Grow the Hunt

The Biggest Thing This Season...HD Turkey Decoys

By Rich Miller

It’s been a month now since deer season closed and with all the shows and traveling, talking about turkey hunting is really getting me fired up. There are a lot of products every year that hit the market giving hunters the grand illusions that they will bring in every turkey in the woods. There are new products every year that do give the hunter a better advantage when he hits the woods on opening morning, but we still have to scout and put in our time. It’s hard to kill turkeys when you’re hunting where they aren’t.

This year Carry-Lite has improved on the Pretty Boy series of full strutting decoys once again with the Bob’n Tail Tom HD. I got my sample of this new decoy a couple of weeks ago and every person that I have shown it to has really been impressed with it.

This decoy does several different things that it hasn’t been able to do in the past. First of all, there is a cloth “skin” around it giving it the look of real feathers. With the life like-head combined with the silky feathered look makes this decoy look like the real deal. To make it even better, the decoy name “Bob’n Tail Tom HD” says it all. The balanced tail hung on the back of the decoy moves in the slightest breeze and gives it the most lifelike look of any decoy I have seen.

All you have to do is get this thing out in a place where it can be visible from a distance. Call a little to get a big tom’s attention and once he spots the decoy it will be on. This thing is going to retail for about $60 and that’s a smoking price for a decoy of this caliber. They didn’t ask me when they named it and although “Bob’n Tail Tom HD” is a good name, I think it should have been called “Barely Legal”!

Whitetails in Winter

By Brandon Wikman

The bone-chilling Canadian air has advanced across the Midwest. Daily temperatures have dive-bombed into the single digits, while the wind-chill has plummeted into the negative degree marks. Snow and sheets of ice frost the landscape as far as the eye can see. It is safe to say that we are in the heart of winter.   

The remarkable ability for whitetails to cope with such harsh conditions never ceases to amaze me. The paralyzing wintry weather prods against the whitetail deer’s aptitude to survive. It is a yearly North Country battle that truly defines the old axiom, “Survival of the fittest.”

Small families of whitetail will usually cluster together in tight pockets of shelter, also known as deeryards. These dense havens of underbrush keep whitetail a few degrees warmer by blocking out the wind and winter weather elements. Doe and fawn stay together with their sisters, while many mature bucks seek refuge elsewhere.

Winter brings a new importance to food. A whitetail deer feeds every day, except during extremely nasty storms. In the case of numbing whiteout blizzards, deer will lie low and preserve their much-needed energy. Their calorie count is on a clock and forces life or death decisions. The forage of summer has all but disappeared. Tender grasses, agriculture fields and weeds have vanished. Deer turn to pine needles, evergreen trees and even tree bark.

As said, whitetail will generally not move during extremely frigid temperatures. They will sit tight and conserve as much energy as they can. They will find food, bed near it and lie low. This gives them an opportunity to survive during sub-arctic temperatures that we find common across the upper portions of the U.S. The hide that wraps their body is like a sleeping bag. Their fur is dense, which boosts their ability to stay warm. As many of us know, snow is an insulator, which keeps deer slightly warmer.

One of the most amazing points to note is that a whitetail’s blood flow varies according to different situations and circumstances. In freezing climates, such as Minnesota and upper Michigan, a whitetail’s blood flows to the brain and critical organs, such as the heart. The blood flow avoids the animals’ extremities because those are the least important parts of the body that will help them survive.

If a deer’s blood flowed to its legs, they’d lose heat and much colder blood would flow back into the deer’s body. This would make the animals much chillier and begin shutting down systems from hypothermia. The legs fall into a state of senseless stasis. This incredible capability of adaptation intrigues deer aficionados.

As humans drag out their winter jackets, snow-pants and gloves, deer grow their own jacket and let there body systems take control. This is just another astonishing attribute to the amazing world of whitetail deer.