By David Hurteau

There is a difference between ethical hunting and fair-chase hunting. Fair-chase is typically ethical. But ethical hunting is not always fair-chase. For example, there is nothing unethical, as far as I can tell, about baiting deer.

By Dave Hurteau

If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve taken a few lighthearted pot shots at Nose Jammer, a spectacularly popular new vanillin-based “olfactory nerve overload system” in an aerosol spray. Well, I got a chance to test it last fall, and am finally getting around to reporting my findings.

For years, a contingent of deer hunters has trumpeted the efficacy of using vanilla extract as a cover scent. So except for making me hungry, I have no major problems with the fact that when you spray Nose Jammer in the woods, it smells like you've opened a box of vanilla cookies. What cracks me up, though, and what I’ve been specifically poking fun at, is the name of the product and the claim—written right on the can—that it “Jams Big Game Animal’s Ability to Smell.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it comically flabbergasting that a thing so almost certainly unproven and probably unprovable can be written right on the can. Right there. In bold. Which brings me to my test.
 
But let me first commend Nose Jammer’s maker, John Redmond (by all accounts a good guy and fine deer hunter), on this point: He obviously believes in his product. I can only assume that it was he who sent me (a proven cynic) an unmarked and unsolicited box containing two cans of Nose Jammer to try.

By Scott Bestul

Two weeks ago I received a photo of this giant whitetail rack, which was brought to the Monster Buck Classic, a Kansas deer show held the last weekend of January. According to buzz, the huge antlers would threaten the Sunflower state’s record in the typical category; no small stuff when you consider that mark sits at 198-2/8”. But details on the buck’s harvest were sketchy so I decided to sit on the story until further details emerged. Yesterday I learned that waiting was the right call.

According to this report from the Wichita Eagle, Topeka resident David Kent—the man who brought the antlers to the MBC show—has been charged with at least four violations, including killing the deer with a rifle during a closed season and spotlighting the animal. 

By Scott Bestul

I grew up hunting deer in Wisconsin. I distinctly remember how much I yearned to take a trophy buck. And while I occasionally pine for the hunts of my youth, the truth is that my odds of tagging a wall-hanger are far better now than they ever were when I got my start in the 1970s.

According to a recent press release by the Boone and Crockett Club, whitetail entries in the B&C book have skyrocketed in recent years, rising some 400 percent across whitetail range in the past three decades. And some states, Wisconsin in particular, have made incredible jumps. Badger State hunters registered 40 bucks in the B&C book from 1980-85. That number soared to 383 animals from 2005-2010, an increase of 857 percent! Illinois’ jump for that same time period is even higher at 896 percent. And Ontario went from a single deer during the 1980-85 period to 41 from 2005-10—an incredible 4,000 percent gain!