Deer Hunting
Voting cranks up in Nikon Big Buck Photo, Trail Cam contests
Voting has begun to determine the winners of the December edition of the Nikon Big Buck Photo and Trail Cam contests. […]
Deer Hunting
Deer Hunting
Deer Dynamics
The degree of hunting pressure, nutrition, buck-to-doe ratios, management, genetics and weather can influence not just the rut’s timing, but whitetail social interactions as well. Even so, by instinct, rutting bucks usually follow the same behavioral traits — even when immature bucks get in on the action. […]
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The Right Time
Randy Pope climbed into his elevated tree stand well before dawn on a recent hunt and prepared for the morning. Pope has hunted big-game animals all over the world and is an expert at finding, hunting and harvesting trophy whitetail bucks. […]
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Long-Distance Operator
Joe Poole had been cooling his heels in his truck for much of the day last Jan. 13, watching a huge bean field that was literally full of deer. It was four days after a major snowfall, and the cold weather had deer up and moving. […]
Deer Hunting
Remington is right rifle, 7mm the right round
Many long-distance shooters spend thousands of dollars getting a rifle custom made, but Joe Poole decided on a stock Remington Sendero SF II. […]
Deer Hunting
Scoping it out
Joe Poole is nothing if not consistent. While shooters will tell you glass is much more important than the rifle on which it sits, Poole has found it unnecessary to spend big money on a scope. […]
Deer Hunting
Practice makes perfect
It takes more than proper equipment to make deer die at extreme ranges, so time on the range is a critical part of the equation. […]
Deer Hunting
Stability a must
Making long shots absolutely requires a rock-solid shooting platform.
“No person is going to free-hand one and hit one, that’s for sure,” Joe Poole said. “I’ve never shot a deer free-hand past 250 yards and hit it, and that was when I was young.” […]
Deer Hunting
Nuts and bolts of shooting distances
OK, so you’ve got the right rifle, scope and bullet. You’ve added a good, solid rest. Now you’re looking at a deer through the scope at 500 yards, and the crosshairs won’t sit still. […]
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The Community Scrape
In search of vegetative foliage, five bucks — a mature 8-pointer, a 3½-year-old, two spunky spikes and a curious button buck — go single file along the forest edge, ascending a bluff. Occasionally the group stops to forage; yet one of the spikes and the button buck, by instinct, prefer to assertively test their status with bouts of mock sparring. […]
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Cover: January 2012
January 2012 […]
Deer of the Year
Hunter kills 180-class buck on small tract in middle of Black Prairie WMA
Neil Waggoner and his family live on 40 acres he grew up loving, a familiar tract of gently rolling hills and a 10-acre lake surrounded by the Black Prairie Wildlife Management Area in Lowndes County.
For the last few weeks, Waggoner had been using his three tracking dogs to help other hunters. He also missed an 8-point buck that rattled him.
“Buck fever or I looked up or something, I guess,” Waggoner said.
A few days later on Dec. 18, amid an orange sunset casting enough light to make a set of antlers glow, Waggoner knew the big buck in the edge of the field was a good one. […]