How to Find the Best Stand Locations for Taking Trophy Whitetails!

So you’ve finally gained access to piece of deer hunting heaven! A piece of ground that has been un-hunted for years. How do you go about deciding how to hunt it? Here’s a some answers to a few of the most commonly asked questions.

Where do you start?
How do you narrow down hundreds of acres into a handful of top stand locations?
How do you find that perfect spot to ambush a trophy whitetail?
How do you pick the right tree?
How will you access the stand?

You Found a Piece Great Piece of Property, Now, Where do You Start?

Once you have secured access to some ground, the next step, if you have not already done so, is to get a good aerial photo of the property. This will be one of the most valuable tools for getting started and can save a great deal of time and effort. I keep a small, laminated version in the truck to refer to all the time. You will be surprised just how off your perception of the lay of the land can be. A good detailed aerial will reveal more about how to begin your scouting and how to hunt a piece of land than you can imagine. This works extremely well for northern areas but a little less so in the south. However, a great deal of useful information can still be gained from an aerial even if you’re a southern hunter, such as a change in the vegetation or edge in the woods where an upland hammock changes to a marsh or planted pines change to a cypress strand or pond. Creek drainages, island, hammocks and other terrain features that are keys to deer movement can be derived from the aerial. In the northern part of the country such as the Midwest you can literally plan your entire strategy from an aerial before you ever set foot on the property. Even bedding areas can be easily determined once you learn how to interpret them. They are typically going to be the thick steep draws, especially if they have been select cut. After that, you are going to need to scout some of the areas you found on the map to verify whatyou have learned from them.

How do you Narrow Down Hundreds of Acres into a Handful of Top Stand Locations?

With your aerials in hand you will be able to identify the most likely stand locations.
I like to start with the fields. Look for inside and outside corners and points that project out into the field. Next, look at the general lay of the land for obvious travel routs for any buck looking to cross from one side of the property to another. Bottle necks or any features that funnel the deer travel will be a key spot. Also try to identify possible saddles that tie two ridges together, this is another great ambush site for all deer and especially Trophy Bucks.

How do you Find the Perfect Spot to Ambush a Trophy Whitetail?

Now that you have some potential key locations identified, its time to put on your hiking boots and get a first hand look at each spot. Any outside points are no brainers, they cut down the width across the field and increase your shooting range. You can have an 80 ac field and if it has a point that projects out into it, more often than not a buck is going to be drawn to walk by it.
If I had to pick one kind of stand location, it would be bottle neck or some kind of funnel that helps force the deer to move thru a narrowed area. This can be formed by fields on each side of a narrow strip of woods. Fences or some natural thick barrier.

You can even create your own funnel if you are hunting on private land. I have a favorite stand overlooking a strip of crp and a lot of the deer I was seeing were passing out of bow range, so I spent half a day cutting 2-3” maple saplings to create a big “v” to force the deer closer to my stand. It was a lot of work but it worked great!

Another spot to always keep an eye open for is a location where multiple types of edge all come together. The more the better. An example of this would be the stand that I killed the doe in the picture here. It’s an inside field corner that butts up to an open wooded bottom to the north and a thick cutover bedding area to the east. This can be a deer magnet. Another good example would be different age or type, stands of timber abutting a cutover or head, etc.

How do you pick the right tree?

Once you have zeroed in on the perfect spot, now comes the delima, picking the right tree. This is often a difficult choice, especially for a bow hunter. One of my favorite hunting buddies Cpt. Rick and I often debate over the right tree for 30-45 minutes before we come to an agreement. There never seems to be a good tree right where you need it and you usually end up in something with a dog leg or crook and it usually takes some head scratching to get the stand on the tree. Personally, I want to be as close as possible to as much sign as I can cover. In an ideal situation you would want to set up so deer don’t come from behind you but sometimes this can’t be helped. It’s a lot easier if you are a gun hunter but when bow hunting, you want to cover as much ground as possible. If you are gun hunting, get back off the sign a little to avoid spooking deer. If you are bow hunting, don’t get to close to a trail you expect deer to travel. Try to stay back 12-15 yds. If you can. You will have less deer busting you and have a better shot angle. On calm mornings it is nearly impossible to draw on a deer that is under 10 yds.

How will you access the stand?

How you access the stand can be extremely important. Always avoid walking in front of your stand and approach from the rear or side. There are hundreds of different scenarios you could consider but in general try to avoid approaching where you expect the deer to be. Use any possible cover to hide your approach. If you are hunting in thick woods like in the south, make a chop trail to your stand so you can avoid contact with the vegetation. This will help you avoid contaminating your walk trail with scent. Many times deer will start using your trail but it’s a trade off you have to live with.

If you will follow some of these tips and apply them they will get you that much closer to your goal of putting a Trophy Buck in the back of your truck!

Good hunting!
Larry Stephens

Less Scouting Just Might Help you Harvest a Buck of a Lifetime! Here's How!

Less scouting can equal more trophy bucks! I’ll bet you have never heard that before! Let me tell you how you can be more successful with less scouting and harvest the buck of a life time!

• Over scouting can push a resident buck out of the area!
• Over scouting can cause bucks to go nocturnal!
• Do part of your scouting on the way in and out of your stand.
• Stay out of thick areas lay-up!
• In open country scout deer movement patterns with optics from a distance!

Watch any hunting show or read any magazine articles related to hunting Deer and when you get to the section discussing scouting you will probably get the sense that you have to spend every spare minute scouting, leaving no rock unturned. Well, not exactly so. Over scouting can be even more detrimental to taking a trophy than under scouting.

Once you are Really Familiar with your property and how Deer use it
under various conditions you will know which stand to hunt without scouting.

Minimal scouting can be a major key to talking a trophy buck. To accomplish this you have to really know the property you are hunting. Obviously, the first few years you are on a new property you are going to need to do a lot of scouting to familiarize yourself with the lay of the land and how the deer use the property. In farm country such as in the mid-west, how the deer use the property will change from year to year ,depending on crop rotation, acorn crop, if the farmer has turned under the field , snow, etc.. You will need to determine where the bedding areas, feeding areas and any travel corridors that guide deer into confined movement areas. A lot of this knowledge can be learned during the off season, either turkey hunting or shed horn hunting, etc. Once you are really familiar with your piece of property you won’t need to stomp every inch of it just before you start hunting.

If you are hunting during the rut there is a revolving door of bucks entering and leaving your property so you can get away with a little more stomping around but you do still run the risk of educating a buck that might be on the hit list. If you do have the misfortune to spook the buck your hunting off the property there will be a new one there the next day, so all is not lost. If you are hunting pre or post rut you don’t have Bucks moving from property to property as much so take more care not to let this happen.

In the above photo i'm using a frozen creek between an alfalfa fieldand corn field to hide my access to a prime stand!

A Field Stand will Take a lot more Pressure than a Woods Stand!

Crossing an open crop field is far less impact on the deer than if he smells where you have walked in the woods. Field stands can be hunted much more than your woods stands. I have noticed that deer pay little to no attention when they cut your trail crossing a field. There is usually no vegetation to swipe against your legs and pick up scent and fibers from your cloths. Leave some scent in the woods and it’s a different story.

It should not take you to long to figure out where the prime stand locations are on your property. We like to take care of all of our stand work during spring gobbler season. Sometimes we are forced to move a stand or hang a new stand during the season based on a new movement pattern but keeping this to a minimum will help keep the disturbance down. This is really important, especially when hunting small properties. Keep in mind that does are much more tolerant of human intrusion than are bucks, A Big Bucks with 3 or 4 hunting seasons behind him will not stand for being jumped out of his bed. He won’t use that spot again for a long time, maybe never.

The Buck above was taken from a travel corridor stand in the woodsthat is adjacent to a field access. No Scouting required!

Our lease in Illinois is approx. 420 acres and about half is woods. We have over 20 stand locations that cover all the key spots on the farm. A few of these stands will be cold each year as the conditions are always different from year to year but the rest will all be productive spots that you could see a Trophy in, at any time. The balance of land is field and big draws. You really have to stay away from the draws as this is prime bedding and you can’t hunt it without blowing them out of there trying to get in. With this situation we can go to a stand cold and do a little scouting on the way in, hunt and get out. There is no need to stomp the place flat just to look at the sign. If he is there he’s going to end up at one of our stands, it’s just a matter of time. This is the best low pressure method of hunting small property.

If your Stands are Located Properly you really don’t need to Scout!

If you learn your property and get your stands located in all the prime movement spots ahead of the hunting season so you are not forced to be walking all over the woods when your supposed to be hunting, you’ll be able to hunt effectively with almost no scouting. That Trophy Whitetail your after will never know what hit him!

Good Hunting,
Larry Stephens

Monster 2007 Iowa Whitetail

Well, If you like Big Monster Bucks.....here he is. I don't know much about the story behind the harvest but reports indicate he was harvested in 2007 in Iowa.

There is always hope!

Good Hunting

Larry

Monster Illinois Buck Found Dead!

Reports have surfaced about another Monster Buck found dead in the state of Illinois.

The Monster's remains were found dead by a pair of bird hunters near Petersburg, Illinois. The pair were pushing a high grass drainage when they stumbled upon the Massive Antlers and skeletol remains. Apparantly coyote's had worked the carcuss over pretty well at that point.

State Game Officials were summoned to investigate and verify the find and no wounds could be found among the remains that could be attributed to the death.

Apparantly the existance of the Trophy Whitetail was know to local hunters but know one was able to harvest the Monarch. Such is the case with many Trophy's of this magnitude. They get this big for a reason and most have some small out of the way niche where people just don't bother to explore or a piece of ground where hunting is not allowed.

The ellusive Buck was caught by a camera trap at night but that appears to be the only record of his existance.

Reports state the the massive rack has an unofficial non-typical score of 246" Boone & Crocket.

Monster Alaskan Moose

Here is another internet story I recently received in an email from a friend of a Monster Alaskan Moose. The story is unverified and there is only (1) photo so I'm a little skeptical until I hear more on this. Any way here's what I got on him;



Subject: Big Alaskan Moose

You won't believe your eyes!! Hold on to your hat for this one....75 inch rack !The moose in the photo is an Alaska-Yukon moose taken by Eric Arnette on September 5th. It wastaken in the Kilbuck Mountains which is 380 miles west of Anchorage AK. The rack is approximately 75 inches wide, has about 36 countable points, and as unofficially scored by a person who is not an Official Measurer at around 264 points. In the near future it'll be posted on the Boone and Crockett Club's web site on "Trophy Watch" where the official score will be announced once it is entered.

Hunting Northern Idaho for Big Trophy Whitetails!

Hunting Northern Idaho for Big Trophy Whitetails!

Hunting Northern Idaho can be one of the most rewarding and greatest adventures you can undertake. You will see and experience some of the most beautiful country you can imagine. If you enjoy the outdoors you’ll find Idaho is pretty much heaven on earth.

Reasons to consider Hunting Idaho!

1. Variety of game species to hunt and view, including Trophy Whitetail.
2. The natural scenic Beauty.
3. The adventure.
4. Amount of access to Quality hunting ground.
5. The history of the area.
6. The overall variety of outdoor activity’s to experience .

Each year my good friend Cpt. Rick and I would journey from Central Florida to Northern Idaho to hunt with our good friends Jim and Brady Jones. We had some tremendous adventures hunting this rugged country and saw a variety of other big game species including, elk, mule deer, moose and bear. We never got to see a cougar but we did cut a few tracks here and there.

What is the Best Method for seeing the Most Trophy Deer?

When hunting these big woods the name of the game is to cover as much ground as possible. There are no mast crops and the deer are basically limited to browse. This presents a difficult problem to overcome as there is little to nothing to concentrate the deer. On the plus side, the deer can be a little more visible as they have to spend more time on their feet feeding. We would hunt all day, daylight to dark and we found the deer would move throughout the day especially when it was overcast. However, clear, sunny sky’s will slow deer movement to a trickle and you will be in for a tough hunt.

This is really big country and a typical canyon is so wide you can’t shoot across it. It can be a little difficult to find places with good visibility that you

can actually shoot. I fell into a pattern of still hunting and walking, jump shooting the deer like quail. You will see plenty of deer at long range but using the technique, most will be inside 100 yds.

Other Places to find Big Trophy Bucks!

There were a number of other situations and patterns we found that could be exploited. There are a lot of meadows to be found in this country and this can be a great place to take up a stand and spend some time. They tend to be long and not so wide but you can really stretch your barrel on many of them. Others include areas that were being actively logged that made the freshly cut tops with moss and other plants available to the deer. Young clear cuts were another deer magnet and can be hunted by still hunting from the road system. Many times a small spot of flat ground can be a magnet for deer in steep country.

The Ever Present Danger Factor!

One of the most exciting and intriguing aspects of hunting in Idaho was the danger factor. It was always in the back of your mind that in the blink of an eye, any given situation could rapidly deteriorate into a life threatening situation and I can tell you we had our share of close calls, and then some. Every day was an adventure and you never knew what you were going to get yourself into. We found ourselves in several situations that we wondered if we were going to make it out of in one piece.

We had situations were we were lost, overturned 4 wheelers on steep slopes, mechanical breakdowns, black ice, white outs, slid the truck off the road into ditches, nearly got our boat trapped in a frozen reservoir, almost rolled the truck off a skidder road with a 1500’ drop, etc, etc.. When I think of the tights we got our self into I just shake my head.

We have been in the back country with 15-20” of snow on the ground in places so remote no one else had even dared to break trail. You had to have chains on the truck and the 4wheelers! Talk about fun….get your truck stuck in 16” of mud and snow in the hairpin of a narrow logging road that is pitched to the down hill slope and you have to lift your rig with a farm jack to put on the chains….and it 26 deg.!

Items you need to Include in your Pack!

Your day pack needs to include all the standard emergency items including, communications, emergency food, compass (with backup), lighter & fire starter kit, emergency space blanket, saw, rope, map, etc.. You have to be prepared in this country.

Is Idaho for the Do-It-Yourselfer?

You can hunt Idaho, do-it-yourself style but I would recommend going with an outfitter to get familiar with what you are in for, at least for your first trip, if you are not experienced with this type of hunting. If you are looking for an adventure you will never forget, unbelievable scenery and some great hunting then Idaho might be just what you are looking for.

Good hunting!
Larry Stephens

Youth Takes Monster Buck!

I received the following information on this buck in an email.

I would take the following with a grain of salt until it is verified but if it is not a doctored photo, it an incredible buck!

Larry S.

"From a guy who hunts in the general area that the buck was taken.

Deer Hunters:

Here are some early photos of a great deer taken during the youth hunt this> year. This buck was shot at a property only eight miles from where I hunt> on my brother-in-law's property in Grant County. We saw a buck with 16 inch tines two years ago. It could have been him or a relative. Anyway, Grant County produces some great bucks every year.

This buck green scores 203 Typical, NET, not gross. If so, this would place this buck in the top> three typicals all time in Wisconsin, and that includes the great Jordan Buck at 207 that was world record for decades. These pictures were taken in front of the Cabela's store in Prairie du Chien.

The hunter shown in the picture a 15 year old Williams boy from Millville, WI. The deer was shot between Millville and Woodman. The buck was shot with a rifle during the youth hunt in early October. This deer has 16 inch tines.

The manager at Cabelas offered him $25,000 on the spot the day the pictures were taken. Cabela's offer included making a replica set of antlers that look identical> to the originals and the hunter would be able to keep the cape. The boy and his father turned down that offer. The manager then called the Cabelas headquarters in Nebraska and immediately got permission to offer the boy $61,000 for the rack. He still said no.

Writers and photographers from various deer magazines descended on Wisconsin to see the deer so I'm sure> you will see more about this buck in the upcoming days. "

Don't just be a Hunter, be a Predator!

Don’t just be a Hunter, be a Predator!

If you intend to be a life taker of Trophy Whitetails, you better start thinking less like a weekend warrior and more like a predator. You cannot expect to hunt 5 or 10 days a year and have all your senses finally tuned to the extent necessary to be consistently successful at harvesting game.

From the beginning of time man has been a hunter and gatherer. Unfortunately, today’s society has molded man into a creature far removed from what we used to be. Most have lost all touch with nature and the feelings that stir in a man soul that drive him to hunt other animals. Our senses have been dulled by generations of life lived outside of the natural environment and dependence on others to provide sustenance.

Here are Some Essential Things you can do to Tune Yourself up for Hunting Season!

1. Spend as much time in the woods as you can in the off season.
2. Hunt other species of game besides Whitetails.
3. When hunting deer, don’t limit your harvest to just bucks, shoot some does!
4. Put in as much time on stand as possible each Year.
5. Employ other hunting methods such as spot & stalk!

The animals your hunting spend each and every day of life in the woods and everything they do revolves around survival. You will never be able to match their senses but the more time you spend in their environment the more you can close the gap.

Hunt Other Game Species to Sharpen Your Skills!

Hunting other species such as squirrels, hogs and especially turkeys will sharpen you predator skills like nothing else. By the time you get around to chasing Trophy Bucks, you’ll be a lean, mean, deer killin’ machine.

Don't Just Hold Out for a Buck,
Shoot a Doe if Given the Opportunity!

If you have a limited number of days to hunt each year don’t just hold out for a buck, shoot a few does, this is extremely important for a bow hunter. Most anyone can pick up a gun and shoot a deer at 100 yds or more but put a bow in that guy’s hands and see if he can shoot a 5 yr. old doe at 15 yds. that has a couple yearlings she is teaching the skills of survival. You cannot believe the things that can go wrong at that close distance. With her yearlings in tow that deer is just about as hard to kill as animal that walks or breaths, except maybe a coyote. That practice is invaluable, believe me!

Spend as Much Time in the Woods as Possible!

One of my very best hunting companions who shall remain nameless, only gets to hunt deer about 10-12 days a year. Therefore, he is pretty dull when he arrives to hunt the monster bucks that call our Illinois farm home. All of his effort, preparation and anticipation is for this very hunt, but the day he arrives at the farm is his first day in the woods in a year, except maybe a handful of days turkey hunting. Everyone cannot afford the time to spend 50 to 75 days a year hunting but the more you can squeeze out the better your hunting skills will become.

Employ Other Hunting Methods!

Day in and day out more deer hunting is done from a tree stand than by any other method but if you want to sharpen you skills, try doing some spot and stalk. This is a much more difficult method of hunting and will really hone your predator skills like nothing else. Stalking is the ultimate predatory skill. Besides, it is just a matter of time before your presented with circumstances that require just these skills.

If you want to take more trophy deer next season, follow these tips and get outside and put some extra time in the woods prior to your big hunt. I guarantee you, you’ll be more successful for the effort.

Good hunting,
Larry Stephens

Flying with Antlers in Checked Bags

United Airlines New Baggage Policy Prohibits Antlers In Checked Bags!

I received the following information in the latest SCI (Safari Club Internatinoal) news letter regarding flying with antlers in your checked baggage. I typically always fly Delta so i have not experienced this problem but i wanted to spread the word.

The following is quoted from From: SCI "In the Crosshairs" e-Newsletter December 4, 2009

"Make sure your hunting season plans are not hampered by unfair antler restrictions currently imposed by United Airlines. At the present time, United Airlines is prohibiting you from traveling with antlers as part of your checked baggage. Flying with antlers has been and is still acceptable for nearly every other airline operating in North America. Members should plan accordingly to ensure their antlers arrive home safely or consider other airlines. Read more about United’s current policy here.

SCI is in negotiations with United Airlines, seeking to change their policy that prohibits individuals from flying with antlers as part of their checked baggage. United is in the process of creating a partnership with FedEx to provide door to door pick-up and delivery of properly packaged antlers within the continental 48 states. SCI provided acceptable dimension requirements and handling procedures, explained that the majority of antlers as baggage will originate in Canada and that MANY SCI members have incurred considerable expense to ship antlers back to the lower 48 states. Until just recently, United had not yet posted their antler restriction policy publicly. Currently though, United and FedEx do not yet have the capacity to provide door to door delivery from Canada to the US, the biggest markets for antlers as baggage. Please inform other traveling hunters about United’s policy and SCI will be sure to continue pushing United and FedEx to allow delivery of antlers originating in Canada."

I am a member of SCI and recommend anyone that is interested in the hunting and shooting sports join the organization. SCI is a hunting related organization that does a great deal to protect the sport.

Also, SCI is a great records keeping organization and members can enter their trophies in their record book. One of the things that i like about their scoring method for Whitetails is they use the animals gross score and do not deduct for side to side symetry as does Boone&Crocket and Pope&Young.

Check them out at the following link...http://www.scifirstforhunters.org/index.cfm?

How to Stay Ahead of the Curve and Take More Trophy Whitetails!

If your going to be consistently successful on bagging big bucks you have to know how to adjust your strategy to what the deer are doing! Here are some tips and tricks that will keep you in the hunt when others are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
Deer can change their pattern like flipping a switch!

If you haven’t already noticed, deer have an uncanny way of keeping most hunters in a fog. Many hunters stay consistently behind the curve and typically it takes most at least three days to figure out the deer have changed their pattern. What are they doing, and why? More importantly, how can you capitalize on the current pattern. Many hunters will continue to go back to the same stand time and again because they have always seen deer there in the past or maybe its an easy walk to a stand that has a nice view out of the wind. It might be a field that he has been seeing deer feeding in regularly but all of a sudden he has not seen a deer in three sittings. Deer can change to a new pattern at a moments notice, like flipping a light switch. All hunters are going to get behind the curve from time to time but the best of them learn to quickly recognize a change has happened and adjust their hunting strategy accordingly.

If you are hunting close to home, being a few steps behind may not be a big deal but if you have taken time off of work to hunt or you are hunting a 3 day firearms hunt, you cannot afford to be out of tune with what the deer are currently doing.

A good example of a feeding pattern change happened this year here on my lease in central Florida. Bow season opens here around the third week of September. Baiting is legal here on private land and most hunters typically run a feeder with whole corn. Before the season opened the deer were hitting the feeders hard but just as the opening weekend arrived the deer abandoned the feeders all together. What had happened? The feed had changed! Live Oak acorns had begun to fall and the deer changed their feeding pattern overnight. Deer love corn but will walk right over it to get to an oak tree that’s dropping green-n-whites!

On a hunt in Illinois a couple years ago I was hunting my favorite stand on a point of some planted pines, overlooking a picked corn field. I had been seeing a pile of deer and some really nice bucks, when over night a front blew in and dumped 12” of fresh snow on the fields. The next day, you literally could not find a track on that field, or any other. Overnight, the deer had switched to browsing in the woods. You could walk across a 60 acre field and maybe cut a couple tracks, get to the fence and look over, more deer tracks than you could shake a stick at. The deer were stripping anything with a leaf in reach, even the dead one that had fallen on the snow. That was a 4 day gun hunt and by the time we figured out the change it was to late and we went home empty handed.

If you find some hot sign, hunt it immediately! Don't try to save if for later!

One of the most important tips I can give you is, do not try to save some smoking hot sign for a latter hunt. This almost never works! Typically, you will return a week later only to find the sign dried up and the deer have moved on. How many times have you found yourself hunting something you felt was pretty good only to run across feeding sign that just had the ground pulverized or a line of smoking scrapes and rubs along some ridge and think to yourself, “I’ll come back here in a few days and hunt this”. If you are lucky enough to stumble onto something hot, jump on it immediately! You can bet the farm its going to change and most likely sooner than later.

In the Midwest the scrapes you find in late October freshly pawed on a daily bases will be abandoned by the first week of November as bucks begin a frenzied search for the first does to come into heat. Deer will typically quit a soy bean field as soon as the corn is combined in favor of the easy picking’s and preferred feed.

Many changes in deer behavior can be timed with the season, the harvest of a crop, a weather change, etc.

Always be on the lookout for the next change and learn to recognize a shift in the pattern at the earliest possible time and you will be a more successful hunter, guaranteed!

Good hunting,
Larry Stephens

The Kill Zone for Trophy Bucks!

So you want to kill a trophy buck! There are a few secrets you need to know to increase your odds!

Well, first you have to establish what a trophy buck really is. There are many ways to define a trophy whitetail but as a rule were talking about bucks that score north of 150” gross B&C. Very few hunters would ever consider passing on a shot at such an animal unless he had some actionable intel that something much larger was in the area. Then again that info. may be useless. Depending on the timing of the rut that deer could be 5 miles away on another farm. Regardless of what may be known to be in the area, passing on a 150 probably means your going home with your tag in your pocket.

Of course, the area of the country your hunting has to also be taken into consideration. If you apply this same 150 rule to the south east or even many eastern and western states your probably not going to be eating much deer meat.

The next question is where? A discussion on where to consistently see big trophy bucks leads you to one location…..the Midwest. The Midwest states are going to give you the best odds for putting a trophy in your cross hairs. I would recommend you spend some time looking at the record books, particularly the Pope & Young book. Again, any of the top 10 states are obviously great places to hunt but pay attention to the top 2 or 3 unless you have some specific reliable recommendation on some of the others. On a well managed property in the Midwest it is not unreasonable to expect to see a 150 class or larger deer. Our 420 ac lease consistently produces opportunities at 150 class deer every year. Getting them in bow range and killing them can be another story.

The last question is specifically where? You have a property to hunt but where on that property is going to give you your best chances at a big buck? I have spent all my life hunting Florida. A more difficulty place to hunt there is not! For this reason I find hunting the Midwest states relatively easy. There is a limited amount of cover, the food sources are obvious and the limited cover produces a lot of bottle necks and travel corridors.

Much of the discussion of where depends on two factors, what phase of the rut your dealing with and the weather. If it is unseasonably warm the does are not going to be coming to the fields to feed much in the daylight. Therefore, your not going to see many bucks there. You might catch one first thing, just cracking daylight crossing a field the does are using at night but after that you better be in the woods. For me that means a bottle neck or funnel that connects multiple wood lots or bedding areas. Better yet, a bottle neck next to a section of woods that has been select cut. In the Midwest that’s a prime bedding area if there ever was one.

If you are hunting with a firearm that might effect your decision a little due to the increased range. Obviously, you are going to see more overall deer where you have the greatest visibility, that’s a crop field but the deer have to be feeding on it.

If there is any deer movement at all you can bet some of it is going to be thru a bottleneck. Day in and day out a bottle neck is going to produce the most big buck opportunities. It works anytime deer are moving.

The Bottleneck is the Ultimate Kill Zone for Big Trophy Bucks!

Most bottle necks can be discovered from studying a good aerial photograph. Others, might require a little leg work. Never overlook the opportunities provided by a good bottle neck! Next time your hunting, find yourself one of these kill zones, harvest yourself a “seed” and remember to send me a picture and a thank you.


Good hunting,
Larry Stephens

The Straight Scoop on Deer Calling

Everyone that knows anything about hunting deer has heard of rattling antlers, grunt calls, bleats, etc. but from my experience this seldom draws much more than a pause from most deer. The most common method of attempting to call a deer is the grunt call and is mostly what I wanted to discuss here.

We have all seen the videos. Practically every hunt goes down the same way, a hunter is perched high in his stand, he gives 3 grunts on his call and the camera cuts to a big buck that is on his way to the stand! Well, in case you have not realized it, it just don't work that way. If you pay close attention you will notice the vast majority of those deer show no visible reaction and seem to be already moving in the hunters direction. Rarely do you see the deer moving away from the hunter, hear the hunter call, see the deer react and change direction and proceed to come in. This is not to say it does not happen but it seldom happens as seen on film.

As a matter of fact, If you are blind calling you could be scaring off more deer than you call in. I have seen this happen many times when hunting our lease in Illinois. A 130 class buck comes strolling along and looks like he is not going to come into bow range, I grunt and he turns inside out and vacates the area! You will not spook many deer by grunting but we have some big deer on this property and he was not one of them.

You never know how a deer is going to react but if you have a well balanced deer herd on your property grunting to 2.5 & some 3.5 yr. old deer could get you some negative reactions or you will get the most typical reaction, a pause and look your way, only for the deer to continue on his path.

The deer that are most likely to respond to grunting are small 1.5 yr old and whatever age class makes up the mature class on your particular property. On our lease most of our big bucks are 3.5-4.5 yrs. old. These deer are the ones that can be effectively called. The key is calling to a dominate buck. That's a deer you can call!

My advice to you is not to call to a 125-130 class deer you want to take if you know you have 150's in the area. As a matter of fact never call to an animal that is already coming your way. Your best chance is always to wait silently for your shot as long as your quarry is advancing your way. In calling, you risk giving away your position and causing the animal to hunt you. You also risk educating the animal. On the other hand if the deer is not going to come into shooting range, you may not have a lot to loose in trying to call to him.

Of course, you have to call from the right spot. You cannot call from a tree in the middle of a field. If your a turkey hunter you know what I'm talking about but that's a subject for another day.

One of the best reactions I have ever seen from a buck occurred last year on a hunt in Illinois. I had seen a wide & heavy 11pt several times over the previous 4 days of hunting. This particular morning I had seen him trailing through a spot I had seen some does pass earlier in the morning. He had disappeared into the thick on the hill and had been gone some 45 minutes or so. Next thing I know he appears a 47 yds and is moving along the fence away from me. I quickly decide to grunt at him with my mouth. The first 2 grunts stopped him, the 3 rd. closed the deal! He immediately jumped the fence and by the time I got my bow up he was 15 yards and closing. I shot him when he came out from under the stand at 4 yds. he dropped in his tracks from a muzzy to the spine and scored 151" gross.

To be effective at calling you have to know what kind of deer you are calling to. Is he a sub deer or a dominate deer. Also, you have to call from the right spot and decide if you are willing to risk pushing away a lesser deer.

Good Hunting! Larry