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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Real-Time Intel: Moultrie Mobile

Who says you can't be in two places at once? The right cellular camera system will let you keep tabs on your deer woods even when you're nowhere near.

Until we finally crack the code of Star Trek teleportation, we hunters will have to be content with plodding along between places at standard human speeds. Which is no big deal, normally...but it can be when you’re not in the deer woods but are desperate for information on what’s happening there. Then the need for TV’s 23rd century technology to become reality early in the 21st is a tad frustrating.

Ah, but what if we could be in two widely separated places at once? Or close enough to “at once” that a slight lag was no worry at all? That presumably would make a lot of things in life simpler. And yes, whitetail hunting and management would be among those things.

Well, thanks to the ongoing development of cellular scouting cameras, we now are close to bridging this gap. We can in effect be in the deer woods even when we aren’t.

We’ve had stand-alone scouting cameras for over two decades now, and they’re popular. But today’s growing interest in the use of cellular-enabled cameras has sprung from four realities: (1) It takes time and often a fair bit of fuel and effort to physically check any camera; (2) every time you visit a camera site, you risk spooking deer — thus offsetting some of the practical advantage offered by acquiring photos of them in the first place; (3) by the time a camera has physically been checked, even the most recent capture image is likely to be somewhat dated; and (4) if you have trespasser/thief issues, a cellular camera offers better odds of identifying the perpetrator. Add up these facts and it’s easy to see the advantage of being able to monitor a spot in real time, even when you’re not around.

The newest approach to doing so comes from the folks at Moultrie. Their app-based cellular camera system - Moultrie Mobile - allows for quick, easy, affordable and disturbance-free camera monitoring, as well as handy storage/retrieval of captured images.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been putting this system through its paces, and it’s performed as advertised. The unit I’ve been using is the XA7000i, which is built around a 20MP camera.

The camouflaged camera and its neutral-tone strap are really hard to see on most trees, which is great. Not only is the camera well hidden from human eyes, I’ve captured no images of deer looking at it during the day or at night. The invisible flash (80-foot range) thus seems to be undetectable by deer. All these attributes are key advantages, in my book.

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Of course, stealth doesn’t much matter if the camera won’t reliably capture images. But this one has done so for me. Using the 7000i in a spot that has a fair bit of daytime and nighttime deer activity, I’ve found it captures clear images and lets you see them within only a few minutes of the event.

Easily controlled via a free app on a smartphone - and with extremely affordable service and storage plans - this system seems a solid option for anyone wanting to enter the cellular camera game without first getting an engineering degree. And that’s helpful. Hunting, management and/or security concerns have many folks wanting a better connection to the deer woods. If you find yourself in that situation, give the Moultrie Mobile XA7000i a look. It could open your eyes to more of what’s out there when you’re not — and let you know about it in close to real time.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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8 Tips to Shoot a Buck on Opening Day

The month of September means archery deer seasons are opening across North America. From September 1 until the end of the month, new seasons are coming in every week. But a surprisingly few hunters take advantage of these early hunting opportunities. If you are one that has been missing out, consider this your wake up call.

The earliest days of the hunting season are some of the best days to catch a mature buck totally unaware. As the season moves on, bucks are apt to see a new treestand, smell some human scent where they haven't smelled it since last season, see some trimmed shooting lanes and get bumped from their beds. Any of these things will trigger them to change their patterns.

Here are eight tips for getting out there and taking advantage of the early season opportunities.

Lay Eyes on Them

The last days of summer into the early fall is one of the best times of the year to get a good look at a buck in person. The use of a spotting scope or a good pair of binoculars while observing feeding areas during the last hour of the long daylight hours can give you lots of clues as to where the deer are feeding and entering the fields.

Find a high vantage point where you can overlook alfalfa, soybeans or other crop fields where the groups of bucks are feeding and pay special attention to where they enter the field based on wind direction. This information will be very valuable when it comes to setting up stands.

Get Your Cameras Working

There is no way to overestimate the value of getting photos of bucks with time and date stamps on them. They show you what time the buck was in the area and which direction he was moving. Combine that with the weather and wind conditions at the time and you have valuable clues to his daily habits.

The value of using cameras is huge, but the potential for tipping the buck off is just as big if you do not choose carefully the times you will put them out and check them. Avoid allowing your scent to blow into an area where the buck may be, never check a camera at a time when you may spook the buck and use some spray to reduce your scent impact.

I watch the weather radar and take advantage of incoming rain to get the cameras out and check the cards, trying to do so right before a rain really helps reduce potentially damaging human scent intrusion.

Hang Stands in Secret

Speaking of watching the weather, the clandestine hanging of treestands can be enhanced by getting out in the woods and doing the job right before a rain as well. If you don't have that opportunity, spray down and get in and out quickly. Two people can do it far faster than one, but keep a low profile and clean up after yourself. Try to avoid too much obvious cutting and move the trimmings off to the side at least 20 yards.

In some situations, you'll want to hang two stands close together to take advantage of varying wind directions. I have hung stands as close as 20 feet apart when bucks are using the same trail with more than one wind pattern.

Utilize Observation Stands

I define an observation stand as one that allows you to see a large area when in the stand. I use these often on DIY road trips when I am scouting as I hunt. The odds of shooting a buck out of an observation stand may not be high, but it can allow me to observe an entire field in order to make a better decision about where to move in for a more precise attack.

Don't Overlook the Importance of Water

In hot, dry weather, a buck's first stop may not be the edge of a crop field, it may be at a secluded waterhole or creek between the bedding and feeding areas. These are excellent places to waylay the buck well before dark.

Follow trails back from the feeding areas to where they cross a creek and set up there. If you know of a waterhole surrounded by goo cover where the deer can feed without exposing themselves, get a stand on it, or at least a camera. Tracks â€” or a lack of them â€” will tell you how much use the water is getting.

Hunt the Staging Areas

While your observation stands on the edge of the field may help you learn more about deer movement patterns, the most likely place to kill a mature buck is just off the field. While does and smaller bucks may arrive and move into the open well before dark, the bigger bucks are likely to hang back and observe the deer in the field for a while, only entering during the final minutes of daylight when the indications from the deer already in the field show that things are safe.

These staging areas will be from 10-30 yards back off the edge of the field and be characterized by rubs clusters of tracks and nibbled brush. Set up downwind of these areas and you're more likely to shoot a buck there as the days get shorter and shorter.

Parallel Trails

Like staging areas, some bucks will pace back and forth inside the cover along the edge of the field for a while before exposing themselves in the open. These trails can be on any side of a field, but are most commonly found on the downwind side of prevailing winds. You will not find stomped down muddy trails, as these are indistinct and difficult to locate. With some work you can recognize them.

Be Aggressive and Stay Mobile

Things are changing by the day as the testosterone ramps up in the bucks' systems. When the velvet comes off things begin to change. Patterns begin to break down and bachelor groups begin to break up after the first of September. You must move fast and aggressively to take advantage of this short window of opportunity. Move quickly when you see changes and stay on top of the patterns day by day and you will have a chance to put your tag on a nice buck while others are still dreaming of November.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Training Duck Dogs for Perfection

Don't accept anything less than 100 percent during drills if you want your dog to perform in the field.

During each hunting season there are two times when you might come to realize your dog isn’t performing as expected. The first is during the initial hunts of the year where excitement is highest and your retriever is out-of-his-mind happy to be hunting. This is the time where you really get to see how much of your training lessons have stuck.

The second comes as duck season winds down and the attrition of good behavior that has been established during training sessions starts to show.

Why would a dog that is generally solid at home and in the blind suddenly start to show a crumbling foundation of steadiness or other aspects of obedience?

The answer is because your dog probably wasn’t at the top of his game when you were training, even though he might have been close.

Knowing how common this is, I have a general rule of thumb for training: I ask 110 percent of my dog. I know even the best trained dog is going to lose some of his compliance in the field, but I’ll take a dog that is operating at 85 percent versus 50 any day. You can’t get a dog to perform at 85 percent during a hunt if that’s his high-water mark during training. You have to aim higher, and here's how.

Why The Unraveling?

The first step is to understand where your dog is at and why. This mostly applies to obedience, and trust me, it’s important. If your dog doesn’t flawlessly comply with three basic commands (sit, stay and come) at home, he won’t do it in a duck boat.

This means that gray area commands or asking your dog to stay but not correcting him if he doesn’t, will add up to a dog that is always testing the rules. If sometimes he has to do something unnatural (stay), and sometimes he can just ignore the command (wander around and sniff stuff), guess what he’s going to choose as often as possible?

I know it's harsh, or might even sound impossible, but the reality is you can’t make exceptions. When you’re training a dog you’re giving him jobs and rules, and he needs to comply. Those lessons will help him through his entire life, and will keep him safe and happy in the field. But, he doesn’t know that.

He knows what he wants to do, and he knows what you ask of him, provided you train correctly. He knows when he has your attention, or when it’s probably OK to slip. This is so much easier to control at home while working in the backyard or the neighborhood soccer field than it is while you’re laying in the cut corn eyeballing a flock of noisy honkers.

And it’s pretty safe to assume that if you don’t do the at-home drilling, you have no chance of solid compliance in that layout blind. One does not come without the other, unfortunately.

Sneaky Rule Breakers

Maybe at this point your saying: "I’m super consistent in my training and my expectations of the dog, yet for some reason when we go hunting he only retrieves the ducks halfway to the blind and then spits them out." In that situation, and many, many others, the breakdown in behavior might stem from whoever else is handling your dog throughout the week.

Think about your spouse or your kids, and ask yourself if they hold your dog to the same standard you do every day, without question. They likely do not, and that is a problem.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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How to Hunt Geese on a Budget

You don't need a trailer load of full-bodies to put honkers on the ground.

Most of us that read waterfowl articles in magazines dream of the wild hunts on massive grain fields teeming with thousands of geese and ducks. But what about the guy or gal that does not have a trailer full of high-end decoys, access to thousand-acre fields, and cannot afford expensive calls? There are plenty of hunters out there itching to call in their own birds, and see wobbling gray and black bombers with feet down, and hear the grunt of the honkers as they cruise within range with cupped wings. All of us want to yell, “Take em!” as we bust out of our layouts, dropping geese.

The good news is that any of us can live that dream with some planning and effort, even without access to big feeds and hundreds of decoys. In fact, fields less than 100 acres that are located in a daily flight pattern near water are killer locations, particularly later in the season. Throw in two-dozen decoys, a flag and a few layouts and you are in business.

Lighting the Flame

A few seasons ago my daughter and I were trying to do a little duck hunting on a tributary of our local river in Virginia. A farmer granted us access to a makeshift boat ramp at the end of the fields. Our duck hunting was a bust due to lack of birds, but we noticed a few small flocks of geese regularly passing over the scattered 50-acre grain fields that we dragged our boat through each morning going to and from the water.

When we stopped to pay the boat ramp access fee to the farmer, I left a “thank you” note commenting about how we noticed Canada geese flying over the fields, and how none of those birds came near our blind or the part of the creek we hunted.

A week later when we were leaving the same property the farmer stopped us and asked if we wanted to try to put a dent in the flock of geese to help save the crops. We could hardly contain our excitement, and promised to not tear up the fields—and insisted on continuing to pay the access fee.

Location Is Paramount

Since we lucked into that field to hunt, we have since started gaining access to other small, but similar fields. When looking for productive fields, we start scouting in the fall when geese filter in from the north. We use an online topo/satellite map and our online GIS maps for our local counties to locate farm fields near water sources around the Chesapeake Bay watersheds. These can be large swamps, ponds, large creeks, rivers or small bays. Smart hunters know Canada geese will roost on the water and then feed after the sun gets up.

Once we locate potential properties near where we live, we try to scout them before approaching the farmer. Binoculars are helpful. We watch for flight patterns to determine which properties the birds tend to fly over on a regular basis when going to feed and roost. Again, we focus on small fields under 100 acres that geese have flown over on a regular basis. They don’t necessarily have to feed in the small fields, but there should be some beans or grain of some sort for them to eat if they did land in the field.

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While other hunters are hitting the large fields and putting in a lot of effort and time with dozens, or even hundreds of decoys, we are going light with two-dozen or less decoys and pulling down our limits right along with the big shots with all their equipment.

Hiding Is Everything

Since we are on a budget, we carefully select two-dozen field decoys of various poses, a few layout blinds from a box store retailer and a flag for motion. While it would be nice to get the top-of-the-line gear, we make do with what we can afford and make a point to take care of it to make it last. One of the things we do with our layouts is gather up stubble from the fields we are hunting a few days before and very thoroughly brush our layouts. We also take a few trashbags and rake up stubble from the ends of the fields and use it the day of our hunt to “feather out” the profile of our blinds and our dog blind too. It is critical to blend the blinds in as much as possible.

Steve Purks, a friend and self-taught goose hunter, explained how critical this was to us.

Geese that arrive in Virginia or Maryland after Thanksgiving when our season opens are wary and have been called to and shot at.

When we place our decoys in the field, we face a majority of them into the wind while leaving a hole for the birds to land in our kill zone; another trick we learned from Purks. We watch how the birds react to our set up and make changes as necessary. Sometimes we need to open the hole if the birds seem hesitant or sometimes we change the direction the decoys are facing if the wind shifts. Purks is always checking conditions and analyzing his spreads when we hunt with him and I keep a close eye on what he is doing and ask a lot of questions to learn as much as I can.

Next, we use the terrain to our advantage. A few rows of corn were left standing in one of the fields we hunted last season. We backed our blinds up to that hard edge and made them all but disappear. While the geese did not want to land right on our blinds, they did come in close enough for us to get our shots. We have also placed our blinds in spots that were slightly lower than the rest of the field. Doing so helps the layouts disappear and we have our decoys all around the layouts to blend in. Fencerows or hedgerows are great for this if the wind is correct for the setup of decoys. Birds won’t land if the wind is blowing towards the hedgerow; it leaves too little time for the birds to get down in the decoys. Hunters need the wind blowing away from the hedgerow for a good setup.

Last, we use inexpensive calls, but they work. We use them sparingly, mostly for getting the attention of the geese from a distance and a little grunting as they pass over. We flag the birds when they are coming off the water and heading to the bigger fields nearby. By being in the flight path, we get their first looks and then work hard to peel off birds and get them curious before they even make it to the larger fields. All it takes is a few to commit and come on down for us to get our shots and watch the dog work!

One last tip is to be in place early whether it is a morning or afternoon hunt. When the birds go to feed you want to be in place when they start flying or they will see birds landing a half-mile away and keep following them. Be at the front of the flock when they come over and work those birds.

Small Investment, Big Rewards

Hunting small fields on a shoestring works for several reasons. First, the geese sometimes get wary of the larger fields and large spreads of decoys and they begin to look for something different, something a bit more secure. Sometimes the group of birds will peel off the big flock looking for food. Being in the flight path, carefully positioning our decoys and layouts by using and considering the terrain in the field, and calling sparingly but using a flag to attract their attention, really makes a difference for us. We don’t need to purchase a trailer load of high-end decoys or spend hundreds of dollars on a lease and expensive calls to get our limits. It works, and we spend far less money and time setting up to have our fun.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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No Matter the Season, Deer Orchard Work Brings Big Benefits to Whitetails

In years gone by, deer hunting was something of a seasonal affair. Hunters started getting ready in the final days of summer and first days of fall – preparing stand sites, sighting in their rifle or bow, and getting the camouflage out of storage.

But that was then, and this is now – a time when deer hunting seems like a year around activity. From shed hunting to dialing in a bow or a rifle to prepping hunting ground, the work from one whitetail season to the next never seems to end.

A lot of deer hunters know that to be true in the springtime as they get to work on land management chores through controlled burns, selective timbering, and the planting of warm season food plots on the edges of forests or in open pastures.

For some, such work includes the planting of mast trees that will eventually bring high calorie nutritional value to a local deer population. While many hunters think about red oaks and white oaks with such plantings, it can take many years – 10+ in most cases – to see acorns hitting the ground.

That’s why savvy land managers often turn to the chestnut trees from Chestnut Hill Outdoors, trees able to produce high energy nuts within three to five years of being planted.

A hard mast species that deer absolutely love, the American chestnut was all but wiped out by a blight in the early 1900s. The fungus-driven malady was nothing short of a nationwide natural disaster, one that the late Dr. Robert T. Dunstan, a renowned plant breeder, played a key role in resolving. Today, the Dunstan Chestnut hybrid tree that the good doctor helped produce is an American success story, a comeback that the Florida-based Chestnut Hill company continues to play a key role in to this very day.

Run for many years by Robert “Bob” Dunstan Wallace, the grandson of the late Dr. Dunstan, the family nursery business in Alachua, Fla. grows and sells tens of thousands of Dunstan Chestnuts each year to land managers and hunters across the country. That’s in addition to many other soft mast plant species like the Dr. Deer Pear trees, the Deer Candy Persimmon collection of trees, crab apples and apples, mulberries, blueberries, blackberries, Muscadine grapes, and more.

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By planting a variety of hard mast and soft mast species, the result can be an important steady supply of high energy nutrition available to whitetails throughout much of the year.

Such work is often referred to as Deer Landscaping, a term coined by North American Whitetail’s Dr. James C. Kroll at his Whitetail Breeding and Nutrition Research Center right outside of Nacogdoches, Texas.

I saw this deer management strategy firsthand one year as my son, Will, and I participated in Kroll’s annual Whitetail Field Day. By the day’s end, Will and I had been introduced to Kroll’s concept of planting deer orchards, or vertical food plots as some like to call them.

“We always want to concentrate on nutrition for deer,” said Kroll. “That’s the number one thing that we can do for deer on our properties, to answer the question of ‘What can I do to improve nutrition?’ ”

When I visited with him, Bob Wallace had a few answers for that question.

“Acorn dropping oaks are certainly good, but the thing about oak trees is that they produce a crop of acorns in the fall for a month or so and then they are done,” he said. “We always recommend that land managers plant for diversity with a variety of things available as the year goes by. That way, you can have a nutritional deer attractant working for months. Plus, they work well in concert with annual food plots and many hunters and land managers have both going on (throughout the year).”

In addition to hard mast like chestnuts and acorn producing oak trees, what kind of soft mast fruits are we talking about here?

“Crab apples are native, and deer love them,” said Bob. “And they really like native plums too. There are mulberries, which start (appearing) earlier in the year, then apples and peaches, and don’t forget things like blackberries and blueberries. These fruits will all help extend food resources for deer through the various seasons of the year. And that can help hold deer in a spot so that they will not move off somewhere else (as seasons and nutritional needs change).”

That includes springtime, a time of year that Chestnut Hill experts point out brings increasing stress to does that are carrying, delivering and nursing newborn whitetail fawns. It also includes bucks that are starting to grow antlers. And don’t forget turkeys, grouse, pheasants, quail, rabbits, squirrels, and other wildlife that are scouring the countryside as they look to meet nutritional needs. To help meet those needs, early soft mast production by mulberries, blueberries, and even plums can help.

The middle and latter stages of summer also represent a time on the calendar that doesn’t offer wildlife as much food and nutrition as one might think. Why? The experts at Chestnut Hill say it’s because herbaceous vegetation is starting to mature and die away. That’s where summertime fruits like blackberries, raspberries, and grapes can all work to help get wildlife through this often-unrecognized nutritional gap on the calendar.

As leaves change colors and the first cool fronts usher in the fall months, deer and other wildlife are again seeking key nutrition as they prepare for the breeding season and fatten up for the coming of winter. Chestnut Hill’s staff notes that such needs can be met by late summer and early fall soft mast production from persimmons, apples, and pears, food resources that can help wildlife get through until beneficial hard mast like chestnuts and acorns begin to drop in the middle stages of the autumn season.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Will Wireless Trail Cameras Make You a Better Hunter?

If you dig into the rules and regulations of your state, you’ll probably see no clear wording on the usage of cellular-enabled cameras. It’s a gray-area technology in most places right now but could be considered illegal if one of your cameras sent you a picture of a buck and you happened to shoot it a few hours later.

In-season usage in many states is up in the air, so be aware. As far as pre-season usage of cellular cameras, you’ve pretty much got the green light in most regions where whitetails reign supreme.

The question is - are they worth the money? Do they really provide an advantage over traditional cameras? The answer is a resounding - maybe.

Benefits of Cellular Cams

The obvious benefit to using a cellular-enabled camera is that once you’ve set it up, you can leave the woods alone. It allows you to sit back in the comfort of your home without wondering if your batteries are still juiced up, if someone has stolen it, or if it inexplicably went the way of the dodo - all while gathering intel in an undisturbed woods.

Throughout the summer you can gather info on the comings and goings of the local ungulates, and with most cameras, adjust your settings and check battery levels remotely. This means you’re aware and in control, without doing much more than messing with your smartphone.

Cons Of Cellular Cams

As mentioned above, the biggest downfall of these cameras might be their legality in your given area. If using one means you’re on the wrong side of the law, then it’s obviously no good.

But there is also the ethical conundrum associated with this level of technology. I can remember when they first hit the scene years ago, and a fellow from one of the camera companies told me how he used it during turkey season to check in on what fields had strutting birds in them.

If they hit the 9am lull, they’d go to where the cameras showed longbeards were at right then. He thought it was amazing, I felt differently.

And I still do. I’ve used celullar cameras for deer and bear on properties that were at least a couple hours from my house. My reasoning was that I couldn’t use real-time intel to try to gain an advantage because, at best, I’d be at least 24 hours behind the most current images if I decided to go hunting.

Eventually, they became something of a novelty for me. I put one or two out each summer and then pull them before the season or switch off the cellular function. I still really enjoy getting images from them during the summer and probably always will.

The Trail-Cam Trap Continues

Now that I’ve laid out my confusing personal strategy for using cellular trail cams, I’ll say this - if you do choose to use them during the season, they might only prove to be marginally more beneficial than non-cellular options.

This is because trail cameras are only a tool, and while it’s nice to know where a deer walked today when we weren’t there, that is far from a sure thing that a deer will walk there tomorrow when we are.

What’s worse is that we often use trail camera intel to not hunt, reasoning that if our cameras are not catching daylight images of bucks, it’s better to wait until they are. That’s dangerous ground. The reality with all trail cameras is they give you a little snapshot into one small place in the woods.

That, theoretically, might be the best place in the woods by your opinion, but even so, the deer simply might not be walking there. If you are off by 20 yards, your intel is bunk. When you’re getting real-time images of squirrels and nothing else, it’s very easy to believe you should wait until the hunting will be better, and trust me when I say this, that’s probably not the best decision.

All that means is that the deer aren’t doing what you expected in one tiny area, nothing else. So be aware that while they are extremely fun to use, cellular trail cameras probably won’t be the ticket to tagging Booners year in and year out, at least not any more than traditional trail cameras were for you.

Conclusion

They are fun, they are addictive, and in the right situations they probably do offer a clear advantage over traditional cams. Cellular cameras promise a lot to the whitetail hunter when used properly, but don’t expect them to be the shortest path from no taxidermy bills to taking out a personal loan for all of your new mounts. At the very least, they are a very enjoyable tool and that’s a good enough reason to deploy one while the bucks are in velvet and you’ve got some time before opening day kicks off.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Deer Factory: Northern Climate Warm-Season Food Plots

The reason many of us don’t want to engage in this strategy is we won’t run in danger of having our SD cards maxed out with images. In fact, you might not capture anything that gets you excited. That’s a bummer, but it’s important. Eliminating dead ends isn’t as exciting as checking your camera and realizing that a herd of Booners has been traipsing through every day, but it’s also not nothing. Knowing where not to hunt matters, because it allows you to focus your efforts elsewhere.

This is why I try to run at least a couple trail cameras in question-mark locations. The idea is to figure out travel patterns in the cover, but you also must weigh the value of that information against how often you’ll slip in to check cameras and thus disturb the area. (That assumes you aren’t using a cellular camera, which eliminates the need to visit the spot regularly.)

If possible, I try to time my camera checks around rainstorms, but that’s far from a reliable strategy for minimizing disturbance. Instead, I force myself to give a camera at least a month in any given spot during the summer scouting period. Leaving a trail cam to “soak” in a spot for a minimum of four weeks means the deer will have plenty of time to get used to it, and all kinds of weather and the accompanying fronts will pass in that time. This allows me to compare deer movement to conditions and decide if there’s anything worth really paying attention to there.

If I do capture a good buck doing his thing a few times, it also gives me enough time to try to hang some more cameras and attempt to further pin down his daily habits. This is where different trains of thought merge onto the same track. Most of us think nailing down an exact buck’s routes is the goal, and it’s easy to slip into the mindset that deer do pretty much the same thing every day. But while they’re habitual critters, they don’t walk the same trails and utilize the same beds day after day unless they’re very comfortable in one given spot.

For most of us, those spots are behind plenty of “No Trespassing” signs and come with a serious price tag. The reality is, whitetails travel through their world in relation to the conditions and how they’ll be able to use their senses to stay safe. This means the buck that walks down a specific trail once a week is going somewhere else the other six days. Where are they? Ask yourself questions and try to answer them with long-range observation and more camera work.

For example, even though the travel pattern of a good buck on a specific ditch crossing might seem random, it probably isn’t. Think about where he’s coming from and where he’s going. Maybe there’s a pond tucked into the timber 200 yards away. Is he visiting it to get a drink? A well-placed camera can tell you.

Maybe the buck surprises you one evening as you’re swatting mosquitoes and looking through the spotting scope at a green bean field on your farm. Instead of emerging from the woods the way most of the other deer do, he pops up in a grassy swale on your neighbor’s property and hops a fence to reach the groceries where you can hunt.

All such in-person observations and clues gathered by your cameras will allow you to start homing in on an area that your target buck prefers. And that matters — a lot.

THE RIGHT NEIGHBORHOOD

While scouting for bow season we always strive to identify the exact tree from which we’ll arrow a good buck, during mid-summer we’re really just trying to pinpoint his preferred territory. Due to the fact so much can change from July or August to opening morning of the archery season, the idea is to get in the right neighborhood without letting the buck know you’re onto him.

This will allow you to set up a strategy for hunting the early season, but also be careful enough to preserve a buck’s safe zones until you need to slip in. Naturally, this is easier if you’re hunting private ground with limited pressure but is also a possibility on public land. You just need to understand there are no guarantees with the latter category, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to push it in a specific area.

What I’ve found through extensive camera work and summer scouting missions is that the areas I identify as hotspots for specific bucks in July are usually pretty close to where those bucks will be in September. There seems to be a big change in deer movement at that time, but a lot of it is simply that the big buck is becoming more cautious and not running into a field in broad daylight to munch away with his buddies.

That’s OK, though. If you run a practical camera strategy this summer, you’ll know where to set up off the easy food sources yourself. You’ll be able to tease out useful threads from the tapestry that is a buck’s daily habits, so you’ll know where to go even if the easy daylight activity dies on you.

Your Plan B will be way more well-thought-out than your hunting competition’s. So as you slip into a staging area or along a trail you know a specific buck uses under those conditions, you’ll have a better chance of filling an early-season tag.

IN CONCLUSION

Use cameras wisely. Your summer scouting mission isn’t finished just because you put out a bunch of cameras in June. Check them once a month and tweak their locations as needed in order to figure out why the local bucks are doing what they’re doing.

Tie that camera work into some long-range glassing and eventually you’ll start to see patterns emerge with specific bucks and how they conduct themselves on a daily basis. At that point, you’ll be in a good spot to get in and make the most of your early-season sits.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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The Best Summer Trail Camera Strategy

The most prominent trail camera strategy in today’s deer-o-sphere is using them to confirm what a hunter already suspects about local whitetails. This is why so many of us mount cameras over standing soybean fields or the edges of food plots in July. We know bucks feed regularly in those spots, and we want to get pictures of them.

It’s pretty simple, really, but often not all that productive. If you’ve got a property locked up and know that no one will come in and mess with the summer patterns, then yes, you can plan a strategy around those images. But be honest, you were going to hunt those spots anyway, because they’re no-brainer locations for early-season bowhunting setups.

The problem with scouting that way is that it works with a good summer destination food source — but then, those patterns crumble just before or right after you get your first chance to slip in with a bow and try to intercept a target buck. This is where trail cameras can hurt us if we’re not careful.

It’s easy to hunt on memory, but a buck that has bailed on his summer food pattern isn’t likely to return to it in a way that will allow you to encounter him during shooting hours. This is especially true if you’re hunting pressured ground, whether public or private.

A better bet with scouting cameras is to use them to figure out what is going on in the places where you’re really not sure what the activity level is, or to sort out the routes target bucks are taking as they travel to/from food sources. Practically speaking, this is what scouting is all about, and it’s possible with the right camera strategy.

The idea obviously is to identify good bucks that might be moving during legal shooting hours, then pin down locations you can sneak into, and actually hunt, correctly. Doing so isn’t nearly as easy as we’d like to believe, though. If it were, success rates would be much, much higher.

Each year I hunt whitetails on public land in four or five states, and if there’s one thing I find consistently, it’s that the easy spots are nearly always worthless to hunt outside the hottest part of the rut. The better bucks I see, and occasionally arrow, almost always have made the mistake of moving during daylight either on a travel route or in a staging area, both of which will be in security cover.

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While some big bucks seem to be terribly ensconced in a nocturnal lifestyle, most aren’t. They just don’t move a whole lot during daylight in any place but their favorite sanctuaries. This information matters, because those might be the only spots in which you’ll ever encounter them with enough daylight to get a legal shot.

These spots will almost always relate to a destination food source. That’s true even in the Northwoods, where there isn’t an agricultural field or food plot within miles. The deer usually have a feeding place in mind, but they’ll take their sweet time getting there — and most often, you’ll run out the clock before they poke their nose into any open areas.

So while the soybean field on your farm or parcel of public land is where the bucks will probably end up each night, how they get there and how they leave are what matter most to us hunters. The same goes for the oak ridge in the big woods or an irrigated alfalfa field out west.

My typical strategy is to start at the most obvious destination food sources and place cameras in the first patch of good cover off them, hanging in what appear to be high-traffic spots. This might be a ditch or ravine crossing or simply a trail carved down the face of a bluff. Regardless, the idea is to get an idea of which deer are moving through the cover near the most obvious food.

It’s important to remember here that the July woods can look a lot different from the September woods, and another thing entirely when you consider November. The first, most likely staging area off the food will last until the leaves drop or hunting pressure on the field edges pushes the deer deeper, or maybe persuades them to stay even farther back.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Will Wireless Trail Cameras Make You a Better Hunter?

In-season usage in many states is up in the air, so be aware. As far as pre-season usage of cellular cameras, you’ve pretty much got the green light in most regions where whitetails reign supreme.

The question is - are they worth the money? Do they really provide an advantage over traditional cameras? The answer is a resounding - maybe.

Benefits of Cellular Cams

It’s incredible, really. And this wave of cameras is crashing hard on the industry right now - to the point where pretty much every manufacturer is in the game. That tells you something about demand, which if you’ve ever used one, you probably understand.

These cameras are addictive, and it’s exciting to see new-image notifications showing up on your phone. I honestly believe that if any hunter wants to see his day-to-day productivity at work or home go right off of a cliff, cellular-enabled cameras are the way to do it. They are fun - no doubt about that.

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Cons Of Cellular Cams

As mentioned above, the biggest downfall of these cameras might be their legality in your given area. If using one means you’re on the wrong side of the law, then it’s obviously no good.

If they hit the 9am lull, they’d go to where the cameras showed longbeards were at right then. He thought it was amazing, I felt differently.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Real-Time Intel: Moultrie Mobile

Who says you can't be in two places at once? The right cellular camera system will let you keep tabs on your deer woods even when you're nowhere near.

Well, thanks to the ongoing development of cellular scouting cameras, we now are close to bridging this gap. We can in effect be in the deer woods even when we aren’t.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been putting this system through its paces, and it’s performed as advertised. The unit I’ve been using is the XA7000i, which is built around a 20MP camera.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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The Science Behind a Deer's Sense of Smell & Scent Control

Understanding the science of a whitetail's scenting ability might not guarantee you a filled tag, but it definitely can't hurt.

On a brisk November morning in 2008, as I was running the video camera for my friend Chris Ellington in Clark Co., Illinois, we spotted a fat-bodied buck cruising up the ridge about 100 yards to our east. The chilly west wind was dragging our scent perpendicular to the buck’s line of travel, and we could tell the two were about to intersect.

”This ain’t gonna be good,” Chris hissed.

The big buck’s body language screamed “lovestruck zombie.” His mouth was open, his nose was almost on the ground, and he was doing the classic doe-seeking speed walk. In short, he was all but oblivious to his surroundings.

But when the buck hit our wind cone, his reaction was instantaneous. As if human scent had hit him in the face like an invisible baseball bat, the buck’s careless, rut-induced autopilot mode disappeared. He stopped in his tracks so quickly that his skin and fat shuddered.

The buck whipped his head, swinging his chocolate rack around in a whirl, and looked across the ravine directly at us. His black eyes were wide with alarm. It took all of about five seconds for him to take that first half-step backwards and then bail off the ravine away from us, blowing and flagging.

This episode was an example of how quickly a buck’s demeanor can change when human scent is intercepted. We all know whitetails possess excellent olfactory ability, and this buck offered but one example of it in action. Let’s examine the whitetail’s superpower sense of smell a little more deeply.

Defining Scent

So, what is scent? The answer gets a bit technical, but understanding scent and its origin is critical. After all, how can we as hunters attempt to control or eliminate scent if we don’t understand it on a biochemical level?

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Biologist Dr. Bronson Strickland of Mississippi State University’s Deer Lab describes “scent” as a generic term for what’s known to chemists and wildlife researchers as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). He explains these substances originate as organic compounds given off by a subject. Due to their high vapor pressure, these lead to large numbers of molecules evaporating into the surrounding air.

VOCs entering the air can come from numerous sources. Manmade products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, paints, oil, tar and perfumes all give off unique VOC signatures. Plants give off their own VOCs when leafing, pollinating, flowering and growing. These signatures change throughout their annual growth cycle.

Our bodies give off literally thousands of VOCs. The human liver, kidneys, lungs and skin are all tasked with taking toxins from normal metabolism and rendering them chemically removable from our system through excretory pathways found in feces, urine, breath, sweat and saliva.

In one study, more than 1,800 distinct VOCs were determined to come from our body! Breath (872), skin and hair (532), feces (381), saliva (359), milk (256) and blood (154) made up the list, with some overlap among the compounds. Bacteria also give off their own unique VOC signatures on our body and clothes.

The take-home message is simple here: Normal body processes make us like a lightning rod projecting scent into the air in the form of VOCs. To put it frankly, we stink!

The Olfactory Pathway

Now that we’ve defined scent in its true chemical form, let’s climb into a VOC molecule and take a ride through a whitetail’s nose. Hold on tight.

A scent molecule is inhaled through the broad nasal openings and captured by little hair-like cellular projections called cilia in the mucous membrane. Once captured by the cilia, VOC molecules dissolve into and through the mucous and are transferred to the olfactory epithelium. Note: The whitetail epithelium is reported to have 297 million olfactory receptors. (The human epithelium has only 5 million.) These receptors translate the scent signal as electrical impulses up through nerves that extend through the roof of the mouth and into the part of the brain known as the olfactory bulb.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Hunting Waterfowl from a Kayak

Find a slow-moving stream and paddle to your own duck and goose paradise.

Like Huckleberry Finn, I’m a child of the river. Nothing gets me out of my chair and up and going like a trip on a stream. Being a Senior Sportsman can make me think twice about certain activities in the outdoors. I can’t slog through a muddy plowed field like I used to, but I’ll still go if the geese are flying.

But the river has a pull on this old Huckleberry. There’s nothing like riding the current, especially in the fall. Especially when the wood ducks are migrating. Nothing like it. Imagine those beautiful leaves falling and you drifting quietly downstream. Think of rounding a bend in the river and having a flock of Canadas blast off from the shoreline right in front of you. Can you see it? Would you be able to make the shot in your excitement ? Or would you swamp the boat and have to clamber out in the cold and get a fire going real quick?

Either way, the river is always an adventure. Either way, you will leave the river at the end of your run already planning your next float trip.  These days folks are really starting to get into kayaks. Kayaks are becoming popular in the fishing community. Here on the river, we think kayaks are a big deal too. Back in the day, we float hunted on the river using canoes. Not anymore. Kayaks put you down lower on the water and that lowers your center of gravity. You are much more stable shooting out of a kayak. I used to be afraid of rolling my canoe with a shot to the side. Not with my kayak.   How does a float hunt on the river work? Well the first thing about it that may surprise you is that this hunt begins at 10 o’clock in the morning. Nope, no sunrise vigil like on the slough. If you do go early you won’t find many geese. They fly out at dawn to feed just as they do on the slough. Then at around eight or nine they return to the river to hide and loaf. That’s why we start our float at 10. Bankers’ hours. So let’s try a simulated float hunt and see if you’d like it.

What’s a river float for waterfowl like? I’ve been asked that question a lot. Well, maybe I can explain it this way: You drift quietly down the river with every sense alert. You round a bend and there’s a flock of birds loafing on a sandbar ahead of you. They’re too far away so you hold really still and the current takes you slowly, slowly toward them.

Now actually, that’s the way I like to explain it. That’s the best time of the hunt, the tension and anticipation. The possibility of a big shoot ahead. You’re close enough to make your move now and you pull up on an exploding flock. But the kayak has drifted to the left and you’re a right-handed shooter. So you track a bird and realize you’ll be lucky to get one bird when you expected to get off three shots.

NO CAKEWALK

But honestly, you won’t be surprised. A float hunt on the river is never easy. Too many things can/do go wrong. Wind, for instance. It’s your friend when it gets the trees to rattle their leaves. You don’t make noise with the wind blowing. But then, you run into a flock of birds and you have to freeze or the birds will beat you. So the wind is blowing you at them and manages to turn the kayak completely around before you’re in range. Who’s your friend now? It happens.

Much of a float hunt ain’t good. Imagine sitting on a moving platform, shooting at a moving target. That’s what we laughingly call a humbling experience. Yes, you’re thinking that you’re a reasonably capable shooter. Then you ride the river with us. We put you in the front seat of a twin-seater kayak. Nothing to do but shoot. Plus, if we come upon that flock on the sandbar, I’ll paddle you right up there.

NATURE WONDER-CRUISE

The best part of a float is that most animals and birds that we encounter are sleeping or very relaxed so we get a good up close look at them. My son Will’s Nikon is cranking when we run by a big turtle. He loves mossy- backs with the big claws. He caught beavers asleep on their lodge last year. Fun-fun-fun!

We live in Minnesota. Out on the western prairies we have reminders of the French traders that named our rivers and the big lake Lac qui Parle. Out here we pick our float hunt rivers with care. That’s the best advice I could give to a waterfowler who wants to try a float hunt. Will and I had to learn that lesson the hard way. We thought the faster the river the better. We’d get up on them quicker. We not only got up on the birds quicker, we also got swept into snags that were under water and limbs low on the water to roll us.

Will lost a nice Nikon and lens that way and he shot downstream backwards, fending off rocks with his feet. Then we still had to pull the kayak out and continue to our take-out spot. All in all, a lesson learned. As the old song goes, “up a lazy river we go,” and since then, we have had far less trouble targeting slower waters. And yes, we take every precaution. We wear flotation vests, but those without big pads over the shoulder. That way I can shoot better and swim better too, should the need arise.

If you’ve noticed, kayaks are a big deal with anglers lately, and it made a big change for us, more stable giving you a lower profile for birds watching out for hunters. They also have nice covered areas fore and aft to keep duffle dry. Two of the best makers of hunting kayaks are Old Town and Poke Boat. Will has a camo pattern that he paints on both boat and paddles.

That’s all part of the attention to detail that we put into these festivities. Camo clothes with a change along in case of dunking. Camo gloves on the hands and a face mask for camo and sunblock. We’ve even been known to attach branches to the front if the birds are super wary. Now I’ve even purchased a camo 10-gauge from Browning. My old Ithaca Mag 10 jammed one time too many.

Why the big gun? Because it knocks down geese at a distance and ducks too. Wise ducks sit at the bend of the river. When you come around a corner upriver, they jump and just have a foot or two to fly before they are gone around the next corner. With a 10, I can sometimes reach out at long distances before they’re gone. Also, even if they jump close I have more time to shoot when I can reach out further.

GO WITH THE FLOW

These are true Huck Finn experience hunts for us if we get the time. Lazing down the river, shooting a few ducks along the way. Pulling up on a sandbar and dressing out a couple. Spitting them over a bed of coals with a tin can of coffee in hand to savor while waiting for the meat to get done. If possible, and when would it be not, a bottle of merlot to enjoy with our duck. I like a good cigar about this time to celebrate the hunt. Then the gun is put away while we put our dishes away and paddle for the takeout.

Each fall we go on the river and follow the migration. It begins early with the “summer ducks.” Woodies and teal that sit in trees and blast off branches that are over your head and weave through trees. That’s the wood duck, but teal will rocket away so fast you won’t believe it. As the migration moves along the flocks will build until a hard frost drives them south. But you won’t mind.

Because next come the fat mallards from Canada. These beauties can’t rival a woody for color, but they are much easier to hit.

They jump straight up off the water and don’t swerve as much in flight. Woodies not only fly in and out of trees, but they often fly low on the water making them hard to see when the sun sparkles the waves on the river.

Wood ducks have a nutty taste and teal are so succulent, but mallards are hard to beat for flavor too, and they stick around on the river until the water freezes over.

Other ducks like ringbills and goldeneyes are there on the cold days and we are too. Chopper mitts on hands and electric boot heaters help a lot, but a little suffering is necessary at that time. It will be worth it and all the sweeter when you know it will soon be over for the year.

By far, my favorite quarry on the river is the big Canada goose.

The geese come to the river to escape detection. Once they are down on the river they aren’t going to be found too easily. They only have one problem. They need openings in the trees along the river in order to land. With that in mind, you’ll kind of get an idea of where to expect them. That and the fact that they love to make those honks and nuk-nukks that warn you that they are around the next bend. Talk about excitement. A dozen geese sitting on a sandy beach means you’ve punched your ticket for some real waterfowl hunting fun. Another reason for my beloved 10-gauge.

A goose has to jump and fly into the wind to get airborne. They aren’t hard to hit when they do that, but you need to hit them with a heavy load to bring them down. Again, the 10-gauge. And as with any bird you bring down on the river, you have to finish it on the water unless it’s dead. A crippled duck or goose will do remarkable things to hide or escape. They will swim into snags that you can’t get them out of. They will swim to the shore and scurry into the brush where you can’t get them without a dog.

POCKET RETRIEVER

And speaking of dogs. My family came to the prairies of Minnesota from Wisconsin, and brought their dogs with them. The little American water spaniel has fallen out of favor in these days of the ubiquitous Lab, but our family never forgot. A river float is what these little retrievers were bred for. At forty pounds I can pick her up and plop her in the back with ease. Drop a duck in heavy cover along the shore? My baby will find it. In heavy current she can use her tail as a rudder. Very fun to watch.

And before you think rivers are the only game in town, consider a paddle through a slough or along the lakeshore. The advantage of a quiet approach is still yours on a slough or lake. Besides our diminutive retriever, we’ve found lightweight blow up decoys by Cherokee Sports Decoys. They take up very little room and weigh next to nothing. Find a spot, and wait for the action.

I know from experience that you will find it daunting to learn to shoot from a sitting position, but with practice you will improve. I put the kayak on the ground and sit in it while a friend launches clays with a hand trap. It is a learning curve but if you want to ride the river or creep through a slough or some brushy lakeside, you’ll have to learn.

I don’t like to get up early in the morning. I don’t like to wait around by the decoys if I don’t have to. A river float is more like a pheasant hunt. You’re moving along seeing lots of new country. Jump shooting woodies is much like shooting flushed pheasants and to me, that’s great fun. You won’t see a lot of people and now that I’ve explained how frustrating the shooting can be you know why more people don’t do it.

But even though it’s tough shooting, Will and I will be there, for we know a secret: Disneyland for duck men is a lazy river.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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High-Tech Duck Scouting

Find your next waterfowl hunting hotspot with your smartphone

When I'm not following a black Lab around, I spend an awful lot of my time bowhunting public-land for whitetails and other critters. This, as you can imagine, requires a lot of scouting. Long before I had kids, this meant that I'd slip on a pair of knee-highs and start covering ground.

These days, my time is far more limited. That means it's necessary to use whatever tools are available to find hunting hotspots without having to devote hours to hiking randomly across the landscape. In the deer world, this is no secret and is a popular way to get a good idea of what the woods offers in the form of ambush sites. For waterfowlers, it seems as if high-tech scouting hasn't caught on as much.

Part of this is due to the fact that many of us have our near-and-dear spots, which play into our hunting traditions and preferences. I get that, and I've got a few blinds that feel like home. But I also love to find new places to hunt, especially close-to-home gems I might not have realized existed without a little research. These spots are my back-ups, or simply become the places I'll go to in order to get a wood-duck fix for an hour or two before it's time to get into the office.

Of course, with the right research you might find a new area that will be something truly special. Last fall, a good buddy of mine found one of these spots in north-central Wisconsin. At some point, likely half of a decade or more ago, someone dug out a good-sized, L-shaped pond in their woods. It's a wood duck and mallard magnet, and I have no doubt that for years it was off limits to the public. Today, it's in a tax-advantage program that allows for public hunting.

The pond isn't visible from a road, requires enough of a hike to dissuade most weekend warriors, and looks like an awful lot of the water in the county. But it's got something that the ducks like, and it's a rare day that you can sit there at sunrise and not take the safety off several times.

While Google Earth was the first truly accessible public program, there are several available now that offer sportsmen more. A personal favorite is onX maps. Their Elite membership allows you to pick five states and peruse high-quality aerial photography at your leisure.

They also offer overlays of landowners, and provide easy identification of public land. This matters â€” a lot. If you're looking for a way to access a backwater slough, or see an oxbow lake that looks too good to be true, you can figure out who owns it or if there is public access. Keep in mind that on a state-by-state basis, the legality of access into navigable water varies a lot. Know the laws before you start looking for potential hotspots so that you understand at the onset whether your findings are worthy of the next step.

Get In And Look

When I find intriguing waterholes tucked into publicly accessible spots, I mark them on my aerial photography and then get ready to take a hike. There is a disconnect between a beyond-the-clouds satellite view and what you'll actually see in person. Some spots look dreamy on your computer, but in person they are marshy messes that are unapproachable and unhuntable.

Get in and really look. I carry binoculars and biodegradable flagging tape or reflective tacks so I can find my way back in, should I deem the spot worthy of a morning or two. The binoculars are for some long-range observation. Oftentimes, if a waterhole is worth it, there will be ducks or geese there throughout the summer. Plus, with binos I can take a cursory look at a place and decide if it's worth getting in for a closer look.

If you do find a place that gets your spidey senses tingling, make sure you figure out the best way to hunt it. Some of my best spots consist of a point of poplars poking out toward a half-acre cattail swamp in the middle of hundreds of acres of public land. Others are simply wide creek bends, or a patch of higher ground in a slough. Make sure you do more than identify a good location, but also locate the best spot in which to hunt it. That summertime work, complete with the heat and the bugs, will not seem worth it in July. In October or November, it will be invaluable.

Conclusion

Borrow a page from the public-land bowhunter's playbook and use satellite imagery to find your next duck hotspot. It'll take some time perusing the internet on your smartphone to find some potential honey-holes and then some boots-on-the-ground work, but once you get a great spot squared away, it'll all be worth it.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Hunting Land: Why You Should Invest

Access to private land was getting tougher, leases getting more expensive and public hunting areas were getting crazier, so Brett Kik did what a growing number of hunters are doing these days: He plunked down a big chunk of money on a 160-acre tract of western Kentucky hunting land for sale. It wasn't much of a duck hunting property, at least not at first, but after making some improvements, it ended up being a pretty decent spot.

He's not alone. It seems everywhere you go, our public lands are more crowded than ever, and knocking on doors for permission gets tougher with each passing year. Buying a piece of hunting land is turning out to be the best option if you can swing it.

The advantages are obvious, says Kik, a 46-year-old highway contractor from Madisonville, Kentucky. It's yours. No one will outbid you for the lease. The landowner's family won't decide they want to hunt your blind, and you are free to do whatever you want.

You can build on it, cut trees, plant trees, develop a seasonal wetland and plant food plots. You can even sell it if you want, something Kik has done on several occasions since he bought that first tract in 1994. In fact, he's actually made a tidy profit on several properties he improved. Flipping isn't just for houses.

"We've built levees and installed a pump system to create a green timber spot, we've created wetlands where there were none and planted crops and native vegetation to attract birds. We bought one property and improved it and now we lease it to a group of six guys," he says.

"We bought another property, improved it and turned around and sold it for a real nice profit."

Setting Limits

Of course, hunting land for sale, even swampland, isn't cheap these days. The demand for recreational property is driving up prices in areas where few people would have considered buying duck hunting land a decade ago.

Kik bought his first property only after he cashed out his savings account and stocks, a risky move but something he doesn't regret. Since then, he's bought a half-dozen properties. Some have had fantastic duck hunting; others only marginal.

"You need to be realistic. Don't expect limits every time you hunt. You might get that at a $5 million duck club, but a 50-acre swamp might be hit-or-miss, depending on the time of year, the weather and other factors," says Kik.

Hunting land is somewhat cheaper where he likes to buy property. It can be considerably more expensive in the better-known and more popular duck hunting destinations. Prime green timber around Stuttgart, Arkansas, for example, is selling for upwards of $6,000 an acre, says Mossy Oak Properties broker Jeramy Stephens. Rice fields cost about $4,000 an acre and even untillable swampland is going for $2,000 an acre.

But, you don't have to buy a multi-million dollar duck club to have a great spot to hunt. Nor do you have to buy in the middle of world-famous duck country. There are lots of other places that have equally good duck hunting land, if you can afford them.

Waterfowl Properties, a spin-off of Whitetail Properties, has a 339-acre parcel with over two miles of Mississippi River frontage in west-central Illinois for $425,000. They haves maller parcels with wetlands listed for as little as $100,000. Something as small as five acres with a beaver pond on it in a state with marginal duck hunting can still attract good numbers of birds if managed properly.

But Are There Ducks?

SEE PHOTO GALLERY

The mere presence of water does not mean mallards will be pitching into the decoyscome fall. This is where thorough vetting comes into the equation. It helps to hire a real estate agent who not only knows the recreational market, but who also knows ducks, duck hunting and the local waterfowl scene, because even land in great areas can offer marginal hunting.

For example, you can buy property that sits between two of the best duck spots on the river, thinking it's a can't-miss purchase. Only to find out, the two clubs have more resources and better habitat, so you're shooting maybe a third of the birds they do.

Remember, the presence of blinds and food sources are good signs, but for a real glimpse at the potential look at properties during the season. Scout it as much as you possibly can. Ask local biologists and other hunters to get a general idea of what to expect.

"Some clubs keep detailed records of their harvest, which can be a big help," says Stephens. "Most people who own smaller properties don't keep track of those things, though."

Year-Round Commitment

If you can afford land and it holds a good number of birds during the season, you'll still be making monthly payments all year, even when there isn't a duck for a thousand miles. That's OK with Kik, though. His properties aren't just places to spend a Saturday in November and December. He's doing something, even if it's just relaxing, at one of his properties all year.

"I tell people if they aren't willing to put in the effort necessary to improve and maintain the land, then don't buy property," says Kik. "If all you want it for is to hunt ducks, go on a bunch of guided hunts. You'll actually save money. Buying hunting land isn't cheap and neither is improving it and maintaining it."

That's one mistake Stephens sees with first-time buyers. They acquire a piece of property without realizing that even swampland needs to be maintained. Levees can break or leak, pumps need regular maintenance, roads and trails need to be kept up and some properties need to be planted with crops to attract birds. All these activities are expensive and time-consuming.

Part of the joy of owning property is putting sweat equity into it. Planting food plots, creating impoundments, even building a small cabin is as rewarding to many hunters as shooting a limit of greenheads. It's what they love to do.

It's how they spend every free moment and every spare cent. Fixing up property is truly a labor of love that is rewarded when duck season rolls around.

"I would recommend buying something relatively close to your home so you don't spend hours just driving to the property. You want to be able to spend just a few hours there if that's all you have time for," adds Kik.

Make It Pay

Purchasing hunting land is costly, but there are some things you can do to recoup at least some of the expense. Kik has sold the timber off some of the land he bought and placed others in a conservation easement, including the wetland reserve easement program (WRP), administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Under the new program, landowners can receive technical assistance and cost-share funding to restore wetlands. Stephens has seen payments as high as $2,400 per acre for irrigated cropland and about $740 for forested land. The one-time payment won't likely pay the mortgage, but it will help.

"Putting land into WRP places a number of restrictions on the land, so it may not be the right choice for you," says Stephens.

That's assuming the land even qualifies. Typically, NRCS agents will visit the site and determine if it is eligible. It's a lengthy process and there's no guarantee you'll see any money, even if you do qualify.

A WRP contract typically does not allow crops, but you can recoup some costs if part of the land is farmed. Many new landowners simply lease the farming rights to a local farmer, often the previous owner. Lease rates vary dramatically, but if nothing else, the money will help offset monthly payments and the routine expenses that come with owning property.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Rarest Whitetails Of All?

In terms of coloration, which whitetails are the rarest of all? Most hunters would claim that distinction belongs to albinos, which lack any pigment in their skin or hair. But as unusual as it is to see a whitetail that's far too light in color, it's even less common to see one that's far too dark.

On the continent as a whole, "melanistic" or "melanic" deer - so named because their bodies produce far too much of the hair, skin and retina pigment known as melanin - are definitely the rarest of the rare. While millions of whitetails have been harvested across the continent in modern times, only a token number of cases of melanism have been documented. In fact, it's safe to say that most whitetail hunters have never even heard of melanistic deer, much less seen one. For that matter, only a few research biologists ever have observed one in the flesh.

Among those who have are Dr. John T. Baccus and John C. Posey of Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. Their school's location between San Antonio and Austin gives them handy access to melanistic whitetails for research, for as it turns out, most of the world's supply of these animals lives within an hour's drive of the campus.

The eastern edge of Texas' Edwards Plateau region and adjacent areas of the Blackland Prairie region are the epicenter of the world's population of melanistic whitetails, for reasons not well understood even by the two researchers. In going over the scientific literature, Baccus and Posey have been unable to find any record of melanistic deer being documented anywhere prior to 1929.

The odd "black" deer has shown up here and there, from the East Coast to the Great Lakes to the northern Rockies. In fact, below you'll find a photo of a striking melanistic 8-pointer shot in southeastern Pennsylvania in 2002. But it's safe to say that at any given time, there are now more melanistic whitetails alive in Central Texas than in every other part of the planet combined. Melanism is actually fairly common in all or parts of eight counties: Hays, Travis, Comal, Williamson, Blanco, Guadalupe, Burnet and Caldwell.

researchers admit that they aren't sure, but they say the mutation likely has been perpetuated because it offers a survival advantage. Melanistic deer are concentrated along the region's drainages, where cover is thick and a dark-colored prey animal would have an edge in avoiding detection. This trait also would serve them well in the upland juniper thickets found in the same part of Texas.

The biologists say that they don't know if the circumstances that produced this genetic trait are even still in existence. Nor, for that matter, does anyone know if a single gene is responsible. Regardless, the trait seems to be in no eminent danger of disappearing.

By no means are all deer with melanistic traits totally black. Indeed, there's a wide range of shades, with some being quite black and others being more of a dirty brown or dark gray. This has led some biologists to wonder if a single gene controls hair color or if instead multiple genes combine in a variety of ways to display a wide range of forms.

There's no middle ground with albinism; a deer either does turn out to be an albino or doesn't. But the same can't be said of melanism. According to the SWTSU researchers, some deer are semi-melanistic, meaning they display coloration and markings somewhere between those of normal and melanistic specimens. Semi-melanistic deer have the dark overall coloration of melanistic deer but retain the white areas of normally colored deer.

Melanism is easily seen even in fawns, as those with too much pigment are sepia, seal brown or dark gray. Only rarely do they have spots of the sort seen on normally colored fawns; most have only traces of spots or none at all.

Albinism is a recessive trait, and current thinking is that melanism is recessive as well. What leads researchers to draw this conclusion is that dark fawns often are born to does of normal coloration, and vice versa. Indeed, as with albino and piebald fawns, does sometimes bear one fawn normal in coloration and one abnormal in coloration.

Bobbie Fain took this "black" buck in Dimmit County, Texas. Most melanistic deer live in Texas, with the highest number being around 150 miles northeast of this ranch. Photo by Gordon Whittington.

None of the research done to date suggests that melanistic bucks have inferior antlers. The velvet on their racks tends to be brownish, but the SWTSU researchers note that they have seen one melanistic buck with gray velvet.

Given the rarity of melanism in whitetails on a continental basis, you might be wondering if it's possible to gain hunting access to these strange deer on any of the Texas lands where they thrive. Unfortunately, there are at present no public hunting opportunities for melanistic deer, as most of the animals live on large, leased ranches with tightly controlled access.

Nor are any outfitters currently advertising hunts for these unique animals. (Bobbie Fain did shoot a big semi-melanistic whitetail on a guided hunt at Rancho Encantado in Dimmit County in 1997. However, this ranch lies far outside the normal area for melanism, and Bobbie's trophy appears to have been an isolated case. Ranch owner Jack Brittingham says he's seen no other "dark" deer on the property since he began managing the land in the early 1990s, though he recalls having observed some deer of "toffee" color.)

Melanistic whitetails make beautiful mounts, and they definitely rank among the rarest of all deer trophies. But unless the animals become far more widespread than is currently the case, anyone wanting to admire a black whitetail probably will have no choice but to do so through photos.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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5 Reasons to Hunt October

A large number of bowhunters take the month of October off, which is great for those of us who don't.

While there are good reasons most hunters do not see as many deer during this pre-rut month, there are some compelling times and places to be in the woods during the month of October. Here are five that might make you rethink your October complacency.

It's Lonely Out There

Since so few hunters take October seriously, you may be all alone out there. October may be the single best time to hunt public land because there is little pressure putting the deer on edge.

There may be a few people out and about on the weekends, but you might find that you have normally busy areas of public hunting properties all to yourself in October.

Hunting pressure definitely causes deer to change their behavior patterns. Once they begin to feel pressure, many mature bucks go underground and won't be caught out during daylight. Hunting in October gives us a chance to target them before they feel the heat. They can still be in fairly predictable fall feeding and bedding patterns, which leads us to reason number two.

Predictable Movements

October is a time of ease for most bucks. Food is everywhere and the bedding areas are mostly undisturbed. Acorns are still around in abundance, cut corn and soybean fields offer easy to reach food, alfalfa is still green.

The daily lives of a buck might be to rise in late afternoon, hang out with the guys a little, make a few rubs and maybe sniff a scrape. He may do a little sparring with other bucks and then make his way towards the food source where he arrives with a half hour or so of daylight left.

He'll probably hang out just inside the woods until nearly full dark before exposing himself in the open, which gives a hunter the perfect opportunity to connect with him just inside the woods.

In the morning, he works his way back to his preferred bedding cover without much urgency, nibbling at browse along the way. Then he will spend his days in cover chewing his cud and only rising to stretch and relieve himself occasionally before going through his routine again in the late afternoon. It's a pretty good time for a savvy hunter to figure out the pattern and waylay a mature buck who has no idea he's being hunted.

Enjoy the Autumn

The living is pretty easy for us hunters too. Another great reason to hunt October is to get out and enjoy pleasant fall weather while gathering information for upcoming rut.

Evenings are delightful in a treestand at this time of the year. Mosquitoes have succumbed to frost and the colorful leaves are pleasant to the eye. Mornings are cool but not shivering-in-your-boots cold. It's just a great time to enjoy some of the things we love about hunting and being outdoors to observe nature and its natural goings on.

You can learn a lot that will help you better hunt the upcoming rut as well. October offers you a chance to inventory the deer in your area and get a feel for where the does are bedding. This knowledge will be valuable come the helter-skelter activity of the rut. You have to get out there among the deer to gain this knowledge.

Calling and Rattling

The second half of October is arguably the best time of the year to use calling and rattling to bring in a buck. Testosterone is surging and bucks are on edge as the urges of the upcoming rut are beginning to run through their veins.

The success rates of using combinations of grunt calls and rattling antlers can be at its peak in late October. Bucks come running with more abandon than at any other time of the year. Find a good spot with lots of ground cover near a bedding area and do some calling sequences. Make sure you are set up where the buck can't see a long ways, but must come close to investigate the source of the sound.

The largest buck my son Ben shot with a bow was taken under these exact circumstances. We set up at the point of a wooded draw where it cut into an alfalfa field. At the bottom of the draw was a thick creek bottom; perfect bedding cover.

I put out a buck decoy and Ben concealed himself 20 yards downwind of the decoy while I rattled. Almost immediately, a buck came strutting up out of the bottom and challenged the decoy. Less than 10 minutes into the sequence, he had the 10-pointer on the ground.

Sign Success

By the last week in October, scrapes and rubs are a central part of the area deer's lives. This pre-rut period is the time of the year when scrapes are visited in the daylight and rubs are being worked often. I don't hunt sign just for sign's sake very much, but the last week in October is the one time when it's definitely worth the effort.

When you've found an area all torn up with scrapes and rubs, the hunting can be good there both mornings and evenings. Set up downwind and use some good scent such as Trails End #307 or use a scrape dripper with Active Scrape lure in it. Spicing up the scrapes with good quality scent works very well during this time of the annual cycle. Many bucks will circle to wind-check the area from downwind so be sure you set up your stand accordingly.

If you can't find the scrapes and rubs in the right situation to set up a good ambush, create your own. Mock scrapes with fresh scent work just as wellâ€”sometimes better--than the real thing. Use a pocket knife to forge imitation rubs. The local bucks feel compelled to investigate.

So don't spend October on the recliner in anticipation of November. These five reasons should be incentive enough to get out there and tag a buck before the masses fill the woods.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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Top Four Summer Trail Cam Locations

I'm always surprised when I talk to someone who mostly runs their trail cameras just before the deer season and into the season. I suppose not everyone is as addicted to the sport of running cameras as I am, but in addition to that, hunters who wait until the last minute to get their cameras working for them are missing out not only on a lot of great enjoyment, but also some good information that will pay off later on.

The enjoyment comes from watching the deer lazily biding their time through the summer and observing the amazing spectacle of nature that is the growth of antlers each year. The information comes in learning patterns and most importantly taking an inventory of the bucks on the properties you hunt. Knowing the potential of any property is a valuable part of deciding what areas you will hunt come fall and choosing which bucks will become your targets when the deer season rolls around.

There are four places I feel it's critical to keep cameras operating during the summer. I may not have cameras on all four of these on each property, but I will at some time during the summer be monitoring these for at least a couple weeks. I try to let the cameras sit for at least two weeks and some of the prime spots may have a camera on them all summer. Let's look at these four spots and examine why they are good as gold.

Water

While deer get most of their water from the plants they eat, they will consistently supplement that with any clean water that is available on the property. This may be a natural water hole, pond, stream or swamp. The ones that are easy to cover with a camera are the small ponds where you can set the lens to take in the entire pond. Bucks will use thede day and night if they are secluded in areas which give them a secure feeling.

Deer tracks around these ponds will tell you which ones are getting the most use. Deer tracks will also offer clues as to where the deer are drinking on larger waters. Banks will be stomped down where the deer go down to the water. Creek crossings are one of my favorites because you are monitoring both a trail and water simultaneously. Deer will loiter and take a drink at the creek whenever they cross, giving you ample opportunity to get good photos of them.

Minerals

I start my mineral sites in the spring as soon as the snow goes off, and the deer will hit them periodically all summer. Hunters, land managers and biologists will argue well into the night around a campfire about how much benefit the bucks' antlers receive as a result of the minerals, but one thing is for sure, they sure bring the bucks in front of your camera.

I don't mind a mineral with a goodly amount of salt content because the deer will stay at the site longer and the hole that develops as a result of their pawing and licking is also an attractor. A salt or mineral block can work just as well. Put them in spots where the deer feel comfortable during daylight hours and resist the temptation to check them too often. Keeping human scent intrusion to a minimum will ensure that the biggest mature bucks will visit often.

Food and Corn piles

Natural foods attract deer all summer and these food sources can be excellent places to put a camera. Problems come with this as most food sources are large and difficult to cover with a scouting camera. They may be using a large soybean, corn or alfalfa field for example. You can attempt to find the access points where the deer are entering the field but they are often so numerous that you'll be using too many cameras on each field.

I have found that it pays to use artificial food source whenever possible. A 50-pound bag of corn will last about week in most places with an average number of deer in the area. With high deer numbers it might take two. Most every deer will stop in for a bite or two of corn even when food is abundant. I have a source where I can buy 30-pound boxes of crushed peanuts really cheap and it works wonders but it also disappears much faster than corn and every bird and critter in the area will fill up your camera's SD card so it's a toss-up.

Bedding Areas

Many people are afraid to put a camera right in known bedding areas and there are good reasons to avoid doing so. However, there are a couple things we can do to minimize disturbing the deer to the point that they avoid the area. The first one is simply do not check the camera often and then check it right before or during a rain or at night. The rain will wash out your scent and checking the area at night allows you to sneak in and out when the deer our off feeding somewhere else.

The introduction of cell phone and wifi cameras has changed the game for those of us who like to put cameras right in the bedding areas. I have a Covert Blackhawk camera that uses Verizon towers and it only costs me $15 per month for up to 1000 photos. It will text or email me photos as it takes them. I can monitor it from an app on my smartphone so I don't need to go get it until the app shows that the batteries are dead, and that's usually several weeks.

I place this cell phone camera right in the areas I know the deer are bedding and it's amazing what I have learned from it, even during the middle of the summer. I can see what times deer are entering and exiting the area. I have also noticed that they tend to use certain bedding areas with variances in wind directions and weather conditions. A camera in the bedding area is one of the most educational tools I use in the summer for learning about the deer on the properties I hunt.

So don't wait until the cool evenings of fall get your hunting juices flowing to put those cameras out. Keep them out all summer and you will not only know much more about your deer, but you may also become addicted to the sport of scouting cameras like I am.

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