Hunter Weber of Buckley, Illinois, makes the rounds scouting for deer almost every day in November. Despite spending tons of time observing whitetails during the rut, he witnessed something last weekend that he’s never seen before. In an encounter that lasts just over a minute, a young whitetail buck squares up to a crossbred bull and charges. They exchange a couple blows and do a lot of posturing before both going their separate ways.
It’s...

The downside to the latter part of November is that the wild chase-fest of a few weeks ago is largely over. With the dependable chaos of the early part of the rut in the rearview mirror, it can feel like a lost cause to try to tag a mature buck by the time the calendar flips to December.
Don’t lose all hope, though. One conception-date study conducted in Illinois revealed that the mean date for does getting lucky was November 10. Another multi...

Much of the country is now on the other side of the rut, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. Although the first couple weeks of November offer the best chance at a rutting buck, the second half of the month is still a great stretch to tag a mature whitetail. In fact, for some big buck killers, this is the preferred time to strike.
At this phase in the rut, most does have been bred and will yet again be distancing themselves from bucks. This can...

Duck hunters use a whole range of letters to describe decoy spreads. I can’t speak for all of them, but I doubt the grammarians of the 16th century had any clue their contributions to the alphabet would inspire the tactics of 21st-century waterfowlers. Regardless, the bird’s eye view of these select letters has been the demise of many ducks, and their effectiveness is without question. If you’re new to duck hunting or just looking for tried-and...

Ask any American hunter to name his top three big game cartridges and chances are good that at least one of those will be the .308 Winchester or .270 Winchester.
Winchester launched the .270 Win. all the way back in 1925 for the Model 54 bolt-action rifle. At the time it offered better long-range performance than any other cartridge on the American market, and today it remains one of the most frequently chambered calibers in existence.
The .30...

We all know that once a deer hits the ground the real work begins. Typically, our options for a getting our venison back to the truck are pretty simple—drag  it out or quarter it up and haul it out piece by piece. However, there is a third option. You can carry the deer on your back. I learned this old method from James Lawrence, a 72-year-old veteran whitetail hunter from the mountains of Arkansas. James was taught how to “shock pouch...