Today’s story comes from Jason Cleveland of Whitetail Properties. Jason worked hard all year on his farms improving habitat and setting the stage for  close encounters with giant whitetails, and finally late this fall it paid off with a great 150 class Ilinois buck. Congrats Jason! – MK

So far this season I’ve had an unbelievable year, harvesting a great Southern Iowa buck and a monarch in Pike County, Missouri named the Dink.  How could my season get any better?  I’d been chasing a buck on my Pike County, Illinois farm that I named Number 11.  He was a big 11 pointer and was clearly a mature animal.  I had spent many days during the rut on stand and tucked away in the trusty Banks Blinds with no sightings of this bruiser.  I had 10 Reconyx trail cameras on my farm all fall and I kept getting pictures of him, but just couldn’t close the distance.  The Illinois shotgun seasons came and went and still no luck.  Finally a cold front was scheduled to push thru just in time for the Illinois muzzleloader season.  I checked my cameras the day before the season started and there he was in my 3-acre standing bean patch on the north side of my farm.  I knew just where I needed to be on opening night.

Opening night was finally here and my cameraman and I snuck into the Banks Blind in the middle of my standing beans undetected.  It was bitter cold out and I just knew they needed the grain to keep warm.  After a short amount of time we started seeing does file out of the timber and into the food plot, the plan was working perfectly.  After about 45 minutes of non-stop doe action I spotted a nice 9 point coming out of my sanctuary.  We had discussed shooting him…but I just wasn’t convinced that I had no chance on Number 11.  The 9 point fed in the standing beans for a good 3 or 4 minutes before I finally spotted our target buck.  He strolled right out of the sanctuary just like he was supposed to.  The plan was coming together just like I had rehearsed it.  I let him feed for 5 or 6 minutes and we got some beautiful footage of him and finally I decided it was time to close the deal on Number 11.  I opened the window on the Banks and he offered a broadside, 15 yard shot.  I touched the trigger on the ole TC and down he went.  Finally…satisfaction.  I hunted him hard all year and finally on December 9^th, we got him. – Jason

For more, visit the Whitetail Properties website.

As we discussed last week, this spring we’ll be featuring some of the best sheds found in 2012 by the Wired To Hunt Nation on the blog! Today we’ve got one of our first submissions, this one coming from Adam Rottler. He found this giant Kansas shed, measuring 80 3/8″ on January 29! Where specifically? A wheat field.

Morale of the story? This shed was found in a popular late season food source, and these can be some of the hottest shed hunting areas out there. Corn, beans, wheat, brassicas. Wherever the deer are feeding late in the year, you’ve got a good chance of finding some bone.

Congrats Adam! And for the rest of you, if you want to send in your shed read up on details here and then send us your picture and information!

This year was the first that I was able to get a group of guys together to try filming for the site, and it proved to be both incredibly challenging and rewarding. In the end though, watching someone like Dustin work so hard not only hunting, but also filming for Wired To Hunt was so exciting and greatly appreciated. I’m so proud of him and my whole team for working their butts off this season and I just want to send a big thank you to those guys.

So with that all being said, kick back and check out our episode today! I really think you’ll enjoy it.

Today’s story comes from Derek Stahlman of Hallowed Ground Outdoors. HGO just won a Sportsman Channel award for best new show, and given the bucks they’ve put down this fall, I’d expect them to have a great season 2 as well! Read on for Derek’s tale of this big ole Missouri buck.- MK

“Well  this season started  fast and furious here in Missouri for myself and some of the other HGO pro-staff. I’d harvested a dandy 9 point buck on Sept 27 on one of my Outfitters Choice food plots. So by the time rifle season rolled around I was ready to get another weapon in my hand after being behind the camera for a month and a half. After a slow opening couple days with only seeing some young bucks I had to get back in the UPS truck and get those packages delivered.

But then I got the call from fellow HGO member Clay Lockard  and he’d  invited me to his family farm in north Missouri. After working it out with my boss, I  took a couple vacation days on the 17-18 and planned on hunting through the weekend. We started Thursday morning on a slew crossing with no avail. We saw just a couple small bucks crossing what was a beautiful slew, but we just weren’t seeing the doe’s or cruising bucks we thought we should for the mid november rut. So we pulled out about noon and headed to a known doe bedding area on the farm. To say this spot was thick was an understatement. It was made up of mostly CRP and cockle burrs, and Clay had a great shooting house set right in the middle of a 100 acre brush pile.

Right away we started seeing deer activity, a small buck walked by, then another, then another. About 2 hours into the evening hunt a questionable big 8 point came out chasing a doe. “Oh yea, this was the spot” I told clay. We were talking about taking him when he chased her back into the brush. I told clay he need another year any how, but honestly if we could have gotten more b-roll of him I would have harvested him. It wasn’t very long after that  when an unbelievable 2 1/2 year old 9 point walked right under the shooting house. We were busy admiring the potential of that particular deer when I looked across the cockle burr field and saw a huge framed deer walking right to left. I asked Clay what he thought an he said “Uhhhhh yes you can shoot him FOR SURE”! So while he was getting the camera on him I was getting the scope on my 270 Remington classic dialed in.

Once we got on the same page, the big 11 point stopped and with a nice high shoulder shot he dropped in his tracks. What a thrilling hunt. Harvested a 5 1/2 year old 151 6/8 inch 11 point, saw some great up and comers, chalked another kill up for Hallowed Ground Outdoors and enjoyed God’s creation with a great friend. Oh and clay missed a 4 1/2 yr old 145 inch 8 point the next evening. That place was on fire. No worries Clay, you’re a first class fella with a first class farm! (Just think what he’ll be next year). Everyone can catch all of this action on  Season 2 of Hallowed Ground Outdoors starting next July on The Sportsman Channel!” – Derek

For more from Hallowed Ground Outdoors, visit their website here.

Not A Good Start

I ran my trail cameras for most of the summer and by the time October 1^st rolled around I had put together a pretty good hit list of mature shooters. I started off the season like I always do, trying to lay down a doe and put a little meet in the freezer. Easy, right?  The evening hunt of October 1^st a group of does came down the edge of a fence-line like they read a script. Filming myself, I turned on the camera, picked out the doe I wanted, and smoked her at 18 yards. Perfect shot. She ran in to chest-high CRP… for those of you who have ever tried to follow a blood trail in tall CRP, not fun. I looked for about 2 hours in the dark and then decided to come back in the morning and start fresh with an extra set of eyes. One word, “Coyotes”.  If you ever have one of these “pests” within range, kill them dead!   No meat for me, I tried for a doe the next 2 weekends with no luck. I had no idea this is how the rest of the season was going to go.

Shipwreck Falls

Shipwreck in 2010, the year I shot, but didn’t kill him.  

I got my first set of trail camera pictures of Shipwreck (a buck I have been hunting for 5 years) on June 28^th, knowing he was still alive gave me the motivation I needed going into the season. My plan was to stay out of his area until the right conditions were presented.

Picture of Shipwreck from June of 2011 .

But that opportunity never came, as I got a call one day while at work, telling me that a good friend Sam Collora (who hunts a neighboring property) killed Shipwreck the night before; he scored just over 200”. I was sad, happy, and pissed all at the same time.  Knowing that he was no longer in the picture I could focus on other properties.  I also could now truthfully tell my Fiancé she is the most important thing in my life! Look for another article about the Deer God Shipwreck in the near future.

This is where it starts getting good, and when I say “good” I really mean “bad”.

Megatron is a giant 6 ½ year old 8 I have seen for the past 3 years, hope he makes it. 

Aside from a lucky encounter with a buck I named Megatron (6 ½ 160” class 8 – thank God for Ozonics), on a random south wind run-and-gun set up, and another encounter with Johnny Utah (3 ½ 145” 10), that was about it. I can’t say I even saw a lot of Larry’s (small bucks), or even does for that matter. I honestly think the numbers in my particular area were down from previous years. In connection with not seeing a lot of deer, I also had to share this property with another hunter and had a perfect set ruined by some kids driving 4-wheelers. On top of that, due to down fences and gates that were left open by coon hunters, both horses and cattle had free range of the property keeping the deer out of the fields and pushing them to god knows where. This also made me mad, but not much I could do about it.

Had a couple of encounters with Johnny Utah this year and passed him twice.

One Last Chance

The very last day of my vacation I did have a hot doe come through at 2:30pm that was being chased by 4 different mature bucks, one was a 150 class 10 who did not present an opportunity, and the other was a 145 class 8 I named Edward Scissor Hands who I ended up passing in hopes that the other buck would come back through.  He did not, and after reviewing the footage I regret not shooting the 8. Oh well. Right at last light a huge 160 class 10 came through and there was some miscommunication between me and the cameraman on what direction the deer was going, yet another missed opportunity. Story of my season.

This is Triple Sec doggin’ a doe.

I passed Edward Scissor Hands… that was dumb!

The big 10 that I screwed up on. I almost jumped out of my stand.

I did get a couple more chances in December to get in the stand, but with the deer still in shock from shotgun season, I had no luck.  Overall, I did what I could. I hunted hard and put myself in a position to kill every time I went out. I observed and learned more about the properties I hunt in hopes that next year I will get another opportunity at  a mature buck. So now that the bow season is over I switch my focus to shed hunting. I have setup some trail cameras in hopes of seeing what bucks made it through the season and when I need to start my miles for piles.

There’s Always Next Year

Overall, I may not have gotten the results I wanted, but I did learn a lot and I will adapt for next season. And most importantly, I had a hell of a lot of fun and was able to spend time with some of my good friends.  I love this sport and when October comes back around you know where I’ll be.

P.S. I hate coyotes.

A week or two ago I posted an article called “Small Property, Big Dreams” in which I excitedly detailed my plans for turning my home property into a big buck haven. Well that dream has now, quite quickly, disappeared as a possibility. The property I live on is in fact rented, but I had high hopes that after renting for another year or so, I’d be able to work out a deal to buy it. So much for that…

I just recently found out that an Amish family in the community put in an offer on my home/property that was too good for my landlord to ignore, and even though we had the chance to match it, we just didn’t have the funds. So here I am, looking at a fourth move in just as many years. Needless to say I’m disappointed, frustrated and just plain bummed. I was really pumped about this property’s potential, and I was so happy to finally be able to hunt in one place for multiple years in a row, learn it and start managing. That’s all ancient history now though, so I suppose there’s no use dwelling on it. On to Plan B.

From here I only have one option, and that’s to go find new hunting ground (and a home for that matter)! So I’m keeping all my options open, with the number one priority being that I find a great piece(s) of ground that I can hunt for multiple years. I’m open to leasing, finding ground by permission or even buying.

So now I’m on the hunt again and not the kind I expected for this time of year. I figured my 2012 season would start with sheds, but now it looks like I’m on a much different journey and most likely one thats more expensive to boot!

That being said, I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can somehow land a property before the end of March so that I can get in some good shed hunting and scouting, and hopefully still have most the year to prepare. So while my hopes for my current property won’t be fulfilled, there’s no telling what new exciting times might be ahead of me on whatever new land I find. I’m not going to let this bring me down, and hopefully I can take the same philosophies I planned here and bring them to fruition on whatever ground I can get on in the future.

2012 is going to be a good season, it just has to be. While this certainly throws a wrench in my plans, I’m not going to let this stand in the way of my goal. The buck of my life is hitting the ground this fall, and no matter what property I’m on, that big dream can still become a reality.

I’ve always figured that success while whitetail hunting occured by virtue of three things. Skill, determination and luck. And today’s story from Greg Haak highlights possibly the most important. That being luck! I learn as much as possible, and hunt crazy hard, but I’ll take lucky any day. And that’s just what Greg did with this dandy Wisconsin buck. Congrats Greg! – MK

“With early bow season behind us, the annual gun season is underway in Wisconsin. Even though I gun hunt every year I don’t get very excited for it because I usually don’t see too much. Opening was uneventful like usual for my property. All I saw were two deer all weekend; a nubber and a little 6 point. Luckily deer activity always seems to pick up after opening weekend and I had off the whole week from work because business was slow. When Monday morning rolled around my alarm went off at 5:45 to get out to my stand; but since I was already irritated with the gun season I decided to go back to sleep. I finally got up around 8 am, ate breakfast and watched Sports Center, debating where I was going to hunt in the evening.

Around 9 am I decided to walk through a little strip of trees behind my parents figuring I wouldn’t see anything.  As I expected nothing was up but as I got to the field trail and was walking down the hill I looked up and saw something that didn’t look familiar about 250 yards away. I quick glassed it confirming it was a buck with a doe. I wasn’t sure if he was big enough to shoot but he looked like a decent 8 point. I knew I had to sneak about 10 yards down farther to get a shot. A few minutes later I was in position but wasn’t sure were the buck went!  I sat there for a little while and finally I saw the doe getting chased by the buck 150 yards away. I got my gun up and the buck turned and I could tell he was a 10 and could see one broken point, definitely a shooter.

I clicked the safety off and just as I was about to pull the trigger he took off after the doe again. I lost him. I was reluctantly scanning the bottom just as a buck would that comes in to rattling looking for a fight. Then I saw him 100 yards away in the bottom of the corn field. I got my gun on him clicked the safety off, settled the cross hairs and pulled the trigger. The buck didn’t move. He stood there as healthy as could be. I slowly loaded another shell and looked through the scope. I saw the culprit; a broken sapling laid 5 feet in front of me!! I quickly moved up a little, settled the cross hairs for the second time and again shot, same result as the first shot, a clean miss. I couldn’t believe it; I looked in front of me and noticed a second broken sapling. Ironically the buck ran ten yards towards me, stopped, picked up a whole ear of corn and started eating. I stood up this time ensuring no brush was between me and the buck, laid my cross hairs on him for the third time and pulled the trigger. This time I drilled him and he ran 40 yards and pilled up.

When I walked up to my buck I was pleasantly surprised. He was a typical 12 with a broken g3 and g4 on opposite sides. As soon as I got him home I got the tape out and grossed him at 151 3/8 with the broken point; if he was complete he would be around 165”. What an awesome day. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky then good.” – Greg Haak

For more from Greg Haak and the rest of the BMG Outdoors team, visit the BMG Outdoors website here.

Well. He’s certainly not anything to get too excited about, but this little fella is the first buck I’ve seen so far this year that’s shed an antler. And THAT is exciting. The first phase of the 2012 season will be kicking off soon with shed hunting and I can not wait. My plan for the next few weeks is to keep a steady supply of Big & J’s BB2 and a few other attractants well supplied in front of my trail cameras. And when I see the majority of the bucks without antlers, I’ll start searching. Also by having an attractant/supplement like BB2 or something similar available, it can help draw bucks into a smaller area and hopefully will result in a few of them shedding their antlers nearby!

Anyone else seeing shed bucks already?

Interested in getting ready for shed season a little early? Here is a link to our compilation of the best tips and tricks for shed hunting from some of the best in the hunting industry…

The Ultimate Shed Hunting Resource – Expert Shed Hunting Tips, Strategies and Suggestions

Our story today comes from Whitetail Properties land specialist Gabe Adair, who provides us all a reminder that you can’t kill em from the couch. On a late December hunt, with miserable conditions, Gabe stuck it out and it paid off big time. Congrats Gabe! – MK

“The entire late muzzy season had been extremely warm conditions. It was a morning hunt and the night before it rained (not snow!) all night and the wind blew 25 mph. I woke up and just about didn’t head out because of being so frustrated with the horrible conditions. After 1 hour of watching the news I decided “cant kill them on the couch”, so we loaded up and headed out. The tree stand we were hunting I had an encounter with this buck in archery season and told my camera man if he came around I would shoot him. We got to the tree in total darkness started setting up all our equipment and as I snapped my breach plug shut I noticed a “white flicker” only 30 yards from our tree. At that moment we were on pins and needles with deer on 2 sides of us for 30 minutes prior to camera light. There ended up being 5 or 6 bucks that milled around and spared for 30 minutes after camera light. As the deer started heading to where I knew they bedded I decided to give them a grunt so we could get some better film hopefully before they left. It worked perfect…. All of them turned and headed straight to us. As they approached it got real tough because we had them all around and one even got a little spooky. I looked up on top of the ridge and noticed a “shooter” that was not with the original 5 or 6 headed straight at us. He came to 60 yards and gave me a perfect high shoulder shot. I put it on him and he dropped in his tracks!!!! The end.” – Gabe Adair

For more information about Gabe or Whitetail Properties, visit the Whitetail Properties website.

Here’s a really neat story from Wired To Hunt reader Dana Dutoi, as he recalls his hunt for this big old Indiana whitetail. Gotta love seeing members of the Wired To Hunt Nation having success in the pursuit of mature bucks. Big congrats Dana! – MK

“On Thursday November 17, 2011, I was at work around 8:30 A.M. when my friend Randy called me to ask about a dead deer laying in the field on his brother in law’s property where I hunt.  I told him I didn’t know anything about it and that I had hunted their the night before and hadn’t seen it.  I told him I would send someone to check it out, as we had been having some issues with poachers over the last few weeks and I was afraid we had another victim. So I called my friend Emery who lives around the corner and asked if he would go check it out.

He called me back later to say it was a button that had been hit by a car but hadn’t been dead more than 2 hours and he was going to wait for the game warden to arrive and issue a possession permit so he could have it processed.  Good.  All is well and no deer have been poached.  20 minutes later Emery calls me again and says that while waiting for the game warden he watched a decent buck push a doe into the woods and never saw them come out.  He said he didnt get that great of a look at him. So I walked out the shop door and looked at the flagpole out front to check the wind.  Straight out of the Northwest, absolutely ideal for that stand, this could work.

It’s gun season now and I’m still carrying a buck tag.  So I skipped lunch and bailed out of work around three P.M.  headed home for a quick scent neutralizing shower and put my camo on.  I got settled into my stand at four P.M., fifteen minutes later I went through a tending grunt and doe bleat sequence.  The timber came to life, their were 2 yearling does bedded in a blow down 20 yards behind me that I never knew were there.  They got on their feet and began to mill around feed on some acorns, and I could hear deer coming my way from the west, game on.

I could see a doe making her way through brush and I was praying that it was the same doe Emery had seen that morning and that the buck was still with her.  Sure enough, like he was cued, here he came behind her 2 minutes later.  He must have read the script the night before because he put on show.  He made a scrape, rubbed some saplings, all while the doe fed into the clearing in front of me.  The deer were pretty much in the lock down stage of the rut at this point and he wasn’t really pushing her but he didn’t want to leave her.  She finally fed into the other side of the clearing and he stepped to the edge.  This is when I knew I was dealing with a very mature deer.  He stood at the edge of the clearing like a statue for 5 minutes never moving but all the while checking his surroundings. I was perched just 32 yards away like a stone.

He finally made his move into the open where I could really evaluate him, I instantly put the safety back on.  He was no more than a 100 inch eight pointer. But then I started looking at other things.  This buck had a face as gray as a ghost, and a big ol’ roman nose like a mule.  He was an old warrior with a broken right beam and heavy antlers.  He was no booner but a solid buck.  I was still unsure.  He fed past at 12 yards.  I was kind of upset thinking that I would much rather kill this deer with my bow.  I took the safety off on my shotgun, then put it back on.  I still couldn’t make up my mind, knowing for a fact that there were much larger deer in the area.  I watched him and the doe for another 5 minutes and he was suddenly in my last shooting window at 22 yards, (this stand was set up for archery in some thick timber just 70 yards west of a bedding area).  It was do or die time, the moment of truth if you will. This was no booner, but still  had a very nice rack, and he was a very SMART, mature deer, which are hard to get within 100 yards of let alone 20.

The safety came off and the gun came up, BOOM, game over, he dropped like he’d been hit by a train.  After a rush of emotion and adrenaline that every deer hunter knows about hit me, all of the successes and failures that had occurred in the past 47 days of hunting rushed through my mind. I was excited that I had killed my buck, but at the same time disappointed that it was over, that I had to wait another year to do it over again.  Then I said “who cares!” and started making phone calls. ” – Dana Dutoi