Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i North American Whitetail

I didn’t think. That’s one thing I’m very good at. Having the latest and greatest short-action, short-barrel caliber in my scabbard made me ride a little higher in the saddle. I’d read the specs and was thrilled with the caliber’s sizzling speed. But, as I mentioned, I don’t always think. The ballistic data branded on the bullet’s box was from a 26-inch barrel. My saddle gun wore a 22-inch barrel. I failed to do a speed test, ring steel at long range or do any serious ballistic testing. The shot was 476 yards. Shots can be long out West, especially when chasing open-country whitetails. There was no chance to get closer. I missed that buck three times; the sight of his 160-plus-inch rack still haunts me. This was early in…

Scott John, a Physical Education teacher and high school basketball coach in Kansas, has spent the last three deer seasons pursuing a giant buck in his home state. The hunt for the buck started back in 2022; that year, the deer was carrying a 160-class rack. “Though I was getting quite a few trail cam photos of the buck, I never did manage to see him while hunting,” Scott explains. The 2023 season began much like the previous year. Scott was getting trail cam photos of the buck again. Studying them, Scott and his friends figured the buck had blossomed into a 180-class deer at that point. In early November, Scott took two days off from his teaching job to hunt the buck. Sitting all day on one of the…

Shed hunting is one of the fastest-growing activities in the outdoors. Hunters and non-hunters alike are getting in on the fun, and rightfully so. Of course, picking up a prized deer antler is fun, and generally, it holds sentimental (and sometimes monetary) value. They don’t call them “white gold” for no reason! Shed hunters often get impatient. It’s easy to cave to cabin fever and start searching for antlers too early. In short, shed hunting too soon is a problem. Similarly, shed hunting too late can be an issue, too. So, it begs the question: When is it okay to start shed hunting? Here’s what you should know. ANTLER CASTING INFLUENCES The very foundation of shed hunting is picking up antlers that deer cast. To better understand when to shed…

If there’s anything I’ve learned from years of keeping informal big buck harvest data, it is this: considering regional allowances, we are now killing more bucks with larger-than-average antlers than possibly at any other time in history. Today’s social media pages are filled with photos of trophy-quality bucks, proudly posted by hunters from nearly every region of North America that holds whitetail deer. This trend reflects quality management practices, better land management practices, and better-educated hunters. Finally, the above produced a growing and expanding deer herd. There may be fewer whitetails in some areas, but significantly more whitetails are currently distributed in more areas than ever. Take Canada as an example. Not long ago, whitetail deer were few and far between in the western provinces. However, for approximately the past…

You’ve obtained a new piece of property for deer hunting. Now what? Something that doesn’t get discussed a ton is the fact that it can be a bit intimidating to learn a new piece of hunting ground after obtaining it. For a ton of hunters, it can take two, three, even four years to learn it. But the question is, how do you still kill a mature buck while learning it? It can happen . . . Just ask my hunting partner Garrett Otteson! He was able to make it happen last fall on a new-to-him piece of dirt. Garrett and I are lucky to have a core group of guys that we hunt with, and that’s where I want to start. For us, we’re able to use teamwork as…

1 Linette Laswell bagged her first big buck on Nov. 17, 2024, in North Dakota. She stalked the buck for 600 yards before making the 60-yard shot with her .243 Win. 2 While hunting New York’s opening day of firearms season, Mike Stanco scored on this nice buck with his 7mm Rem. Mag. The buck was chasing a doe during the late afternoon. 3 This beautiful, all-white buck eluded Kirk Washington for three years. Finally, on New Year’s Eve 2024, Kirk arrowed the unique Kentucky whitetail. 4 Manni Schneider downed this incredible Alberta buck on Nov. 13, 2024. Manni missed this buck on an earlier hunt before returning and getting redemption. 5 During Maryland’s youth hunting day, Colton and Logan Lambert doubled-up on these Queen Anne County bucks. Logan shot…

Iowa bowhunter Matt Mogensen had been pursuing a large buck during the 2023 deer season. The property he hunts is nearly a mile-long stretch of land that parallels a river where the buck called home. “I ran trail cameras most of the summer and had gotten multiple daylight photos of the 160-class deer,” Matt explains. Though he was actively hunting the deer, Matt didn’t catch up to the buck during the 2023 season. However, Matt did end up going to another part of the state and tagging a nice buck there. With the 160 still on his mind, Matt wondered if the deer had made it through the 2023 season unscathed. A day after hunting season closed, he got the answer when he received a trail camera picture confirming the…

For years and years, deer hunters have been trying to learn as much as they can about buck bedding areas. Now, there’s definitive research to back the claims that some hunters have been touting. The research was conducted by Mississippi State University’s Luke Resop, Natasha Ellison, Bronson Strickland and Steve Demarais, along with Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks’ William McKinley. Resop, a graduate research assistant with the Mississippi State University Deer Lab in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture, helped lead the charge. As the research abstract noted, few topics have sparked more interest from whitetail professionals and deer hunters than buck bedding habits. It goes on to say that deer bedding habits might be the most discussed, yet most poorly understood, of all the many whitetail…

I wanted to be clean shaven, I really did, but my hand was shaking so bad that I decided I’d better quit before I cut myself and went back to working on my hair. No amount of gel could tame my cowlick, though, so I gave that up and slipped into my best starched shirt. My hands were still shaking like I’d just shot a Boone & Crockett buck, but I eventually got my shirt buttoned and tucked in. I took a deep breath and cinched my belt tight. I had never been so nervous in all my life, but I had good reason to be. I’d been dating the same girl for the last six months and recently decided that it was time I asked what might be the…