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3 Reasons to Pull Your Treestands and Start Fresh This Season
Leaving treestands up for a full year is a bad idea. Leaving them up for several years is far worse. Yet, quite a few hunters do this with both hang-on and ladder stands. Not only is this unsafe, but it’s also often not the best strategy if you want to kill nice bucks.
A blank-slate strategy with...
Tony J. Peterson
Mar 14, 2023
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Featured Gear
Archery
Gear
3 Common Reasons Broadheads Fail
I quit drinking eight years ago. Since then, I’ve discovered a special kind of hell that occurs when someone is hammered and tries to have a deep conversation with me. This only gets worse when that someone is a stranger and the topic is bowhunting.
This past turkey season, while eating a burger in...
Tony J. Peterson
Jun 3, 2021
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Gear
Answering the 3 Most Common Questions About Tree Saddle Hunting
I first heard about tree saddles more than a decade ago. At the time I thought hanging from a tree by a waist harness seemed uncomfortable, impractical, and downright foolish. But it turns out I was the fool.
Ten years later I finally gave saddles a try—only to realize I’d been missing out in a big...
Mark Kenyon
Jul 17, 2020
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Gear
You’re Hanging Your Tree Stands Wrong
Between the biblical rain and plague-level ticks, I called it quits on the run-and-gun mission an hour before sunset. The late season Wisconsin birds weren’t gobbling, and it was clear the public land I was hunting had plenty of other turkey hunters. As I hiked out, I tried to salvage the day by...
Tony J. Peterson
Aug 21, 2020
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Gear
Ask MeatEater: What’s the Best Broadhead for Deer?
You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers (and if we don’t, we’ll make them up). Every day, fellow MeatEaters send us more than 100 emails regarding hunting, fishing, cooking, conservation, and more. So, we decided to publish a series dedicated to our favorite FAQs. This is Ask MeatEater.
While...
Spencer Neuharth
Aug 6, 2020
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Gear
The Archery Routine that Will Help You Kill More Deer
Fifteen minutes from my house is an extensive archery complex. It offers multiple walk-through courses and a standard range of 20- to 80-yard bale targets. It’s a great place to go to if you want to hone your archery skills—or see what not to do in the weeks leading up to the season.
In Minnesota...
Tony J. Peterson
Jun 9, 2020
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Gear
How to Select the Best Hunting Arrows for Deer
Deer hunters love to debate. We argue over broadhead styles. We fight over who makes the best bow. We will nearly come to blows over baiting versus food plots versus hunting natural movement.
What we don’t get overly passionate about is choosing the best hunting arrows.
I talk to a pile of whitetail...
Tony J. Peterson
May 21, 2021
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Gear
Saddle Hunting 101: Why You Should Try a Tree Saddle
I’d heard about it for a decade and considered it for years. In 2018, I decided it was finally time to give it a try. I was going to hunt from a tree saddle.
Of all the questions I’ve received since making that decision, no topic has been more common than tree saddles: What did I think about the...
Mark Kenyon
Mar 8, 2019
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Trail Cameras
Gear
How to Make Trail Camera Batteries Last Longer
Here’s a controversial statement: Trail cameras can be absolutely worthless.
Here’s a less controversial statement: Trail cameras are worthless when their batteries are dead.
This might seem obvious, but every year hunters stick hundreds of dollars-worth of trail cams in the woods and then return...
Mark Kenyon
Mar 22, 2021
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Scout
Are Trail Cameras Making You a Worse Hunter?
Scouting deer used to involve glassing, looking for sign, and getting in where the deer live to suss out their patterns. Now, for a lot of us, it just involves hanging a trail camera. This might be a necessity and the best way to figure out a buck, or it can be a crutch and steer us into poor...
Tony J. Peterson
Sep 29, 2020
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Gear
The Single Best Way to Get Bucks on Trail Cam (Without Bait)
Hang a trail camera in front of a pile of corn or a mineral block and you’re almost guaranteed to get an SD card full of deer photos. It used to be that simple. But with increasing concerns over disease in recent years, more and more states are outlawing the use of bait at trail camera sites. For...
Mark Kenyon
Jul 31, 2020
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Gear
Ask Wired To Hunt: Are Wireless Trail Cameras Fair Chase?
At the risk of igniting “another classic ethics debate fueled by none other than MeatEater,” as one social media commenter recently lamented, I’d like to talk about the fair chase ramifications of wireless trail cameras.
What is ethical? What is moral? What is fair chase? This is a set of questions...
Mark Kenyon
May 7, 2019
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Gear
Ask Wired To Hunt: Where Should I Place Trail Cams?
It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that trail cameras have led to a lot of whitetail bucks ending up in freezers. But the inverse is true too: Cameras have saved a lot of deer lives as well. Mostly this is because well-intentioned hunters place their cameras in the wrong locations and check...
Mark Kenyon
Jul 12, 2019
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Gear
Summer Trail Camera “Do Nots”
By Paul Annear
I’m not sure about you, but I am obsessed with trail cameras and even more in love with capturing monster bucks during those hot and humid days of July and August. The anticipation of checking a camera that has been on that prime inside corner gets me downright pumped. But as fun as...
Mark Kenyon
Jul 10, 2017
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Other Gear
Gear
The Best Straight-Wall Cartridge for Whitetail Hunting
Straight-wall cartridges are surging in the whitetail world. The best evidence of this is recent legislation.
Several big deer states—including Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana—have passed laws in the last five years allowing straight-wall cartridges in zones previously designated as shotgun- or...
Jordan Sillars
Jan 5, 2021
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Gear
Video: How to Carry a Deer On Your Back
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...
Clay Newcomb
Jan 5, 2023
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Gear
How to Pick a Good Deer Taxidermist
Taxidermists are like referees. When they do their job well, you hardly notice them. But when the job is done poorly, it commands attention in a bad way.
In many cases, exceptional taxidermy contains details that the average person won’t pick up on. I reached out to some taxidermists to ask what...
Spencer Neuharth
Oct 10, 2019
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Gear
Scent Control for Dummies
If there’s any one thing that connects the most consistently successful whitetail hunters I know, it’s a strong focus on scent control. A whitetail’s nose is its best defense mechanism. For that reason, the smart hunter will do everything possible to control the scent he brings into the woods.
Can...
Mark Kenyon
Nov 9, 2020
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Gear
Video: Which Rattling Call is Loudest?
Mimicking the sound of bucks fighting can be an effective way to draw a buck in during any phase of the rut. In this video, I compare the volume of five different rattle calls to see which is loudest.
Admittedly, volume isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to rattling—realism is equally...
Clay Newcomb
Dec 11, 2020
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Gear
Ozone, Carbon, and Cover Scents: Can You Beat a Whitetail’s Nose?
Many hunters doubt they can beat the seemingly invincible noses of deer, elk or other game once the animal gets downwind.
Given what we read about animals olfactory powers, and what we’ve witnessed while hunting, it’s understandable why some hunters think scent-control methods are futile wastes of...
Patrick Durkin
Nov 16, 2018
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Gear
Human or Deer Urine: Does It Make a Difference?
If a hunter pees in the woods, do deer, bears or elk really care?
If they do care, how do they respond? And for how long? Do they respond differently if hunters consumed coffee, garlic, onions, beer, cheese, cabbage or other aromatic drinks and foods?
With so many opinions and questions, and so many...
Patrick Durkin
Nov 24, 2018
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