It’s turkey season, the fishing is getting really good across the country, and we are at about the exact midpoint between the deer season’s end and its beginning. The default setting right now, with a lot of us, is that there is more than enough time. Which is true, until it isn’t.

There are some ways in which a lot of us sabotage our upcoming season that we don’t even consider until it’s too late. That’s a shame, because a lot of the little things you could do now will pay dividends come fall. The first is actually really simple, and fun.

Lazy Practice Sessions

Due to the fact that I really like to arrow strutting longbeards, I’ve been shooting my bow quite a bit lately. My goal, of course, is to send an expandable through the boiler rooms of as many toms as I can, while trying to avoid non-lethal hits that are so common in turkey bowhunting. My goal once the turkey season is wrapped up, is to keep shooting.

I have some buddies who just love to shoot, and it shows every fall. They are straight assassins when it counts (most of the time). They know what we all know, which is that we should practice year round (or at least more), but how many of us do?

One of the best ways you can ensure you don’t take a perfectly good deer season and turn it into a nightmare is to spend more time at the range. This obviously goes for bowhunters, but also firearm hunters, too. Practice doesn’t make perfect when it comes to deer hunting, but it’ll get you a hell of a lot closer than folks who wait until three days before the opener to fling some arrows or punch paper for a few rounds.

Setup Burnout

I’m convinced that one of the biggest hurdles most whitetail hunters never clear is the option’s game with their setups. We all know the mobile hunting advantages, but that is so biased in the public land bowhunters’ direction that it really doesn’t enter the conversation for a lot of folks. Whether you own ground, have a lease, or your grandma’s farm is still in the family, having more options is never a bad thing.

This is a hedge against human nature, especially given the current trend in hunting that involves making one spot a whitetail mecca and then setting up a box blind to hunt from season opener to season close, during every condition Mother Nature offers. When we have a good setup, we can’t help but hunt it.

That’s great, until you want to kill a mature buck. The higher the predator presence in one location, the lower the odds of a good one going there in daylight. It’s really that simple. Giving yourself a few more options for blinds and stands, even when you really just want to go doomscroll in a little house on stilts, is a good idea.

Think about wind direction, seasonal timing, and the likelihood of how and when you might burn out some of your go-to setups. Then, give yourself some ambush options to let the pressure of those locations when you really want to hunt but the conditions aren’t ideal for your mainstay haunts.

Much of this can be accomplished now, while there are still months left before the season.

Camera Traps

To a lot of folks, this would be the most pointless time of year to put some trail cameras out. The bucks’ heads are bare, the deer are not necessarily living where they’ll be this fall, and there’s just so much time to gather better intel later.

Over the last several years, I’ve started to believe differently about all of that. Where I can, I often run cameras year round. Even though the info I gather now isn’t going to be as beneficial as the info I can gather in October, it’s not without some value.

What I’ve found about monitoring spring and summer bucks is that they mostly do predictable stuff, but it’s when they don’t, that I find myself learning something. Naturally, they’ll hit the most obvious food sources and all of that, but what I like to try to figure out is where else they might travel.

A mature buck has a home range of around a square mile, which means very little to most of us. Suffice it to say, he knows his home and core range very well, and throughout the spring and summer he’ll walk trails, visit water, and do his thing wherever it is beneficial. While you might only get 10 deer pictures a week on a trail in the woods for the next few months, you might get five that really tell you something.

We think about mature bucks generally in the context of September to December or January, but they live out there all year. Understanding where they like to travel all year, and what conditions might get them to walk through a pinch point in the spring, can play into your fall hunting strategy.

With today’s cell cameras and relatively cheap plans, you can do a lot of scouting and learning without really putting much effort in. And you should, if you can, because there’s really no downside to it.

The historic move is part of a program instituted by the Oklahoma state legislature in 2024. The Chronic Wasting Disease Genetic Improvement Program is intended to bolster wild deer genetics by releasing captive deer that have a resistance—though not an immunity—to the always-fatal disease.

But opponents say that meaningfully improving wild herd genetics would require releasing hundreds of thousands of deer. What’s more, those releases could have the opposite effect: captive deer are not tested for CWD prior to release and may end up spreading the disease to new areas or introducing novel strains.

“That's not how you mitigate the disease,” said Catherine Appling-Pooler, the director of policy for the National Deer Association. “People have grabbed onto this research because it offers hope against a disease that is 100 percent fatal. But hope should not get in the way of science. We need to make sure this can be repeated, that it’s peer reviewed, and that it’s accepted by more than just one scientist.”

The concept of fighting CWD by improving the genetics in the wild herd has been pioneered by a Texas biologist named Dr. Chris Seabury. However, while farmers did something similar to eliminate scrapie in sheep herds, the technique has never been proven effective—or even tested—in wild populations.

State veterinarian Dr. Rod Hall confirmed in an email to MeatEater that a captive-raised deer was released in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. The animal met the genetic requirements of the state’s new genetic improvement program but was not tested for CWD. Appling-Pooler tells MeatEater as many as five more deer could be released on low-fence properties in Oklahoma before the April 15, 2026, deadline.

The release of this deer was not approved by wildlife professionals at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC). Instead, as per the language in the 2024 bill, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (ODAFF) okayed the release according to their one-page list of requirements.

As MeatEater reported at the time, wildlife officials and hunting groups were shocked when the Genetic Improvement Program sailed through the Sooner State legislature. But not only did the bill pass on a nearly unanimous basis, it also left the ODWC with little input on whether and how these captive deer should be released into the wild. The bill said the wildlife agency “may” charge a one-time permit fee, but it gave the ODAFF the authority to promulgate rules for the program. It was unclear whether the ODWC also had the ability to impose permit requirements, and the agency never went through the rulemaking process.

Frustrated by this perceived lack of action, Oklahoma Representative Nick Archer introduced House Bill 3270 during this legislative session. This bill entirely removes the ODWC from the decision-making process and grants permitting authority solely to the Department of Agriculture (ODAFF).

At the same time, the ODAFF is moving forward with deer releases.

“It's completely removing wildlife professionals from the program and from the conversation and from, most importantly, the decision making. And that's what NDA and others oppose. Wildlife professionals should be involved in decisions that directly impact wildlife in the state,” Appling-Pooler said. “It's not just about CWD. It's an overreach by the legislature on the department's authority to do their job.”

The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission has not historically endorsed or opposed specific pieces of legislation, but they have come out against HB 3270.

“HB 3270 would authorize a practice that has never been implemented in Oklahoma and has not been adopted by any state wildlife agency as a management tool,” the commission wrote in a position statement. “The Commission finds that such action warrants comprehensive scientific review and careful consideration of all potential unintended consequences before any implementation.”

One of those unintended consequences is the potential exclusion of all Oklahoma deer from the Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young record books. These organizations have always excluded genetically manipulated animals from their records, and releasing captive deer into Oklahoma’s wild herd might disqualify the entire herd.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Commission held a meeting April 6, to which they invited several wildlife biologists to speak to this issue. (It’s worth checking out in its entirety here). One of them, Dr. Jennifer Malmberg of the National Wildlife Research Center, laid out a model showing how many deer would need to be released in order to improve the genetics of the wild herd.

Releasing a number of deer equal to 1% of the wild population would have almost no effect on the wild herd. There are an estimated 750,000 deer in Oklahoma, which means even if 7,500 CWD-resistant deer were released every year for 10 years, it would have a negligible effect on wild deer. Releasing 75,000 deer each year over 10 years would have a greater effect, but it still wouldn’t make the entire herd resistant (which, again, doesn’t make them immune).

What’s more, this model assumes a best-case scenario. It assumes captive deer will breed and survive at the same rate as wild deer (which is unlikely) and that there will be no landscape fragmentation that will affect gene flow (roads, cities, etc.).

While releasing a realistic number of captive deer would create very little benefit, it could result in significant cost. Dr. Malmberg noted it could spread CWD into new areas of the state, but it would also dramatically alter the behavior of deer in the Sooner State.

“It can alter deer density and resource selection. It’s very likely that deer that are released from captivity into the wild will use human resources, and we know that that results in more CWD,” she told the commission.

The Oklahoma State House voted to remove the ODWC from the whitetail release program on a 68-21 vote. This might seem one-sided, but it represents a significant uptick in opposition from 2024, when only three legislators voted against the program. HB 3270 now heads to the Senate, where it sits before the Agriculture and Wildlife Committee.

Appling-Pooler says despite the large margin of “Yes” votes in the House, the Senate might present more difficulties for this legislation.

“I am more optimistic than I usually am on this issue,” she said. “I have heard more opposition from legislators. They've been hearing from their constituents, and they are listening to their constituents, which is always really appreciated. I'm encouraged by the constituent engagement we've had.”

If you’d like to be one of those constituents—which include residents of neighboring states who might have an opinion on pen-raised deer mingling with wild animals—you can contact state legislators here.

Depending on what part of the country you live in, these critters might not pose much of a threat to you. If you live in states that serve sweet tea or promote dry, arid temps, you probably think about them a lot. While the odds of getting bit by a snake remain low, and even lower for death-related bites, I’m willing to bet most hunters would still rather exercise a bit of caution when it comes to creepy crawlies. Even if you aren’t worried about snake bites, no one wants to give up red meat because they forgot their tick repellent.

For many hunters out West or down South, there’s a long list of critters that bite and sting. A lot of them can be venomous, poisonous, or carry diseases. Here are a few.

• Rattlesnakes
• Spiders
• Fire ants
• Scorpions
• Ticks
• Mosquitos
• Alligators
• Wasps
• Yellowjackets

You don’t need to develop a phobia, or even expect to see these every time you hunt, but a little awareness and a few helpful pieces of gear can save you a headache—or a trip to the ER.

Invest in Snake Boots

I prefer to hunt in hiking boots, but the vast bottomland habitat and swamps of the South don’t make that feasible. Nor do the cottonmouths, eastern diamondbacks, or copperheads that call it home. I’m fascinated by snakes, and I love seeing them in the wild, but I’m not interested in paying for antivenom. Snakes are mostly docile. You have to agitate them (or mistakenly sit on them) for them to strike at you. But if you’re frequenting areas where they live, consider investing in a pair of snake boots.

The Lacrosse Alpha Agility Snake Boots make a great option. They’re uninsulated, and I don’t mind covering several miles in a day during turkey season because they’re relatively lightweight for rubber boots. The uppers are also plenty stiff enough even if a snake were to strike. So far, I’ve logged dozens of miles in a single pair over the past four years, and they’re still going strong.

If you hunt in dry, arid parts of the country, a pair of gaiters can serve the same purpose as snake boots without the added weight or sweat.

Permethrin

Along with transmitting diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, and a host of others, ticks (lone star tick in particular) can even transmit alpha-gal syndrome, which causes an allergic reaction to red meat in those affected. Luckily, there are easy, cost-effective ways to combat these pesky parasites.

You can treat your clothes with permethrin prior to a hunt or scouting trip to repel ticks and mosquitos. I’ve used Sawyer permethrin in the past. You spray it on your clothes the night before, and it supposedly lasts six weeks before you need to reapply. My hunting clothes usually go through several washes within a few weeks, so I end up reapplying sooner anyway. For around $15, it’s a budget-friendly way to make sure you don’t leave the woods with any unwanted guests.

Clothes with Insect Repellent

If you’re in the market for new hunting clothes anyway, consider gear with built-in insect repellent. First Lite’s Yuma synthetic hoody incorporates Burlington No Fly Zone to repel mosquitos and ticks. This means you’re covered if you happen to forget your Thermacell or spray back at the truck.

Clothes with built-in insect repellent are typically rated for so many washes. This means after a certain amount of washes or time (whichever comes first) the repellent wears out. So, you will have to invest in spray or treat the clothing again at some point.

Other Precautions

Whether you’re visiting a buggy destination for hunting or scouting, here are a few things to keep in mind when the temps rise.

• Wear longer socks
• Use rubber or snake boots in warm, wet climates
• Treat your clothes with insect repellent
• Check your surroundings before sitting or kneeling
• Snakes are mostly docile…unless you antagonize them
• Look before you cross/jump a creek
• Check for ticks after scouting or hunting when it’s warm
• Make sure you don’t stand in an ant bed in the dark
• If you’re moving treestands in the summer, bring wasp spray
• Carry an EpiPen if you’re allergic to bees/wasps

According to B&C’s “Big Game Records Live” online listings, hunters have entered 2,132 Wisconsin bucks (typicals and nontypicals combined) in “the book” since its origins in 1888. That’s 12% of all B&C whitetails for the Lower 48. Wisconsin also produced the legendary “Jordan Buck,” the No. 2 typical B&C whitetail killed in 1914 by Jim Jordan with a .25-20 Winchester in Burnett County.

Four Wisconsin counties rank among the nation’s top 12 counties. Buffalo County is No. 1 with 165 entries; followed by Vernon County, No. 8 with 65; and Richland and Trempealeau, tied for No. 9 through No. 12 with Illinois’ Fulton County and Iowa’s Warren County, with 63.

Wisconsin built much of its B&C dominance recently. From 1999 through 2024, Wisconsin entered 1,537 (72%) of its B&C bucks, which includes 1,105 typicals and 432 nontypicals. That’s 13% of 11,465 B&C whitetails entered from the Lower 48 those years.

Likewise, those top four Wisconsin counties built 78% of their B&C rankings from 1999 to 2024. They also share the same neighborhood in southwestern Wisconsin. The Mississippi River sets the western edges of Buffalo, Trempealeau, and Vernon counties. Just to the southeast, the Wisconsin River forms Richland County’s southern border. If you were a crow and flew from northwestern Buffalo County to the southeastern corner of Richland County, you’d fly 135 miles with one of those four counties beneath your wings for all but 28 miles. And if you hiked that route in summer, you’d seldom leave the shade of oak-dominated woodlands and brushy edges bordering fertile valleys, hillside fields, and stream-fed wetlands.

The Driftless Area

These deer-rich counties help anchor Wisconsin’s portion of the “Driftless Area,” 24,000 square miles of Midwestern magnificence that also include southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois. This region earned its name from the Laurentide Ice Sheet that bypassed it during the most recent glacial period—the Wisconsin glaciation—15,000 years ago. That great ice sheet never leveled southwestern Wisconsin’s steep hillsides and limestone ridges, nor plowed its dark loess soils and ancient lake bottoms.

The Driftless Area remains lightly developed by today’s standards, and covers all or part of 21 Wisconsin counties. That means 31% of Wisconsin geography produced 780 of the state’s 1,537 (50.7%) B&C bucks for 1999-2024. In fact, the Driftless Area contains nine of Wisconsin’s top 10 B&C counties for 1999-2024 and 16 of its top 21 (76%). The top 10’s only outlier — Polk County, No. 6 with 49 B&C entries — is just 20 miles north of the region.

Driftless Area Dominates in CWD

Unfortunately, the Driftless Area’s many traits that benefit deer — undeveloped landscapes, nutrient-rich soils, abundant croplands, and lengthy river corridors — also helped spread and intensify Wisconsin’s worst outbreaks of chronic wasting disease in the past 25 years. This always-fatal disease kills its victims within 18 to 24 months of contraction. As each case worsens, victims grow increasingly vulnerable to hunting, predation, road-kills, and illnesses like pneumonia.

Wisconsin found its first three CWD cases in 2001 in Dane County on the Driftless Area’s southeastern corner. Those were also the first CWD cases east of the Mississippi River, triggering massive statewide testing (40,147 samples) in 2002. Those tests found 205 more cases, mostly in Dane, 94, and neighboring Iowa County, 107. Next-door Sauk County had two cases, and Richland and Walworth counties found one each. Only Walworth is outside the Driftless Area.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has since identified nearly 16,200 more CWD cases in wild deer, including at least one case in 51 (71%) of the state’s 72 counties. Most cases came from hunter-volunteered samples, even though Wisconsin hasn’t mandated CWD testing since 2012. A 2019 DNR survey found 70% of hunters have never submitted a deer for testing. And only 5.5% of successful hunters submitted deer for testing the past eight years. DNR data also show only 3.4% (352,635) of the 10.44 million Wisconsin deer registered by hunters since 1999 were tested.

The Driftless Area has produced 15,613 (95%) of Wisconsin’s 16,397 CWD cases. During 2025, the region’s 1,820 CWD cases accounted for 89.4% of Wisconsin’s record-setting 2,036 cases. That nearly doubled the 1,064 cases documented only seven years earlier with similar sampling efforts: 17,216 tests in 2018 and 18,262 in 2025.

Further, Wisconsin’s top 12 CWD counties are all in the Driftless Area, and three other Driftless counties make the top 20 CWD list. Iowa County leads with 4,720 cases, followed by Richland, 2,904; Sauk, 2,513; and Dane, 2,100. Only two Driftless counties — Pepin and St. Croix — haven’t detected CWD, while La Crosse County found its first case in 2025.

However, hunters in Driftless Area counties also test deer at higher rates than hunters elsewhere, mainly for food-safety reasons. But more tests don’t guarantee more CWD cases. Jefferson County, just east of the Driftless Area, found its first case in 2005, and has since identified 69 CWD deer from 8,476 (0.8%) tests. Meanwhile, Vernon County (Driftless Area) has found nearly 5 times as many cases (334) with 219 fewer tests (8,257), and didn’t find its first case until 2017, 12 years after Jefferson County’s first.

Aggressive-Passive Management

Wisconsin has taken contradictory approaches to CWD. From 2002 through 2010, the DNR aggressively tried to reduce deer herds across Dane, Iowa, Sauk, Richland and other nearby counties. Those efforts included months-long either-sex gun seasons and earn-a-buck regulation, i.e., register an antlerless deer before shooting an antlered buck.

Those tactics reduced deer herds in Dane, Iowa, Sauk, and Richland counties to an estimated average of 16,740 by late 2011, which kept CWD rates at 4.6% for Dane, 8.6% for Iowa, 3.2% for Sauk, and 1.5% for Richland. But earlier in 2011, state lawmakers outlawed earn-a-buck and forbade gun-hunting before late November’s nine-day firearms season. By 2014, acting on the advice of Gov. Scott Walker’s “deer trustee” — Dr. James Kroll of Texas — “passive CWD management” became state policy).

Deer populations and CWD boomed in response. By 2020, deer numbers increased 92% in those four counties, peaking on average at an estimated 32,139 deer per county. Similarly, CWD rates hit 17% in Dane, 29% in Iowa, 26% in Sauk and 19.6% in Richland.

By 2024, CWD rates flattened to 17% in Dane and 25% in Iowa, but soared to 33% in Sauk and Richland. At those high levels, CWD helped cut deer populations in Dane, Iowa, Sauk and Richland by 13% to 28,035, on average.

Quirky B&C Entries

So how does Wisconsin’s Driftless Area keep producing record-book bucks despite record-setting CWD cases? For starters, CWD didn’t reach most of Wisconsin’s 21 Driftless Area counties until 15 or more years after its discovery in 2001 and 2002.

Plus, even where prevalent, CWD and deer — and hunters — aren’t evenly distributed. Isolated valleys, woodlots and other pockets of cover can create disease hotspots and deer safe havens. On Dec. 10, 2025, for example, a Dane County hunter, Steven Loomans of Madison, shot a 12-point buck he green-scored at 191-7/8 inches as a typical and 206-6/8 inches as a nontypical 18-pointer.

Further, even in Wisconsin and even without CWD, Booner whitetails are rare. Bucks must reach ages 4½ to 6½ to reach physical maturity and fully express their genetic antler potential. Wisconsin bucks typically face heavy hunting pressure. In 2011, when hunters killed 150,839 bucks statewide, most (54%) were yearlings (18 months old). Still, when a state-record 159 bucks from 2011 entered B&C’s record book the next year (2012), it represented only 0.10% of Wisconsin’s buck kill. (Bucks usually enter B&C’s book the year after they’re killed.)

They’re even rare in Buffalo County. During its biggest B&C years, its 10 B&C entries in 2000 represented 0.33% of its 3,037 buck kill in 1999. And Buffalo County’s 13 B&C bucks in 2010 were 0.42% of its 3,084 buck kill in 2009.

B&C entries also vary annually without obvious changes in predation, hunting pressure, food quality, or winter severity. Even though Buffalo County tallied 109 B&C entries for 1999-2024, it had only one entry in 1999; two entries in 2002, 2018, 2019, and 2020; and zero entries in 2013, 2017, 2023, and 2024.

Therefore, at least for now, you’ll find no distinct trends or CWD-driven warnings when expanding the view to analyze 642 B&C entries for 1999-2024 from 14 productive Driftless Area counties in Wisconsin: Pierce, Pepin, Dunn, Buffalo, Trempealeau, La Crosse, Vernon, Crawford, and Grant, which are on or near the Mississippi River; and Columbia, Dane, Iowa, Sauk, and Richland in CWD’s core area north and west of Madison.

Those 14 counties’ combined B&C entries ping-ponged annually during 1999-2024 — ranging as low as 11 and as high as 60 — even as CWD spread farther across landscapes and more densely within infected herds. Yes, B&C entries for that group fell 11% from 340 in 1999-2011, when CWD was relatively new, to 302 in 2012-2024 entries, when CWD was accelerating. And yes, those counties’ annual B&C totals never fell below 13 (2010) for the 1999-2011 entries, but fell to 12 (2019) and 11 (2024) for the 2012-2024 entries.

Those same 14 counties, however, enrolled 105 B&C bucks the last five years (2020-2024), a 15% increase from 91 the first five years (1999-2003), even as gun-hunter numbers statewide fell 14% from 644,460 in 2012 to 553,652 in 2024.

The Human Factor

Bottom line: B&C entries are neither consistent nor predictable. And hunters help make it so. When hunters kill a potential Booner, it’s on them to find a certified scorer to measure the rack, and pay the club its $40 entry fee. Many hunters do neither. Some want to keep things secret. Others care little about antler scores and records.

Shane Indrebo, co-owner of the North American Shed Hunters Club since 2019, knows something about all that. He lives in Buffalo County and grew up helping his parents Tom and Lori operate Bluff Country Outfitters since 1993 from their farm near Cream. Since 2006, Indrebo has also taken studio-quality photos for hunters and their bucks. Each session takes roughly an hour, and one to two hours to edit and organize the images. At $300 per session, Indrebo takes 25 to 30 big-buck portraits during slow years and 50 in good years. That’s over 500 hunters/bucks the past 20 years.

Indrebo isn’t surprised when hunters don’t enter lower-end Booners in the book. To qualify for B&C’s all-time records, a whitetail’s rack must net-score 170 inches as a “typical” or 195 inches as a “nontypical.” Those minimums have been B&C standards since at least 1968.

“A large majority of big bucks never go into the record books, but I also think most elite bucks end up in the books,” Indrebo told MeatEater.

Indrebo said “elite” bucks score in the high 180s to low 190s as typicals, and 220s to 230s as nontypicals.

“Some bucks get labeled ‘200’ when they’re shot, but by the time they dry 60 days and get measured, a 189 nontypical won’t get entered,” he said. “Some guys will say, ‘I don’t want my name in no book.’ But when it’s a 189 typical, they start hearing some crap. When their buddies show interest, they realize it’s special. They feel peer pressure to go to a deer show and get it scored.”

Indrebo thinks Buffalo County’s B&C dominance isn’t just habitat, herd size, and limestone bluffs. “You see similar habitats throughout the Driftless Area,” he said. “Some of the biggest racks and sheds we’ve scored come from Richland County (80 miles to the southeast). But I’m not surprised there’s fewer entries across the (Mississippi) River in Minnesota. A lot of their record-book entries are from before 2000. Things are different there; maybe because their gun season opens during the rut in early November, two weeks before our (gun) season.”

A Tradition of B&C

Dan Storm, the Wisconsin DNR’s deer-research scientist, said B&C entries are as much about people as deer. “There’s more of a tradition for entering deer in some areas,” Storm told MeatEater. “Buffalo County has twice as many entries as Trempealeau County (109 vs. 52 for 1999-2024), but there’s no way Buffalo County produces twice as many bucks worthy of entry. Those counties border each other, and they’re nearly identical in size and habitat.” (Buffalo County covers 709 square miles, of which 527 (74%) square miles is deer range. Trempealeau County covers 742 square miles, and 514 (69%) is deer range.)

In contrast, two Minnesota counties across the Mississippi River registered just over half as many Booners for 1999-2024 as Trempealeau County’s 52. Winona County had 29 B&C entries those years and Wabasha 27. South of there, Houston County had 42 entries. Iowa’s northeastern counties along the Mississippi River differed little. Allamakee County had 39 entries for 1999-2024, followed by Dubuque, 36; and Clayton, 34. Across the river in northwestern Illinois, Jo Daviess County had 35 entries.

All eight of those Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois counties are in the Driftless Area, as are Wisconsin’s eight river-border counties. But of Wisconsin’s eight counties on the Mississippi River, only Pierce, 41 entries; Pepin, 27; and La Crosse, 23; had fewer B&C entries than Houston Counties’ 42: Buffalo,109; Vernon, 57; Trempealeau, 52; Crawford, 49; and Grant, 42.

A Matter of Pride?

MeatEater’s Spencer Neuharth, host of the MeatEater Trivia podcast, links Wisconsin’s B&C dominance more to pride than deer habitats or genetics. “It’s anecdotal, but I think Wisconsin has a prouder group of hunters than anywhere else in the country,” Neuharth said. “Part of that pride is entering their names in the record book. I love that. It's really cool. I’m jealous of it, actually.”

The late Charles Kuralt of CBS-TV News made similar comments about Wisconsin in the early 1980s after touring the state for his “On the Road” reports. Kuralt noted the state’s small-town pride in Hayward, which proclaimed itself the “Musky Capital of the World;” and Fremont, the “White Bass Capital of the World;” Monroe, the “Swiss Cheese Capital of the World;” Eau Claire, the “Horseradish Capital of the World;” and Iola, the “Bowhunting Capital of the World.” Kuralt finally exclaimed, “Wisconsin is the capital of the capitals of the world.”

Make no mistake: Neuharth thinks Wisconsin’s B&C entries are legitimate, whether it’s all-time (2,132 Booners) or 1999-2024 (1,537). Still, he doubts Wisconsin hunters killed 32% more Booner-class bucks in 1999-2024 than did Illinois hunters (1,168 entries) or 157% more than Texas hunters (599 entries).

“My argument gets stronger when you look at Boone and Crockett black bear entries,” Neuharth said. “Wisconsin kills about as many black bears (3,724 in 2025, and 4,432 in 2024) as any state, but it has over twice as many Booner black-bears (959, all-time) as second-place Pennsylvania (467), and nearly four times as many as Alaska (257).

“Buffalo County also has three black bear entries,” Neuharth continued. “That’s the same amount as Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods County and more than Montana’s Flathead County (2). Both of those counties are much bigger, and have better bear habitat than Buffalo County. So, all that feels inflated.”

Too Soon for Clarity

Then again, that awareness suggests that if one state could use B&C entries to detect trends in CWD data, it’s Wisconsin. And when it comes to antler size, what’s the alternative? No state wildlife agency maintains systems for scoring antlers and cataloguing big bucks annually, historically or regionally. Nor do states track how many bucks taxidermists handle each year. And even if states tracked taxidermy workloads, how would they account for business fluctuations caused by economic factors, hunting-license sales, hunting and habitat conditions, and perceptions of each taxidermist’s skills or pricing?

If this were all about science, and not wall-worthy antlers, the best method is age-class data. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin DNR hasn’t systematically collected those details since 2015. That’s when it ended mandatory in-person deer registration and switched to mandatory electronic registration. Although the agency could impose temporary in-person check stations to collect data, Wisconsin’s political climate has blocked that option.

Storm, the Wisconsin DNR researcher, thinks CWD is probably reducing big-buck numbers, but he can’t predict or specify how it affects B&C entries. “That’s a different question,” he said.

Wisconsin native Jim Heffelfinger, the wildlife science coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, thinks it’s still too soon to identify CWD’s impacts on B&C entries, or the age structure of Wisconsin bucks.

“At this point, the numbers you’re showing are erratic,” Heffelfinger told MeatEater after looking at the 1999-2024 B&C data for southwestern Wisconsin. “It’s like the saying about measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk, and cutting with an ax. Those numbers so far lack the resolution to detect anything caused by CWD. It would be better to get all the age-structure data and analyze that.”

Professor Mike Chamberlain at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry made similar comments. Chamberlain helped do a 2021-2024 study of CWD’s impacts on Arkansas’ deer herds. The four-year project documented CWD reduced Arkansas’ deer numbers 17% annually, on average; with buck densities declining 23% annually.

“There’s nothing obvious in (Wisconsin’s 1999-2024 B&C data) at this time, but I think it’s too soon,” Chamberlain told MeatEater. “You wonder what those numbers will look like in 10 years, or maybe 20 or 30 years. At some point, it seems logical the numbers would have to drop off, given the high CWD prevalence in some Wisconsin counties.”

A Complicated Disease

Meanwhile, CWD rates mostly keep rising in Wisconsin, even though it hasn’t spread at the same rate in every direction, nor does it infect herds equally, no matter their numbers or population densities. In general, CWD in Wisconsin spreads faster in areas with clay-based soils, rural corridors, and areas of connected woodlands, abundant edge cover and high percentages of deer range. On the other hand, it spreads slower in sand-based soils, well developed areas, and open agricultural areas with large cultivated fields.

For example, Madison’s metro area with 700,000 residents has hampered CWD’s spread in eastern Dane County and beyond. Also, a four-lane highway heading west from Madison helps separate northern Iowa County from its southern half. CWD isn’t as prevalent in the relatively open agricultural landscapes south of the highway, which extend into Lafayette County and then Illinois. But CWD prevalence remains high north of that highway in Iowa County’s oak ridges, brushy ravines, and edge-rich valleys.

A recent eight-year DNR study by Storm’s team in northern Iowa County found CWD kills more female deer than do hunters once an area’s infection rate for does hits 29%. That rate has been exceeded across many parts of Dane, Iowa, Sauk and Richland counties. The rates are more obvious at the township level (36 square miles), than at the larger county-level scale. For 2025, Richland County’s CWD rate was 36% overall (both sexes), while CWD rates for its 16 townships ranged from lows of 21% and 23.5% to highs of 44% and 50%.

Regional CWD prevalence charts in 2024 also show those differences:

–Iowa County’s CWD rates in 12 regional charts vary from 25% to 47% for adult bucks, and 20% to 35% in adult females.

–Sauk County’s CWD rates in 10 regional charts vary from 30% to 58% for adult bucks, and 19% to 38% for adult females.

–Richland County’s CWD rates in eight regional charts vary from 40% to 55% for adult bucks, and 25% to 30% for adult females;

–Dane County’s CWD rates in two regional charts range from 25% to 35% for adult bucks, and 22% to 23% for adult females.

–Northwest Columbia County’s CWD rate was 55% for adult bucks and 35% for adult does.

–Northeastern Grant County’s CWD rate was 45% for adult bucks and 33% for adult does.

Photo Courtesy of Paul Annear

Views from the Ground

Meanwhile, many hunters in Wisconsin’s core CWD counties don’t need B&C data to confirm what they’re seeing firsthand. In Iowa County, buck kills have plummeted since gun-hunters killed a record 4,738 antlered bucks in 1995, and 1,978 bucks in 2011. During November 2024’s nine-day gun season, they registered 916 bucks. And during November 2025’s nine-day gun season, they registered 894 bucks. The last time Iowa County’s buck kill was near or below 900 in back-to-back gun seasons was 1970 and 1971—55 years ago.

Jason Munz grew up on his family’s farm in Iowa County, which had 33 B&C entries for 1999-2024. Munz arrowed a 12-pointer with an 18-inch spread in November 2023. That’s his biggest buck since he began bowhunting at age 12 in 1993. Even so, Munz said deer hunting grew increasingly difficult as CWD spread death. His family rarely found dead-heads during his youth, but his father found six in Spring 2023 alone, including one scoring 140 inches.

“When we see a big buck on our trail cameras, if we don’t shoot him that year, we never see him again,” Munz told MeatEater. “Maybe someone on a nearby farm got him, but we don’t know. They just disappear.”

Likewise, Paul Annear grew up bowhunting on his family’s farm in Richland County, which entered 59 B&C bucks for 1999-2024, including eight Booners in 2012, six in 2005, and four in 2011and 2021.

CWD took roughly 15 years to reach Annear’s land from its original sites 40-plus miles to the southeast, but eight of 11 deer he’s killed since 2019 had the disease. He has no doubt CWD—not hunters or epizootic hemorrhagic disease—decimated his area’s herd the past five to six years. Plus, neither the Annears nor their neighbors changed their buck or doe management those years.

In 2020, Annear had at least one photo of 30 different bucks he estimated to be ages 3.5 or older. But in 2024 and again in 2025, his trail-cameras photographed only eight to 10 bucks in that age class, even with 20 more trail-cameras on his family’s 115-acre property than in 2020.

His trail-cameras also photograph sick, skeletal deer in their fields, woods, or creek. “So many people claim those sick, skinny deer are EHD victims,” Annear said. “But deer dying from CWD also go to water, and they live long enough to waste away. EHD kills deer in five to 10 days. That’s too quick for deer to lose much weight.” Further, EHD only strikes sporadically, and only in short outbreaks from late summer through the first frost.

Annear’s experience echoes what brothers Lloyd and Mike Purnell report farther east in Richland County. In 2006, the Purnells’ four properties covering 700 acres were CWD-free. In 2019, they found 10 dead deer. In 2020, they found eight bodies before April, usually just inside the woods near fields with cut corn or other crops. One doe died surrounded by corn.

During 2024, the Purnells and their friends shot 20 deer by mid-December. Nine (45%)—all bucks—had CWD. One year their properties’ overall infection rate hit 55%, with roughly half being does. In 2025, eight of 14 bucks (57%) they shot had CWD. “We had a 140-class buck running around last fall, but that’s the biggest we’ve seen in a while,” Purnell told MeatEater.

Looking to the Future

What lies ahead, now that Wisconsin’s CWD detection rates set records the past four years and seven of the past 10?

Bryan Richards was the U.S. Geological Survey’s longtime emerging-disease coordinator until retiring recently after decades of CWD work. Richards foresees a “new equilibrium” for deer herds in CWD-endemic areas. That means high disease rates, lower deer numbers, smaller and younger herds, and few “trophy” bucks.

“At some point, it’s impossible Wisconsin won’t see fewer (B&C) bucks,” Richards told MeatEater. “How many bucks can reach age 5½ in counties where young bucks have a 20% chance of having CWD at 18 months, and a 40% chance by age 4½ and 5½? Not many. A true Boone and Crockett whitetail is really, really rare to start with. With CWD, put a couple more ‘reallys’ in that phrase. CWD kills every deer that gets it, including half the bucks that must reach maturity to grow huge antlers. ‘Rare’ is a small number. ‘None’ is even smaller.”

How will CWD affect Wisconsin’s top five B&C counties, four of which didn’t detect the disease until 2015 or later?

–No. 1 Buffalo County’s first CWD case was 2022. It now has 34 cases. Its 2025 detection rate was 4.3%

–No. 2 Richland’s first case was 2002. It now has 2,904. Its 2025 detection rate: 36%.

–No. 3 Vernon’s first case was 2017. It now has 334. Its 2025 detection rate: 14%.

–No. 4 Trempealeau’s first case was 2023. It now has 22. Its 2025 detection rate: 4.2%.

–No. 5 Crawford’s first case was 2015. It now has 263. Its 2025 detection rate: 13.2%.

Storm said there’s no reason CWD won’t infect Buffalo and Trempealeau counties any differently than it did Richland, Vernon or Crawford. All five of those counties have fertile soils and high percentages of deer habitat. Buffalo County is 74% deer range; and Richland is 81%; Vernon, 71%; Trempealeau, 69%; and Crawford, 81%.

Once CWD detection rates hit 5%, the disease is considered “endemic.” That is, it’s not going away. After CWD reached 5% in Sauk, Iowa and Richland counties, it hit 10% to 15% within three years. If Buffalo and Trempealeau’s CWD rates follow suit, their infections would hit 10% by 2028 and 20% by 2031. And if Buffalo and Trempealeau infections mimic Richland’s, CWD rates would surpass 30% around 2035.

Mike Purnell and Paul Annear long feared CWD would hurt Richland County’s deer herd, and now they’re living with its impacts.

“Deer numbers are way down, and big bucks are nonexistent,” Mike Purnell said. “It’s a new world because of CWD.”

Annear doesn’t think whitetails will vanish from his area, but the average age of “mature” bucks has dropped from 5½ to 6½ to 3½ and 4½ for his area. If he could go back to when CWD first appeared, he would encourage and follow more aggressive deer management.

“It’s not too late in many areas of the country to do something,” Annear said. “Ignoring CWD might help short-term hunting opportunities, but it doesn’t protect the future of deer and deer hunting. I doubt there’s a perfect way to manage CWD, but sitting around accepting it doesn’t seem right, either.”

Hear me out, I’m not saying it’s not exciting to arrow a big buck (obviously it is) or that you can’t be surprised during bow season. I spend most of my deer season with bow in hand, but I’m just as thrilled to pick up my rifle. Whenever I break a gun out of the safe, two things happen: my expectations lower, and my optimism increases. It might just be a bit of nostalgia from my early days of hunting, but it makes hunting exciting—and that keeps me in the woods.

Low Stakes High Reward

Unlike bowhunting, you don’t have to be on top of the “X” with a rifle. Yes, you should still rifle hunt like a bowhunter, but you have some wiggle room. Instead of a 30-yard range, you might have a 75- to 150-yard range. There’s a lot less stress involved when your theoretical kill zone exponentially increases and you don’t have to worry about timing your draw.

You can also get away with more when it comes to the wind. No, you can’t completely beat a deer’s nose, but you can hunt with less favorable winds when you don’t have to set up 20 yards off the trail. Having that extra room for error isn’t a license to get sloppy. Instead, it should allow you to get aggressive without the added pressures of bowhunting.
Deer the author took in the big woods. Photo by Adam Moore.

Tagging Out in the Big Woods

Deer hunting in the big woods is hard. Putting any deer, let alone mature bucks, within archery range can be a feat in itself. That difficulty also makes it incredibly rewarding when you do kill a deer in the big woods. There’s something almost mythical about watching a buck, regardless of size, stroll through vast and monotonous timber. Deer can, and do, come from almost anywhere. That range of possibilities adds mystery to deer hunting. When you bowhunt specific whitetails or even a specific area, deer movement can become somewhat predictable. Not in the big woods.

The allure of any deer coming from anywhere can rekindle those hopeful, maybe even naive, expectations that you probably experienced as a young hunter. While the chances of shooting a big buck might be really low, that doesn’t stop them from existing. Rifle hunting the big woods can make it feel like more of a reality than trying to get one within bow range.

Rifles Were Made for Still-Hunting

Sure, this point goes for bowhunting, too, but the extended range of a rifle makes still-hunting one of the most exciting ways to gun hunt. Again, the restrictions that bowhunting imposes on hunters make it rewarding in its own right. But, rifles were made for still-hunting.

This is why lever actions still rule the deer woods. You can make quick, offhand shots in the timber. And just because the deer spots you first doesn't mean it’s over. You want exciting? Try keeping your composure while you take aim at a spooked deer. I’ve killed a few after having them blow at me. Good luck doing that with a bow.

It’s probably because my expectations are low when I’m still hunting, but those are some of the hunts I look forward to the most throughout the season. Even if I’m just using them to scout, still-hunts with a rifle can be surprisingly fun, especially during the rut. Yes, you can do this with a bow, but your odds of success greatly increase with a rifle.

Last Shot

Even if you’re a dedicated bowhunter, gun hunting can give you a much-needed change of pace. Instead of lone-wolfing it, plan a rifle hunt with a few of your buddies. Or use it as an opportunity to fill a doe tag or scout a new area. You might just surprise yourself.

This is the reality for a lot of hunters, and it often forces you to think outside of the box if you want to find more antlers. If you’ve been struggling to find more bone, here are a few ways to make your shed hunting more productive on pressured ground.

The Path Less Traveled

Social media is plastered with dream shed hunting scenarios. Matched sets displayed on manicured lawns, mowed-down food plots, and generally unrealistic scenarios for the majority of workaday hunters. Whitetail candyland exists, but unless you’re willing to pay to play, you’ll have to focus your time on pressured ground.

Public land shed hunters, and even those with access to private land who share it with other rack junkies, need to understand this reality. Your success won’t mirror those on carefully curated ground with exclusive access, and neither will your efforts. Sure, I’ve found a handful of field sheds over the years. But if all you do is walk the ag, you’re destined for a net-negative experience. It’s not that bucks don’t drop in public fields, but the bulk of the competition is going to look there first. Unless you can get there as soon as that buck drops, you might go home empty-handed.

Instead of obvious spots, consider where pressured bucks like to hide and bust out your brush pants. All of my biggest sheds and sets have come from the gnarliest thickets and ridges where no one else wanted or thought to look.

I look at it this way: I know I have to cover a lot of ground, but only small, hard-to-walk pieces of that ground are likely to offer me any bone. It’s no different from trying to find a little concentration of deer during the fall hunting season after the pressure has been heavy for a month. They will spend a disproportionate amount of time in places people go the least.

When it comes to sheds, it’s easy to walk around those spots. If you shed hunt where the competition is fierce, you simply have to do what most people won’t. Even then, you’ll probably return with an empty pack.

Reframe the Mission

Maybe I’m an outlier, but sheds alone are sometimes not enough motivation for me to get pricked by a hundred thorns or aggravate my sciatica. Don’t get me wrong, the sight of a tine peeking through the leaves always excites me. But when my only goal is to find an antler, I can’t always keep my head in the game.

My favorite way to shed hunt is more like winter scouting. It might be ground-truthing a potential bedding area that I pinned in onX back in November, or searching for dormant feed trees in remote hardwoods, but I always have a scouting goal in mind before I start walking.

That deeper sense of purpose and curiosity pushes me through areas I might otherwise try to avoid and keeps me from falling into what I call “bored reader syndrome.” That is, when your eyes are moving across a page, but your brain is absorbing exactly none of the information.

Combining winter scouting with a shed mission gives me two goals for every expedition. That lessens the blow if I don’t turn up any antlers, and makes the effort always seem worth it. It also allows me to pick apart deer ground with a plan, which usually helps me find those little islands of activity that might actually have some overlooked antlers in them. This scouting mindset also makes me more attentive, which is the missing piece for so many dejected shed hunters.

Slow and Steady

I actually didn’t have sheds in mind at all when I found my first antler of this year. I was stalking cottontails in a mature hedgerow in mid-February when I nearly stepped on a 4-point beauty that looked to be at least a week or two old. There’s no doubt in my mind that the majority of field walkers would have passed within a few yards of that shed and never seen it. Considering that I was on public land close to town, it’s pretty likely that some did. But I scored the prize, because I was laser-focused and moving at a snail’s pace.

This is something I can’t stress enough. It’s easy to think more miles equal more antlers. There is a correlation, but it’s like fishing a small stream–it’s fun to see what’s around the next bend, but if you don’t fish the closest pool with intention, you’ll miss out on fish. Wanderlust is fun, but it can cost you some golden opportunities.

Don’t just burn through 15 miles a day, but try to think critically about where bucks were most likely to drop their headgear. This goes beyond basic bedding and food sources, and into understanding how they might use the terrain and vegetation to their advantage.

Remember, if you’re 10 yards off, you might as well be 1000 off in the right cover. A lot of bone can hide in the right half-acre, especially if most folks are just focused on getting to the next ridge.

I live in Mississippi, where baiting is legal. Its restrictions are mainly limited to public lands. For whitetail hunting on private lands, it’s fair game. Talk to nearly any hunter from my state, and you can assume that they’re running corn. It’s just part of the hunting culture. Even though I’m a lifelong resident of this state, I don’t have a ton of experience with baiting. So, to get the lowdown on all things baiting, I spoke with the Element’s K.C. Smith.

K.C. is from Texas, the baiting capital of the whitetail world. He baits on his property there, and grew up in a place where baiting is the norm. K.C. offers a unique and authoritative perspective on baiting specifically because of his experience with it, but also because he’s known for killing big bucks on public ground with his bow (usually at ground level) all over the country.

What is Baiting?

If you’re unfamiliar with the tactic of baiting, K.C. defined it as “the strategic placement of corn, pellets, or anything to attract or hold deer on a certain property,” he said. Essentially, anything that’s used for the purpose of attracting and holding deer can be considered bait. This could include corn, mineral blocks, and, yes, even food plots.

While most people associate baiting with killing deer, it can also be used for camera intel. There are a lot of hunters, especially in states where you can’t hunt over bait, that use it before deer season starts to gather intel on their local deer herd. Yet, a lot of hunters don’t consider this actual baiting, even though they use this tactic to ultimately locate deer in hopes of killing one. It’s one of the many contradictions that hunters ignore. Bait can attract and hold deer in certain areas, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get a shot at that big buck.

Baiting Misconceptions

Regardless of what a lot of hunters think, baiting doesn’t eliminate all the guesswork in deer hunting. It also doesn’t mean that hunters who bait lack the skills of hunters who don’t. Still, that won’t squash any of the misconceptions out there.

Baiting Makes It Easy to Kill Big Bucks

It’s easy to look at your neighbors or other hunters and blame baiting for all the big bucks they kill. Sure, someone might get lucky and have a monster stroll into a corn pile, but the same could happen in your food plot. I’ve been guilty of this thinking in the past, especially in seasons when I just couldn’t catch a break. But, bait piles just don’t guarantee big bucks as most people assume.

“It's tough to kill a big buck over a bait pile,” K.C. said. “If anything, it can make it harder, especially if you have good cover on your property. When deer find cover near corn or feed, they’ll bed nearby, making your access even more critical.”

He pointed out that big bucks still approach a feeder like they do other food sources by circling downwind. This is why a lot of hunters who run feeders get plenty of nighttime pictures of big bucks but never see them during shooting hours. It’s not as simple as sitting directly over a bait pile.

Only Lazy Hunters Bait

People who feed deer are lazy. That’s what a lot of people assume about hunters that run bait, but that’s hardly the case. “I know guys who spend 12-hour days throwing around 50-pound bags of corn,” K.C. said. “That’s a lot more work than people are used to.”

Obviously, those are large hunting operations, either for outfitters or landowners, but that’s more work hours than most people spend in a day at their nine-to-five. That time doesn’t account for everything else, like stand prep, camera work, and the hours spent hunting. Theoretically, you could dump a pile of corn on the ground and set up within rifle range of it, but that’s not the way most hunters use bait.

Not to say there aren’t plenty of people who use bait this way or even illegally, which K.C. pointed out. However, the person who illegally dumps a pile of corn where it’s prohibited isn’t the same person who baits within the legal boundaries of the law.

Baiting Intel

“If you want to keep tabs on deer during the year, there’s probably no better way to do it than with bait,” K.C. said. “I use it on properties where I want camera data and to understand what deer use the property.”

Where legal, putting cameras over bait can help you take inventory of the local deer herd. This is especially true for areas where food might be a limited resource, especially in places outside of ag country. Small parcels are another place where baiting can be super effective.

“In my area of Texas, there’s a ton of small parcels where people bait,” K.C. said. “It’s about the only way to attract deer to your property.”

In Texas and other states where baiting is legal, feeders can play a big role in deer sightings and movement. Though not always the case, you might not see as many deer if the surrounding properties bait but you don’t. In these instances, baiting can provide a focal point on the landscape, where you might otherwise not have something that naturally draws deer to or through your property.

Aside from trail camera data, K.C. pointed out that bait can also provide feed where food plots aren’t possible or on distant properties where you might only visit when it’s time to hunt.

How to Hunt Over Bait

Like any hunting tactic, you need a good strategy to be effective. If you’re unfamiliar with K.C. Smith and Tyler Jones, you should check them out on YouTube. They make a living bowhunting (and killing) big bucks on public ground all across the states. They’re some of the best DIY hunters out there. They know how to run-and-gun for big bucks, but they’re not above using bait where it’s legal.

Turns out that effectively hunting over bait isn’t really different from hunting over food plots, feed trees, or other food sources. The approach remains the same. Though there are a few things specific to baiting that you have to consider.

“You can certainly just put a pile of bait out, but timed feeders that fling out protein or corn help make sure that the feed doesn’t ruin from moisture,” K.C. said. “This allows people to feed during daylight hours and control how much they put out.”

Regarding feeder placement, K.C. said that finding spots just off natural travel corridors is a great starting place. The idea isn’t to hunt directly over the feeder but to set up somewhere downwind of it, preferably along a travel corridor. This could be 50 yards downwind or 500.

K.C. cited a hunt, which you can watch here on YouTube, where he killed a buck that had been visiting a feeder at night. Instead of sitting over the feeder and blindly hoping that deer would show, he picked the closest optimal bedding cover, which happened to be about 500 yards away, and decided to rattle in that area. He ended up rattling in that same buck they had on camera and shooting it.

It’s not the way most people imagine using bait to kill a big buck, but it's a similar approach that you would take to hunting over other food sources or how you might interpret trail camera data.

“It’s just like another tool in your belt,” K.C. said about baiting, “you just have to know how to use it.”

Risks Involved with Baiting

No matter where you land on baiting, there’s no getting around the fact that this strategy congregates large concentrations of deer within a small area. It’s not the congregating itself that is problematic, but when deer infected with EHD, CWD, or other diseases risk contaminating the rest of the herd.

Because feeders or other bait sites continually replace food in the same place, deer tend to feed in the same spots. Unlike food plots or even hot feed trees that have a shelf life each year, bait sites can increase disease transmission.

The forecast called for cold and windy weather, but the snow cover seemed like it was going to be minimal at most. Unfortunately, a small snowstorm that must have sat over the property we were headed to rolled through the day before we arrived.

Three inches of fresh powder coated everything in the woods, and I knew as soon as we got there that we were probably going to pivot to mostly a winter scouting mission. Even on a private dairy farm, with a pretty good-sized herd of deer wintering on it, that snow and the fickle gods of shed hunting conspired against us.

We blanked, which is way more common than it should be when it comes to shed hunting. I hear about it a lot from people who are surprised they can’t find more antlers, but just like actual deer hunting success, the perception of shed hunting has been skewed hard by the folks who have access to really good ground. If you don’t, you’ll probably get a reality check.

Miles Matter

Before I had kids, I shed hunted a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a stupid amount. I also had a golden retriever at the time that I had trained to find antlers, so I had some extra horsepower with me. The winters when Lux and I put on real miles, we found antlers. But mostly, we didn’t. I figured it out one year, where I ended up with six sheds, and realized that I averaged one antler for every three weeks of hard effort.

Now, this was on properties in the Twin Cities with a stupid amount of competition, but that’s still a lot of squeezing for very little juice. Today, my results are much worse because there are so many more people out looking for antlers. It’s the way things are, and if you expect to stack up the sheds on public land in a place with any amount of people, I have bad news for you.

You’re going to have to put in the miles, and even then, you’re not likely to set any records. The only caveat there is that sometimes, at least here in the north country, where we might get consistent snow all season, is that when the spring melt does happen, you can have some really good days because the bulk of the antler drop will be suddenly available to everyone at the same time.

Without that snow cover, which is the reality in a hell of a lot of places deer live, you’re going to have to burn some serious boot leather. Even then, you might have something else working against you.

Antler Eyes

One of the reasons people like to shed hunt fields, aside from the easy walking, is because it’s so easy to see antlers in them. This is true in hayfields, alfalfa, cut beanfields, and many other types of destination ag fields. Walk a chopped or chisel-plowed cornfield, and then it’s often just not that easy, considering how many stalks look like antlers, and how few antlers there are compared to corn stalks.

Step into the woods, and it often gets far more difficult. This is especially true if you don’t find very many antlers. You have to train your eyes to pick up the subtle clue that what’s lying in the brush 10 yards away isn’t another stick, but a tine.

This is no different from sight fishing smallies, looking for morels during turkey season, or glassing up a bedded mule deer in the breaks—you need practice. Humans are pattern recognition machines, but not when the pattern isn’t something we encounter very often.

Going slow, glassing, and checking out everything that even remotely might be an antler is a way to train yourself to almost subconsciously recognize that you noticed a main beam while scanning the timber during hour four of a shed-less walk. Simply put, one of the reasons shed hunting seems so hard sometimes is because we are so good at not seeing them.

Sign Versus Fresh Sign

One thing that winter does well is preserve droppings and tracks. This often gives us a false read on recent deer activity. You want to shed hunt bedding areas, food sources, and trails that deer actively used when they were most likely to drop. You don’t just want to hit the food source they filled up with droppings in December, but hasn’t had three calories left for them since Christmas.

We tend to default to obvious food sources, easy-to-walk trails, and open woods. We also tend to find deer sign in these places, which further solidifies our belief that there are antlers to be found where we want to shed hunt the most.

Again, if you do what most people do, it’ll be just like hunting public land deer: you’ll fail. Part of the reason that shed hunting is way harder than we expect is because we want it to be simple and easy. It can be if you have a good spot, but mostly you’re going to have to wade through some thorns and go where some people won’t. The good news is that if you do, you’re very likely to find the kind of fresh sign you’re really looking for, and with that fresh sign comes hope.

Sometimes that’s all a shed hunter can ask for.

The buck nosed through the does, and twice when he stood still, I started to squeeze the trigger. However, he started moving again, and I anxiously waited for the right opportunity. He followed one doe behind a hill while the other deer kept feeding. I anxiously waited, wondering if he would return to the rest of the herd. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long.

He returned and stood still long enough to give me a shot. I settled the crosshairs, and my rifle’s report and recoil surprised me. Deer scattered, and I ran to the top of the hill for a better view. White flags flew in every direction, but none of them had antlers. I then noticed an unmistakable white belly lying on the prairie. That tremendous 5x5 buck only ran 30 yards.

After years of drawing preference points, I was happy to notch my tag on this buck, especially on the opening morning of rifle season. It required a bit more strategy than a traditional over-the-counter (OTC) hunt, but it was well worth it.

While there are countless OTC whitetail tags available across North America, limited draw opportunities can provide some of the best hunting for DIY deer hunters. Here are a few things to consider before throwing your name in the hat.

Why You Should Consider Draw States

Unlike OTC opportunities, limited draw states have a few more advantages. First, limited tags mean limited hunting pressure. OTC offers great access…to everyone. However, I enjoy the elbow room that comes with limited draw units. I’ve been on numerous OTC hunts where I bumped into tons of other hunters. Limited competition has its perks.

While not a guarantee, draw states can increase your chances of harvesting bigger, older bucks. Because the competition is limited, bucks have a greater chance of living longer. So, if you want to increase your chances of killing a mature buck, draw states might give you a better shot.

Increase Your Odds

Draw odds can be difficult to decipher. Most states publish draw odds by breaking them down by preference points on their wildlife department websites. Preference points enhance your odds of drawing a tag (hence the name). Some states allow you to purchase them after the draws are completed. If you don’t draw a state one year, consider purchasing preference points to improve your odds for the next.

States typically divide areas into different hunting units, which can make the application process even more confusing. Instead of scrambling through multiple web browsers, you can use a digital mapping service like onX or GoHunt to streamline the process. These platforms allow you to search for hunts using filters such as draw odds, public land percentages, trophy quality, and your preferred weapon.

If you want the opportunity to travel hunt every year, consider applying to a handful of states. This will increase your odds of drawing a tag to a different state every year. Some Wyoming units take only one or two points to draw. Ditto with South Dakota. Meanwhile, Iowa’s premier units take at least four years to draw an archery tag, which aligns with prime pre- and peak-rut dates. If you do the math and figure out a rotation, you could potentially draw a different state every year.

Making the Most of Your Tag

The downside to hunting draw states is that you won’t hunt the same place every time. In other words, it’ll take longer to learn an area than it does in OTC states, where you can hunt the same ground every year.

Still, I’ve seen some of the biggest bucks while hunting draw states. If your goal is to increase your chances of seeing and potentially killing a mature buck, draw states can offer you that, even if you’re less familiar with the land.

Since you can’t hunt these places every year, I’ve found that e-scouting plays a huge role in your success. Instead of wasting your evenings in front of the TV, spend that time e-scouting and dropping markers over potential areas you want to hunt. You can do this all year round, not just the months before your hunt.

E-scouting these draw states has made a huge difference in my own success over the years. You may only get a week to hunt a state that took you years to draw, so you have to make the most of it. E-scouting can give you a great head start.

Plan Now

While draw opportunities closed earlier this year, you might find a leftover tag. Otherwise, you’ll have to hunt an OTC state if you want to travel this year. Still, it’s not too early to research draw opportunities for next year. Putting in for draw states requires more work than an OTC, but I’ve found the hassle well worth it.

This first-of-its-kind study highlights the photoluminescence observed in signposts (i.e., rubs and scrapes) used by deer and indicates that a combination of secretions from peeled tree bark and a deer’s forehead glands might contribute to this phenomenon.

Daniel DeRose-Broeckert, a graduate assistant at the UGA Deer Lab, spearheaded the experiment. To observe the photoluminescence of rubs and scrapes, he shone UV lights on them and measured their wavelengths with a spectrometer. In a recent interview, Derose-Broeckert spoke with NDA about his findings.

DeRose-Broeckert compiled data from 109 fresh rubs and 37 fresh scrapes and essentially found that fresher sign glows more than older sign. During the rut, scrapes tended to glow more as deer frequented them. On the other hand, rubs glowed more during the pre-rut.

Concerning rut activity, DeRose-Broeckert’s advisor, Dr. Gino D’Angelo, told NDA that these glowing signposts might expedite the “transit of deer” during the breeding season. Essentially, these “highway reflectors” might provide a visual for deer to locate other deer during the rut or even deter certain deer from others. Since deer can observe these signposts from a distance and use their incredible sense of smell, bucks can navigate the landscape quickly during the peak rut.

Night Moves

Deer are crepuscular mammals, meaning they are most active around sunrise and sunset. It’s no coincidence that UV light, according to NDA, appears most prevalent around dawn and dusk—peak deer movement time. Around dawn and dusk, this increased UV lighting allows deer to spot fresh rubs and scrapes from a distance.

Rather than visit a scrape or rub, deer might gather info visually as the rut advances, especially during peak activity hours (dawn/dusk). Understandably, a deer’s nose gets all the attention. However, DeRose-Broeckert’s research suggests that deer vision might play a larger role than hunters think.

What It Means for Hunters

If you’re hoping this research might tell you how to kill a buck over scrapes or rubs, it’s not that simple. In fact, it further supports the research that most deer sign is made at night. However, it does provide some insight into when you might want to target rub lines or scrapes.

As hunters, we tend to associate rubs and scrapes as a simultaneous occurrence. However, the varying levels of photoluminescence observed in both rubs and scrapes during specific windows of the rut suggest that hunters might want to focus on one or the other, depending on the time of season. Even if this research doesn’t help you kill a big buck, it shows another reason why deer are so cool.

It frustrated me because I thought I was doing everything right. I’d stay on the trail for miles, picking my way along like a ninja as I crept through the woods, trying to move slowly and stay silent so I could sneak up on the buck. But it never worked. Frustrated with my lack of results, I talked to a few more experienced buck trackers about what I was doing wrong, and they all told me the same thing—I wasn’t going fast enough.

The fact is that tracking isn’t still-hunting. Sure, there are times when you may have to sneak up on a buck, but for the most part, tracking is about trying to play catch-up with an animal that has twice number of legs as you do. If you move too slowly or spend too much time trying to work out their trail, you’ll often end up never seeing the deer. So, if you want to be a consistently successful big buck tracker, you have to know how and when to move fast.

Age Your Tracks

Knowing how to age deer tracks is the first step in knowing how fast you have to go to catch up with your buck. Fresher tracks that were made the morning of or even the night before your hunt can be followed at a more leisurely pace, while older tracks often require a practical sprint in order to close the distance. While determining the freshness of buck tracks can be complicated, especially for inexperienced hunters, there are a few simple ways to determine how fresh buck tracks are and how fast you have to move.

The easiest way to establish the freshness of a buck track is to follow the weather. When you know when and how much snow you’ve had in the last few days, you can determine how fresh a buck track is by the amount of snow that’s filled it in. For example, if you’ve had an inch of snow in the past day or two, older deer tracks will be partially filled in, while newer tracks worth following will be snow-free and clearly defined. The same can be done when you’ve had recent warm spells, with older tracks looking melted or at least partially melted around the edges, while newer tracks will still be distinct.

Of course, when you’ve had steady weather patterns, it can be more difficult to determine how old a track is, but it’s still possible with a bit of studying. Just like when you take a brand-new tray of ice cubes out of the freezer versus one that has been in there for a few days, new and old buck tracks will look distinctly different. Newer tracks will seem cleaner, clearer, and more defined, while older tracks will seem cloudier and crumpled around the edges. Of course, just because the tracks you find seem old or snow conditions seem tough, it doesn’t mean you can’t still catch up with your buck. You just have to move faster.

“It’s totally possible to catch up with a buck on a track that’s a couple days old” says avid tracker, registered Maine hunting guide, and Benoit Tracking School instructor Timmy Bolduc. “You just might have to haul ass to do it. The thing is that whitetail bucks tend to have their own home territory where they stay around that usually isn’t more than 10 or 12 square miles around. They’ll hang in this area as long as there’s food and does around, so even if the track is several days old, that buck will often be a lot closer than you think. Sometimes, you can practically jog through the woods on an old buck track and see where he beds down and slows down to feed, and eventually, you’re going to freshen up that trail until you’re suddenly right on top of him.”

Head on a Swivel

One of the biggest mistakes that buck trackers make when trying to quickly track down a buck is keeping their head down. They lock onto the tracks like a beagle on a rabbit and walk through the woods with their eyes on the ground, trying to see where the buck is going instead of looking around the woods as they move to see where the buck is.

“You’ve got to keep your head up,” Bolduc told MeatEater. “It’s the thing that makes all the difference from shooting that big buck and coming home empty-handed handed and not enough hunters know how to do it right. You’ve got to go as fast as you can go, but still see everything around you. There’s an art to it, and it’s what separates the best trackers in the woods, those guys like the Benoits and Hal Blood, from your average Joe.”

Bolduc and many other big buck trackers believe that, like all skills, learning to move quickly through the woods while still seeing everything around you takes practice.

“It’s not something you can pick up on right away,” says Bolduc. “There’s a real skill in swinging your eyes left and right and seeing everything around you, and then glancing down at the tracks real quick to make sure you're heading in the right direction. You’ve got to spend some time in the woods before the season. Walk around in the woods and swivel your head, try not to break your stride, and just take quick glances at the ground. It takes practice, but you’ll be surprised how quickly you learn to pick out objects like roots, rocks, logs, branches, etc. that are in your path and how you’ll automatically step around them without having to look down or pick your way along.”

In addition to moving quickly while walking silently and safely, practice keeping your head up while walking through the woods, and begin training your eyes for what to look for. Spotting a buck before it spots you in thick timber can be a real challenge, but if you spend a lot of time in the woods looking for deer, you’ll eventually learn to see them more easily.

“Most of the time you’re not going to see that buck standing right in front of you,” Bolduc told MeatEater. “Instead, you’re going to catch a glance of his antlers or his body or the flick of his tail. It can take some time for your eyes to pick up on these things, but it’s a bit like riding a bike. You might need a warm-up every year, and you’ll miss some things, but if you keep your eyes up and keep looking around as you move, after two or three days, you’ll be right in, and it becomes automatic. Every little flicker, every little movement, every little thing that looks out of place, you learn to see it, and that’s how you’ll spot your buck when you’re on the move.”

Dogging The Trail

The biggest fear that deer hunters have when tracking down a buck is that they’ll jump it up. The fact is, though, that when you’re trying to track down a deer quickly, jumping a buck is almost inevitable. Just because you jumped the buck doesn’t mean that your day is over. In fact, it often means that the hunt has only just begun.

“You play the same game whether that track is smoking fresh or three or four days old, and that’s closing the distance,” Bolduc said. “You’ve got to catch up to that buck, and the fact is you’re probably going to jump him, and that’s okay, because when you’re trying to track a buck down fast, you’re trying to get him to make a mistake.”

When a whitetail buck is jumped by a hunter, either out of his bed or from where he is feeding or following a doe through the woods, he very rarely goes very far. Most of the time, he’ll bound a few yards until he feels like he’s out of danger, and then he’ll return to feeding, go back to the doe, or he’ll bed back down. If you give the deer some time—say 30 minutes or so—and then get right back on his trail at the same pace, you’ll very likely catch up with that buck again, again, and again until he gives you a shot.

“Bucks are curious animals just like the rest of us,” Bolduc said. “From that point where you jump him forward, every time you come up behind him again, he’s going to wonder what’s behind him. You might jump him four or five times throughout the day, but one of those times, he’s just going to stand there, wondering what’s behind him for a little too long, and that’s his mistake. It’s part of the game of tracking quickly; you’ve got to keep at it and dog that buck. When he jumps, give him some time and then get back after him. Stay determined and try to get him to stand for one second too long, because that’s where you’re going to get your shot.”

Like every other aspect of the tracking game, getting that shot at a big woods buck can take practice, and it’s a good idea to rehearse by training your freehand shooting before you head into the woods. Set up a target and then walk at it at different angles, practicing how to stop and then quickly raise your rifle and fire accurately until it becomes second nature. This is a great activity to practice during the summer so that you have plenty of time to hone your quick-shooting skills before the tracking snow hits the ground.

At Your Own Pace

I still remember the first time I successfully tracked down a buck. I cut his tracks early in the morning, and recognizing they were a little older, I started practically jogging behind him as I took up the trail. After a couple hours, I noticed that the tracks were getting fresher and fresher, and before I knew it, I looked up on a ridge, and there he was, broadside in the sunlight.

As I walked up to the beautiful big woods 8-pointer, I had a distinct feeling of both accomplishment and surprise. Over the years, I had spent so many hours slowly picking my way along and tracking bucks until dark without ever actually seeing them. Now, after learning how to speed up, not only did I finally have my first tracking buck on the ground in front of me, but as I looked at my watch, I realized I was going to be able to get him home just in time for lunch.

I put up a brave fight against peer pressure, but ultimately caved. I’m in my second season of stacking up deer from saddles and ultralight hang-on stands while my climbing stands collect dust. I hate to admit it, but the masses were right. Mobile hunting is undeniably deadly for whitetails, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass. Literally.

Comfortable…Enough

The saddle movement is the wildest trend I’ve seen so far in my hunting career. It put the entire whitetail world in a chokehold overnight. Saddles are unbeatable for dialing in on deer movement, especially on public land when you just need to cover ground efficiently and adjust your setup on the fly.

I love my saddle for the strategic advantage it gives me–I just don’t love how it feels. Even in a perfect tree, I often find myself fidgeting after an hour or two in an attempt to shift weight off of an aching hip, knee, or ankle. And in mobile hunting, the trees are rarely perfect.

Lightweight stands offer some relief for longer-duration sits or volume hunting a hot location, but even the best mobile hang-ons sacrifice comfort for packability. Tiny platforms and seats don’t leave much room for movement if you need a good stretch during an all-day sit, and standard seat cushions can leave a lot to be desired.

Investing in a more adjustable saddle and a larger platform made saddle hunting much more tolerable for me. Knee pads are a popular solution for periodically relieving your leg joints. Although I prefer my redneck life hack of strapping my turkey hunting seat cushion to my tree to rest my knees on. I add that same cushion to the rock-hard factor- issue seat on my hang-on stand, and it makes a world of difference. There are plenty of adjustments you can make to improve your mobile experience, but you have to accept that you won’t be box-blind-with-an-office-chair comfortable while you punch your tags.

Too Much Freedom

Box blinds and ladder stands aren’t just easier on your butt—they’re easier on your brain. When I started mobile hunting, I found myself yearning for the old days when I could just run on autopilot because once my stands were set, they were set for the season. All I had to do was show up.

Adjusting to constant decision-making was the hardest part of going mobile for me. It’s a struggle to make the right choice and not second-guess yourself when you have so many options available to you. And it’s especially tough to sit tight when you have the power to move.

I often have the urge to move 50 yards down to the next creek crossing, or bail on a property after one quiet sit. The ability to make quick adjustments is a net benefit of mobile hunting, but bouncing around too much is guaranteed to cost you deer.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable when you’re waiting on a whitetail. But, to be consistently successful as a mobile hunter, you have to learn to ignore your wandering eye and let every setup play out before you make a new plan.

Setting Up Will Wear You Down

If potentially blowing out a good spot isn’t enough encouragement for you to stay put, you’ll eventually find yourself burned out on playing musical trees. Mobile hunting gives you the freedom to move around, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

Every setup is a significant investment of time and energy, and few things will wear you down quite like pulling everything in the dark for the fifth night in a row. Even the lightest platforms and climbing sticks on the market start to feel heavy two miles in, and there’s so much more a mobile hunter needs to account for.

All the things that are set-it-and-forget-it for the non-mobile crowd–like bow hangers, backpack hooks, haul lines, and lineman belts–have to be top-of-mind with every move. I can’t tell you how much profanity I whispered the first time I pulled my climbing sticks and looked up to see my bow hanger stranded 20 feet overhead. Or the frustration I’ve felt digging around for my haul line because I got lazy and didn’t put it back in its designated backpack pocket.

The gear management side of mobile hunting comes with a significant learning curve. A lot of it requires trial and error. But, if you stay organized and develop a good system, you’ll save yourself a lot of headache and learn that it might just be worth all the trouble.

Fast forward to that same day the next year, and I watched three borderline bucks (my state imposes antler restrictions) run a pair of does through my setup in almost the same spot. That pattern played out for two more seasons, including this last one.

Aside from does coming into heat, that spot has good screening cover, natural browse, and the convergence of multiple habitat and terrain edges. No, it doesn’t stand out on the map, but it’s a place that deer feel comfortable traveling season after season, especially during the rut.

It’s easy to think of the rut as an isolated event. You might have a mature buck run by your stand and chalk it up to rut brain, but there’s a reason that buck is there. While it might seem like a random occurrence, mature bucks don’t just daylight for no reason. And that intel could benefit you for seasons to come.

Take Note

History repeating isn’t always a bad thing. That’s why it’s important to make note of your deer encounters even if they seem insignificant.

Mapping apps like onX make it too easy not to log some information. You don’t need a book’s worth of details. A simple waypoint with a quick description goes a long way. Something like “shooter buck chasing a doe” works great. onX automatically logs the date and time for you, so there’s no excuse not to take notes.

With or Without Cameras

I prefer hunt observations to trail cam photos any day, but they can both be just as valuable for historical data. Time on stand allows you to observe a bit more of the situation, while trail cam photos can sometimes be misleading. But, if you’re consistently getting daylight pictures of certain bucks, especially if they’re trailing does, you’ll want to make note of that for next year. The Moultrie Mobile cell cam app allows you to take bookkeeping-level organization for your photos. This type of organization makes it easy to store photos by specific dates, so that you can quickly reference the data when you’re planning out next year’s hunts.

Even if you don’t have the camera data to back up the deer movement. You can feel confident that the deer are likely to do the same thing this time next year, barring any major habitat or landscape changes. You might have to make minor tweaks to your setups, but this is an area where you can go with your gut, knowing that does typically come into heat around the same timeframe every year.

The More Data, The Better

Whether you’re tracking historical data in your phone or a notebook, the more you accumulate, the more options you’ll have come deer season. That way, if you don’t have the right wind or someone beats you to a spot, you’ll have a backup ready to go.

It also helps if you have a problem overanalyzing hunting setups. When you already have spots that you know produce historically, you can easily make a decision on where to hunt based on the conditions and data. You’re more likely to have success when you can revisit a proven spot than just going in blind. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to see a mature buck in that spot every year, but even watching young bucks dog a doe through your setup is reassuring (and fun).

Trust the Evidence

It can be hard to trust your gut, especially if you want hard evidence that bucks are using a specific area. Sure, fresh rubs and scrapes are great, but don’t let the lack of this typical buck sign convince you that they’ve deserted the area.

Remember, it’s the does you’re hunting anyway. I’d much rather see a ton of fresh tracks and droppings than a monster rub from the early season. It’s sort of one of those things that you have to experience to understand. You can listen to podcasts or read all the articles you want, but it won’t click until you do it yourself.

“As CWD has spread in Missouri over the last decade, MDC’s objective has been and continues to be to keep CWD infection rates low to protect the long-term health of the deer herd. This extensive undertaking can only be accomplished by working collaboratively with hunters and landowners,” he wrote. “At this time, MDC will be pausing our post-season targeted removal efforts to work with hunters and landowners to adapt and identify a more sustainable path forward.”

According to the CDC, CWD, or chronic wasting disease, is a prion disease that is spreading in deer, elk, moose, and reindeer. The government agency calls it a “serious disease in animals” and notes that it is “always fatal in infected animals.”

Kip Adams, Chief Conservation Officer for the National Deer Association, told MeatEater that while MDC’s targeted deer removal program may not have been popular among some sportsmen, it was effective.

“Missouri has been a leader in keeping CWD prevalence on the landscape low because they’ve been so aggressive at removing additional CWD-positive deer from known hotspots,” he said. “The single best-known way to make that happen is strategic sharpshooting cull programs…It’s unfortunate that now they have lost that ability.”

Prior to the action, Adams participated in an MDC-organized public event to engage local hunters on the issue. He said that many of them had qualms with MDC using bait for its post-season targeted deer removals, while forbidding hunters from doing the same. He also understands the frustration of there being fewer deer to hunt.

“I get it. Nobody wants additional deer to be removed if it’s in their backyard,” he said. “However, the science is very clear…you can look at other states and provinces where once strategic removal programs were removed, CWD prevalence rates climbed precipitously. Unfortunately, the same thing is probably going to happen in Missouri.”

In his open letter, Sumners pointed to the success of a recently launched Hunter Harvest Initiative, which encourages hunters to kill more deer in CWD “core zones.” Adams said that efforts like this, which involve local hunters, are important, but they should complement, not replace, more precise culls.

Adams noted that folks downplaying CWD, particularly on social media, has created a narrative that the disease is not as harmful as experts make it out to be. However, recent studies show significant population-level impacts from the disease.

“The detractors often say there’s never been a population that’s been reduced by CWD. That’s just not true. We have more evidence of CWD causing population declines in whitetails than ever before,” he said, adding that he’s worried about other states following Missouri’s lead.

“Hunters in every state whose state wildlife agency uses [targeted culls] can see Missouri has gone away from it. The ones that don’t like it will say, ‘Hey, Missouri stopped doing it.’ The ones that aren’t sure if it’s a good thing or not will look at it and say, ‘Well, if MDC quit doing it, it must not have been effective,’” he said. “This is going to have ramifications far outside of The Show-Me State.”

Still, there’s good hunting (and good deer) to be found in the pines. And, no, it doesn’t just involve sitting on a food plot. Pine country might not look like typical deer woods, but deer live, feed, and travel in them just like any other landscape. Here are a few ways you can find success in the pines.

Hit the Maps

E-scouting pine country might seem daunting. Most of the woods look like a green blob on a screen, especially if you hunt flatland. Still, in that sea of green, there are edges within edges where deer travel.

I like to start with the obvious spots while e-scouting. Look for recent clear cuts or where two different pine stands meet. For instance, you might have an old-growth pine forest that meets a six or seven-year-old cut or a fifteen-acre block that was thinned in the past few years. These may not seem immediately apparent, but you can use recent satellite imagery to determine what current habitats look like before getting boots on the ground.

You’ll definitely have to scout these places in person. Start with the hard edges. From there, look for trails that parallel or run into younger pines where deer might bed. Depending on the size and age of the pine stand, you might be looking for a couple of specific trails or an area where deer are currently traveling/feeding. In young, thick pine stands (three to seven years old), there might only be one or two trails that deer use to access it for bedding. These trails usually look like highways or wide openings in the pines. If you find a community scrape on one of these travel routes, consider hanging a set or at least a camera.

Don’t Overlook Soft Edges

For older growth stands or thinned cuts, the trails might not seem as consistent or apparent. You might find a ton of trails going in or through them. These areas make for excellent gun hunting setups. Deer love to travel through screening cover, and these types of thinned stands make excellent travel corridors even if they don’t look like it.

They can also provide a ton of browse for deer, but it takes an observant eye to spot the fresh sign in these soft edges. Don’t just look for droppings or tracks. Pay attention to the vegetation. You might notice privet hedge, honeysuckle, green briar, or other plants that have been nipped off at knee or waist-high. Deer might not spend a ton of time in these places, but they’ll definitely travel through them.

Avoid Pine Deserts

Jokes aside, there are such things as pine deserts. They’re typically located on large, private leases where timber companies spray herbicides underneath the trees as they grow. This practice kills any competition and vegetation beneath the pines, giving them the most efficient growth potential and schedule. You can see why timber companies might be incentivized to do this.

Rather than natural browse or cover, you’ll find pine straw beneath these trees, and that’s about it. The deer have no reason to eat, sleep, or travel there. I’m not saying you’d never see a deer, but you probably wouldn’t with any regularity. If that’s what you’re working with, you might want to turn your attention to another area.

Locate an SMZ

One of my favorite features in pine country is an SMZ (streamside management zone). You can read more about it here, but it’s essentially a narrow stretch of hardwoods that snakes through a young pine stand or clear-cut. Timber companies leave these to promote habitat diversity and because they’re typically only cutting and selling pine. It’s both a water and a terrain feature.

An SMZ offers excellent cover, travel, and feeding for deer in the surrounding pine plantations. Essentially, it’s a pinch point, edge, feeding area, and a focal point on the landscape for deer anytime throughout the season. While an SMZ may or may not have a substantial stream or creek running through it, they typically stay wet, which is where you’ll find a lot of oaks. When you’re dealing with an overabundance of bedding, finding an SMZ can help you narrow down deer travel.

Stick with It

As the late season drags on, pines become increasingly important for deer hunters. After the leaf-off and most of the cover has been depleted, deer will hunker down in young pine plantations. These become easier to narrow down as January rolls around, and doe groups will gravitate to these areas.

That’s great news down South, as bucks are still looking for any remaining does in heat. I’ve killed some of my best deer during January, hunting the edges of pine thickets or road beds between plantations. You might have to hunt in places where your visibility is low, but that’s also where you’re likely to catch a buck slipping through the cover.

It wasn’t until my third day that I even saw a doe on that pressured ground. Even then, I lucked out, getting a thirty-yard shot while still-hunting through the timber. I basically dragged that 70-pound doe out by the hooves, and it felt like one of the crowning achievements of my hunting career. It was a humbling reminder that killing any deer can be a daunting task, especially in the late season.

After the general firearms seasons have rolled through and deer have been pressured for three to four months, the woods can seem like a ghost town. Whether you’re looking for a mature buck or a hefty freezer queen, your goal is the same—just find the deer. Here’s a few things to consider if you’re still looking to fill a tag this winter.

Still-Hunt

Growing up, my dad and grandfather preferred to still-hunt. I learned from them, so I’m a bit biased, but I’ll reference that hunt I just mentioned. If I hadn’t been still hunting during that midday stretch, I probably would have returned from that trip empty-handed.

Late-season hunting comes down to food and cover. The majority of the work involves finding what and where the deer are eating right then. Sure, you could argue that’s the case for most of the year, but it becomes even more critical when those resources have dwindled. Still-hunting provides a great way to find the freshest sign. You can read more about still-hunting here, but focus on transitions near the thickest cover, as does will gravitate to these areas.

Hunt Midday

Unlike the morning and evening sits, the parking lots at that public ground were empty. I guess the deer knew that too. I’ve pulled enough all-day hunts or midday scouts to know that the 10-2 window can be just as productive as a morning or evening sit. There are a few ways to go about hunting this time frame, but you should focus on cover regardless.

If you prefer to still-hunt, you can do so on the edge of bedding or a good transition that provides screening cover for deer. Bucks are more likely to get up and browse in these types of areas, especially when the cover has thinned. If you prefer a typical ambush, go for a hang-and-hunt in the same type of area. Only, I’d probably be more aggressive and push into the cover.

Find Food

Food becomes a limited resource in the late season. For this reason, you might not want to rule out anything. Natural browse, overlooked acorns, and, yes, even food plots. The latter gets a bad rap from weekend warriors, but food plots can be great deer magnets even on pressured or public ground in the late season. In fact, research shows that buck movement near food plots is highest during the late season than at any other time of year. You just need to approach hunting them the right way.

If you’re just looking to punch any tag, sitting on top of a food plot with a rifle isn’t a bad option. On the other hand, targeting a buck might not be as easy. It can be tempting to sit right over the food, but your chances of shooting a buck in the middle of a food plot aren’t great. Instead, you’ll still want to set up near cover or in staging areas where bucks are likely to daylight or at least J-hook the downwind side of a field.

In this case, look for trails leading into the food plots and try backtracking them to the nearest cover. Look for fresh droppings, tracks, or even rubs. Cutting a fresh track at this point in the season probably holds more weight than anything, but fresh rubs aren’t nothing as long as you find them in cover.

Plan A Strike

If you have the time, plan an observation sit. This might not be critical for rifle hunters, but dedicated archers should consider pulling an observation sit before moving in for a strike. Observation sits will tell you a lot this time of year. Since cover is limited, deer, especially does, might bed in the same general area several days in a row.

This approach can help you dial in your setup if you hunt areas without defined travel routes. For instance, in big woods or flatland, try to observe where and why the deer travel in/through a specific area. You might notice that they walk through a small ditch or around a blowdown for whatever reason. Then, you can go back the next morning or evening with a plan.

Last Call

Late-season hunting can be tough, but in some ways it’s simpler than the rest of the season. If you’re willing to deal with cold temps and skittish deer, you might just find that the latter part of the season can be some of the most rewarding.

Then you spend one cold evening in the woods and catch a buck shadowing a small doe with that same old look in his eye. That’s the second rut. It doesn’t come with the same frat boy fanfare of the primary breeding season. It’s far more subtle. But it means the story isn’t over yet.

The Late Season Ripple

Plenty of hunters have theories about why some bucks start chasing again in late December. But no matter what your Uncle Joe says after a couple post-hunt beers, bucks don’t fire back up because the moon looks different or the weather’s acting weird. It’s the second rut.

The National Deer Association’s Chief Conservation Officer, Kip Adams, has heard every theory under the sun. “Hunters like to call [wildlife biologists] idiots, but there is enough data that shows the rut occurs at the same time each year,” Adams told MeatEater. “It’s not driven by moon phase or temperature. It is 100% driven by photoperiod.”

In other words, the rut runs on schedule, peaking in early to mid-November in most places, with blatant disregard for cold fronts, full moons, or folklore. It’s affected by hours of daylight.

So if the rut hits like clockwork each year, what’s going on with those December bucks?

Here’s the short answer. Some does are still coming into heat. That’s the second rut. It’s not a full replay of November. It’s a small, predictable biological ripple that shows up when conditions are right.

Adams put it bluntly. “The mythical second rut is a thing. But it’s very different than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago.”

Back when hunters shot every antlered buck they saw and ignored does, buck-to-doe ratios went sideways. There weren’t enough bucks to breed all the does on the first cycle, so plenty came back in roughly four weeks. That made the old-school second rut obvious.

“Today, we have better habitat and herd management,” Adams said. “Now the second rut is driven by fawns of the year coming into heat for the first time. If a doe fawn that was born this summer reaches 70 to 80 pounds of body weight this fall or winter, she will hit sexual maturity and breed during the second rut.”

Still Looking for Love

The second rut isn’t the all-out rave of the primary breeding season. Pressure from firearms season makes the big boys gun-shy. Bucks are wary of cruising mid-day. That’s because most of the does have already been bred and aren’t willing to give guys the time of day.

While the primary rut is hot, bucks don’t have to work all that hard to find female company in November. Pretty much every doe is ready to party then. In December, the script flips.

“If you can find a doe in heat during that second rut, the rut activity is even more intense because there are so few deer that are in heat,” Adams said.

Late in the season, all of those bucks are still ready to breed, if they could just find a doe in heat. That’s why one doe in estrus in December will drum up a bunch of attention. I’ve seen one little doe trot past a treestand with three bucks trailing her like they needed to talk to her about her car’s extended warranty.

December may not have the same volume as the primary rut. Instead, the moments are short-lived and packed tight, but no less exciting.

How to Hunt the Second Rut

You can’t hunt the second rut using November’s playbook. There’s no chasing the frenzy this time of year. You’re hunting a spark, not a bonfire. To do that, you have to put yourself in the right place when one young doe decides today is the day. Here are some solid strategies for getting it done.

Camp on the Groceries Does don’t wander far for calories in the late season, so the best odds usually come from food sources that still have something to give. This isn’t the steady stream, all-you-can-eat buffet line of the early season. Deer generally have to look harder for dinner this time of year, and you will, too. Think standing beans, mowed corn, brushy clear cuts with new growth, brassicas (turnips, kale, radishes, etc.), and apples. The menu will vary depending on the region you're hunting in.

Glass for Smaller Deer A cycling fawn won’t look like a big, typical doe. She has a shorter face and a compact, boxy body. If you spot a small deer moving with purpose and a buck following hot on her tracks, pay attention. That little deer can flip the whole day.

Hang Tight to the Bedroom Pressured bucks seem to turn into hermits after the sea of orange sweeps into the woods during early deer season. And because bucks aren’t cruising for does, they start to tighten their circle in December. If you’re still sitting in the same wide-open rifle stand you loved during the primary rut, you’re playing the wrong game. Look for places pressured deer would like to hunker down and bed through the day. Look for south-facing slopes, cedar groves, pine thickets, brushy creek banks, and blowdowns. Anything thick, secure, and warmed by the sun. Especially if it’s close to a late-season food source.

Call Sparingly You can’t go into the December woods using November’s playlist. Leave aggressive calling for the primary rut. Try soft grunts or a light rattle. The competition is real, but the social noise is low. You want to mimic curiosity, not a bar fight.

Strike While it’s Hot

A December chase can live and die in a day. Sometimes in an hour. If you spot fresh rut behavior, it’s game on. Don’t wait for the weekend. This window is the outdoor version of seeing a parking spot open right in front of you. Take it now, or you’re going to miss it.

The second rut is a last flicker of life in a season that looks spent. Stay patient. Stay out there. Let the other folks pack it in, because December has a few surprises for the stubborn ones.

As I creep down a narrow gravel drive, Travis directs me to a parking spot in his yard. A large pond borders one side of the drive while a dozer looms over the open field on the other. Pines from the Homochitto National Forest guard the far south end of his property like towering sentries. A flock of guineas scatters at my approach. I’m immediately greeted by a dachshund that gives the snarliest bark it can muster as it runs between me and its tall, wiry master.

“You look like an Adam,” Travis says, extending his hand as I step out of the car. Other than a few phone calls and texts, this is the first time Travis and I have met. I’m here to observe him hunt. One, because Travis has flown under the radar (by choice), so I’m intrigued by his obscure notoriety. Two, selfishly, I hope to glean some sliver of knowledge from a man who’s killed multiple Boone and Crockett deer from the ground.

But for more pure motives, I’m interested in his craft and dedication to hunting big deer with traditional archery equipment. Unlike most hunt-fluencers, Travis doesn’t care if anyone knows about the deer he kills. He prefers it that way. But it isn’t just Travis. He knows a lot of hunters in clubs around this part of the state, who prefer to keep their success under tabs. Perhaps that collective thinking of hunters in southwest Mississippi has helped preserve this Edenic deer hunting paradise.

Travis calls off his ferocious dachshund and invites me inside. It’s exactly what you’d imagine from a man who's killed bucks that most hunters only see in their dreams. Giants line the wall. Like a Jackson Pollack, my eyes can’t tell where to start, but I know I’m looking at greatness. Even the smallest deer on Travis' wall, most hunters would mount as their crowning achievement.

Among these deer, Travis’ other interests lie: the massive skull of a Russian boar named Goliath, a coyote nipping at a green head, and an alligator skin stretched over the back wall. His collection of coyote pelts would need their own closet. Travis loves shooting big bucks, but he’s well-versed in other game. Unlike most hunters who say they’re just as happy to go home empty-handed or shoot a doe, you actually believe Travis when he says it.

We run through the plans for that day. I’m to observe Travis while we do what he calls a “hunt-scout” through his property. While his hunting style might not be the most efficient in an age of modern compound bows and featherweight rifles, Travis is a man of practicality. He tells me we aren’t likely to find success hunting the way he does. It’s not conducive for more than one person.

He prefers to hunt with his longbow from the ground. Sometimes he makes what he calls a “hide,” ambushing deer on travel routes as he disappears in a ghillie suit or “slip hunts” (still-hunts) through a bedding area. Most of his shots occur inside ten yards. As bad as I want to observe the real thing, I settle for a good scouting trip. It’s hard to argue with a man who has more inches than a tape measure on his wall. Besides, it’s early November, and Travis doesn’t hunt until after a good frost.

After pondering the conditions, Travis tells me we’re going to scout-hunt through his property on the river. We load up into his mule to drive across the road where it starts. As we cross the road, Travis points to a brick house.

“My Uncle Red lived there,” he tells me. The property we scout has been in Travis’ family for generations. He’s hunted this land around and in the Homochitto National Forest his whole life, which included learning from Uncle Red. Travis’ father wasn’t around, so his grandfather and Uncle Red played a major role in his development as a hunter.

No one in Travis’ family bowhunted. In fact, his introduction to hunting, like many in the deep South, involved deer hunting with dogs or still-hunting. Travis would tag along with his Uncle Red, whose woodsmanship inspired and shaped Travis. Travis speaks of Uncle Red with reverence.

The awe is evident in his tone and animation when he notes how his uncle drifted through the woods like a puff of smoke. He describes Uncle Red as an opportunist. In a time before trail cameras or booming deer populations, antler inches meant little to Travis’s uncle or the local hunting community. Still, Travis emphasized that Uncle Red always killed the “most and best deer” because he was a woodsman. Uncle Red liked killing deer, and he was good at it. Travis has followed in those same steps.

As we ride through Travis’s property, he points out places where he or Uncle Red shot deer. He kills the side by side as we pass a stretch of hardwoods that opens into a field where Uncle Red shot a 140-inch eight-pointer. Travis fires up the mule again, and we descend a hill into an open pasture where a herd of does feed under a few white oaks in the corner.

Just before we get to the river, we spot another herd of does slipping through the edge of a slough. It’s been ten minutes and we’ve seen a dozen deer. Travis tells me he doesn’t hunt this property much anymore. He lets his preacher, son, and a few others hunt it. Most hunters might consider that crazy, given that Travis has some of the finest hunting land in the state at his disposal, a fact he admits. But for Travis, hunting isn’t about the end result.

We leave the pasture and drop down into a hardwood bottom. The trees begin to thin, and I can see the sky’s backdrop through the timber as it transitions to a sandbar. Travis points out a highway of deer tracks as he lugs the mule to the edge of the riverbank, which is only a few feet from the river itself. Here we get out and walk. The river is wide but low, knee-deep at most in some places. Others, the sand bottom emerges and shimmers in the sun. Travis points out a strip of public land across the river as he tells me about one of the biggest deer he’s killed.

One reason Travis hunts from the ground is because he loves the mobility it gives him. He’s killed several deer by what he calls spot-and-stalk, only in this thick country, it isn’t the spot and stalking you typically imagine. For instance, if Travis observes deer from a distance, he’ll anticipate where they will eventually cross. Once the deer get out of sight, Travis will drop back a few hundred yards and sprint to where he thinks they might eventually travel.

He admits that his familiarity with this land makes this hunting approach feasible, while acknowledging how tough that would be on foreign dirt. But in the case of the deer he’s currently telling me about, he likes to take a similar approach during the rut. Just as he begins his story, he stops and emphatically points across the river, “Look right there!” Startled, I quickly turn, expecting to see a big buck. “What a beautiful kingfisher,” he exclaims. “Now that is a magnificent creature.” Travis pauses and watches the bird glide over the face of the river until it vanishes from sight.

There are big buck killers out there who couldn’t tell you the name of the tree they’re hanging in. Travis isn’t one of them. His knowledge and love of wild animals and places isn’t the reason he hunts, but it has formed the way he reads and interprets deer sign. In fact, our meeting was delayed until November because he spent much of his fall in Alaska shooting brown bears (with a camera). He told me he’s just as excited to shoot something with his camera as he is with a longbow. After seeing his admiration for the kingfisher, I don’t doubt it.

Travis continues his story, recounting a group of does that traversed the river not far from where we stand. He noted that they crossed frantically, looking back toward the riverbank. Once they crossed and ran out of sight, Travis gathered his things from his hide and ran to the crossing. He found their tracks, backed off about fifteen yards, and quickly made another hide on the edge of the river. Not twenty minutes later, he watched a rack emerge from the opposite bank. A huge buck tailed the does’ trail, giving Travis a broadside shot and a boat ride with the buck.

Travis scans the banks of the Homochitto as if he’s looking for another kingfisher before we load into the mule and leave the river behind. As we’re driving back through the pasture, Travis pulls over at one of his kill sites to demonstrate how he makes a hide. We walk the edge of a hardwood ridge, at least, it’s what us flatlanders down South might call a ridge. I’ve seen cathead biscuits raised higher than this. Truly, it’s a small rise or knoll to anyone who actually lives in hill country.

The ridge runs east and west, but the north side slopes gently around the head of a slough, creating a subtle funnel. It’s an unassuming spot that most hunters might overlook, but it’s the exact place where Travis has killed several bucks traveling that funnel to feed under the oaks on an adjacent ridge.

Surprisingly, Travis tells me he doesn’t need much to make a good hide. Though he has one non-negotiable when it comes to hunting from the ground. “You have to have something over your head,” he tells me. “It could be anything.” We’re looking at the base of a large red oak when Travis breaks off a few snags of switch cane. He promptly shoves them into the dirt, forming a thin wall of cover. Like this spot, the hide doesn’t look like much, but Travis assures me that he can “get away with murder” in a ghillie suit.

One thing I notice about Travis’ hide is that there are no obstructed shooting lanes for obvious reasons. He says one mistake that hunters make is that they’re so afraid of getting busted, they don’t leave room for actual shooting windows. Ironically, Travis points out that shooting a longbow gives him an advantage over a compound. Instead of hitting the precise form that a compound demands, he can instinctively shoot a longbow from a variety of positions, so he’s able to get a shot off with minimal movement.

On our way back to Travis’ house, we stop at another spot. Travis makes some tweaks to a hide he plans to hunt after the first cold snap. Once he’s satisfied with the cover, he takes a shot from the hide, aiming at a single red leaf on the bank of a ridge. The shot is much farther (about thirty-five steps) than he would take on a deer, but he lets the arrow fly. It lands a few inches below the leaf. Satisfied with the shot, he plucks the arrow from the ground, shaking the dirt from the blunt end before stashing it in his quiver. Back at his house, Travis is kind enough to give me pointers on my traditional form as we shoot a bear target in his yard.

We spend the rest of the afternoon swapping deer stories. Travis points to countless mounts or piles of antlers, recounting each one. But like the kingfisher, other tales excite him too. I listen as he talks about the history of this region, the ring of dog fighters that ran a racket in his hometown before it became a federal crime.

He shows me the skull of a mammoth boar, corralled by Ellie, his beloved pit. Like Uncle Red, Travis speaks of her with passion and reverence. His voice breaks talking about her last hunts. Running through it all is the Homochitto River. Travis describes it as haunting. I can see it, the river rolling through those bottoms and sloughs, inconspicuous to the outside world. And it drifts unseen, like Travis or a puff of smoke.

What I thought would be a fun and challenging adventure quickly turned into a therapy session I didn’t sign up for. Hunting out of state pushed me out of my comfort zone, highlighted my weaknesses, and forced me to adapt as a hunter.

Ok, maybe I don’t know a lot about therapy. But I do know I returned to my little house on the prairie a better deer hunter than when I left. I learned a lot of tough lessons once I cut my own deer hunting umbilical cord. Here are a few of those lessons.

Same Deer, Different Tactics

Whitetails have the same life requirements no matter where they live, but the availability of each resource varies across their range. Between agriculture and oak trees, my hometown Kansas whitetails are pretty well-fed—even on public land. Destination food sources are ubiquitous on the landscape, so I tend to focus on more limited deer necessities, such as water and cover.

The big woods were a shock to my system. It was the opposite of what I normally hunted. There was nothing but water and cover, while food was limited. By sheer luck, I stumbled onto a small cluster of red oaks and laced a small buck that came to snack on them the following morning. I had a similar experience in the badlands, when the spot I e-scouted happened to have a fresh burn full of bright green shoots in the middle of it, and every deer in the valley knew that too.

In Kansas, neither food source would’ve generated that much deer activity. I had to recognize that while I was hunting the same species, their needs were different in this situation. This is a critical aspect of the game that a lot of hunters don’t understand the first time they shell out hundreds for a nonresident tag. Your home-state playbook might not travel well. You might have to make changes on the fly.

Keep Your Sh*t Together

Forgetting a crucial piece of gear behind is always a pain, but it’s not the end of the world when you’re hunting your own backyard. Leave your bow release on the kitchen counter, and you can probably run home to get it and still make it to your stand in time for a worthwhile hunt. If not, there’s always next weekend.

Make that same mistake on the road, and you have a real problem. Especially if you’re hunting in a remote area where you can’t find a quick replacement. You might only have a few sits to work with on an out-of-state hunt, so the implications are a lot worse if you tank one by forgetting, misplacing, or breaking something important.

No one wants to admit that they’re unorganized, but as I sat two miles in on a North Dakota riverbank and tore apart my backpack in search of my haul line, there was no more denying the truth. Organization was a huge hole in my game that I needed to address. If I wanted to find success, I’d have to organize my gear.

Enjoy the Highs and Lows

It’s easy to lose yourself in the pursuit of America’s favorite big game animal, especially on an out-of-state hunt with limited time. Maybe you finally drew a coveted Iowa archery tag, and the pressure to fill it with a giant is almost unbearable. But travelling to hunt has so much more value than just another mount on the wall.

I was stressed to the max as I crossed the halfway point of my North Dakota hunting trip. I had yet to let an arrow fly, and it wasn’t until I took the best nap of my life on a rocky riverbank with an unbelievable backdrop that I considered myself lucky. I left the next day without a deer, but I didn’t leave empty-handed. I had some incredible encounters with public land deer, honed my skills as a mobile hunter, and knew, without a doubt, that I would return next year.

Nonresident opportunities are getting more limited each season. That’s all the more reason to take a step back and appreciate every chance you get to hunt whitetails, no matter where they roam.

Depending on where you’re at, you might see peak rut activity in Mississippi or Alabama anywhere from Thanksgiving Day to early February. While most folks in deer country have put a bow on their season by then, things are just heating up down South. Whether you’re looking to escape cabin fever or prolong your deer season, here’s a few things to consider about chasing the rut down South.

Pin Down Rut Dates

Depending on when and where you travel will determine which part of the rut you hit. Some states put out maps with approximate regional rut dates. You can also call the lead biologists for specific public lands to figure out the breeding dates.

This is important because peak rut times can vary as much as a few weeks in places that lie just thirty minutes apart. This means that resident hunters can find rutting activity within driving distance from the end of November to the beginning of February. But that’s good news for all you snowbirds, too. You’ll have plenty of flexible dates if you decide to head south for some extended rut hunting this winter.

The Wild, Wild, South?

Because the rut runs so late in southern states, it usually coincides with most gun seasons. This might come as a shocker to die-hard bow hunters. Gun hunting culture in the South differs in this way. Other than a few “primitive weapon” seasons here and there, gun season largely dominates late November through the end of the season, almost two months.

Of course, you can target archery-only areas, but most places are open for gun season during peak rut activity. Some public grounds even allow deer hunting with dogs. This doesn’t mean you can’t find bowhunting success in the midst of the orange sea, just make sure you check the local regulations before planning your trip.

Same Rules Apply, Just Differently

Other than the time of year, the rut down South follows (mostly) the same rules. You’ll want to apply similar tactics to kill a cruising buck as you would anywhere else in the country. When you start e-scouting, look for funnels, potential bedding areas, and places where you can get away from the crowds, or that might be grossly overlooked.

In flat, monotonous regions, you’ll want to focus on edges. These can be tricky to find on maps, so get ready to burn some boot leather or try still-hunting your way through a large piece of public.

Unlike most of the country, the South’s rut heats up in winter, not early fall. While the temps might resemble the fall days of the Midwest, you’ll still deal with leaf-off conditions and late-season food sources.

In a bumper crop year, you might be able to target red oak and any remaining water oak acorns during the month of December. During scarce years or January hunts, most deer resort to natural browse or, yes, even food plots. So while this won’t drastically alter how you approach buck hunting, it can alter how you target doe groups. If you locate fresh feeding sign this time of year, it’s worth noting. If not, you should focus on bedding, which can be a failsafe tactic during the rut.

Cover is King

If you’ve never hunted below the Mason-Dixon, just know there’s no shortage of cover. This double-edged sword means that deer have ample bedding and browse, which also makes it hard to locate specific bucks, if you’re into that kind of thing. This also makes it challenging to see deer, even though a lot of southern states have high deer densities.

For instance, Mississippi boasts the largest deer density in the country, with somewhere between 36 to 38 deer per square mile. But, if you’ve ever driven through the state, you know you’re lucky if you can see more than thirty yards off the road unless you’re in the famed delta region.

A lot of the Gulf Coast states have similar issues thanks to the thick vegetation and understory in much of the pine country. In that regard, the South serves as the antithesis of typical Midwestern ag country.

Think of it this way, in ag country, cover is the limiting factor, while the majority of the landscape consists of large, open crop fields. In the South, it’s just the opposite. There is no glassing from the roads. Sure, you might watch a buck cross a pasture, but good luck trying to pin down which bedding area he’s heading to. Still, the state boasts one of the nation’s largest deer populations, and those deer have to bed somewhere.

Yes, you can take the downwind-of-bedding approach and set up on the outskirts of a young (two to four year-old) pine stand. Most does hunker down in these clear cuts during this time of year. Bucks will cruise downwind of these stands or use an SMZ to travel through them. You can read more about an SMZ here, but they’re dynamite rut spots down South. They’re essentially pinch points that offer food in the middle of prime bedding areas.

Either way, locate the thickest cover with the freshest sign, and you’ll put yourself in a good position. And that tactic applies no matter where you hunt.