Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 - Breaking News Bucks i North American Whitetail

NEW EPISODES EVERY TUESDAY AT 7:30 P.M. ET THE BIG BUCK PROFILE has long been a fan-favorite segment on North American Whitetail TV. For decades, the NAW TV team has presented some of the world’s most impressive whitetails to viewers, sharing the stories, scores and other interesting details about the deer. This special Breaking News Bucks issue of NAW is a great time to discuss the show’s Big Buck Profile segment, because of the buck on the cover of this magazine. That’s the Sam Aiuppa buck, the world’s new No. 3 typical of all time. You can read the full story on pg. 28, and you can watch the Aiuppa buck’s Big Buck Profile on the current season of NAW TV, which is airing now on Sportsman Channel. Editor in…

As Editor in Chief here at North American Whitetail, nearly every day I talk one-on-one with hunters across the country who’ve taken trophy bucks worthy of coverage in our magazine. During my conversations with those hunters, I’m constantly learning about the tactics, skills and gametime decisions which ultimately led to their success in the field. More often than not, gear is discussed in these talks. Afterall, hardcore whitetailers are methodical not just in their hunting tactics, but also in their equipment selection. As such, I’m kept aware of new trends in deer gear, having the luxury of hearing firsthand from real-world hunters what works. Following the cartridge’s introduction at the 2019 NSSF SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Winchester’s straight-walled .350 Legend quickly grabbed my attention as one such trend. And…

ON NOV. 11, 2023, INDIANA BOWHUNTER Garrett Konopa killed the buck of his lifetime. The rack on this whitetail buck is what a whitetail hunter’s dreams are made of, but this story is about more than just inches of antler and hunting strategy. This is the story of a special day, friendships, family and a little luck. Garrett is a U.S. Army reservist and full-time sheriff’s deputy. He was home for the weekend from basic training at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy when he took this amazing buck. The recently married 22-year-old has a love for the outdoors that was instilled at a young age. Beginning at a very early age, Garrett shared hunts with his parents, Mark and Nicole, his grandfather Tony, and several family friends. It was a…

IT HAD BEEN FOUR LONG YEARS since Jessica Burks first spotted a buck with a very unusual frame while hunting in Amherst County, Virginia. During the first encounter, the deer passed behind her blind quickly, offering no shot opportunity. However, Jessica knew what she had seen and determined that she would get him sooner or later. As it turned out, the hunt took a lot longer than expected. Jessica says she hunts whitetails to keep herself grounded. “I calm down when I am out there,” she says. “It is something I really need in life!” When able, she frequently takes kids with her, introducing them to the outdoors. The property she hunts is only a mile away from a huge block of national forest, where she figured the buck lived.…

I’ve been reading North American Whitetail since I was a kid. I remember copies of it, Bowhunter and Petersen’s Bowhunting being omnipresent on the console of my dad’s pickup truck and on his coffee table. I still pinch myself every now and then, just to make sure it’s not a fantasy, when I realize how blessed I am to now sit at the lead editor’s desk and to assist my AMAZING team of coworkers in getting each of our eight annual issues to press! I try to be an optimistic guy and to keep as positive an attitude in life as I can. I guess that comes in handy for me, considering I’m a millennial working in the print industry — a media many naysayers claim is dead. I’ll refrain…

DURING THE LATE SUMMER OF 2021, Ben Harvey first became aware of a shooter buck on his trail camera while he was moose hunting. Soon after bow season began, the buck quickly earned the name “Lucky,” by avoiding a couple of arrows from Ben’s bowhunting buddies. Following these encounters, the buck seemed to go strictly nocturnal. The next year, Ben continued to get daylight trail cam pictures of the buck. Excitement increased as the photos revealed that the buck had shot up from a solid 160-class deer to a heavy, 190-class 5-year-old! With the buck showing up consistently in front of Ben’s setup, he knew right where he needed to be hunting. However, Ben’s high anticipation was quickly shot down when new trail camera photos revealed that the buck’s right…

GUNNAR HERBERT IS A DEDICATED whitetail hunter from New York. He tagged a huge typical 8-pointer that has more shock factor than most mature whitetails taken in the Empire state. He aged the whitetail at 5 1/2 years old, and it was certainly in its prime. “After the 2022 season concluded, I conversed with a buddy of mine who showed me a video of a massive 8-point working a scrape,” Gunnar says. “I would later learn that he also had dedicated his season to this whitetail, sitting over 20 times with zero encounters. Additionally, he had found his matching set of shed antlers from 2022, 2021 and a left side from 2020. We had his rack as a 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old buck, and were excited about what he could…

MATT WINTERS HAS WHITETAIL HUNTING IS HIS BLOOD. Since growing up in central Kansas, he’s always had an infatuation with hunting whitetails — a love which ultimately led him to pursue his career as the co-owner off Kansas Premier Outfitters. In the fall of 2022, Matt’s brother Adam had seen a giant buck on three separate occasions, all of which happened when he was leaving his hunting area at dark. On every occasion Adam saw the deer, Matt simply didn’t believe his younger sibling’s description of how big the deer was. After the 2022-23 Kansas deer season closed for the year on Jan. 3, Matt drove down to one of their leased properties to pull a camera. It was around 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, so Matt didn’t really expect…

TRAVIS CARINGER WAS SURPRISED for two reasons when a giant non-typical showed up on his trail camera this summer. The first reason was that he was in an area not known for big bucks. A 140-class buck in this area is considered a great one. Second, he had no history with this deer. The buck seemingly appeared from nowhere, and it began hanging out on Travis’ 700-acre central Missouri farm. This part of the state is largely Ozark timber. There is limited cropland, so the deer mostly feed on acorns, fescue and clover — unlike in the ag-heavy northern part of the state. Travis knew this was a very special buck that he wanted to focus his attention on. After studying trail camera pictures, he figured the buck would score…

MY DAD LAUGHED AS I WALKED INTO my parents’ warm kitchen an hour after dark on the first evening of December. He said, “What kind of hunter has gel in his hair and a collared shirt under his wool jacket?” He was just kidding; he knows I sit in my tree stand before and after work during the rut, and there is no time to look the part when you try to spend every free minute you can chasing whitetails. My mom and dad knew I was there to show them the deer that I had just shot. What they didn’t know is that their son had just shot a monster non-typical whitetail. In November 2022, my wife was pregnant with our first son, and she decided to take a…

My favorite thing about deer hunting is the traditions. Growing up and learning to hunt in Pennsylvania, I feel like I had an advantage over hunters in other parts of the country to experience hunting traditions. One of the first Pennsylvania hunting traditions I remember is spending the weekend prior to the opening Monday of rifle season at the Pecks’ cabin. The Pecks are two brothers who are lifelong friends of my grandfather, and my dad, grandfather and uncle would take me, my brothers and cousins to their cabin to feast on prime rib and hang out with local hunters. Once rifle season opened, my grandmother made it a tradition to have a fresh pot of ham and bean soup waiting for us hunters when we came in for the…