antlers

The Boone & Crockett Buck of the Day

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0400

How to Judge a Buck: Can you guess the score of these 10 B&C trophies?

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Giant Whitetail Bucks

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0400

Trip Journal: Dave Petzal Takes a Big Montana Buck

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 04:30:00 -0500

Last fall I made a typical whitetail trip to Maine. Hunted for six days. Sweated, froze, got sleeted on, rained on, snowed on, and never saw a deer. That's why I appreciated the hunt I made recently near Ringling, Montana, which is near Livingstone, in which I didn't suffer at all, saw more deer in 2 hours than you would in 20 years of hunting in Maine, and killed a 240-pound, 11-point buck with very little effort.

This all came about through a hunt with Black Mountain Outfitters of Emigrant, Montana, which offers a late-October elk/antelope/whitetail hunt on a series of ranches they've leased. The whitetail ranch is located in a bottomland, and is cut by a river, steams, and cottonwood thickets. It has huge alfalfa fields which it irrigates well into the fall, and the unseasonably green alfalfa draws whitetails like a dinner bell.

While the other hunters in camp went after elk and antelope, I went out for whitetails with Scott Sallee who, with his wife Sandy, operates Black Mountain. Leaving our lodge in the dark of the morning, we were faced with a freezing fog, which thrilled neither us nor the deer. First light arrived at about 7:30, and between then and 9:45 when I shot my buck, I saw 60 whitetails. Scott said this was pretty disappointing, as you can expect to see 250 to 300 on a good morning.

The buck I shot was an 11-point 240-pounder who was watching us from behind a weed thicket 175 yards away. He thought he was hidden from view, but that was his last and worst mistake. He was a fine, fat buck.

The elk hunting is damn near as amazing as the whitetail hunting. After two days in camp, six of the eight elk hunters had taken bulls. It's fair chase, and you walk, and sometimes you walk your ass off, but the animals are there and if you can shoot even half well the odds are pretty certain you'll get a bull.

Hunting like this is almost too good to be true, but believe me, I can take a dose of it now and then without feeling any guilt whatsoever. If you'd like to try it, contact Sandy Sallee at 406-222-7455; BlackMtn2@aol.com.

The Rut Rub

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 11:25:00 -0400

It was the heart of the breeding season one fall when I shot a nice buck in the act of rubbing a tree. I didn't pay much attention to this at first. But when it happened a second time, I realized that I was onto something.

Since that time, I've discovered that searching for "rut rubs" and hitting them with a lightning-quick hunt on the same day or the next can be the key to some terrific action at a time when other hunters completely ignore this sign.

Pre-rut vs. Rut Rubs During the early season, a buck regularly revisits most of his rubs on routes between bedding and feeding areas within his home range. Once the rut gets going, however, bucks largely abandon those locations and pre-rut rubs.

Consequently, hunters will key on rubs and rub lines prior to the rut and stop hunting them altogether once peak breeding begins. Bucks do, however, continue making and revisiting rubs throughout the rut-but less predictably, and in distinctly different places.

Having left their core territory to search for does, bucks now make comparatively few rubs in the areas where they expect to find mates: namely, doe feeding and bedding areas (see "In Bed With Does," page WH14) and especially the travel corridors that connect them. Smart whitetail hunters know to concentrate on these spots during the rut, but very few even bother to look for rubs. You should. Here's why.

Instant Ambush When a buck finds an estrous doe, it may display its dominance to other bucks vying for the same female by raking nearby trees and bushes to a pulp, leaving a cluster of rubs. Because rutting bucks tend to roam widely and can be hard to pin down, these rut rubs contain a critical piece of information for a hunter setting up an ambush: They tell you the buck is here, now.

Of course, the sign has to be fresh. So pull on a pair of rubber gloves and scrape some bark off a rubbed tree with the back of a knife blade. If your mark is the same color as the buck's, set up a stand or ground blind immediately. The key is to hunt the area while the buck is still occupied with a nearby estrous doe or others in her group.

You'll know very quickly if you're in a hot rut-rub location. As you wait in your stand or blind, does may dance in and out of nearby thickets, while bucks bird-dog ready females and chase off other males with bluff charges and brief but intense sparring matches. If you hit it right, you'll have one of the most exciting hunts of your life.

Keep in mind, however, that this is a run-and-gun tactic. If there's little action after two hunts, move to a different area and look for another cluster of fresh rut rubs. Then wait for a trophy to hook his horns onto the sapling in front of you. >