Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 - DIY i North American Whitetail

In the fall of 2020, I’d been dogging a sizeable 10-pointer that sported a wide, sweeping rack. To show for my effort I had lackluster results. And that’s despite the fact I came into the season armed to the teeth with a ton of summer scouting encounters and a plethora of trail camera images of the buck. But when I finally put plans in place to hunt the buck, I ran into the same obstacle at every turn: no trees. No matter how hard I studied the terrain in a couple of spots I needed to be, there was nothing I could do to get a proper elevated tree stand hung without giving myself away to game around me. Out of desperation, I tried bowhunting the buck from the ground…

As I sat in 30-plus mph winds and sleet and rain, I honestly wanted to have a few minutes alone with the weatherman! He’d said it would push out around 1:00 that afternoon, and it was already 4:30. I hadn’t seen a deer all day, after sleeping in and waiting on the front to push through. Anyway, I sat through the storm, miserable and bundled up, praying for dark to come. Then I heard something different: a limb breaking, but not like I’d listened to for five hours from the wind breaking them. Within seconds, I saw him coming around the point on the bottom bench of the stand I call “Death Row.” And he was wasting no time, already 100 yards from me and closing fast. I grabbed my…

Many of today’s deer hunters have learned that one of the best ways to condition and create patterns for bucks in your hunting area is by creating mock scrapes. However, one of the main reasons hunters fail at making successful mock scrapes is they don’t give them enough time to get established. My best mock scrapes have been made months prior to the hunting season. I’m not just creating scrapes for inventory, but I’m trying to condition bucks to come to these locations in hunting season. BUILDING MOCK SCRAPES I’ve been in many arguments when it comes to building mock scrapes. The majority of the arguments have been related to using scents. I don’t disagree that scents work, but I believe they are not vital toward having success with mock…

1 Brea Henderson harvested this great whitetail near Twin Bridges, Montana. Brea made a 144-yard shot on the buck during the state’s Youth hunt. 2 Mandy Culian shot this buck her family called “Hard Ten” in Franklin Co., Missouri. This was Mandy’s first deer with a crossbow and her first time hunting by herself. 3 John Juozapaitis took this heavy-antlered buck in Saginaw Co., Michigan, with his .350 Legend at 10 o’clock in the morning. The deer green-scored 157 net typical. 4 Craig Anderson traveled to Illinois from Maine in Nov. 2021 and shot this big 10-point. Craig was using a Mathews Halon 32. 5 Robert Toker killed this nice 10-point whitetail in Ohio on Oct. 27, 2021. Robert was hunting with a TenPoint crossbow on his uncle’s farm.…

All serious deer hunters dream of having the opportunity at a giant whitetail, the kind that may only come once in a lifetime. Each year, millions of hunters wake up hours before dawn because they have hope — hope that “today will be the day” they get a chance at the deer legends are made of. On Oct. 15, 2021, one man among those millions of deer hunters got his wish. He’s my friend, and his name is Marc Somers, a Kansas native and resident. On that day Marc shot a world-class Kansas whitetail buck he’d nicknamed “Larri.” I was lucky enough to be with Marc when he tagged the incredible buck, and it’s now my honor to help recount the story of his hunt. FLASH FORWARD Marc is a…

I had an incredible year in 2021, from my dad and I taking trophy-class mule deer on a DIY public land hunt in Wyoming, to killing a buck of a lifetime near home. My dad, Luke (my brother) and I enjoy hunting public land all over the country. Land Between the Lakes National Recreation area is about 20 minutes from our hometown of Benton, Kentucky. So, we hunt it hard. My dad has been hunting, fishing and camping there for over 30 years, and my brother and I have joined him all our lives. Land Between the Lakes (LBL) is a 170,000-acre peninsula between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, with 110,000 of those acres being in Kentucky. Most of those acres are open hardwoods, with many hills, hollows and some…

You’ll see in this article I’ve included screenshots from OnX Maps showing the topographical maps of my stand sites to illustrate the five types of pinch points described. I’ve used OnX extensively for years, and I’ve come to rely on it as my primary scouting tool when analyzing potential deer travel routes and stand sites on the properties I hunt. OnX’s satellite imagery is incredible for getting a “bird’s eye view” of the landscape, and I use it frequently. However, when hunting heavily wooded timber country and steep mountainous terrain, no tool is better utilized than the app’s topo map. It’s critical to understand how to read and negotiate topo lines to find consistent success in these challenging whitetail habitats.…

DIY WHITETAIL HUNTING has surged in popularity in recent years, resulting in a surplus of gear being produced to accommodate the needs of serious run-and-gun whitetailers. In the following gear roundup, we’ve compiled the industry’s latest and greatest stands, saddles and hunting accessories for public and private land deer fanatics. Check it out! TREE STANDS MILLENNIUM The perfect climb-high setup to partner with any tree stand, Millennium’s M250 Hang-on Aluminum Climbing Sticks are lightweight, stackable and strap down easily to any pack system. The sticks will work on straight hardwoods and gnarled, crooked cottonwoods; all while the alternating anti-slip steps ensure excellent traction. The steps showcase a single tube build, which means no metal-to-metal contact, and no assembly is required. (millenniumstands.com) BEAST GEAR Dubbed by many as one of the…

To Cody Larrimore, not only do I want to say thank you for writing this story for North American Whitetail magazine, but also for being with me on this incredible hunt. In the past few years, you’ve elevated my hunting skills and brought out a passion for bowhunting that I never could’ve expected. There’s a reason “Larri” is the nickname I chose to give this buck. It’s short for your last name and signifies that none of this would’ve been possible without your help! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the impact you’ve had on my life, my friend. —Marc Somers…

Records in the whitetail world are not easy to topple. Each year there are a few contenders, but for one reason or another they commonly fall short. A broken tine, mass that tapers off or mismatched sides have all dashed some hunters’ hopes over the years. Such is the trophy hunting game. Truthfully, while many of us yearn to take the biggest of the big, it is not easy. There are few true giants to begin with, and whitetails reaching that status rarely walk out and surrender! You might hunt your whole life and never get an opportunity to take one. But we can dream, right? A million to one is still a chance! So, what is the probability that two Alabama hunters would set new state records in the…

So it appears the Hill Country remains a whitetail success story. In fact, it’s one of the best ever told. Of course, no story of a whitetail population is ever fully told; there’s always an uncertain future yet to be revealed. “I think those high deer populations in areas in and around Austin, San Antonio and the smaller cities will fade in time,” says former TPWD Deer Program Leader Horace Gore, who has spent decades observing whitetail trends across the state. “But it might be another 40 years.” It’s a cliche to suggest that only time will tell. But that’s undoubtedly the surest answer.…

We’ve all been there. It’s pushing 100 degrees in the summer; you’re soaked with sweat, eyes burning and you’re covered in cobwebs looking for velvet bucks. It seems like you only blink and the leaves are gone, and that unfilled tag in your pocket only gets heavier. Time is no longer on your side. In a normal year, I would have several game plans in my back pocket as a backup; but this season I had placed all my eggs in one basket. The Kentucky public land I went all-in on had no shortage of good habitat. Not to mention, several great bucks had evaded me the prior year. One of these bucks caught my eye a little more than the others. I easily recognized him from the year before,…