by Dave Hurteau

So, the responses to my last post reveal first and most importantly that I was right and that only about 25 percent of you do the hang-and-hunt thing. So with this second video, which runs through the gear you need, I invite you to give the method a try*; it’s a handy thing to have in your bag of tricks even if you don’t need to pull it out very often.

What’s more, being able to hang a stand and get yourself ready to hunt in just a few minutes with only one trip up the tree is a good skill to possess, whether you plan to break down the stand afterward or not. To that point, you may notice that one of the last items I mention in this clip is a safety line, which may have you wondering, "Why put up a whole line (instead of a simple tether) for a one-stop hunt?"  

by Dave Hurteau

Cabela’s Bow and Rifle Pack won an F&S Best of the Best Award last fall. I have one, like it very much, and figured you might like one, too. So I called the folks over there, asked if they’d supply one for a prize and they said, “Do we still owe you for the Best of the Best thing? Was this part of the deal?”

“Yes it was,” I lied. And now you can win the pack, in the camo pattern of your choice (depending on availability), a prize worth $150, just by writing the best caption (as determined by Scott and I) for the photo below.

You know the drill. Now have at it.

by Dave Hurteau

First, we have a new high-speed video to show you, which is cool on its own merits. It illustrates, like you’ve probably never seen before, the most common complaint about a Whisker Biscuit arrow rest: “Too much fletching contact.” Check it out.

It’s plain to see that there is indeed a mountain of such contact. No one could argue otherwise. So much so that, as I say, it’s just crazy that a Whisker Biscuit can be so accurate.

Yet it is.

by Scott Bestul

It’s time to plow under the clover-plot-equals-corn-pile argument. Of the many fresh debates germinated by modern whitetail management, none has proved faster growing or hardier than food plots vs. bait, in which one side insists that planting plots to attract and kill deer is no different from luring them to a mound of carrots or sugar beets. This may sound perfectly sensible…until you soil-test the dirt from which the logic grows.

Food plots are very different from baiting—and better for the health of the deer herd as well as for hunting. And while it’s true that a small plot of lush clover in the middle of otherwise barren woods may be no different from a pile of corn in terms of fair-chase principles, food-plot planting and management provides a long list of tangible and intangible benefits. Here are the main ones.