Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i North American Whitetail

Modern whitetail hunters demand smarter scouting tools — devices that not only capture images but also deliver actionable data, reduce false triggers, and integrate seamlessly with mobile apps. Enter the Moultrie Edge 3 Pro, the latest flagship cellular trail camera from Moultrie, designed to give serious deer hunters an edge in the field. KEEPING THE EDGE NAME ALIVE The Edge 3 Pro builds on the solid foundation of the Edge series, now it’s third generation. Moultrie’s Edge 3 Pro cams push performance to new heights with a suite of advanced features tailored for smart scouting. At the heart of the camera is a blazing-fast 0.3-second trigger speed, ensuring you never miss a moment — even when that mature buck slips through a narrow funnel at dusk or runs by chasing…

During early 2023, Turner Tarr was looking forward to getting into the woods with his bow. He had been practicing shooting his compound bow during the summer and felt confident he could connect on a good buck if given the opportunity. His dad, Brock, an avid bowhunter, had spent years helping Turner get to this point and thought he was definitely ready to do some serious deer hunting. The area Turner hunts consists of small woodlots, with considerable acres of agricultural ground between, typically made up of corn and beans. The advantage to hunting this type of area is that the small drainages and woodlots result in some great bottlenecks that funnel deer from the bedding areas into the agricultural fields. The disadvantage is that it can make the approach…

Old whitetail bucks are different. They don’t operate like does, fawns and younger bucks. They know the game well, and most of the time, they play it far better than even the most experienced deer hunters. Fortunately, we can operate on a different plane, too. Long-game management practices that make deer feel safe inhabiting an area. Low-risk tactics that reduce pressure. High-risk strategic strikes that catch a buck with his defenses down. These comprise the three-category playbook that’s absolute kryptonite on big whitetails. Although brain-washing a buck might be extreme phrasing for the topic, without question, certain tactics can “trick” a buck into frequenting an area and feeling safer during daylight. Plus, some benefit from tactics that can catch a buck off guard that he’ll never expect or see coming.…

In the history of deer hunting, there’s never been a time like now where technology has been so advanced and the knowledge about whitetail hunting is so profound and accessible. Through television, YouTube, podcasts and endless reading material on the internet and in magazines, the learning curve for a deer hunter has become shorter than ever before. When I first started deer hunting back in the 90s, I would have to read thousands of pages of books and magazines just to gain some sense on certain topics and strategies that I wanted to improve and educate myself on. Nowadays, any question you need answers for can be found within seconds on Google. At times it has scared me to see such extraordinary advancements for hunters. What I used to fear…

For me, planning a hunting season can be complicated at times. Obviously, like many hunters, I’m looking for the highest odds at success on my hunts. Especially ones that are out of state or hours away. This is why I love to focus on draw and quota hunts. These are hunts that you need preference points to win, or just plain luck of the draw. They’re almost always limited to the number of tags allocated, and the area that you’re confined to during your hunt. By mid-summer 2024, I had applied for multiple hunts in Iowa, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. I was awarded a late season Iowa tag by late June, and by September, I had been awarded a gun tag for mid-November in one of the other states. Out…

The entire farm isn’t a honey-hole. Parts of it, however, certainly can be — and finally were. The 450-acre farm is a typical southeastern Minnesota ridge and valley farm. It contains a stream in the lowland bordered by swamp, wooded and brushy long and steep slopes, flat cropland and farmland on top. The slopes are riddled with deer cover and basically are too steep and long to hunt. You hunt the bottomland and edges of the swamp, or you hunt near the top or at the top closer to where the deer feed and tend to bed. Tony Hohensee of Lewiston, Minnesota, has hunted this farm 25 years, during bow and gun seasons, the last several with his son, Arron. He has taken several good bucks here both ways, more…

The sight of two bucks approaching me at eye level shocked my nerves and increased my heart rate. On the way into the creek bed, I had found a downed hackberry tree that got hung up against an adjacent sycamore, creating a perfect place to hide. I had crawled about 12 feet up into a large crotch in the hackberry and was not only safe, but comfortable. It was like a ground blind of natural material, but it was elevated and gave me wide-open shooting angles. I watched the pair of bucks for some time, enjoying the close encounter provided by my makeshift hide. When the largest of the two deer gave me a clean shot, I took it. The buck dropped on the spot at the report of my…

Since the beginning, most people have tried their best to dodge death. But a few have simply done what they could to disguise it. The earliest evidence of this comes from 4,000-year-old royal Egyptian tombs containing the embalmed remains of pets and other animals. While such “mounts” were primitive in comparison to modern trophy displays, those of us with whitetails on our walls can appreciate the idea. These were the first known examples of what we call taxidermy, a term combining the Greek words for art (taxis) and skin (derma). Taxidermy as we now think of it obviously involves preserving and reassembling some materials that were never intended to last forever. It really is an art. We might not think about that when looking at a shoulder mount on the…

When you think of Halloween and Trick-or-treat, you are usually thinking about all the candy your kids will get. Halloween 2024 proved that a different kind of trick sometimes works. Justin Frankford has been bowhunting for 22 years and is a dedicated deer hunter. He loves to shed hunt and deer hunt, and he loves spending time in the woods. Based on the bucks he has taken, he has been very successful. During the winter of 2023, a close friend and farmer in the area, Blake Leefers, got permission to access a new property. The 260-acre farm had not been deer hunted in 40 years. Justin and Blake obtained permission to hunt and fish the property in exchange for work and mowing the grass. They put out some trail cameras,…

How many hunters have shot an out-of-state buck, thrown it in the truck bed and drove back home? Odds are high many have done that. That said, it’s against virtually every state’s hunting laws to do so. Almost all state wildlife agencies and DNRs have strict policies for prepping your out-of-state deer for the road home. It’s important to read the hunting regulations for the state you plan to hunt, states you’ll drive through and your home state. Hunting regulations vary greatly, and we can’t cover the details of every destination here. That said, much of this process involves removing high-risk parts and following common sense practices. Here’s much of what you should know. Editor’s Note: Post-harvest policies and procedures vary greatly from state to state. Even zones or counties…

1 Hunting alongside his father, Will Deakins bagged this impressive Kentucky typical with a rifle. 2 This wide whitetail had been frequenting Cody Blalock’s hunting area in Oklahoma ahead of the 2024 season. Cody harvested the buck on the opening day of Oklahoma’s archery season. 3 Kaden Wren killed this unique, multi-drop-tine buck in Kansas with his bow. Kaden had several encounters with the deer before he finally tagged it. 4 While hunting in Virginia, Jason Whitlow scored on this staggering southern buck. Since the deer was so big and unique, Jason named the deer after, and dedicated his hunt to, his late father. 5 After his stepbrother shot a big buck on their small Ohio hunting property, Daniel Cremeans knew it was his turn to shoot a giant. Daniel…