Lee and Tiffany Lakosky’s Farm – A Dream Dirt Story in Iowa …

While there certainly is more acreage involved than the owned acres, I suspect that Lee and Tiffany also lease some adjoining ground which helps them be as effective as they are in managing the deer on their home place but their home place is about 350 acres. … When you look inside the timber you notice many of the markings of intertimber food plots that you often see in their video footage on their various appearances on television. These food plots are spread out and …

Post season scouting will allow you to identify primary scrape areas, rub lines, travel corridors within cover between bedding areas. Even if the dominant buck in that area was harvested, another buck will take his place and use the same features of the property.

Prepare your trees and shooting lanes at this time too. Then in August you can make a quick check of your spot and clear out any summer growth while hanging your stands. This will keep the area undisturbed and preserve your spot as a true ambush situation come hunting season.

Several years ago my post-season scouting really started to pay off big time after I watched a DVD by John and Chris Eberhart called Bowhunting Pressured Whitetails – Vol. 1 “Post-Season Scouting and Tree Preparation”

I thought I knew everything there was to know about getting a leg up early on next Fall’s buck until I watched this DVD and read his book. I have not seen any DVD anywhere that goes into the detail that this one does. You won’t see this information on TV anywhere. It will take years off your learning curve. I couldn’t wait to apply what I had learned.

The next fall, this buck was a direct result of acting on a couple tips I learned from John and Chris.

This time of year most hunters are content to sit home on the couch and watch some football. Not me. Now is one of the best times to get out in the woods and do some post season scouting.

But first, I would recommend going to John and Chris’ site to grab a copy of their DVD. It will be one of the most valuable $15 you spend this winter.

If you’ve already seen this DVD, leave a comment below to benefit others and/or pass along this post using the icons below. Your friends will thank you.

Matt from Mason City, IA is the latest to wow my socks off. He was born with no arms, but can out-shoot me any day of the week with his feet. He is scary good!

He can turn up the draw weight on his bow with an allen wrench using his feet. He throws the allen wrench in the air and catches it…all with his feet. He opens a pop can and drinks it, signs autographs,…..you have to see it yourself.

Check out the video here…Inspirational Archer

After waiting all year to hunt the rut out of state, it really sucks when you put a marginal shot on a good shooter buck and find very little blood, and then have to spend your precious little time tracking instead of hunting. I learned my lesson the hard way by not using the best broadheads for a complete pass through.
Like a lot of guys, I was using a mechanical or expandable head for huge entry and exit holes. Some of the pictures you see and stories you hear make it a no brainer. But what if you hit the shoulder or the ribs up high? In that case, everything needs to go just right. But with bowhunting, that’s rarely the case. Makes me wonder how many hunts filmed for TV and video never make it on air because of not recovering the deer.
I’ve shot four 140 class and higher bucks that I didn’t recover because of no exit wounds, and I’m shooting a 65# draw weight and a long FOC arrow. #@!&#!
That’s it! No more!
I did some major research online for the best broadheads for penetration. I kept coming back to an article I found about Dr. Ashby.
You want to talk about testing? He did some major testing. Not just on deer, but on big game in Africa. Cape Buffalo, Zebra, Wildebeast, Hippos etc.
After reading his article and test results with pictures to illustrate,
I am sold on the 2 blade single bevel head. Specifically the Samuria 125 grain (See above photo). Super hard steel, super sharp…and stays sharp. The steel is about 25% harder than a steel G5 Montec….and those are hard.

But to really appreciate why a single bevel head are the best broadheads for penetration through bone, you have to read his test results with pics at: AlaskaBowhunting.com
I believe you’ll agree that no other head on the planet can penetrate through bone better then a single bevel broadhead. But the question will be “Do you have the courage to switch?”

Post your opinions and comments below.

The liberals we have in Washington today seem to want to go along with the U.N. and the rest of the world in limiting or eliminating your right to own a firearm. Even US citizens like George Soros in our own country are funding groups to make sure this happens sooner rather than later.

If it happens, the only people who will have guns in our country is the government and criminals. The 2nd amendment was listed up at #2 in the constitution for a reason, to protect citizens from its own government in case the government got too liberal. Look at any country where guns are outlawed, and you’ll find a country with little freedoms and a tyrannical government.

Countries that have recently disarmed their citizens have seen a huge spike in crimes. Duh! Criminals are no longer afraid of their victims who have no guns. That’s why they’re called “criminals.” The U.S. already has gun laws coming out the wahzoo, but criminals still have guns and always will.

Check out this video to get a look at who’s behind the movement to take away all your guns. Remember this video when you go vote in November.

Or like Lee and Tiffany Lakosky say…. BBD.

Bowhunting whitetail during the pre-rut in 2009  had a lot of bowhunters frustrated because of all the corn still standing in the Midwest. And for my two sons-in-law Joel and AJ and I, we were no exception.

Only 16% of the corn had been harvested by the first week of November according to the Ag dept. That’s the lowest number on record. We sat on stand (or in our treesaddles) 6-9 hours a day the first week of November and saw very does being chased. The standing corn was everywhere. It actually messed up our funnel situations we had planned on all year.

So we had to change gears and go to the harvested soybean fields because we had heard a neighbor who had 52 deer in their cut soys a few nights after they harvested the whole field. That’s a crazy number of deer no matter where you live.

So after prepping a new tree near the soys a few days earlier, I settled into my treesaddle around 1am for the rest of the day. Nothing showed until four does came out from the other side of the soybean field on my left 150 yards away. They moved my way and I decided to take the lead big doe at 25 yards.  When my 2-blade Rage went though both lungs, she just wheeled around and stood there. I had never seen that before. She started wobbling and then just tipped over.

Only 15 minutes of shooting light left when two more does came out from the same area and spotted the dead doe lying there. They walked over to within 2 feet of the dead doe when I heard footsteps coming from the woods on my right. I strained my eyes through the twilight to see a deer with a couple big white mainbeams. This was a shooter.

Once he crossed the fence row into the cut soybean field, I could see him a little better. I just tried to focus on his body making it to the next shooting lane through the branches. As he walked toward the two does, I put my 30 yard pin on him and let it fly.

I watched him as he took off across the field hoping he wouldn’t make it to the other side. He slowed down and tipped over about 15 yards short of the other side. Whew!

When I walked up on him in the dark, there was no ground shrinkage  at all. My best buck with a bow. He was a 3 1/2 year old and I figured his rack would score in the 130’s. It came out to 137.

The next day AJ saw a shooter buck similar to mine from the same tree but couldn’t get a shot off. Then Joel hunted from that tree the next day and saw an even bigger buck. Talk about a hot tree.

We will definitely be going back there in the spring to prep several more tress giving us multiple options for bowhunting whitetail in different wind. directions.

Why am I sooo excited? Because in my opinion it is the best week or 10 day period for getting multiple shot opportunities at mature bucks in the midwest.

Why? Because this is the narrow window of time that the mature bucks are ready to breed, but the does are not. It’s called the pre-rut. That means the bucks will be on their feet during daylight hours searching for that first receptive doe, and the best time of day to be in your stand is between 10 am and 2pm.

I believe the pre-rut is better for getting more cracks at mature bucks than the rut because during the rut the bucks are locked down with a hot doe and don’t travel as much while they will spend a whole day tending that doe.

Years ago I had a hard time getting myself to sit in a tree from 10am -2pm, but I quickly learned that mature bucks cruise around looking for hot does in the middle of the day and appear to not be as wary or cautious as they are during the morning or evening hunts. I didn’t see as many deer, but I saw more quality bucks.

I believe there are a couple reason for this.

First, the does are generally bedded down at midday and its easier for bucks to locate them simply by going from bedding area to bedding area to see if any does are hot to trot. This is why I like to hunt in travel corridors like fence rows, tree lines, or any strip of thick cover that connects different woodlots, swamps, or standing cornfields where does normally bed down in security.

Younger bucks may walk through an open field during the rut or pre-rut, but a mature buck is much more likely to stay in some sort of cover during daylight hours as he travels.

The second reason I think mature bucks cruise more during midday at this time of year while looking for some action is that they rarely encounter hunters during the midday. Now I know a lot hunters are quick to dismiss this idea because they simply do not believe a whitetail is that smart. That is true, until the bucks lives through a couple hunting seasons with antlers. If they survive to their 3rd hunting season where there’s even medium hunting pressure, this makes them a whole different animal and they wise up to the patterns of hunters being in woods for a few hours in the morning and evening. I have noticed a big difference in the way they seem to be more at ease and not as wary while they travel at midday.

So instead of getting up early like I normally do to hunt in the morning, I’ll sometimes sleep in and head out to my tree around 9am. I know, I know, it just doesn’t seem right to head out into the woods at 9am. But I try to hunt everyday during this period and sleeping in once in a while helps me from getting burned out.

I never thought I would ever get “burn out” from bowhunting too much.

If you don’t already have a stand ready to go in one of these travel corridors, be careful not to spoil a good spot if you scout and  prep a tree at this time of year. Springtime is really when you should be doing all of that.

Well, I’m headed out of state for this week. Looks like it will be dry and cooler for the best week of bowhunting whitetail all year. I’ll keep you posted with any success.

Feel free to leave a comment below of your experiences you’ve had while hunting during the midday.

Good Hunting,

Randy

It’s the period after the first few days of the bowhunting season until the pre-rut heats up around halloween. This is the time that a lot of hunters are scratching their heads trying to figure out where all the big bucks went.  So where did they go?

They didn’t go anywhere. Most of them are still hanging out in the same place, except only when it’s dark out. The mature bucks figured out real soon when the bowhunting season started that its not safe to wander around during daylight hours. So if you’re only hunting mature bucks, here’s one of my bowhunting whitetail tips for the October lull…..Go Fishing!

If there’s any hunting pressure where you hunt, then you can bet that in most cases, the big bucks in your area are bedded down an hour before light in the morning and won’t expose themselves until it’s too dark to shoot. They didn’t reach their 3rd set of antlers by being careless. That is until the pre-rut.

The pre-rut, which starts generally around halloween in most regions, is when they start to think with something other than their brain. This is when you want to put your time into sitting on stand. And not just the morning and evening hunts but preferably midday from 11 am to 2 pm.

Here’s why. In areas of even moderate hunting pressure, mature bucks have patterned hunters better than the other way around. That’s why they bed down before the hunters arrive and don’t go out to feed until after dark. However, they also know when hunters quit hunting in the morning around 10 am. and when they go back to their stands around 3 pm. That’s why big bucks will move within areas of cover between 11 and 2.

Many hunters have a hard time believing bowhunting whitetail tips like this because these bucks prefer to move within cover, so this activity goes unnoticed to most hunters.

So this year, take a morning during the pre-rut and climb into your stand around 9:45 and sit until 2:30. As long as you’re not on a field edge or in an open woods, but rather between a couple bedding areas with good cover, you will increase your odds at a mature buck. After all, if you go bowhunting whitetail like everyone else, you’ll get results like everyone else.

So go fishing during the October lull is a great way to keep you from over-hunting your area until the pre-rut kicks in.

Do you already know what treestand you’ll be in opening morning or the first weekend? Hopefully you have a small secret deer food plot that is being visited everyday by a deer you’re willing to shoot.

Before you go marching out to your spot before first light, I want to pass along a couple huge hunting guides.

If your stand is near the edge of a short crop field or small food plot, there is a good chance that deer will be there feeding before they go bed down for the day. The last thing you want to do is scare them away by approaching and climbing into your stand. Don’t alert deer especially, mature bucks, to the fact it’s hunting season. You may never see that buck for the rest of the season!

Instead, hunt a different spot away from short crop fields in the morning and save these field edges for the afternoon hunt when the deer will be in heavy cover when you arrive. If you don’t have another stand site available, then go fishing or go to work in the morning and only hunt that spot at night. Many hunters never even give this a thought and then wonder where all the deer went.

The second of today’s bowhunting tips is that the first couple days of the season are usually pretty good for getting an opportunity at mature bucks before they go nocturnal. This means don’t shoot the first 1 1/2 year old buck that walks by just so you can say “I got my buck.”

In order to consistently shoot mature bucks, you have to be willing to let the small ones walk. Look for more bow hunting deer tips as the season moves along.

Feel free to share your setup below and whether you have a deer food plot bringing em in this year.

Good Hunting!

Randy

The most popular way to find the answers to some of these questions is to use a digital trail camera. But that means you have to check on your camera and pull the SD card to retrieve the pictures. Everytime you do this you leave your scent behind and possibly alert deer to the fact that this spot is not a human-free zone. Where I hunt in Michigan, this is very risky. Mature bucks here will not tolerate human intrusion. Hunting or just scouting, they don’t know the difference. And you still don’t get all the answers to the questions above.

There is another option if you have a food plot or hunting spot that is within  200 yards or so from your house or building. You can use a surveillance video cam and wire it right into your PC or a surveillance DVR. This way you can view and record all the activity in your deer food plot 24/7. If you’re gone for a few days, you can come back to view it all in a matter of minutes.

Even set it up so you can view it LIVE from any computer with an internet connection!

Very Cool.

Check out the video below. Turn up the volume because I’m talking quietly since there is a bedding area within 80 yards of me. Shhhh.

Feel free to leave your comments below.