Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i Petersen's Hunting

IF YOU hunt long enough, chances are good you’ll screw up and break a law. I’m not referring to blatant violations made by lawless individuals, but mistakes made by honest hunters who are genuinely ignorant about the rules or are simply being careless. Often, hunters find themselves in a situation where it’s confusing to follow the regulations. For example, say you’re waterfowl hunting and are aware of the legal hunting hours. You set out your decoys, get comfortable in the blind, and wait. You leave your cellphone in the truck because you didn’t want any distractions. Bad move. When a small flock of mallards swoop into your dekes you assume it’s legal light and shoot at the ducks. You have no phone or wristwatch to see the actual time. Minutes…

I think it’s a bit ridiculous that all four hunting magazines I subscribe to have bull elk glamour photos on their fall covers. Yes, the bull elk is a magnificent animal, but as a run of the mill Midwestern bow and rifle hunter, it’s unlikely I will ever have the opportunity to draw a tag, let alone afford to hire a guide to hunt elk in the Rockies or elsewhere. Like many hunters, I do occasionally enjoy reading about elk hunting, but four magazines chock full of elk stories and tips is a bit too much for me. For hundreds of thousands of American hunters, fall is the time to hunt small and upland game as well: squirrels, grouse, woodcock, pheasants, and, of course, waterfowl. RICK PICKREN Via email Thank…

NOVEMBER 10 will mark four years since two accomplished deer conservation groups were forged into one and given a new name, the National Deer Association. With the strengths and programs of both under one name, the group went to work under CEO Nick Pinizzotto to make a measurable impact for deer and hunting. Last year was the team’s most effective ever in the combined 41 years of conservation work. In 2023: • 723 new adult deer hunters took to the woods with their mentors through NDA’s Field to Fork program. More than 80% of all participants since 2016 remain active deer hunters. • 90,000+ new deer hunters completed NDA’s online Deer Hunting 101 course, intended to help and guide new hunter-safety course graduates as they take the next steps into…

Winchester’s Deer Season XP ammunition was specifically designed and engineered to deliver authoritative terminal performance in the deer woods. At the heart of this line is the Extreme Point bullet, featuring a large impact diameter tip that initiates devastating trauma and large wound channels. Behind the tip, the tapered jacket encases a lead core to ensure ample penetration. Available in all of your favorite deer cartridges. Prices vary; winchester.com Bushnell’s R-5 Series Optics Line, consisting of high-quality binoculars, rifle-scopes and rangefinders, was designed specifically to perform in the whitetail woods. All products in this line feature Bushnell’s proprietary EXO Barrier glass coatings, combating the elements and protecting your glass from unwanted water, fog, smudges and debris. The R-Series also comes with Bushnell’s new unconditional lifetime warranty. Prices vary; bushnell.com Mystery…

It was a warm and windy Sunday evening in late November. My 9-year-old son, Anse, and I were slipping along the edge of a Tennessee creek drainage toward a ground blind where we planned to hold vigil for a few hours. I feared a slow sit. Balmy weather aside, the whitetail rut was fizzling. The frenzied chasing of early November was over and the peak breeding was coming to an end, too. But the boy was looking for a good buck, and we weren’t going to kill one by sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon. Our route to the blind took us along the edge of a pasture where, the season prior, I’d killed a big deer with a muzzleloader. I stopped to regale Anse with a tale of…

There are a few moments that can make a hunter fall apart in the field. A grizzly bear posturing up for a better look. A bull elk bugling within bow range. A flock of 100 mallards dropping into a tight timber hole. I’d argue more hunters lose their proverbial poop by a sight like this - a Boone & Crockett buck staring them down. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be the biggest buck in the world. I’ve witnessed grown men fall to pieces when a 130-class whitetail - that they will later swear was 150 inches at the minimum - trots down a trail toward their ground blind. We’ve trained ourselves into believing big bucks are near impossible to kill, and many times they are. That’s how they got…

BULLET BASICS This excellent monometal bullet is a heavy-for-caliber .277 projectile designed specifically for the 6.8 Western cartridge. It features a long shank, a modest boat tail, and a large polymer tip that ensures immediate expansion. On impact a portion of the hollow nose fragments off as it mushrooms, creating small auxiliary projectiles that spiral off from the primary wound channel and create additional damage to vitals. The remainder of the hollow nose opens into a well-shaped but modest mushroom, ensuring deep penetration combined with notable tissue damage. TESTING GROUND I used the recovered bullet shown on a big waterbuck while hunting the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Waterbuck are squat in build but have massive bodies that can rival a big bull elk in size and seem denser. FIELD…

Gun nuts like me love to argue about when exactly the “Good Ol’ Days” were in terms of firearm production. I would argue that, at least in terms of affordable accuracy, the good ol’ days are now. Never before have relatively inexpensive rifles that shoot accurately right out-of-the box been so widely available. Taurus is a newcomer to the bolt-action rifle world but, with the introduction of their Expedition chambered in .308 Winchester, they have joined the ranks for serviceable hunting rifles that don’t require a second mortgage. Since we are talking about value, let’s start with the sticker price. MSRP on the Taurus Expedition is $985, but a quick search determined the street price hovers around $830. If you feel like an $800+ rifle sounds expensive, check on the…

BLUE JEANS and a flannel will forever be nostalgic garb in the whitetail woods, but there is no denying their shortcomings in terms of warmth and comfort, especially when temps plummet and all-day sits often make the difference between success and failure. This void, paired with the onslaught of impressive technological advances in recent years, opened the door for Kuiu to create a whitetail-specific line of technical hunting clothing designed to maximize in-the-field performance. In 2022, Kuiu took their first step into the wide world of whitetail hunting with the launch of the successful Proximity line. Building upon that foundation, Kuiu’s brand-new Super Down Haven system, including a full bib and jacket, incorporates the dead-quiet qualities of the Proximity line while providing diehard late season hunters the superior warmth qualities…

CHAD AND LEAR MCCOY of Adams County, Ohio are second-generation lumbermen managing the J. McCoy Lumber Company their father, Jack McCoy, established in 1978. Both brothers are passionate hunters as well, and they have developed a method of managing timber for deer that benefits both whitetails and the forest itself. Now their success has incentivized others to consider timber management as a viable option for producing big bucks. Logging is oftentimes associated with downturns in wildlife numbers and habitat quality, but it’s hard to compare the bare-earth logging practices of the late 18th century with the more sophisticated and less invasive methods used by the McCoys. The proof of their success is the impressive number of record-book bucks that have been harvested on their managed properties. Perhaps more impressive is…

THE SMALL buck had been in front of me for 30 minutes, hoovering up the kernels of corn that had spun from the feeder just before daylight. I was alternating between watching it and scanning the surrounding brush, hoping a bigger deer would show up. My rifle lay tilted against the side of the blind as I used the shooting sticks as a rest for my binoculars. Suddenly, as if it had ghosted out of the ground, a large-bodied buck appeared. Muscled up and thick necked, the buck stood facing me, surveying the grassy flat between us, before hopping into the hog-panel fence set up to protect the feeder from roaming bands of hogs. The buck had a solid frame, with five points to a side. Looking back, there should…