Poaching is wrong and we all know it. So why do it? Why do some people do the wrong thing and know that they are doing the wrong thing in the beginning. It is usually someone that cant stand the fact that they just cant hunt in an ethical manner. If you are a trophy hunter and you harvest a 175 inch buck that makes the record books and on all top of this there is another buck on your property that will score 190 inches his tail is in some deep trouble. What I mean by this is that if you know of the bigger buck then the odds are someone else knows of him as well. Your odds may be one and a million at harvesting this monster but an unethical hunters odds are better if he knows where the buck is hanging out at night.

Night time is not the only time that a buck gets shot at in an unethical manner. It also takes place on an abandon road side in the day light. Usually these old abandon home sites or road ways are where big bucks hang out, due to the fact no hunter hunts here. Or even the property only gets hunted once or twice a year. It could be a piece of property that a grandfather has put his hard work and money into fixing up for his beloved grand kids. Then he becomes the victim when some crazy idiot decides he is going to hunt this property without permission.

Remember that we as hunters are the ones that are the poachers. We have full 100% control to make the right decision on the ethically way to take a harvested animal that we may be after. We set examples to our children and they watch every move we make. When I was a 4H agent in the Crenshaw County, Alabama schools system under Auburn University I had the chance to teach and talk to kids about wildlife. We talked about how grown adults can be unethical at hunting or fishing and the animals that are at the top of the food chain. You would be very surprised at how many 4th through 6th graders I taught would say my daddy or my older brother shoots deer side the road or even at night. It happens and we as hunters control it.

Now for a bit of change in the way an animal gets harvested. Let us talk a bit about being at the top of the food chain. This in no way that it is unethical for another animal to chase down and kill its food. It is a way of life for these animals and it is their way of survival. Without them doing so they would not survive at any means. A bear heads down to the water to catch fish to have a meal. This puts them in at the top of the food chain and also puts them as an ethical hunter. Even though they cant read a sign that says no trespassing they are still the means of an ethical hunter.

This is their way of life and this is also our way of life. We can harvest animals such as bear, coyote, and bobcats during the right season. But we should still do it in an ethical manner. We can control most animals on our land. Rather it be the means of harvesting or trapping. So remember that the next time you are out on the road at night or even in the day light make the right decision before you pull the trigger. This article come to mind when I read a little passage on Facebook about a hunter watching this doe in the picture above. This doe was killed either by another hunter or a animal just looking for food just three weeks after this past years season ended. This hunter has watched this doe and gotten pictures of her and even a buck that had breed her. I hope he gets a chance at the buck in this next season to come. Maybe we can bring you the story of the buck the did the breeding to this doe.

I have planted in the past corn fields as much as six acres and left the whole field standing except for just a small portion. Corn fields can draw deer in the early season but is more beneficial to deer in the late winter months. Deer take in the carbohydrates of the corn and add needed weight for the extreme cold months to come. Placing too much pressure on these fields will hurt you from seeing that big buck in the late season. The deer get to understand the hunters behavior and change their daily routs into night routs. This is how the old bucks that you may get on your trail camera get old. You may see them and think you have them mapped out and they change their moves on you in a heart beat.

If you are hunting small acreage the older bucks are more likely to stay if you put less pressure and watch your doe herd that you may have. I see no harm in harvesting a mature doe in the early season such as bow season. Allow them to walk when gun season comes in. Where the does are the bucks want be far behind when the rut kicks into full swing. I have learned this the hard way on my own and by watching others mess their hunting locations up as I have done in the past. My favorite stand is a shooting house that sits square dead in the middle of an old pasture field that once held cows. It is standing underneath and beside a large pine tree all alone. Forty yards out in front of the stand is six rows of seven-year old sawtooth oak, live oaks, and Chinese chestnut trees that are all bearing nuts this season.

The trees are planted every twenty feet apart so that they can be kept clean through the summer months and fertilized twice a year. Once in the spring and once again in the fall when the small food plots are planted around them. In between each row and all around these trees there is some sort of winter food source there for my deer. There are five rows all together that get planted. Each row has something different except the two outside rows. These rows are planted in Brassica plants Georgia collard. Each row between the trees is roughly about 75 yards long and 20 yards wide. Inside the Brassica plants you have crimson, arrow leaf, and yuchi clovers planted. The last row left is planted in chicory.

By planting the clover it also acts as a food source in the spring time for my turkeys. So I am killing two birds with one stone. When planting different types of plants for wildlife it gives them a choice to eat something over the other. On small properties the more you plant the better the odds move into your favor. Even though your neighbor next door may have 200 to 300 acres more. You still have a chance at drawing some good deer onto your property and the odds increase into your favor. Do not ever give up on your dream of harvesting a great deer. You and I as outdoors-men stand the chance of taking a trophy in our own back yard just as much as the next hunter. We as hunters manage our money as we do our land and deer herd. What I mean by this, is if we are tight wads with what kind of deer we shoot then we are just as tight with our money. And I understand that in today’s economy everything sucks and we as citizens of the United States have to deal with it.

I have used feeders for some time now on my hunting property in Alabama. The only down fall to supplemental feeding here in Alabama is that you have to have all feeder’s and feed up ten day’s before you head out to hunt. So this only allows me to feed from February 1st through March 1st then the feed has to come up and be gone for ten day’s before March 15th for opening day of Spring time turkey hunting. Then the feeder’s get placed back out on May 1st and will stay up until ten days before opening day of  bow season which starts here in Alabama in October of every year.

This is still not enough feeding time for my deer to feed like they should. They should be able to feed 365 day’s a year so they get the maximum fed protein that they need to grow big antler’s. This is where when I am not feeding I always try to make an attempt to have some kind of high protein food source out there for them. This is also where the food plots come into play and other type’s of crop food source that may be still left standing through turkey season. In most places there isn’t one strip of crop food left after January of each year.

I have found out by having a gravity fed feeder around during the months that there is no hunting will allow you to feed and feed correctly. Yes! trough style feeder’s work in this case also. By allowing a deer to feed when he get’s ready to feed will be a plus for your hunting property more than you realize. You do take the chance of having more deer feed at night but if you get in there and add the feed at scheduled times and stay out of the area as much as possible the deer will get use to feeding more in the day light hours.

This is where staying out of a place and leaving it as scent free as possible will pay off for you on opening day. I always wear gloves and scent free boots when taking time to go and place more feed into my feeder’s. This just helps me when the season starts. Even though bucks are into their summer time patterns and running together this will allow you to scout from a distance or check game camera’s only when necessarily. I check my game camera’s only when I go to add feed. This is like killing two birds with one stone.

My new choice of gravity fed feeder’s is the Buck Eye Feeder. Designer Steve Brown has brought a whole new meaning to feeding your wildlife. He has designed a feeder to allow wildlife to feed on a regular bases instead of allowing them to only feed at certain times. The Buck feeds, grows faster, and antlers get larger in twice the time.

Example:

If a deer eats 12 lbs of protein in one hour at a gravity feeder then it allows him to get his belly full. If he eats under a spin cast feeder he is not getting the whole 12 lbs that he would normally eat due to other deer eating at the site with him. Less food means less protein in this matter! Dose this make sense? So by allowing a deer to feed at their own pace may mean better overall health and larger antler development on them bucks that you seek. Remember that a buck need to have at least a 16% to 20% protein diet for 365 days a year and not just 4 to7 months of that diet to grow its fully developed set of antlers.

The Boone and Crockett club has placed high standards on being able to record a whitetail deer into their books. Even though there are record book bucks taken somewhere either in the U.S. or Canada each year. Pope & Young has also done the same. Safari Club International known as (SCI) has their on way of measuring trophy deer.  But do you really know what makes big antlers on deer. Is it the protein? How about the genetics of the deer? Can it be you have big deer on your property or you don’t have them? A lot of these same questions are asked each year and the same responses come out for the answers.

I have been a member in the past of several different types of hunting clubs. Some having more restrictions than the others. One club says only eight point or better. Another says six point outside the ears or better. But not one single club that I have ever been in said the deer has to be four or five years old before you can shoot it. Even though a daily protein level of 16% to 18% for a whitetail buck is needed 365 days a year it still is not enough. The genes of a buck also comes to mind when playing the antler growing game. But it too is still not enough.

A whitetail buck dose need all these or some of these things to grow but the one thing we all seem to leave out is their age. Now here is where the fun part comes into play. Say you are in this club that says you can only shoot an 8 point or better. You are hunting by yourself on a cool winter evening and a small 4.5 year old basket racked 9 point that want even score a thing walks out into the green field one hour before dark. You then study this 9 point a bit before you start to pull the trigger. Ten minutes later a 7 point walks out but is a 2.5 year old deer, that’s antlers would score in the 130′s. Which one would you shoot? Tempting isn’t it!

We should really think before we pull the trigger now days. That is if you want to grow big antlers. If the big antler thing isn’t your style then a older doe would be just fine for a little meat in the freezer. The doe harvesting should and can be a factor playing role in growing mature bucks. Too many does means less high quality food for the younger bucks. This also means that it might as well take five times longer to grow him compared to a buck that get’s high quality food year round somewhere else. Even though you do not have thousands of acres of land you can still manage and grow large antler deer on your property.

I have the chance each year to pay $16 and hunt 12,000 acres close too and around the Alabama River that holds plenty of big antler bucks. This land is in fact all public hunting ground and the hunting possibilities  here are as simple as buying your Alabama state licenses and a (WMA) wildlife management licenses. Even though that I also have 100 acres here and there that I also hunt the public land is still there for me to hunt when I may feel that I have put too much pressure on my own land. There are restrictions on the public land such as bow hunting only areas and only limited to certain two day hunts here and there for gun use.

But we all can take the rite measures if we make a plan and stick to it. To most of us sticking to the plan can sometimes be the hard part if we get to that point of thinking that is may be impossible to do where we hunt. Neighbors can also help with your program by trying it themselves. In fact they may already have a plan but may not be exactly what you may be searching for. So the best thing for you to do in this case is to stick to your plan and allow your neighbors to see with time at the large rack bucks that you harvest. Let them walk and watch them grow. Another good idea to comparing your property to your neighbors is to try and make your property the best place that a deer may want to spend his time during day and night time hours. So the next time you wish to grow a large rack deer remember just one thing. You are the one the make the deciding factor of pulling the trigger!

Good Luck!

I doubt you can find any type of hunter who has not dreamed of going on a guided hunt. Over the last decade, that dream has become a reality for many hunters partly because of the immense growth in the number of outfitters in the United States and other parts of the world. For many of these outfitters, it is a way for them to make additional income besides their primary profession or help local farmers advertise their crop land that they ordinarily would not allow the public to hunt. For these reasons, it is fairly easy for a hunter to shop around and find their hunt of a lifetime at a price he/she can afford.

My husband, Travis Lee, and a few of his close friends have had the opportunity, for the last several years, to travel to Sullivan County Missouri and hunt with Adam Moore with Moore Hunting Properties. The trip takes 16 hours to drive from our house, so Travis always allows two days for travel time. He prefers the do it yourself hunts that Adam offers where the hunter scouts the property and hangs his own stands during the 5 day hunt.

The first day at camp was a short day due to travel and the guys spent their time purchasing their license, scouting, and hanging stands. Right off, Travis located a 40 acre clover field with huge scrapes on the back corner and a creek bottom that the deer were using to travel from their bedding area to the clover field.

While hanging his Old Man lock-on tree stand in smaller oak tree in the creek bottom, Travis heard a limb break about 50 yards across the creek and spotted a buck he guessed to measure in the 140′s headed to the clover field looking for does. Travis couldn’t believe that the buck was oblivious to the noise he was making in the tree, as he continued out into the open field. The other guys also found great buck sign and hung their stands where they felt confident they would take a big buck. The guys had certainly had buck fever as they shared their findings over dinner that evening.

Knowing that his stand was more of an afternoon stand, Travis chose to sit there the first morning of the hunt and while he saw several mature does, no shooter bucks appeared. One of his traveling partners, Johnny, did however see numerous rack bucks and took a mature 130 inch 8 point buck at about 15 yards with his Hoyt Katera compound bow and 125 grain Thunderhead Broadhead.

The afternoon hunt did, however, prove to be an eventful evening of hunting for Travis. After getting in his stand at 3 P.M., he watched 4 smaller bucks and numerous turkey gobblers feed in the cow pasture that adjoined the creek bottom and clover field. About 30 minutes before dark, Travis heard footsteps coming up the creek bottom and a mature doe passed by him at about 20 steps and entered the clover field.

Not long after, Travis heard heavy foot steps in the creek bottom again and could tell it was a larger deer approaching his stand. Through the brush, he could tell it was a monster buck and his heart began to race as the buck worked his way through the creek bottom and closer to Travis’s stand. The buck froze at 35 steps behind some limbs and began to act nervous as he licked at some branches where the doe had passed earlier.

Finally, he began to inch closer and Travis drew his Bowtech 82nd Airborne compound bow equipped with Rage 100 grain 2 blade expandable broadhead and prepared for a shot at the giant buck. Upon penetration of the arrow, the buck took about 8 steps toward the clover field and fell dead. He had bagged a 160 and 3/8 inch typical 10 point that sported 11 inch brow tines (as scored by a MO Game and Fish Officer). The buck weighed in at 275 pounds.

Travis and friends have since traveled to Missouri to hunt a few other times, but have passed up other bucks that were close, but not quite as big as the giant Missouri white tail buck that now resides on our wall courtesy of Tunnage Taxidermy. If you are looking for an exciting and affordably priced hunt, give Moore Hunting Properties a shout. I am certain Adam will be more than happy to try to fit your needs. Travis is certainly pleased with his trophy buck.

Did you know that the rut has happened as early as October in Illinois? There is one factor that will start the rut a month or month and a half early. Do you know what it is?

Temperature!

The reason the cold temperature will trigger the rut early is because that is how nature helps put the scent of does in heat all over the woods.
This is how nature helps the buck  find the doe. When a deer smells you 99% of the time what does he smell? He smells your perspiration. He also smells it in a liquid state. In fact, all animals smell in a liquid form. Even a snake runs his tongue out to pick up the moisture from the air to help him determine what is around him. When you are really hot and it is very cold outside, you give off a lot more perspiration. The same is true with does in heat. This is why it is called “in heat.”

I believe a doe’s temperature rises to about 112 degrees when she is in heat. An example of this theory can be seen if you have ever peed outside when it was very cold. Steam from the warm liquid goes straight up and then down and all around. A deer has a normal body temperature of 104 degrees. When she is in heat, the scent steam is coming off of her private parts and everywhere she goes it floats all through the woods sticking to every bush, blade of grass and tree it comes in contact with.

If you have ever owned a female dog that has come in heat, you will notice every male dog around – most of whom you’ve never laid eyes on before is at your house trying to find your female dog. How did they know where to come? Scent. Specifically, the scent of the dog in heat which has been carried throughout the neighborhood and deposited on every bush and blade of grass around. That is why male dogs go around smelling every bush they come by.

This is identical to the steam or perspiration coming off of the doe in heat and being carried down through the woods by prevailing winds and sticking to every bush it comes in contact with. When a buck smells this scent, especially a 5 or 6-year-old, he smells the liquid form of the scent and knows it is the real thing. He won’t question scent in a liquid form that is disseminated through the air. He will come straight to the source – or doe – to mate every time.

This is where The Vapor Maker® comes into play. The Vapor Maker® is the only scent dispersal system on the market that you have total control of. It requires no batteries because it is a pump up bottle that holds 16 oz. of liquid. It has a special atomizing tip that will take any kind of scent and put it in the air exactly like nature does. It also has a 3 foot hose with a clip to hook to a limb down wind or out to your side in a tree stand.

Because the bottle is made of a durable plastic you cannot hurt it or break it if you drop it from the tree stand. You can turn the bottle on by turning the ball valve, and with a 3 mph wind it will carry the scent 1/8 of a mile through the woods. The more wind, the further the scent will go. As you walk through the woods you can spray the bushes and low hanging tree limbs to lay a scent trail straight to your stand. Because scent in the air in a liquid form is the natural way deer smell, it needs to be watered down. A deer can smell 1000 times better than you and I. If it is strong to you it will overpower the sensitive olfactory system of a deer. You have to make the smell the same as nature does in order to fool the deer.

Deer are naturally inquisitive and may do anything at any time, but we want them to do it all the time because it is a natural instinct. So a 1 oz. bottle of a strong scent would need about 8 oz. of water to make it smell natural. At Vapor Trail Scents, L.L.C. our scents are 100% natural – made from a food source deer and other animals love. We gather the food source and make the scent ourselves. All of our scents, attractants and cover ups come in 4 oz. bottles and sell for just $7.00. We have found that 8 oz. of water to 4 oz. of our scent, My Shelia Doe in Heat, is perfect to fool all the bucks in your neck of the woods.

We also make the only cover scent and attractant – 33 Point Buck – that will eliminate the smell of gasoline. We have tested it against all the top scent killers on the market and the 33 Point Buck consistently beat out the competition in eliminating all types of scents.

We are confident the 33 Point Buck will totally cover up your scent. Used with the Doe in Heat, these two make an unbeatable pair to optimize your hunting experience. We recommend 4 oz. of 33 Point to 4 oz. of water. You can also spray it directly on your clothing using The Vapor Maker®.

Our company also makes Dominant Buck and Wapiti Scents. Read about us and our products at vaportrailscents.com

Bucks from Ohio are getting bigger and bigger each year. Dave Bomers from Michigan shows us how to mow down a large buck from Ohio with the Back Woods TV guys.

It has come to in many eyes as the number one hunting product of the century. It has given me chance after chance to harvest some very good bucks over the past two seasons. If there is one thing people should know about me that should be that I will not put my name on anything that has not passed my test or that will not work. There are a lot of people out there like that and if you have hunted or spent as much time around live whitetail deer as I have in the past you too would understand why. There are so many gimmicks in the outdoor industry that it will make a sunny day turn nasty in the matter of seconds.

The scents that cover human odor are one thing but the scents that cover, control, and hold in human odor are totally different. We use scent control suits to control human odor that may or may not work. There is all this hoopla about silver and ion that will hold in human odor and that just may be true. One thing is that they do not tell you how many times you should or shouldn’t wash the garment. Take this idea for an example. You get gas on your hands and then you go and wash your hands with ivory soap and hot water. What happens? What do you smell?

You can still smell a little gas but more of the ivory soap rite. The smell of gas is something we all know that is very hard to get rid of. Pine needles will cover it to a small extent but not all the way. Now you take the pine sap and use it and it will cover more than just the pine needles mainly because it is a wet or damp sticky oil based product. I do say that I want to use this term loosely also at this time for I have not really tried it.

But if you could take a test on covering human odor what would you use? Take the test yourself and mark on paper the good and the bad aspects of covering human odor, gas, alcohol, and even perfume with non scented sprays and other cover scents. This was done on a scale of one to ten with them ranking the 33 point buck lure an average of 2. The whole scale was that if you could still smell the odor after spraying a scent control spray over the odor then you ranked it as a high number. A lower number was placed in the spot if you could smell little or no odor after spraying the scent control.

There were scent control sprays tested known as hunters specialties scent-a-way, primos silver, dead down wind and a few others also. These sprays were tested against the 33 point buck lure. The 33 point buck lure is not a deer urine. It is simply a cover scent and also a attractant scent all in one liquid form. And we all know that when you take a liquid form and put it into a vapor form then the scent will carry further and stick to everything that is comes into contact with.

This is where the vapor maker comes into play. You simply take 4oz of 33 point buck lure and place it in the vapor maker and add 12 to 16 ounces of non chlorinated water in the mix to double your quantity of scent. I have had people ask me want this dilute the smell of the cover scent. With 33 point buck lure it is made so strong that it is best to add water to it and then spray. Remember that if you spray it they will come and you want regret it. We suggest that using all VTS scents in the vapor maker for they will last longer for the value of the money. And the cost of the scent is way cheaper than other scents such as tinks and code blue.

Then came the ultimate test was to take it out into the field of play and use it for one month while hunting in a stand. The Vapor maker which is used to disperse the scent of the 33 point buck lure worked well also. Not only had I used the vapor maker for spraying out scent but I also found other uses for it.

This almost hands free bottle could be pumped up about 20 times and would spray scent and other liquids in a vapor/mist form for 20 minuets. I have to say it is the greatest invention since the grunt tube or rattling horns.

When liquid has been turned into a vapor form it will stick to what ever it comes across and the wind and air can carry it much further through the wood’s than just sitting in a hanging wick form.

It has done wonders for my hunting on a 4 to 1 bases. There would be times when I sat in a shooting house overlooking a green field and not seen maybe just one deer. This product would bring me the chance of seeing more than one deer. Not seeing any deer was mainly because I would walk out into the field and place scent canister so deer could smell them and also spreading more of my human scent into that area as well. We all know that a deers nose is our worst enemy when it comes to deer hunting.

Scent-A-Way by Hunter’s specialties works well but not like the 33 point buck lure. Not only is this an attractant scent but also a cover scent. I harvested the heaviest bodied deer last season using this scent. It was a 9 point that weighed in at 245 pounds before field dressed. You don’t see that many bucks weighing that much in Alabama these days. The buck was six and a half years old also. He was shot at 4 pm in the evening during the rut and the 33 point buck lure helped bring him out.

If you have any questions about this product contact me or log onto vaportrailscents.com to see for your self and order your vapor maker and 33 point buck lure today while supplies last. These scents and bottles went so fast last year that I would try to order ahead of time if you can.

When writing for an Outdoor paper, magazine, and a web site there is so much that can be written on. It is almost like trying to come up with new words for a special book. I would almost say that on a count of 100 words to 100 words that the Aurthur Tom Kelly dose not have as much trouble of coming up with words to go into his own books.

Tom Kelly is by far one of the greatest outdoor writers of this time. I say this to you as the reader that this is my own opinion and i do not wish to change it by any means necessary. When he writes it’s like words just fall into place and you seem to read them one after another and they just make since. Some would disagree and say that he is not the best writer of this time but we are all entitled to our own opinion.

What comes to mind when you hear the word Outdoors? It can mean many things in this day and age. It is like the adds that you read on the back of some everyday outdoor magazine that is there for one reason. That reason is to promote the company that has paid for that add. The adds that I enjoy reading the most are like the one’s that just come from the heart. Let’s take a look at Mossy Oak adds and just sit and read one and think of what you may read while you read it. Here is one for example.

” Law of Nature ”
” It’s a law of nature: the more dirt gets under your fingernails, the higher your spirit gets lifted.”

There are plenty more of where this add comes from and you can find it at Mossy Oak. I have to say that even when Realtree placed add’s they never even matched up to Mossy Oak. These two companies are competing for who has the best camo. But Mossy Oak go’s further than that.

Mossy Oak also works best with Biologic, a seed blend for every type of wildlife out there that mother nature has to put forward to us. Whitetail Institute has planted over 1 million acres but I would say that Biologic is rite there with them if not equal.

Outdoor companies compete each and every year for something new to be placed on the shelf. There is still thousands of things out there to be discovered and it only take a little time in the outdoors to do it. When it comes to camo I will more than likely choose Realtree over Mossy Oak but i have had my chances to plant Whitetail Institute products and here in the south the Biologic brand is just a little better.

As Toxey Haas once said: ” It all started with a fist full of dirt.”