Grow the Hunt

Planting the Archery Seed

-By Randy Cooper

I love archery and it’s my passion. I’m into it heavy and love to help people who want to learn how to shoot or just need a little help tuning their bow to get them back into action.

This past weekend I met a young man that is about as enthusiastic about bow hunting as anyone I’ve ever met. He reminds me of myself when I first started shooting a long time ago. Bart bought a great bow two years ago and in the span of those two years has managed to take two deer, four hogs and a rabbit. That’s quite an accomplishment considering he had never shot a bow before. Did I mention that he had never shot ANYTHING before? Not even a gun. In fact, he had never hunted before, at all, ever! His first weapon was a bow. I had to pinch myself when I found out he wanted to meet me and have me take a look at his bow.

Upon meeting Bart, I could see the passion in his face as we talked about archery and hunting. I looked at his bow and began to notice a few things that could be adjusted to make it shoot better. After walking him through everything I noticed and showing him how to fix it, he was more excited than ever. We paper tuned the bow and it shot well. It was late evening and we gathered our bows and headed for the range. Once there, Bart shot a few times as I watched his form. It looked really good. I shot his bow and noticed that for some reason, it wouldn’t hit the same place twice, even at close range.

After once again watching him shoot, I found the problem. Someone had tied in a D-loop so tight that it was pinching the nock of his arrows to the point that it was pulling the arrow completely off the rest into the air. It’s a wonder we hit the target at all! I re-tied everything and now the arrow stays on the rest like it should. He was so happy he hugged me and told me thanks about 14 times.

That is a feeling I’ll never forget. It’s one I’ll never get tired of. I genuinely love helping people discover archery. I also really enjoy working on bows. Every bow is a new challenge. You learn as you work on different bows what the bow “LIKES” to make it shoot well. Some are easy fixes just like Bart’s. Some bows are very temperamental and you do a lot of head scratching to figure them out. The point here is that helping young people like Bart is what turns my crank. He is the son-in-law of a very close friend of mine and I was glad to help him. In doing so, I added fuel to the flame that is already burning in his heart for archery and hunting. I’m sure that he will, in turn, do the same thing for his friends with the knowledge he has.

This is how the torch is passed. This is what we all, as outdoorsmen, need to do every chance we get. Young people are the future of our sport. They are full of energy and like Bart, they will tell anyone who’s interested about what his favorite sport is and if they want, he’ll teach them too. I feel good inside every time I get to help anyone involved in our sport. If you get a chance to help a kid or an adult, take the time and do so. It’s time well spent and it will come back to you. As far as the kids go, my motto is, “TEACH A KID TO HUNT AND YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO HUNT YOUR KID.” Pass this along to someone you care about. You’ll be glad you did, so will they.

Introducing Zippy the fawn

Moultrie customer service representative, Brock Smitherman, captured this photo that has an interesting story. Smitherman captured this fawn he named Zippy on his Game Spy I-60 that he had originally put up on his parent’s property in Bibb County, AL to monitor the deer herd. “After the little fellow showed up one day all we did was monitor him,” says Smitherman. Zippy has become so comfortable with them being in the area that sometimes when they call his name he will come to them, almost like a puppy. His three children all think that it is amazing to be able see the friendly little deer up close. His mother stands over to the side a short distance away to make sure they don’t try to hurt him, but she never takes him away while they are feeding him. Once he has his fill of humans, he returns to the brier patch and lies down for the night.

Looking Back

-By Randy Cooper

It’s sad but true. Deer season is over. As I sat in my stand watching the sun go down yesterday I started thinking about this season. It has been truly fun and educational thanks to many different things. The most valuable asset I’ve come away with this season are the lasting friendships I’ve created with the landowners whose property I hunt. Without their generosity I wouldn’t have had a place to hunt deer and turkey at all.

My son had a life changing, catastrophic brain injury in March of ’05. He can no longer walk and suffered severe nerve damage to his vision and hearing. I can no longer hunt two hours away from home because of his condition. He needs our care and I have to be close to home in the event he needs my help. Prior to a massive blood clot changing his life, my son was my best hunting buddy. He was always with me hunting and fishing. I miss all the times we shared and my prayer every night is that we will be blessed with another miracle and restore Jeff’s life back to him.

I’ve learned the value of blind faith when a very nice lady entrusted me to write about my passion for the first time. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in anything I had done or was involved in doing that involved planting for wildlife or hunting. She encouraged me to do something I didn’t think I could do. It has been a great experience and I have received the chance to plow new ground. This year has been one of evolving and change. I’ve learned new and better ways to hunt and plant for wildlife because of the tools I’ve had the opportunity to use and put to the test.

Moultrie’s sprayers and spreaders have helped make the year round job of trying to put in food plots, big or small easier than ever before. The trail cameras have added a totally new way to keep tabs on the many places I hunt. I’ve fallen in love with these valuable tools. I can hardly wait to get home from work each day to see what’s on the cameras! The whole family looks forward to seeing the pictures and always has time to look. The cameras have opened my eyes to what lives on the properties I hunt. They have saved me a lot of valuable time by putting them in areas that I thought might hold a good buck or on a trail I thought might be getting used and wasn’t. When you work crazy hours like I do, the last thing you want to do when you go hunting is waste time in an unproductive area. I guess what I like most is the information strip that these cameras provide. I’ve literally been able to put a journal together from the information gained. I’ve found the most active parts of the day or night, the right moon phase; movement according to the barometric pressure and temp and more.

I’ve never had more information to make educated strategies with than I do now. It blows me away to see deer that I would have never imagined were there show up on video; working scrapes, overhanging limbs and even sparing and fighting. Because of this learning experience, I’ll never hunt in the same old hit or miss fashion again. Now I have more confidence than before that when I decide to hunt a certain stand it will be productive based on what I KNOW is using the area.

I’ve witnessed some amazing things in the woods as well. I looked forward to seeing the antics of a big doe and her two fawns that I watched from the time they were first born till they were weaned and on their own. The “twins” would jump and kick and chase each other around their mother. They were so curious. It reminded me of when I was a child and every day the whole world was fresh and new, full of discovery. They were funny and I really enjoyed watching them.

I found a community scrape that every buck and doe in the area used. This was a magical find. In one weekend, 9 different bucks came and worked the overhanging limbs and then the scrape under this one tree. This continued throughout the season. I began to look at this place as a deer’s version of a singles bar in the woods! I saw bucks sparing, a red fox, a coyote and more beautiful hawks than you can imagine.

Now that the season is over, a new one begins; taking down stands, post season scouting, shed hunting, spreading lime, fertilizer, and planting for the spring, cultivating relationships with landowners, old and new. I look forward to what has become a never ending endeavor. For me, it’s year round. If I’m not doing something deer related, it’s scouting for turkeys and hunting them. 3-D archery shoots are already happening and I can’t wait to go. It’s so much fun!

I’ve learned so much this year that has forever changed the way I go about scouting and hunting deer. I feel privileged to have been able to work with the good people at Moultrie Feeders. They make fine products that will take any hunter to a new level in the pursuit of whatever they’re after. I applaud Moultrie and the products they make, that make the difference.

Now, I’m looking forward!

It's Snowing Antlers!

-By Brandon Wikman

Wisconsin has been hit with a cold punch from Mother Nature. Blow after blow we find ourselves 2 ft. deep in snow and have had weeks of pure negative degree temperatures that have lasted far too long!

Wisconsin isn’t the only state that has been iced-over. In fact, the entire country has experienced an unusual frigid streak. Over the past month the frigid temperatures have already began knocking off deer antlers! During a few hunts in late December and early January I spotted a handful of bucks that were antler naked! Seeing deer with red nubs standing only 20 yards away with my muzzleloader in hand isn’t the most enjoyable sight, but in any case it proves that stress has been a sheer factor within the deer herd across the nation. From Ohio down to Texas, deer have been experiencing a lot more stress, which reflects on their body. It’s especially rough on deer and turkey when the ground freezes, a layer of ice melts on top of the ground and then icy snow compacts together to make scavenging for food nearly impossible.

I have just returned from the ATA Show in Indianapolis where the topic of the weekend seemed to be bucks loosing their headgear. I spoke with several outfitters and friends that said they had trail camera pictures of bucks with single antlers.

I also spoke with Tom Miller, Vice-President of the North American Shed Hunters Club, and he was eager to brief me on the abundance of deer that were suffering from the extreme temperatures, especially here in the Midwest. He said that he has already spotted dead deer and turkey, potentially from inadequate nutrition.

With a few more frosty months to go, we can only hope the wildlife can withstand the chill factor. It is amazing how ruthless Mother Nature can be and how wildlife can withstand it.

Now that many antlers have dropped, snow is keeping them buried and hidden from the floor critters that munch the bone away. Once this snow begins to melt, be ready, it’ll be a shed antler hunt fest!

Notice in this photo that the buck in the middle has lost an antler already. The photo was snapped in early January. This is one of many that I’ve captured and received from several hunters.

Post Season Scouting

As deer season comes to a close around the nation, many hunters are left wondering how they can pass the time until turkey season, or even next year’s deer season, arrives.

The end of the season is the perfect time to get back into the woods and prepare for next year through post-season scouting. The closing of the season gives you the opportunity to scout places you were unable to scout during the season for fear of spooking deer. Most of the vegetation has died off allowing you to easily spot trails, scrapes and rubs.

Many hunters tend to hunt the same areas year after year. Take this break to scout new areas. Post-season scouting provides extra time to check out those not-so-likely hotspots without the pressure of locating a deer. Take along a portable GPS or map and mark areas that have potential for next season. You never know where you might find that buck of a lifetime. Scouting now will greatly increase your odds of taking that monster buck next year. Remember: Next season starts right now.

A New Trend In Archery

-By Randy Cooper

The ATA (Archery Trade Association) Show just concluded a couple of weekends ago. I’m envious of those who were able to attend the show in Indianapolis. I would have been like a kid on Christmas morning running around looking at all the great new gadgets and innovative inventions in archery built to make you a better bow hunter and tournament competitor. When I started shooting a bow some 40 years ago things were so simple. My first bow was a recurve made by the Colt firearms company of all things. It was a 58-lb. pull and was a bear to pull back and hold on target. I loved it and got pretty good with it. I’ll never forget the first deer I had a chance at with that bow.

A string of ten does started down a trail that ran parallel to the logging road I was creeping down. I was trying to make it to my stand quietly. One of the does peeled off and headed right for the road bed I was standing in. I ducked behind a tree and waited till she got right up to the road and was about to cross. I drew back and popped out from behind the tree. She didn’t see me as I aimed. I released the arrow at a mere 15 yards. The deer veered off to one side like she had hit a brick wall. When all was quiet, I went to see if I could find blood but didn’t see any. I looked at the tracks where she had changed direction, where I had been standing at the shot and where my arrow impacted the mud bank. I realized the deer had heard the arrow in flight and had managed to side step it. Some bow hunters call it jumping the string. I stood there in disbelief that an animal could react that fast.

In hind sight I realized that the bow I was using was way too slow. That was 1976. I had heard of compound bows and vowed that day that as soon as I could afford one I was going to buy it and a deer would never beat my arrow ever again. Since then I’ve bought and sold so many bows it’s a crying shame. Back then if you wanted a bow that would shoot well with accuracy, it had to be a mile long and you couldn’t even use it in a tree stand. Seriously, bows were commonly 40 inches.

My, how times have changed. I’ve noticed that the trend since ’96 has been for bows to become shorter and shorter. The technology of today’s bows is incredible. Bows now store so much energy by using the most advanced cams and limb combinations that it is common for high end bows to shoot over 330 feet per second and still be controllable. Now bows are short and compact. Easy to maneuver in a stand or on the ground in a turkey blind. These same bows are showing up at tournaments and are winning them.

A friend of mine showed up the other day and said he had something he wanted my opinion on. We walked to his truck and he opened his bow case and pulled out what I would have sworn was a TOY BOW!! I took one look and said, “You can’t be serious.” He is unique and, like me, doesn’t like to travel the path less chosen. I respect that and, after all, someone has to take a leap of faith every so often. He’s always liked the shorter bows but this one blew me away. It was a whopping 26 inches long axle to axle. The bow has the best of everything, and even at that short length still shoots 320 feet per second. We shot the bow at my range and I was impressed at how well it shot and grouped arrows. It was super quiet and didn’t have any felt vibration in my hand. It’s made by PSE and is called the X-Force SS for Super Short. It has extremely paralleled limbs to the point that it takes a special bow press just to collapse it so you can work on it.

I’m impressed by this innovative bow and so many more like it. This is where the technology and trends seems to be going. Check out the comparison picture which shows the X-Force on the far left at 26 inches and the long bow at the far right that is a staggering 37 inches long. You can get a real good idea of its true size looking at the pictures of it being shot compared to the shooter. Check out today’s bows. They ain’t your daddy’s bow anymore.

The Hunting Doldrums of Winter

-By Brandon Wikman

I can’t tell you enough how much I can’t stand winter! A season that brings cold, icy bone-chilling snow. A time when days are short and the hunting seasons have all but run dry, what is there to do to rekindle our hunting flame? Well, here are a few things that keep my outdoor mindset active during the bare frost season of Wisconsin:

• Join a local bow league. This is my top suggestion. It is a perfect time to tweak, tune and rip arrows through that already forgotten bow of yours! Archery skills aren’t easy to come by, it boils down to simple repetitive practice. Check out the web or your local newspaper to find leagues you can join. If nothing else, hit up the range every week to toss a few arrows. It definitely doesn’t hurt and, if anything, you’re keeping your archery tactics square!
• Read a magazine. I receive so many subscriptions to hunting and outdoor magazines that my house looks like the inside of a publication warehouse. Magazines line the carpet in my room and office. How easily I forget that they’re made for reading. If there were a time when we could sit down and read the things, it is now! The way I see it, between work, family, friends, other responsibilities, and hunting in general, who has time to infest their mind with literature when they can actually hunt hardcore during the season? If you are like me, I’d rather experience it for myself than read about it. At the very least, scrounge those magazines up and begin sponging your mind until it’s soaked soggy with, “How To,” “Top Ten,” and “Why” articles about living the hunting experience.
• Turn on the Outdoor Channel. If I don’t watch at least one hunting episode before I start my day, the day is literally shot! There’s nothing more exciting than doing it yourself, but to watch others throwing down their mad skills stalking game, calling in gobblers and arrowin’ giant whitetails, what’s not to like? Hunting shows have come a long way in the past few years. There has been a late trend of high action, fast paced styles of editing that keeps you and me in front of the television set. If you really want to check out a great show, I’ll be bias, check out The Next Generation, a show that I host. We have new airtimes for this 1st and 2nd quarter. We broadcast Wednesdays at 8:30am, Fridays at 4:30pm and Sundays at 1:00pm, all times are Eastern.

Please remember, there is light at the end of this snow tunnel. Give it a good month or two and we’ll be tracking shed antlers. Before you know it, turkey season will be cranked open. If hunting could last year round, we’d all be out there all the time. Take this time to learn, reflect and look forward to the future.

Monster Bucks Contest Update

Dylan Smith, the winner of Moultrie’s Monster Buck Contest, recently sent an update on his winning photo. After capturing a few more photos of the contest winning Twin Towers buck, Smith had the huge deer pinpointed with the help of Moultrie’s infrared game cameras. As the sun began to set on October 19th, a large 9-point that he had also seen on camera caught wind of Smith, causing him to freeze downwind from his stand. The 9-point caused the Twin Towers buck to take caution and he didn’t pass by Smith’s stand until the last few minutes of daylight. Since Smith has set a personal goal to capture every hunt on film, he passed on the chance to harvest the great buck because it was to dark to capture on video.

Unfortunately for Smith the buck was harvested on an adjacent property the opening day of rifle season. The buck had broken off the end of his main beam and part of his right G-5, which accounted for at least 15 inches. “I wish I had taken the shot on the great buck. It was too bad, but I feel fortunate that I was given the opportunity to hunt him and he was also able to pass on his great genes,” Smith says.  Luckily, Smith was able to harvest another great buck on his property soon after the close encounter with Twin Towers. He caught the buck on his Game Spy I-60 tearing up his mock scrapes and providing him with some excellent hunting footage.

Battle at Crescent Ridge

-By Randy Cooper

Over the course of the deer season here in Ga. I’ve had 3 Moultrie trail cameras out giving me information and insight as to what is using the areas that I hunt. One of these cameras is in a remote area on private land. I call this place Crescent Ridge. I named it so because my stand is located on the edge of a steep, crescent-shaped ravine overlooking a beautiful river bottom. I found this place through intense scouting and a little luck. Last year I was caught in a sudden rainstorm while hunting. I bailed out and took the straightest way I knew out of the woods to the truck. On the way, I topped a ridge that literally flattened out like an old road bed had once been there.

As I stood there in the rain looking around I started seeing buck signs you only dream about. There were horned trees the size of your calf, but what really got my attention were the worn down trails that crisscrossed the area. I took a few more steps and it all became clear why: I was standing on top of a ridge that dropped away at a very steep angle right into a beautiful river bottom in dense hardwoods. I was in a natural funnel for all the deer in the area. Because deer are creatures that travel the path of least resistance, they were coming around the rim of the crescent-shaped ridgeline rather than coming up the steep hill to it.

Along with all the other signs, I found three huge scrapes that measured four feet across. Every one of them was on a different trail that came through the area. The ridge was also a transition zone where dense pines made up a great deal of the area on top of the ridge then gently changed to mostly hardwoods, especially white oak trees, my favorite food source to hunt around. I took out some surveyor ribbon and marked the scrapes and a tree that looked like just the right place for a stand overlooking everything. The season was almost over and I vowed to hunt that stand near the rut the next year.

This year I placed a trail camera over one of the massive scrapes that I had flagged in 2006. I’d like to say right now that I’m glad I did flag those areas. When the trees are full of leaves in July and August, the woods look totally different.

I had seen good bucks in the area, but none close enough for a shot. I knew it was just a matter of time before everything would come together. In November I got a series of nighttime pictures of two really good 8-pointers visiting one of the scrapes. I knew there was a bigger buck in the area because of the size of the trees that were torn up and the sightings I’d had while on the stand. I changed the location of the trail camera to another scrape that seemed to be getting more attention than the others. I also placed a Moultrie Scent Boss scent dispenser over the scrape to see what would happen. I filled it with Code Blue Doe in Estrous.

About a week after getting everything set up I got sick and didn’t get to go to the area for weeks. I wanted to see what kind of pictures I was getting but to add insult to injury, I had to have surgery on my knee that set me back even further. I know that you can relate to what I’m saying when I say that I was SICK about not being able to go to the woods. About ten days after the surgery, I was told to do as much walking as I could to build strength back in my knee. I HAD to go and check on my stand, camera and the area that I so desperately wanted to hunt. Man, was I in for a surprise!

I first noticed that the woods were torn up with new horned trees. The scrapes that were cold the last time I was there were now cleaned out and not a leaf in them. You could plainly see drag marks and wet spots in them. I got a tingling feeling up my spine like I’ve never had before. At that point all I could do was look up in my stand and wish I could climb the stick ladder to get in it. I checked the camera and found the batteries were very low. I pulled the SD card and swapped the batteries out. When I got home and put the SD card in the reader, I saw that I had 48 pictures, of those there were seven that took my breath.

The camera was aimed at the scrape that I had put the scent dispenser over. The seven frames showed two bucks having it out right by the scrape. On the last two, the flash went off and captured both bucks locked up on one and shows one of the bucks walking off alone on the other. When I zoomed in on the pics I saw more detail, including the lone buck’s bloody forehead.

After seeing the pictures I went back the next day and looked for blood and hair that I’ve found before at the scene of a buck fight. I didn’t find any blood or hair, but the floor of the woods was a mess where the fight took place. They fought from out of the sight of the camera and ended up right in front of it where it ended. It only lasted about three minutes. Take a look at this rare footage.  I feel so fortunate to have caught it on camera. If it were not for the Moultrie trail cameras I wouldn’t have witnessed something so rare. The date was Jan. 2nd. These bucks were responding to does that had come into estrous again for a third rut. I believe that smelling the estrous scent at the scrape provided by the scent dispenser added to the bucks’ aggression and may have caused the fight.

This is the culmination of what can happen when you find a great potential place to hunt and employ the use of fantastic aids like the trail cameras and scent dispenser made by Moultrie. It has opened up a completely new way to view everything I do all year long regarding deer and the way I go about hunting them. I now have more information than ever before and can make better decisions about what strategy to use. I wanted to share this with everyone. Try these cameras and other aids. You too can have more information and something fun to look forward to. Who knows, you may even capture your own picture of a lifetime when you least expect it.

Post-Season Scouting

-By Randy Cooper

All good things must come to an end, or at least be put on hold for a while. By the time you read this, the deer season in most states will have either closed or be close to ending for the year. In Georgia, most of the state closes on January 1st with the exception of bow-only counties where the season goes all the way to January 31st. I still have a full month of bow hunting left and will virtually have the woods to myself. I’ve learned a lot this season through observations on my stand, in-season scouting and what I’ve captured on trail cameras.

I have never seen anything that has excited me as much in the last few years as the new Moultrie trail cameras. I’ve been able to put together a journal from the information I gained by the pictures captured with these fantastic tools. I’ve heard hunters that are set in their ways say that they don’t need any kind of camera to help them get a buck. Hey, that’s OK with me. Their loss is my gain! I really believe they think it takes away from their woodsman ship if they rely on an aid like that. Their pride gets in the way of gaining more knowledge about what’s going on in the area they hunt. I don’t think you can get too much information. I thrive on it.

Now that the season is ending, it’s time to do my post-season scouting. To me, this is THE MOST important scouting I do all year. Now I can scout without fear of blowing a big buck out of his bedroom and ruining my chances at him in the upcoming season. The woods are so open because the leaves are all down and you can see for days. Now is the time to look for drainages, thickets that were used for bedding areas, transition zones and creek bottoms that funnel deer movements. If you can get up on a high ridge the view gives you a great observation point that allows you to see topographic features that you can’t see any other time of year.

What I like most about scouting now is that it is cool and the trips are much more enjoyable than when you’re sweating and the bugs are about to carry you off. Not to mention the snakes and hornets. Everything on the forest floor is easier to see. Scrapes and horned trees will literally jump out at you. When I find a rub, I can stand in one place and usually see several more from that position. It gives me a good idea the line of travel that buck was taking from one place to the other. As I walk the rub line I find scrapes, staging areas near food sources and even an occasional fight scene where everything on the floor of the woods is torn up.

I start putting the dots together for my hunting strategy for next season. I find new stand locations, funnel areas, new food sources that went unseen in the heavy cover of the preseason. So much information is given up in the post season. If you wait until the first of March, you can find shed antlers that will give you an idea about which bucks made it through the season and are still on your property. When I find some really encouraging sign or a worn out travel corridor, I employ the use of my trail cameras once again. Some essential tools I use include a roll of fluorescent surveyors ribbon, a topographic map or plat of the property and a GPS unit. The places of interest you run across are now easy to find because the woods are so open; but in spring when green up takes place, you’ll think you’re on another planet. I mark the areas I find with ribbon, make a mark in red on my map and take a reading with the GPS. Believe me, you want to do this. It will help you go right back to these honey holes when you get ready.

Even now I can get an idea of what uses this new area. The process begins all over again until next opening day. Don’t hang up your boots just because the season ends. Let this be just the beginning of next year’s hunt. Be persistent, look at those places you wondered about all season. Keep using your trail cameras. It may lead to the best hunting you’ve ever experienced.