Along with buck rubs on trees and saplings, the time of the ubiquitous and mysterious scrape, a bare patch of ground on the forest floor, is here. Some of us have spent countless hours perched in ...

Not long ago, the hardest thing about big buck hunting was simply that mature whitetails were so scarce. In most states, the vast majority of bucks were killed the first year they wore visible antlers ...

It’s no secret that whitetails love acorns. Ask any food-plot or farm-field hunter where his buck disappeared to in early fall, and if he’s not guessing “to an oak stand somewhere,” he hasn’t been ...

Archery season for whitetails can be one of the most frustrating of all the upland shooting sports. Tough, lonely, uncomfortable ... bow hunting tests our physical and emotional stamina. And when the ...

The Hunting Public crew with a stud buck taken on public ground. The most important factor impacting whitetail rutting activity isn’t the weather or moon phase. It’s not barometric pressure. It’s not ...

After the chaos of the peak rut, the deer population undergoes a noticeable shift. Most does have been bred, and bucks are no ...

Deer hunters who depend on wild food sources for stand sites can find their placement problematical from one year to the next because wild mast producers, such as oaks, beech and wild apples are ...

Until just recently I always considered scrapes the Holy Grail of deer hunting. Sitting on a fresh scrape line, I had always read, for a long enough period of time would guarantee you a mature buck ...

Forget about tracks or droppings. The leaf cover today is so new, so deep that any evidence of deer activity on the ground was out of the question. So why am I out on this cold, clear morning, looking ...

For Alabama hunters who are more interested in trophy racks than venison, the last weeks of the season are often best. While the abundance of does early in the season makes it easier for meat hunters ...

When Steve Dupuis sent along a photo of his son Reno’s magnificent buck the young hunter took in the days leading up to Thanksgiving Day, it was notable Steve said the giant whitetail had followed a ...