Pinnacle Award Winner

Here I am with my Pinnacle Award for Outstanding Achievement. I won this award at the Professional Outdoor Media Association’s business conference in Knoxville, TN on March 21st.

POMA's Pinnacle Awards are the highest honor the organization can bestow upon its media members for their creative works. The Pinnacle Awards are presented by presenting partner Mossy Oak.

If you haven't got a copy, you can order one from Amazon.
Here's the link,

Grab your copy here

Thanks,
Jim

We’re Not Hunting on Television

Photo courtesy of Apple Creek Whitetails

 

 

We're not even living in a reality show either.

Outdoor Television has seduced us into believing that we only have to hunt like they do and we’ll be successful. Real hunts don’t take 30 minutes and big deer aren’t hiding behind every bush.

In real life little depends on what happens in the next ninety seconds. It takes more than 30 minutes to hunt a whitetail.

Real hunting is actually far better than it is on TV. It takes longer and the deer are harder to come by.

-Jim
Get the Book Here

Double your Efforts

Photo courtesy of Apple Creek Whitetails

 

It’s a matter of numbers only 1 out of 20 bucks will ever reach trophy status. Most areas just don’t contain enough deer to produce trophies year in and year out. Once the buck pool is drained in one area. It is time to increase and improve our hunting efforts.
If there’s a shortage of bucks in your area, means it is going to be rare to see big bucks.
What this tells me is that I need to double my efforts in scouting and locating new areas for big bucks.
-Jim
http://jimcollyer.com/

Edges

Whitetail deer like to travel edges. Most hunters recognize an edge as were timberline meets a crop field. While this is a great place to intercept a whitetail, there are a lot of edges that go unnoticed by hunters.

Fence rows, gullies, and even where a hillside week’s flatland are images recognized by the dear.

One of my favorite edges to hunt is at the base of a hill. Big bucks just seem to love to travel here.

-Jim

http://jimcollyer.com/

When Strategy Drowns a Hunt

Photo courtesy of Apple Creek Whitetails

 

 

I always enter the field with a game plan. I plan the hunt and hunt plan. But sometimes following a rigid game plan has cost me a buck.

My son and I have planned a two-man push on Thanksgiving morning. We passed five does on the way in to make the push. The rut was winding down and there had to be a buck on the does.

I decided to stick with the plan and to come back and hunt the doe group later in the day.

An hour later we heard a shot and another hunter had killed a big buck off the does.

The lesson was learned. Don’t be too rigid in your strategy that you overlook an opportunity right in front of you.

-Jim

Downwind of the Big Domino

Photo courtesy of Apple Creek Whitetails

 

 

I’ve never been a big fan of driving deer, probably because I always end up being a driver and never a stander.

The idea is not just to move deer, but to move deer to a particular location.

It’s a lot like playing dominoes. If you have everything lined up just right, you just have to push the first one over and the rest come crashing down.

When pushing deer, I keep my drivers 50 yards apart. The drivers are staggered to keep the deer moving in the direction we want. The driver furthest away from the stand starts first. Once the first driver is 50 yards into the timber or cornfield the second driver starts. Once a second driver is 50 yards in, the third driver starts and so on and so on.

This staggered movement is critical in pushing the deer towards a desired location.

After that, all you have to do is make sure your stander is well concealed and downwind of the big domino.

-Jim

http://jimcollyer.com/

Social Ranking Among Bucks

Editors note, Guest blogger, Jim Collyer has written a most insightful book, Buck Naked – The Straight Dope On Trophy Whitetails. It has been a good long time since I’ve read and digested something of this magnitude. It is fresh, free of the tired old anecdotes, straight forward and accurate. I would highly recommend it to anyone wishing for consistent success on trophy bucks; it’s that good! R.G. Bernier 

Here is an excerpt from a blog posted on www.bigwhitetail.wordpress.com

Social ranking among whitetail deer is not always based upon strength. Dominance is primarily determined by intimidation rather than brawn. Dominance is generally established well before the rut while the bucks are still in velvet. Body posturing and staring are ways bucks intimidate an opponent. If the dominant buck has the largest antlers in the herd it is merely a coincidence.

We’ve all seen dozens of articles written about hunting dominant bucks. We imagine the dominant or Alpha buck to have the largest antlers and to be superior both mentally and physically to all other members of the herd. This just isn’t true. The hunting industry produces at least a dozen dominant buck calls and dominant buck scent attractants. These are marketing strategies and have little to do with what’s going on in the woods.
All bucks are territorial. They mark these territories by rubbing trees, making ground scrapes, and pissing all over the place. However, big bucks don’t necessarily have the same territories. Rather their territory overlap, a buck might be an Alpha in part of his territory and a Beta in the rest.
You can read the complete post here http://bigwhitetail.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/social-ranking-among-bucks/

Jim