Grow the Hunt

Safe In The Sun

As the 4th of July weekend quickly approaches, many people are probably planning on doing some kind of activity outdoors.

If you are like most of us outdoors people you spend a lot of time in the sun, heading outside every chance we get. We love to spend our days on the water or in the field. Success in any outdoor pursuit requires attention to detail. We spend time finding the perfect lure or the ideal site to hang our stands. One thing that is often overlooked as we head outdoors is skin protection.

Sure, we may remember to slap on a little sunscreen while dove hunting in the hot September sun, but what about when we are on the lake fishing in cool, early spring?

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, over 1 million cases of skin cancer are diagnosed each year. Most of these cases are caused by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Take a look at these guidelines offered by the Skin Cancer Foundation to prevent skin cancer. Don’t forget sunscreen this upcoming holiday weekend or anytime you head out to the field or water.

Everyday steps to sun safety:

• Seek the shade, especially between 10 AM and 4 PM
• Do not burn
• Cover up with clothing, including a broad-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses
• Use a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher every day
• Apply 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) of sunscreen to your entire body 30 minutes before going outside
• Look for skin changes of any kind
• See your physician every year for a professional skin cancer exam

A June Haircut

-By Brandon Wikman

As June’s green foliage sprouts like the end of my shaggy bangs, I am reluctant to say that it’s time for some serious trimming. I typically head into the woods during this time for my ritual of summer pruning, clearing, and cutting. Trimming shooting lanes, scraping debris off of trails and marking them is important to do within the coming weeks.

The acreage I hunt only encounters my handsaw about once a year. Even though one cutting seems as little as shaving a few centimeters off a thick head of hair, the results will magnify. I’ve always been told that a little goes a long, long way. The more I experience this common phrase, whether it’s used for dispersing deer scent, providing bait, or hunting a particular stand; it couldn’t be anymore accurate. I’ve been taught to only snip, cut, and bust as few branches, shrubs, or undergrowth as needed.

I’ve witnessed several hunting buddies yank up their sleeves, take out their chainsaw and do work on the grounds near their tree stand. By the time they finish sinking their chainsaw into trees and piling brush, there’s not much cover left! I’ve seen them literally clear an entire 20x20-yard spot in the forest. The once thick and tangled vegetation that the deer loved transformed into a mini-sized field in the middle of the forest. This is bad for several reasons.

If you decide to turn a lush, green hunting spot completely bald and stricken of cover, you are doing more harm than help. Mature deer depend on weaving through thick cover and tangled brush in the cloak of sunset. It’s what makes them feel safe, secure, and invincible. By removing their cover, we’re actually convincing them to skirt the clear cutting and change travel patterns.

We all understand the process of regeneration. That is why it’s so important to make select and strategic cuts on timber. It opens the canopy and sheds beams of light to the ground, which in turn lift seeds from the soil into the air. If we slice into trees and bush hog the woodland’s floor intensely during the summer, new plant life nearly always takes longer to grow. Summer is known for its serious droughts and there’s no telling the amount of rainfall we may or may not receive. It may take years for the new vegetation to lift and the plant life to turn thick.

Instead of going cut-crazy and altering your honey holes’ effectiveness, make a few select openings that will improve your shooting capabilities. Chomp into the branches with a nice pair of shears or let the bite of a handsaw eat and do the work. As you begin piling brush comprised of tree limbs, shrubs, and bushes, use them to your advantage. I like to construct brush fences along certain deer trails and manipulate game movement to my benefit. Trails that intertwine downwind of my stand location are always choked by heaping piles of limbs or tipped trees. I’ve learned this technique from attending several seminars conducted by leading hunting professionals and land managers.

Last year I was able to sink an arrow into the vitals of a nice deer by persuading it to move according to my direction. Hunting is all about trying new strategies that will improve your odds of success. The fact of the matter is that there’s no secret, magical black box that will rein in monster whitetails every time we use it. The field-testing, first hand experiences, and trial-and-error are what ultimately make us better hunters. Tag two techniques with one job this summer by making select cuts and using the excess debris to your advantage.

Tarpon Dreams

-By Rich Miller

Well I arrived at my vacation destination today. It is Sunday afternoon and my buddy has been sending pictures to my phone of the fish they have been catching for the past two days. He and his dad have been catching some monster red fish and I couldn’t get here until late this afternoon. My buddy is coming back down later in the week and hopefully we can get on some more of those big red submarines.

This year we are taking our vacation about a month and a half earlier than we usually do. Normally we are here during the end of July to do a lot of shark fishing. Shark fishing is normally very productive and they prove to be a great challenge. While we are shark fishing we also get a chance or two at some of the big tarpon that migrate through the area that time of year. We usually catch a lot more sharks and stingrays than we do tarpon, but when we do get a tarpon on, it is worth the wait.

Once we hook a tarpon, we can’t sit there and fight him like we do the sharks and other fish. As soon as the tarpon starts dancing across the surface of the water it turns into a mad rush trying to get rods out of the water and get the anchor up before the fish takes all of the line off of the reel. Whenever we are lucky enough to get a tarpon, they never seem to be small fish either; they usually weigh a hundred pounds or better. That is why we have to pull up the anchor and chase the fish.

Last year when we were shark fishing, we were missing more than we were catching. We got a lot of bites but the fish weren’t taking our baits very well, and we would lose them as soon as we got them on. So when the reel on my side of the boat started acting up I really didn’t get too excited. I picked the reel up and had my thumb on the spool letting the fish slowly take line out. About that time my buddy Robert yelled “tarpon” and when I looked up there was a huge fish jumping out of the water right behind the boat. When he got the slack out of the line my thumb was still on the spool and that wasn’t a good thing. With the spool screaming it only took about half a second for my thumb to turn white and have a blister on it. I am not sure how big the fish was but he looked to be well over a hundred pounds and he was treating the drag on my reel like it didn’t exist. I might have had the fish on for about two minutes when he broke off.

The reason we lost him was one of the crimps on the cheap leader we were using pulled loose. With a fish that big it doesn’t take but the slightest little thing for a fish to get off.

I doubt that I will have to worry about catching a tarpon this year, but maybe some big red fish or other species will take my bait. That is a shame too because even though those bull red fish do put up one heck of a fight, they are not even close to what a tarpon can put on you.

Practice Life-Sized

-By Brandon Wikman

Summer is a time when hunters hone their archery skills and try to outdo their shooting performance from last year. It is an ideal time to tweak, tick, and twiddle with new gear or accessories. The summer drags most archers into their front yard or local shooting range to plunk away on bag, block, or 3D targets. I’ve learned that it is crucial to your practice regimen that you invest efforts into piercing arrows in the correct target at the correct time.

Several professional hunters and archers are quick to say that practicing is only as good as you make it out to be. These words and tips of suggestion are coming from people that practice every single day of their life. They constantly shape their form, mold techniques, and improve the ending result of their scores. Practice shooting life-sized animal targets improves a hunter’s success tremendously in the field, whereas practicing at bulls eyes primarily sculpts competitive target shooters.

Firing arrows into a realistic looking target trains your mind and sinks the recollection of crunch time into a practical perspective. Shooting at tiny round circles works great for dialing your bow into ‘hunt-ready performance.’ I use bag and block targets to gauge my accuracy, adjust my sights, and gain confidence in my shot. The only downer of shooting at the speckled dots is that they’re nowhere to be found on the chest of a real animal! Your trained archery hunting eyes must magically put the bulls-eye on a walking whitetail or drinking antelope. Practicing on life-sized animal targets train your shooting instincts.

Many bear hunters who dare hauling a bow and arrow into the woods never practice at a bear target. They spend there entire spring and summer simply plunking arrows into the center of their fluffy bag target until it erodes. Or they may have only jabbed a dozen arrows into the vitals of a deer target, which is completely different than the physical makeup of a bear. The importance of shooting practice is only as good as you make it out to be.

Many outfitters and guides have clients who’ve saved tons of green over the past couple years for an exciting trophy elk or mountain lion hunt but they have never punched arrows into anything that even closely mimics the vital organ placement, shape, or body of the animal there going to be pursuing. Each animal you plan on hunting must be scrutinized to the max. The knowledge and understanding of an animal’s vitals and anatomy is what slices the diehard hunter from the rest of the pack. Don’t be afraid to drop a hundred more dollars on the animal target that you’ll be hunting. There’s no sense spending thousands of dollars without taking a serious mental aim on what you will be chasing. You must put your frame of mind to the ultimate test by introducing new ways to stimulate better practice.

I’ve taken these game-chasing lessons and used them to my advantage. Last year, with the help of some friends and family, I constructed a virtual hunting experience in my woods. It is an archery-hunting course crafted for every hunter in North America. There are over twenty shooting stations that range from a distance of 10-yards to 60-yards. Each station has a different animal placed in a specific scenario. Whether it’s a bear climbing a tree, a moving fox, or a whitetail sipping an afternoon drink, the course gives people the most realistic practice experience.

Taking your archery practice to a higher-level is an essential step in building your killing abilities. Dedicate time to create your very own mock-hunting experience that you can share with your friends and family. You may want to implement tree stands, ground blind stations, and moving targets. There are endless opportunities and a mixture of fun situations to mock. It is a great way to increase your accuracy and boost your overall shooting confidence.

Dueling Bucks

Scott Bestul posted a really cool video on Field and Stream’s Whitetail365 blog. The video is of 2 bucks on their hind legs going at it in a fight. Bestul points out that we all know bucks are likely to brawl during the rut but deer also “work out dominance issues year-round; biologists feel that the pecking orders established when bucks are in summer bachelor groups save deer from wasting energy by engaging in non-stop brawling during the breeding season.”

That may explain why many of our “Grow the Hunt” readers have captured photos of deer like this one that was recently uploaded to the photo gallery by Todd Radmer. If any of you have cool photos like this, be sure to upload them to the photo gallery.

Summer Break

-By Rich Miller

The last couple of months have been hectic but now that the slow summer months have come around we are on the downhill side until deer season starts. Here in the south we still have about two and a half months before it opens up. With a great turkey season, an unforgettable bear hunt, and a super offshore fishing trip, this spring has come and gone faster than any I can remember. For the next couple of months I don’t have anything big planned other than our family vacation. We have a house rented on Edisto a little island off the coast of South Carolina. This is a family vacation, but you know I am going to have to get a little fishing in while I am there. We normally take this vacation toward the end of July and that is good for me because that is when the tarpon are migrating back through. This year we are going a little earlier so I guess I am going to have to settle for a little surf fishing and chasing some of those hard fighting red fish around the oyster banks.

The problem with the surf fishing is I have never had much luck with it. You have to use this huge spinning rod with a heavy weight to keep the bait on the bottom. When I do catch a fish it is normally small and I usually don’t know I have a fish until I go to reel it in. The good thing about it is I take a comfortable chair and it is a very peaceful thing to do during the afternoon while watching the sunset.

When it comes to red fishing I am more fortunate. One of my buddies that I have hunted and fished with my whole life has a house at Edisto and he stays on the water just about every weekend. As you well know the key to consistently catching fish is putting your time in on the water. I am very fortunate that I have an inside track otherwise I would waste a couple of days trying to just figure out what the fish are doing.

Whether I catch any fish or not I will enjoy spending time with my wife and son and doing whatever he wants to do. Normally on all of my trips there is never any time to just do nothing and not have an agenda. The good thing about this yearly trip is I don’t have to do anything, although I will update you next week while sitting on the beach.

3 Tips to Try

-By Brandon Wikman

We are constantly bombarded with hunting tips, strategies, and techniques that are supposed to increase our odds in the woods. I’ve always been the person to closely listen and take note when professional hunters’ lips let loose about their secrets to success. I’ve included the top three hunting tips that I have found to be the most helpful in my outdoor adventures. Hopefully you will also.

1. Cover Your Back!

Hunters are always worried about the wall of natural cover that separates the space between them and the animal. They take so much time masking the front of their position with tree limbs, bushes, and other quick-picks around them that they forget about what’s behind them. Even though front cover creates a barrier that hides movement, the secret to camouflage is blending into your surroundings 360-degrees.

You must let your camo work for you, by sinking into your surroundings. Background cover is just as important as front cover. Sitting against a lonely slender tree with a small nest of forage around you is like trying to hide an elephant in an open prairie. Many pros suggest that sitting against larger trees will reduce your chances of being silhouetted. If there are no large trees to plop near, thick vegetation will work just as well. The essence of wearing camouflage is rather simple; it is meant to blend your body in, not hide you.

2. The Walk of Shame.

We’ve all been guilty of spooking game on our way to our tree stand or blind. It has happened to me more than I would like to admit, probably because I am a last minute type of guy. The only thing I like about windy days is that it covers the sounds of your footsteps. I would prefer hunting calm winds any day of the week. A few years ago, I sat front row in awe, listening to one of my favorite seminar speakers spill the beans of success. He exclaimed that he’d always snag a garden rake to bring into the woods with him before season.

The savvy hunter unveiled his tip of raking a footpath from the point of entrance to his tree stand or blind. He was able to slink quietly into his tree stand and hunt the fringe of hot spot bedding areas during any type of wind breeze. During last year’s archery season, I was able to use this tip to my advantage. It was a typical last minute rendezvous to my tree stand when all of a sudden I spotted a deer standing below my stand. I was able to slip into range and kill the fat doe off the ground! It would’ve never happened if I hadn’t cleared the debris of twigs, leaves, and limbs from my trail.

3. Closing Time.

Back when I was beginning to take my bow and arrows out for the first time, I’d have the bad habits of cutting out early. Imagine, a 12-year old boy impatiently staring at an empty deer trail for three hours. I used to sit hours upon end and get so frustrated that I’d stand up, lower my bow, and climb down my stand. As my boot clobbered the first ladder ring, I’d here a complementary snort from a deer bounding to the next county. It wasn’t until my second year of bow hunting that I finally realized hunting to the edge of legal shooting hours was critical.

So many of us have experienced a slow afternoon of deer movement and decided to ditch early. Not only does that spook game that could possibly be on there way, but it also slowly erodes that hunting location by red-flagging hunter presence. Sitting until the last minute of shooting hours spares you a headache and may even reward you a kill!

I’ve had an array of lucky outcomes using different strategies and techniques pursuing big game, but it all boils down to trial-and-error. It’s fun trying new things that may help improve your success in the woods and field. There’s nothing quite like first-hand experience to demonstrate the conclusion, so you must try everything at least once.

How To Fish Jerkbaits

Jerkbait enthusiast Tim Horton provides his tips for getting the most out of a slender minnow lure.

Weathering the Storm

-By Rich Miller

If you would have told me five months ago that Lake Hartwell would be almost full by the first of June I would have bet the farm that it wouldn’t have. And I would have lost. Lake Hartwell is a reservoir where the Tugaloo river and the Seneca river come together to make the head of the Savannah River. Other than a big playground for fishermen and boaters it is also the main water supply for eastern Georgia and the upstate of South Carolina.

Last February Hartwell Lake was where the Super Bowl of bass tournaments, the Bass Master Classic, was held, and at the time the lake was about 17 feet below full pool. By the end of 2008 the lake was over 22 feet below full pool and with us still in a drought it didn’t l look like things were going to get any better either. There were only a couple of boat ramps open and you could only get small boats launched without tearing anything up. When you did get on the lake you had to be very careful because of standing trees and high places all over the lake. There were places on the lake that had not been out of water since the lake was backed up in the early 1960’s. After the first of this year we started getting rain on a consistent basis and the lake started slowly rising. It is now the first of June and the lake is only about three feet from full pool.

All of this rain is great and I am very thankful for it but it presents a lot of challenges for hunters that are also part-time wildlife managers. As a turkey hunter all of these spring rains make me cringe because I worry about nesting turkeys. If the hens are successful in hatching their eggs, heavy rains take their toll on the small poults. We need to have good hatches on a yearly basis to have successful hunting seasons.

These rains have also affected all of my other management plans as well. They have made it impossible to get a tractor in the fields to do any plowing or planting. For the places close to home this hasn’t been much of a problem, but there is one place that I don’t have many opportunities to get to, and every time I have had a chance to get there it has been raining or too wet to do anything. My summer plots for deer aren’t a big deal because all I have to do is get them in the ground and they will do their job. Now, my dove fields are a different story because timing is a very big deal when attracting doves. If you get your dove fields planted too late they will not be mature in time to start drawing the doves to the area and that can make for some long days in the field in the hot September sun.

It seems like every year our challenge to overcome has something to do with rain, now most years our worries are because of the lack of rain. This year it is the opposite and I think that it is the better option. Even though we may not get some of our fields planted good old Mother Nature has a lot of ways to make up for our short comings.

It's Time to Grow That Antler

-By Brandon Wikman

The month of June brings a shimmering shine of summer heat and a foreboding drum roll to the whitetail buck antler development. During this time, velvety antlers are jammed with a congestion of intersecting veins and capillaries that supply vital nutrients to the bursting bone. June is a critical month in the growth and development of whitetail deer.

Whitetail deer antlers are the fastest growing bone structure in the animal kingdom by far. Throughout the growing cycle, which primarily runs from March to August, deer beef-up on foods packed with rich minerals and vitamins. Minerals like calcium and phosphorous make up most of the bone atop a buck’s head. Vitamin A and D also play an essential role in the production of serious antler growing mechanics. Supplying deer with alternative mineral sources help their health tremendously.

Moultrie’s new Game Nutrition System offers a variety of minerals. The system’s Trophy Maker ground minerals come in a Spring/Summer Blend and Fall/Winter Blend, each specifically formulated to provide deer what they need for that time of year. Trophy Maker liquid minerals come in both molasses and berry flavor, and Trophy Maker mineral blocks are available in an assortment of flavors. Moultrie’s minerals are created with chelated minerals to stay in a deer’s system longer allowing maximum absorption into their system.

Whitetails are truly robotic machines. A deer’s stomach not only hints to what resources of foods it needs, but also controls the animal’s livelihood. Deer are fascinating creatures for many reasons. For instance, they are able to store calcium and phosphorous deposits in their skeletal system throughout the entire year. When the spring and summer months arrive, the stored deposits transfer into their headgear. Their skeletal system will deplete and evolve into a totally different physical state. A deer’s bones will become weak and brittle. That is why supplementing minerals increases the total health and wellness of the herd.

You can sprinkle mineral on the ground, atop a stump, or in a feeder. What I usually do is take a garden rake and claw into the forest floor. By removing leaves, grasses, and other barriers from the dirt, you will be able to pile the mineral onto the bare ground surface. I’ve been taught to create a 5x5 foot area composed of dirt and mineral. It is important to make the mineral site near a deer trail. The convenience is super nice and deer will take notice of your new snack offering extremely fast.

Combining the mineral into the dirt will allow a lip-smacking good mixture that will leach into the ground. Sodium is a necessary attractant used in mineral. Deer seek out the salty snack and also chow down the nutritious mineral and vitamin infested dirt. If you’ve ever seen the hole of devastation that a salt block leaves in the forest floor, you will be in for a hole just as large. Deer will chew into bark, sink their teeth into dirt, and chomp through roots for their salt fix. I always think about giving deer mineral the same as giving a dog a prescription pill. Dogs don’t beg for the pills, but will do every trick in the book for a hotdog. Injecting the pill into the hotdog supplies the dog with food and the necessary nutrition it needs. Deer share the same food mindset as dogs or even cats for that matter. Feeding deer with mineral and vitamin snacks seldom work, but juicing the side-course with an extra pinch of flavor makes it much more appealing to their taste buds. That is why salt is such an important ingredient.

Be sure to feed your deer herd mineral throughout the summer months. Your herd will become bigger, healthier, and stronger. It will make your early season archery hunt even more rewarding. You will thank yourself later when you see a heavy set of antler walking your way. It’s the proper steps we take now that provides lasting healthy impacts on deer tomorrow.