 2006, for Season 3 of North American Whitetail TV we produced a different sort of show opener. It began with co-hosts Stan Potts and Greg Miller plugging an extension cord into a portable generator in a pasture. From there, the camera followed the electrified cord as it snaked through the woods. When the cord reached the base of a tree, it turned upward — ending at a TV in the lap of a bowhunter in his stand. Perched there was our good friend Brent Beimert, watching the show as he waited for his own big buck to step out. I doubt even the most ardent viewer ever went to such extremes to see an episode. But a lot of you have asked about being able to watch whenever…

It happened one fall day back in the 1980s, just as we were starting to make progress in getting folks to manage deer on private lands. Here in East Texas, among our “first adopters” of progressive management were the many timber companies that leased out their land for deer hunting. And so, as I was refueling my truck in Alto, Texas, I bumped into the regional forester of the second-largest company in Texas, along with his wife. Both were decked out in hunting gear. “You’re really going to be proud of us,” my friend said as they pulled up in their truck. “We both killed perfect cull bucks this morning!” I asked where the bucks were and was informed they’d been taken to a deer processor only a few blocks…

In 1941, the War Department built a 10,500-acre ammunition depot between Cayuga and Seneca lakes in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Trapped within the facility’s 24 miles of high perimeter fencing, a small herd of normal deer flourished. Then, in 1949, two white fawns were born to a brown doe. Col. Frank Kemble, the base commander, placed them under Army protection. Thus began what would become the world’s largest herd of white whitetails. With the high fence and the Army’s ban on deer hunting there, the recessive gene that caused the coat mutation was sufficiently protected to help it spread. These “ghost” deer weren’t albino, but rather leucistic: normal skin and eye color, but only white hair. Now about 25 percent of the deer inside the fence are solid white.…

Thirty years ago, when my dad was in the prime of his hunting “career,” I distinctly remember him loading the trunk of his car for the occasional weekend getaway to his hunting ground on the rural outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri. For him, those trips were likely as much a release from the day-to-day pressures of work and family life as they were serious whitetail pursuits. After all, a successful hunt in that era was simply one in which the hunter laid eyes on a buck. Fast-forward to today, and, for many of us, whitetail hunting has become a much more complex and encompassing endeavor. And that’s usually a welcome fact. We’ve turned our pursuit of bucks into a defining pillar of our lives, spending countless days afield managing habitat,…