With antlers quickly sprouting, it’s getting to be that time of year that most people haul their trail cameras out of the closet and back into the woods. I’m certainly going to be deploying my full array of trail cams soon, and my goal this year (as is every year) is to have more big buck pictures and less empty frames, blacked out photos or broken cameras! So with that in mind I reached out to my friends at Moultrie to get a better idea of how I can avoid making the mistakes that lead to these problems. Lucky for us, I was sent some great pointers – so read on for the 7 most common trail camera mistakes that you don’t want to make!

I’ve been a PSE guy for many years – and while I am branching out this year and trying out some other brands, I couldn’t NOT try the premier PSE model for 2012 – the Dream Season EVO. Ever since the original Dream Season EVO was released last year I’ve been dying to get my hands on it – and after hearing a years worth of great things I’m stoked to finally have one to fling some carbon with.

From all accounts I’ve heard, this is the smoothest and most shootable of PSE’s speed bows yet – and based on my very earliest impressions it seems like that could very well be true. While I haven’t got a sight on it or shot it yet, I can attest to that very smooth draw cycle – which is significantly smoother than my older PSEs.

Without a doubt the DS feels good in the hand, and has a bit more heft than my old PSE Bow Madness, as this bow comes in at a solid 4.4 lbs. I wouldn’t say it’s a negative yet, but it is over a half pound heavier than my Bear Anarchy that I’ll be reviewing as well. We’ll see how that factors in when shooting.

This bow also has a 6″ brace height, which is on the short end of things – so I’m very interested to see how forgiving and accurate it can be. Lord knows I need all the forgiveness I can get! haha. That being said, while 6″ is a short brace height typically associated with a fast/unforgiving bow – I’ve heard much to the contrary in the case of the DS EVO, so I’ll be sure to pay close attention to this and share my thoughts.

Last, as you can see from the pics – this is one “bad” looking bow. As in bad $$$. I’ve always been a fan of the aggressive look of the PSE’s and the Dream Season continues that trend. The black and red color scheme is pretty killer in my opinion as well.

We’ll have more pictures and thoughts once I’m able to get all the bows out and shooting!

Visit the PSE website for more details.

I’m a deer hunter first and foremost- but I really have come to love turkey hunting. And as was demonstrated by our poll last week, it appears that many of you do too! That being said, I had to share a short story form this weekend thats a little more turkey related than we usually are.

My turkey hunting season here in Michigan opens up one week from tomorrow, and over the past week or so I’ve been getting the itch and have started some early preparations. I’ve been shooting the bow, glassing some fields and yelping away on the old slate call. But one of the most rewarding forms of preparation so far has been the work I’ve been doing with trail cameras this spring.

I run trail cams all the time for deer, but this spring I decided to use them to better understand when turkeys were visiting certain areas of my property. I did this by placing cameras in likely locations for action and then sweetened the deal by adding a combination of corn and BB2 in front of the camera. Because in this scenario I’m really only using the BB2 right now as an attractant for the turkeys, I’ve mixed it with corn to help increase the longevity of my BB2 supply. With a two parts corn, one part BB2 mixture I’m being conservative, but am still getting the strong scent and taste that attracts deer and turkeys like crazy.

So far this combination has been working like clockwork, with a boat load of different hens, jakes and toms coming into the camera on a consistent basis. I’ve gotten loads of trail camera videos and pictures, and I’ve now got a good idea of when these locations are prime for the turkeys in my area.

Now as great as this little strategy is – it seems to have backfired a little bit! Yesterday AND today (Sunday) I wanted to sneak out to a back corner of a corn field behind my house and put up a pop up blind. And on both occasions that I snuck out to this location, I’ve popped over a hill to find turkeys everywhere! Yesterday there were four gobblers strutting along my creek and heading towards the camera location. And then again today, I thought I was in the clear – when I got about 50 yards from my planned location for the blind and two toms came strutting out into the field. My blind prep hijacked at the last moment again.

So while my trail camera tactics have certainly been a success in regards to figuring out where the birds are, I now just need a trick to find out when the birds aren’t there, so I can finally get set up!

For more information on Big & J’s BB2 supplement and attractant – visit the Big & J website.

I arrived home today to a very welcome sight just inside my front door. A long thin cardboard box, surprisingly light to pick up, with a giant Bear stamped on the side. A brand new Bear Archery Anarchy bow.

I’ll be giving the latest release from Bear Archery a try this spring, and given what I’ve heard so far about this bow, I’m thinking it’s going to be a blast! I’ll be sure to share all of my honest thoughts and feedback about the Anarchy after I’ve been able to give it a good amount of use. But for now – here are a few of my initial impressions upon un-boxing my Anarchy:

- The “Shadow Series” (AKA all black) paint job is just sick. This thing looks awesome. If a bow could kill a buck with looks, I’d say the Anarchy would have as good a shot as any.

- The Anarchy is surprisingly light. It has a relatively longer axle to axle length, but that doesn’t seem to have translated into a heavy or uncomfortable bow to yield. Love the way the bow balances in the hand as well – really excited to see how it feels post arrow release.

- I love the “over molded” handle already. It’s thin enough that I won’t be worried too much about torque, but it also has a comfortable rubberized grip which I imagine will not be ice cold in the winter (a pet peeve of mine w/one of my other bows). Not too mention the I like the roaring Bear logo stamped prominently on the grip.

All this being said, it’s really too early to determine much else, but I’m very excited to give the Anarchy a proper try and I’ll be sure to share my thoughts with you and the rest of the Wired To Hunt Nation soon! Stay tuned.

For more information of the Anarchy, visit the Bear Archery website

I’ve tried them all. The free version you get in the box – with more straps than you know what to do with. The big version that weighs you down like a bullet proof vest and the in-betweeners that have tried and just plain failed.

No, I’m not talking about the Christmas sweaters our Grandmas buy us every winter, I’m talking about safety harnesses. There have been an immense number of different types of harnesses released to the hunting market over the years, and more often than not they have become more a hindrance than a help. And unfortunately that has led to lot of people being hurt in tree stand falls because a harness was just too much of an annoyance. To be honest, I can’t say that I’ve never felt the same way. Sometimes the harnesses I wore were just a pain in the butt and an inconvenience.

But that all changed this year when I switched to a Muddy Safeguard Harness.  Rather than a nuisance, I’ve found my Muddy Harness to instead be a helpful and comfortable addition to my tree stand hunting system.  So what makes this harness different than the rest? Three words – light-weight, comfortable and easy to use.

Right away with the Muddy Harness you’ll notice it has a minimalist design. This results in it being the lightest harness on the market, coming in at 1.9 lbs! When you’re already wearing 4 layers of warm clothing, having a light harness becomes really important – as those layers and pounds really start to add up!

Being lightweight and having that minimalist design obviously then leads to being comfortable. And again, when you’re sitting in a tree stand for hours on end – that is incredibly important! I can honestly say, and many of my friends have made similar remarks, that when I wear my Muddy harness I forget it is there. It really has become another seamless layer of my hunting attire, and because of it’s smart design it never gets in the way. With a minimal amount of fabric/straps/etc the harness never makes it difficult to perform actions like drawing a bow or moving around on stand. It also has never hindered my ability to access pockets, grunt tubes, rangefinders, etc. The harness actually even features clips for binoculars, which makes using the optics that much easier!

Now as comfortable as the harness was, what really made it functional was how easy it was to use. We’ve all used harnesses in the past that took more time to untangle than you planned to sit in the tree! And you know what, that’s just not fun to deal with. My experience with the Muddy Harness has been the exact opposite. I have actually never once had my harness get tangled, and I honestly can’t explain how this works – but the harness is designed in such a way it just falls into place perfectly. To put the harness on you simply pull the straps on like a backpack, fasten the belt around your waist, and pull two straps tight around your legs. It takes less than 30 seconds and you’re set to go! Once you get in your tree, simply clip the strap on the back of the harness to your tree strap and you are safely and comfortably attached to your tree.

The Muddy harness is in my opinion, the most comfortable and overall awesome harness you can find today.  Explaining the benefits of a safety harness inevitably can be somewhat difficult to do – so I would strongly encourage you to just go out and try one on. I would be willing to bet that giving it a try just once will help you realize very quickly what a great product this is. No matter what your opinion is on different harnesses though – most importantly, make sure you always wear one. No amount of “inconvenience” is worth risking your life. But if you’re looking for a safe AND easy option – I’d recommend you “Go Muddy”!

For more information, visit the Muddy Outdoors website

If you’re at all like me – when reading reviews of hunting arrows you might have occasionally flashed back to highschool math or physics class. All this talk of  kinetic energy, grains per inch, lengths and weights and straightness measurements. This kind of information can be great for those that have a strong grasp of the intricacies of archery tackle – but for the average bowhunter I think a lot of this might sound just as clear as chinese! So with that in mind, I want to share with you a review of my hunting arrow of choice – the Carbon Express Maxima Hunter – the blue collar way. A review based on good old fashioned opinion and personal experience.

Now that being said, technical information is definitely important when making an arrow selection and it is in fact great technical prowess that makes the Maxima Hunter such a great arrow. So I will still start out this review with one short point regarding the more technical nature of why this arrow performs so well for me. Lets talk about “Dual Spine Weight Forward Technology”. It sounds fancy – but it does two simple but important things. By moving more weight towards the front of the arrow it allows the arrow to recover sooner from the oscillation that an arrow experiences upon launch, and because of this it more accurately guides the arrow to it’s target.

The best way to wrap your head around this idea is to imagine a paper airplane. If you throw that airplane by itself, it may flit and float down and away from you in a willy nilly fashion. But slip a paper clip onto the nose of your airplane and it all of a sudden moves with speed and with a purpose straight towards your target. That’s pretty much how the Dual Spine Weight Forward Technology works – and trust me it works. So with that technical mumbo jumbo out of the way – lets talk real world experience.

I’ve shot Carbon Express arrows my entire life and have been nothing but happy with them. This trend continued with the Maxima Hunters. I shot the Carbon Express Mayhem arrows for the past couple years and I have found them to be fast, accurate and hard hitting. I didn’t think it could get much better than that, but when I shot my first Maxima this past spring – I was blown away. Shooting at the same target, from the same distance – I immediately was getting several more inches of penetration with my Maximas than with my Mayhems (and the punch my Mayhems delivered was nothing to scoff at!). After firing several rounds of arrows down range I  began noticing a tightening of groups as well. While at 20 yards all of my arrows were pretty closely grouped, but where I started seeing a difference was when I stepped back to 40 and 50 yards. At these distances any little error in form or process can throw off the trajectory of an arrow, but I found that with my Maxima’s they helped cover for me a little. The weight forward nature of these arrows seems to help keep them on a course towards the target better than any other arrow I’ve tried – and it resulted in noticeably better groups at long ranges.

With the great speed and durability I’ve come to appreciate from Carbon Express – this cherry on the top of increased accuracy with the Maxima’s really sold me on this arrow. I’ve come to trust my Carbon Express arrows without question – and I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to recommend the Maxima Hunter arrows to any friend of mine. I didn’t end shooting a deer with my bow last year – much to my dismay – but when I do, I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on how the arrow performed in that situation. But I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that my experiences will be pretty similar to those I’ve had in the past with my other Carbon Express arrows. A good clean shot – and a dead deer.

If you are interested in more of the technical details about the Maxima Hunter arrows, visit the Carbon Express website

I read way too many hunting books and magazines and I watch way too much hunting TV shows and DVDs. So obviously, when the two of these mediums merge – I’m a sucker for it. That was certainly the case when it comes to the new book from Lee & Tiffany Lakosky – arguably the hunting industry’s most famous faces today (starring in The Crush w/Lee & Tiffany and numerous other hunting shows and DVDs). When I saw that the Lakosky’s were releasing a book about their strategies for harvesting mature whitetails, I knew I had to read it. So this January I pulled my hard back copy out of the mailbox, plopped down on the couch and settled in for a good read. Weeks later after having completed the book, I’m here to report back. We all know that Lee & Tiffany are some of hunting TV’s best – and now I’d say their success has translated well into the written world!

Their Story

While the title of this book claims to be all about hunting mature whitetails, the beginning of this book focuses on a few more personal issues to the Lakosky couple. Specifically the initial chapters delve into Lee & Tiffany’s early lives, how they met and how they eventually rose to hunting fame and fortune. While this certainly won’t help me shoot bigger deer any time soon, I still found the stories really interesting and I enjoyed getting this background. For anyone looking to get into the outdoor industry, I think their story can serve as an inspiration as well. Lee & Tiffany really came from nowhere, but they put their heart and soul into pursuing the dream and it all paid off in the end.

Content

Now once we get through the story of how Lee & Tiffany became “Lee & Tiffany”, we arrive at the real heart of this book. Behind the scenes insight into how these two Iowa natives score on monster whitetails year after year. It might look easy on TV, and their consistency is ridiculous – but I’m going to let the cat out of the bag here. They don’t have a magic bean or some secret key to success. They grow, hold and hunt mature whitetails just the same as you or I do and can. With hard work, sweat and a lot of time.

Now all that being said, the Lakosky’s certainly have helpful tips to share and this book does a great job of bringing their incredible experiences and insights to the reader in a fun and easy to digest format. Topics discussed include foot plot strategies, low impact hunting, trail cameras, shed hunting and tree stand placement – along with a whole slew of others. I’d say there is a good mix of basic and more advanced topics covered and it made for an enjoyable and informational read. I definitely learned a thing or two, and the book was an easy enough read that I could see myself going through the various chapters several times over. Lee Lakosky especially is a true whitetail mastermind - and his methods described in this book are definitely worth a read.

Presentation

Now as good as the content itself was, I thought the author and the Lakosky’s did a great job of presenting the material in an engaging and entertaining way as well. Across the entire book they do a great job of incorporating stories into almost all of the tactics or lessons learned they discuss. This makes for some enjoyable reading – while also making the topics stick a little easier. Additionally the book is nice and big, with plenty of great pictures as well! Who wouldn’t love a great big 8 X 12 picture of a giant racked buck and Tiffany Lakosky?

Now thats all well and good, but one very unique feature included in this book really set it apart for me. This was the inclusion of bar codes within the pages of the book. You can see an example of this in one of the pictures above, where you see Lee and a buck on one page and then a bar code in the lower right hand corner. For those of you who aren’t all that technically savvy, these barcodes are meant to be scanned by your smartphone! (You’ll need a “barcode scanning app”, which you can download from the Android or Apple app stores). When you scan a barcode, your phone will open up a YouTube video of the hunt being discussed within the book at that given time. How cool is that? It’s one thing to read about a hunting experience and lessons learned from it – but then being able to watch video of the hunt too just takes it to a whole new level. I found this to be a really fun addition to my reading experience, and it set this book apart from all other whitetail books I’ve read to date.

Final Thoughts

Lee & Tiffany Lakosky are two of the most accomplished, most admired and most entertaining whitetail hunters in the world today. With “Hunting Mature Whitetails the Lakosky Way” this incredible couple have taken their deep whitetail knowledge and shared it with the masses in the typical, fun, Lakosky way. In my opinion, this makes for a really enjoyable and interesting read!

For more information or to pick up a copy of your own – visit the Deer & Deer Hunting Online Shop

The ability to quickly and quietly set up a tree stand on the go is an incredibly important asset for me as a hunter. Quite often during a hunting season I’m going to need to sneak into a big buck hangout and quickly get up in a tree, all while remaining undetected. This year the Muddy Climbing Sticks became one of most important tools for me achieving this goal.

The Muddy Climbing sticks are one of the most unique pieces of hunting gear in the industry and have become incredibly popular for that reason.  There are plenty of different climbing stick or step options out there today, but all of them rely on the usual strapping system, in which you fasten a clip + strap around a tree and then tighten down in the conventional way. All of these options usually require a metal buckle or tightening mechanism at some point, and inevitably it is loud and sometimes hard to work with in the cold or dark. How many times have you had the dreaded ‘”Clang clang” echoing across the woods to your dismay?

 But in comes the Muddy Climbing Sticks and their unique “rope cam system”. With the Muddy sticks you just have a rope on each stick, this rope then wraps around the tree, gets slid into the “cam system” (utilizing a kind of chinese finger trap effect) and then is secured with a couple quick knots. It takes just moments to fasten a stick to the tree and it is completely silent. Completely. There’s no metal buckle on a strap to bang around, there’s no cinch that you need to keep trying to tighten. It’s just as easy as wrapping a rope round and pulling it tight.

Without a doubt these sticks are the quietest and easiest to set up sticks or steps I have seen or used. With a set of these sticks, I can get up into a tree in a matter of just a couple minutes. Sure beats the old screw in steps!

That being said, once the sticks are on the tree, there’s still more to be appreciated. One of my other favorite features of these sticks is that there are steps on each side of the stick. So rather than having a step on the left, than the right, then the left, etc – you can have steps on both sides and no matter what the situation you are in, you’ve got somewhere to put your foot! That may seem insignificant, but with other steps I have found myself stranded with no step before!

 Climbing into the stand again is silent and sturdy – so there are no worries about the actual functionality of these steps. Coming back down it’s the same story! And whenever you’re ready to pack up and move on, the rope cam system again lends itself to a silent and incredibly fast detachment from the tree. Being nice and light, the sticks strap together tightly and are then easily attached to my backpack for packing out of the woods.

Overall the Muddy Climbing sticks have become my favorite method of getting up into a tree. Being lightweight, quick to set-up and completely silent, I’ve found the Muddy Sticks to be the best tree step/stick available on the market – and without a doubt they’ll make you a more stealthy and successful whitetail hunter.

For more information, visit the Muddy Outdoors website

Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to test a lot of different trail cameras. I am what you might call a trail camera “power user”, as I run 5-10 of them almost year round! With that kind of time being put into these cameras, I get a pretty good idea of whats working and whats not. This past year I had the chance to test a new camera, the Covert Edge, and after a few months of use – I’m hear to say it works!

Design

In late summer I received my Covert Edge and immediately noticed a few unique design features that you don’t see too often. Number one would have to be the drop down face of the camera. Rather than opening from the side, this camera opens from the top and rotates down. The actual LCD screen and buttons are on this panel which is now hanging down against the tree. I immediately came to like this design feature. Additionally I really liked the fact that the tree strap for this camera was made from an elastic fabric. This made attaching to different size trees really easy and didn’t require quite as much adjusting. Last the Edge has the ability to “pipe” a python cable through the camera, securing it to a tree. Definitely a handy security feature.

Performance

As much as I liked some of the unique design traits of the Covert Edge, I was equally happy with the actual camera performance. With the ability to take up to 8 MP pictures, I was really happy with quality of images I got from my camera. For the most part pictures were crisp, clear and had good color. As with pretty much all cameras, I had a handful of dud shots – but not so much as to deter me from using the Edge.

Another important feature of trail cameras for me is a quick trigger speed and the Edge seemed to meet my requirements on this front. With a 1.2 second trigger speed the Edge caught most moving deer right away, and I captured images of most deer crossing several times in the frame. As with many other cameras, the Covert Edge has the info bar at the bottom of the pictures with information like the date and time. But in addition it also includes temperature and moon phase, which are very important factors for deer movement. One other neat feature the Edge has is the ability to use time-lapse photography. I never ended up trying it, but I know this is an increasingly popular tool and one I’ll definitely be trying soon.

Dependability is another incredibly important trait to consider with trail cameras for me. And after testing the Edge for about 4 months, I can’t complain too much on this front. Over this period of time the camera consistently took pictures with no malfunctions and without needing new batteries. I did have one instance where I had a long series of black pictures for a couple days. But this soon cleared it self up and I haven’t encountered this issue again.

Final Thoughts

Overall I thought the Covert Edge was a solid addition to my trail camera lineup and a product that I’ll happily continue to use. The majority of photos captured were crisp, clean images and the trigger speed was fast enough that I was able to catch moving deer in frame. The camera operated without major malfunctions and the battery life was great. Additionally a few smart design features made this camera unique from most other units I’ve used. Look for many more Covert Edge trail camera pictures from me in the future!

For more information, visit the Covert Scouting Cameras website

I am equal parts hunter and steward of the land. My joy does not only come from the succesful kill of a whitetail, but also from the improvements I can make to habitat and the nourishment I can provide the wildlife that inhabit it. The hours spent with binoculars and spotting scope watching velvet bucks in the summer are just as enjoyable as the days with bow in hand. I am a hunter, I am a steward and to be successful at both I need help from great tools. And over the past couple years, the nutritional supplement and attractant BB2 from Big & J Industries has become one of the most valuable tools of my trade. While there are many other options in the supplement/attractant market, I’ve found BB2 to be the best choice for me and my goals. So read on for my thoughts on the “power of the brown bag“.

Nutrition

First and foremost, I use BB2 as a nutritional supplement for my deer herd. As a practitioner of quality deer management, I’m constantly trying to find ways to provide the optimal nutritional sources for the deer in my area. Natural browse and food plots play a big part in fulfilling the nutritional needs of deer on my property, but to fill the gaps and provide additional important nutrients, supplements can be a great solution. That’s where BB2 comes in for me. Protein is incredibly important for the development of healthy does, fawns and bucks. It’s a key to bucks reaching their full antler potential and to the successful nursing of fawns. So by adding an additional strong protein source like BB2, which has an 18% crude protein content, you’re helping give your deer herd that edge it needs towards reaching an optimum level of health. While I haven’t been on a property enough years in a row to see for myself yet, I have heard many accounts of friends providing a year round supplement of BB2 and seeing marked increases in the average antler size for deer on their property. I’m not surprised by that at all, and I’ve certainly been happy with the health benefits that BB2 has been providing my local deer herd.

Inventory

Another great benefit I’ve enjoyed from using BB2 on my hunting properties is the ability to take inventory of the local deer herd, and specifically the bucks. By placing BB2 in front of my trail cameras, I draw in the vast majority of deer in the area and capture pictures of them. This can be incredibly helpful when trying to determine the potential for bucks in a given area, create a hit list, or age bucks on the hoof. There are a wide number of different attractants that will draw deer into a camera location, and I’ve used many. But I’ve found BB2 to be my favorite because it seems to draw in deer from a wider range, it handles rain well, and it keeps deer coming back – even after the BB2 is gone.

I don’t have a scientific explanation for it – but BB2 just has a very strong scent and this seems to carry long distances and attract deer. While my study is very subjective, I’ve placed cameras out with corn in front of them and others with BB2, and it seems that I get larger amounts and more unique individual deer coming to my cameras with BB2. My only explanation for this is that more deer are catching wind of the BB2 and are coming from farther away.

I’ve also found BB2 to handle rain better than several other supplement/attractants I’ve tried. Again – I couldn’t tell you why this is off the top of my head. But on the BB2 website they explain, “rain has little effect on Big & J deer feed as water passes through the product allowing it to dry out to its original form without the crusting over common to other products. Rain actually carries some of the minerals into the ground and, once the products are consumed, the deer continue to visit the location just like a mineral-lick site.”

And that actually brings me to the last unique trait of BB2 – it seems to have a lingering effect. As described above, it appears that mineral seeps into the ground from the BB2 and I’ve found deer to consistently visit my BB2 sites to dig up the ground, even weeks after the supplement was last there! This has come in really handy when I’ve left cameras on distant properties and not been able to return and apply more BB2 for long periods.

Without a doubt, putting BB2 in front of my trail cameras has allowed me and the Wired To Hunt team to take better inventory of the bucks in our area. For example, team member Dustin Hotchkin captured hundreds of pictures of several shooter bucks chowing down on BB2 on his property (like the pic below) – including the dandy 8 point he ended up harvesting in November!

Hunting 

In addition to helping us photograph deer during the pre-season, BB2 also has a positive impact on our hunting success. I personally have used BB2 to help in my hunting on more of an inventory type way again. During the hunting season I use BB2 to get pictures, but these pictures help me identify where certain bucks are at certain times. This information can help me form patterns, and in fact several pictures I captured of a buck I called “Six Shooter” this past year were taken over BB2 and they helped me piece together his routine.

Now if baiting is legal in your state, BB2 can be a great option as well. I personally am not a proponent of this tactic, so I haven’t used BB2 in this way. But if that’s your way of hunting – the great attracting power of BB2 again makes it a good choice.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to nutritional supplements and attractants in the hunting industry, there are tons of choices. I’m sure most all of these work to some degree, and I’m sure I could enjoy some success with these products. But over the last three years I’ve found BB2 to be the best option for me as a deer hunter AND manager. It allows me to provide the important nutrition I want for the deer herd, while also the powerful attractant power I need to photograph and monitor the bucks in my area. Big & J’s BB2 has become my #1 option and I’d be confident recommending it to any one of my fellow Wired To Hunt Nation members.

For more information, visit the Big & J website