Pine Ridge Archery — News
Bow Hunting The Whitetail Rut
For most deer hunters, the whitetail rut is the stretch of the season that is looked forward to the most. Bucks are searching for does to breed and the search can turn into a chase in the blink of an eye. It is a time when truly anything can happen, and that “buck of a lifetime” could step out at any moment. Whether you are hunting with a rifle or a bow, you can witness the amazing rutting activity that takes place during this time of the season. However, bow hunting calls for being in a significantly closer range than rifle hunting to have a shot opportunity. That closer proximity is what makes bow hunting so special.In early November of this season, I had an unforgettable hunting experience that reminded me of what really makes bow hunting during the rut so remarkable. It was a brisk morning with the temperature in the low thirties, slight frost on the ground, and little to no wind. I could not have asked for better conditions to climb up into a tree stand for a hunt. At daybreak I could already hear some deer up and moving as the leaves were crunching beneath their feet. Not long after that a young eight pointer came cruising in at about thirty yards out, which was a good indication of how the rest of the morning would unfold.
Before I knew it, I was in the middle of a whirlwind of deer movement. Doe family groups, young bucks, and a mix of a few mature bucks were all moving within my view from the tree stand. Some were moving up to fifty yards out and some were passing through right beneath me. It seemed as if I was surrounded at times. Several of the bucks throughout the morning were grunting and chasing does in several different directions. The rut was most definitely in full swing. I had my bow ready and was expecting to have a shot opportunity at a mature buck at any time with the kind of activity I was seeing.
A bit after nine o’clock I could see some movement in the overgrown field to my left. The field was grown up to the point where I could only see a large set of antlers slowly making its way through the overgrowth. I quickly grabbed my bow and pulled out my grunt call hoping to lure him in close enough for a clear shot. I gave one quick grunt and after a few seconds he responded with an aggressive snort-wheeze. However, he wasn’t moving a muscle. I let out another grunt anticipating that this time it would get him moving in my direction. Again, he responded with a snort-wheeze and began leaving a rub on a tree close to him. As he still was not moving, I gave him one more hopeful grunt. Unfortunately, he responded with one last snort-wheeze and headed off in another direction. Although I didn’t get a shot opportunity at that particular mature buck, the close interaction I had with him made it one of the most memorable hunts I have ever had.
Being up close and personal with these animals is one of the reasons I love bow hunting so much. You get to see and hear things out in God’s creation that you never would otherwise, and it always keeps you coming back for more. It really makes you appreciate and respect the animal that you are hunting, especially when it all comes together, and you are able to harvest the mature buck that you’ve been after.
Written By: Tate Carter
Top 3 Archery Christmas Gifts For 2022
Christmas is almost here, and you may be looking for that gift for your archer to find under the tree for that next time they head out to the woods or range. Most Bowhunters have the latest & greatest gear as it gets released throughout the year. However there are a few items we offer here at Pine Ridge Archery that may be missing from their arsenal of gear to help them be a little more efficient the next time they hit the field.ANTELOPE ON A BUDGET
When most people think about going on a bowhunting trip, the first thing that they think of is going after whitetails. Whitetails are the most sought after game animal in the world so it isn’t a surprise that most bowhunters would want to pursue big bucks. What most people don’t realize is that the success rate when bowhunting with a whitetail outfitter is only about 30%. If you want to save up your money and go on an adventure, there are several game animals that offer a high success rate and a less expensive price. One of my favorites is the antelope. Antelope hunting doesn’t cost much money and the odds of success are extremely high. Most bowhunters who hunt antelope out west with an outfitter have a shot opportunity. This fall I hunted with Trujillo Creek Outfitters in Southern Colorado. They offer a Trespass hunt where you are dropped off on private land each day to hunt. You hunt in a comfortable ground blind that sits on a waterhole. A waterhole hunt is fairly easy and the success rate is extremely high. The cost of a trip like this is often $2,000 or less.
On top of having a really good opportunity of tagging an animal, you get to experience a different part of the country. I brought my family on my Colorado antelope hunt. While I hunted, they got to experience all the west has to offer. From visiting tourist towns to swimming in the pool at the La Quinta hotel, my hunt was more than a hunt; it was a family vacation. It is hard to turn a guided whitetail hunt into a family vacation unless the entire family is hunting.
Going on a bucket list hunt that brings you to an area of the country you have never seen and being successful on top of it is hard to put a price tag on. The cool thing is the price tag on an antelope hunt is inexpensive.... and when ground into burger, antelope makes great table fare.
On a side note, shooting a bow at extreme ranges when getting ready for an antelope hunt is necessary. The vitals on an antelope are fairly small and if the waterhole hunting doesn’t work out, long shots are the norm. In preparation for my hunt, I regularly shot at 60 and 70 yards. When shooting at these distances, having a fine tuned setup is a necessity. I used a Pine Ridge Archery Nitro Peep and a Nitro Stabilizer.
Antelope are cool looking critters that inhabit an awesome landscape. Do yourself a favor and try antelope hunting next fall.
BY TRACY BREEN
About the author: Tracy Breen is a full time outdoor writer, consultant and game dinner speaker who often discuss how he overcomes cerebral palsy. Learn more about him at www.tracybreen.com
JUST RELAX
Whether you are new to archery or you are a veteran, one thing many of us struggle with is relaxing before, during, and after the shot. Many bowhunters love to have a death grip on the bow while they are shooting. Many believe if they want to keep their bow steady, they need to grip it tightly. The truth is the tighter the grip on the bow, the greater chance there is of making a bad shot. Why? Because when the bow is tightly gripped, we often move our bow arm upon the release of the arrow. The lack of follow through results in not hitting the mark. A relaxed grip often results in hitting the mark. When the bow arm is relaxed and you aim and shoot, the bow doesn’t jerk or move around much. It basically stays in about the same place as when you shot. Relaxed form and shooting is how the professionals shoot. To shoot with a relaxed bow hand, you need a wrist sling. A wrist sling helps support the bow and keep your hand where it needs to be to make a good shot. Pine Ridge Archery offers a wide variety of wrist slings including the Nitro Wrist Sling and the Kwik Sling. When adjusting your sling, make sure it is snug around your wrist so it can help support the bow when you are shooting so a good shot is made. A simple wrist sling can really help shrink arrow groups at short distances and extreme distances.
When talking about shooting with a relaxed bow hand, it is also important to discuss your trigger hand. Many bowhunters, especially when in high pressure situations, tend to jerk the release and punch the trigger when shooting. This can result in a loss of accuracy. Any retired military sniper will tell you that if you want to hit the mark every time, you have to gently squeeze the trigger, not punch it. When choosing a release, make sure you buy one that has an adjustable trigger so it can be adjusted to be a smooth trigger that doesn’t take much pull to go off. Teach yourself to slowly squeeze the trigger. When the arrow gets released, it should be a surprise. In order for it to be a surprise, you need to learn to slowly pull the trigger.
Learning how to relax the trigger hand and the bow hand when shooting can greatly shrink your arrow groups.
BY TRACY BREEN
About the author: Tracy Breen is a full time outdoor writer, consultant and game dinner speaker who often discuss how he overcomes cerebral palsy. Learn more about him at www.tracybreen.com
BIG THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
If you are into long range shooting one way to ensure you can split hairs at 60 yards and beyond is to shoot an arrow equipped with Nitro Vanes and a compact broadhead. A small broadhead coupled with a Nitro Vane is a deadly combination that can put more meat in the freezer and antlers on the wall. below are a few of the compact broadheads on the market that fly great and bring down bucks quickly.FALL TURKEY HUNTING WITH STICK AND STRING
When people think about hunting turkeys, most people think about hunting them in the spring. If you are a hardcore bowhunter, you should also think about hunting them in the fall. There are a many reasons to hunt them in the fall. For starters, very few hunters hunt deer all day.SUBURBIA MONSTERS - A BOWHUNTER'S DREAM
When most bowhunters dream of big bucks, they think of hunting on some large track of land in Illinois, Kansas or Iowa. Those places produce monster bucks every year but they are not the only place to find a big buck. In fact, more and more large bucks are being found on small parcels of woods tucked in behind a subdivision or next to a shopping mall than ever before. Finding big bucks on a small parcel of land isn’t rocket science but the truth is it requires a lot of hard work, just like killing big bucks on large parcels is a lot of work. Suburbia bucks beat to a different drum than big woods bucks. One guy who knows more about suburbia bucks than most is Steve Esker from Ohio. Esker has been featured in many magazines because he killed a 216-inch buck on a small parcel back in 2009. Since he killed that buck, he has tagged several big bucks... one with a higher score than the 2009 buck. Esker has killed over a dozen bucks that score more that 150 and most of them have been killed in suburbia, not on a large farm somewhere. “Killing big bucks on small parcels of land can be done, but it requires a lot of work,” Esker said. “What I have discovered over the years is just because a buck lived near a housing development does not mean that he is trapped. I have scouting camera pictures of a monster buck one night on a small parcel of land and a picture of the same buck a few days later several miles away. Suburbia bucks can cover a lot of ground just like big woods bucks.” One of the differences between the two bucks is many of the suburbia bucks live to a ripe old age so they sport large racks.
Killing suburbia bucks starts with having permission to hunt private land. “I recently killed a buck on 2-1/2 acres that scored over 170,” Esker said. “I get permission to hunt these small pieces of land by knocking on a lot of doors and asking for permission. Many people say no at first,but over time say yes. I always look professional when I ask for permission and am very polite. I have asked permission on the same piece of land three times before getting permission but eventually many people eventually say yes because I am always polite and never look like I just crawled out from under a car.”
Esker has dozens of small parcels that he hunts on; many of them are ten or twenty acres. Some are larger; some smaller. His key to finding the needle in the hay stack on those pieces of land is scouting cameras. “I hang many scouting cameras to try to pattern suburbia bucks. Most suburbia bucks spend the daylight hours bedded down and spend the few of daylight hours they are up and moving transitioning between feeding areas and bedding areas. I try to locate these transition areas where they travel. I try to find where bucks live and bed,” Esker explained. In 2010, Esker found a 217-7/8” buck living in a 30-acre tree nursery that had been abandoned. The buck would rarely leave the overgrown nursery during daylight hours. Esker had scouting camera pics that showed the buck repeatedly in the same area. “Because this buck never left the overgrown trees during daylight, I had to figure out a way to kill him in the nursery. It was really tough because there weren’t many big trees to hang a stand. The trees were all overgrown so I had to crawl in to hunt the area. I ended up putting my treestand in a young oak 15 feet off the ground. I eventually killed that buck.” The buck spent most of his life in the nursery that had housing developments around it.
Another thing Esker has noticed when hunting suburbia deer is that they can tell the difference between a person mowing the grass and a hunter. “These bucks are acclimated to hearing, seeing and smelling people but they get edgy, just like any other deer when they feel hunting pressure.” Esker said. “Deer will be bedded down and watch a person blowing leaves or mowing the lawn a short distance away and not have a problem with it but the moment a guy in camo comes walking into the woods, they leave. I have entered the woods with a leaf blower in my hand just to outsmart deer before. Suburbia bucks are smart; just like bucks that live in large sections of woods.”
You might think that suburbia bucks don’t care about human odor because they smell it all the time, but that is not the case at all. “I always hunt the wind. The deer really get spooky when they come in to a setup and smell human odor.” Just like when hunting big woods, Esker says the more hunting locations you have, the better so you have several backup plans. When looking for a new hunting location, Esker leaves no stone unturned and has learned over the years a monster buck can live almost anywhere. “There is one spot my brother and I hunt that the land owner has a gazebo that the deer are comfortable with. We actually put a popup blind right in the middle of the gazebo and hunt. We have killed a lot of deer out of that blind.”
The best time to kill a suburbia buck is between the middle of October to the first week of November. “I have the best of luck around the middle of October through the beginning of November because that is when the bucks are starting to move around during daylight.” Esker has also killed bucks early in the season. “Early in the season can be good as well because the bucks still have a pattern but many of these bucks only move first thing in the morning and just before dark in the evening. I like to hunt when the bucks start thinking about the does. To be successful, I must do everything right from worry about scent to hanging my stand in the right location. Every little detail must be thought out.”
One thing is certain: getting permission to hunt farms and large parcels of ground is getting extremely difficult. If you want to tag a big buck but don’t have deep pockets, consider hunting in suburbia. Like Esker says, it isn’t a cake walk but with a little hard work, you might kill a monster right behind the sand box.
BY TRACY BREEN
About the author: Tracy Breen is a full time outdoor writer, consultant and game dinner speaker who often discuss how he overcomes cerebral palsy. Learn more about him at www.tracybreen.com
BUILDING AN EDGE - FOOD PLOT SECRETS
Food Plots are more popular than ever before. Almost every serious land owner in America who hunts deer plants food plots. There are a variety of reasons hunters love planting food plots. For starters, food plots provide deer with a quality food source. Providing a quality food source on a piece of property keeps the deer on a piece of property and gives them the nutrition they need in the spring and summer when bucks are growing antlers and the does are lactating. Some food plots provide food into the fall and winter. As fall turns to winter, it is especially important to give deer a quality food source like a food plot because during the winter, finding food can be difficult for deer. If built right, food plots can provide more than just food for wildlife like deer. They can also provide cover. I recently interviewed Jason Lupardus, the NWTF Field Supervisor for the Midwest. He says research shows that food plots that offer field borders are even more attractive to deer and other wildlife than fields that go from a food source to hardwoods. “Food plots that have a transition that goes from food to cover to hardwoods is extremely attractive to wildlife and easy to create,” said Lupardus. “Instead of planting a crop all the way to the edge of a field, you stop a few rows shy of the woods. When this small area around a field or food plot doesn’t get planted with crops, it will return to native grasses. These grasses will often grow fairly tall which will provide cover for wildlife including deer, turkeys and other upland birds.” This buffer zone around a food plot gives does a place to have their fawns that is close to a food source yet gives the doe enough cover to hide her newborn. It is also a place for turkeys to nest and raise their poults. “Turkeys love to nest in the high borders around the edges of fields because they can nest without being seen by predators. When the eggs hatch, the high grasses offer security cover for the small poults. As spring turns to summer, this cover will be full of grasshoppers and other insects which provide the small turkeys with a high protein meal,” Lupardus noted. According to Lupardus, the first year that a field border is allowed to grow, wildlife, will quickly find it and use it. The second and third year the edge is provided becomes extremely beneficial to wildlife. “The second year, the border is often taller and thicker, providing even more cover for deer, turkeys and other game animals, giving them more security and in some cases, more food. For instance, ragweed often takes root and provides turkeys and other birds with plenty of food in the late summer and early fall.” Best of all, building a field border is free. Most food plot projects require time and money. Creating a field border doesn’t take much of either. You lose a few rows of crops which is the only drawback. Leave an edge this year and see what happens this fall.
BY TRACY BREEN www.tracybreen.com
Practice Makes Perfect
Fall is just around the corner. Many of us diehard bowhunters are shooting our bows daily. Most of us practice at 30, 40 or even 50 yards and feel like that is good enough. After all, most of us would never take that far of a shot in the woods. However, even if you never plan to take a shot at 60, 70 or 80 yards, learning how to hit a pie plate at those distances with an arrow can greatly increase your odds of killing a critter at 20 or 30 yards. For starters, if you can hit a pie plate at 60 or 70 yards, you have good form. If your form is off even a little bit at 60 or 70 yards, you will miss the pie plate every time. For example, torquing a bow is something all of us do from time to time. At 20 yards if you torque your bow slightly, you will never notice it because your arrow groups will still be small. At 70 yards if you torque your bow slightly, you will miss the pie plate by a mile. Perfecting your form at 70 yards will make 20-40 yard shot a piece of cake. As we all know, when your confidence is up, you will perform better. I will never take a 70-yard shot in the field but I do it all the time in my backyard. Another reason all of us should shoot at longer distances is because it will show us if we have any flaws in our equipment. Not every arrow in a dozen flies perfectly. If you shoot at long distances, the bad arrows will show themselves. I often mark every arrow in a new dozen and shoot at 60 or 70 yards. If an arrow consistently misses the mark at this range, chances are there is an imperfection in the arrow and I remove it from my quiver. At 60 or 70 yards, a vane that isn’t glued on perfectly, a broadhead that doesn’t weigh the same as the rest, or a nock that isn’t perfect is easy to spot. When I enter the woods, I want all my arrows to perform the same. Practicing at extreme distances allows me to easily weed out any bad arrows. I take my setup one step further. I spin test each arrow on a Pine Ridge Archery spin tester and weigh each broadhead I intend to hunt with. All my arrows and broadheads must weigh within a few grains of each other to make it in my quiver. To shoot consistently, my arrows must shoot the same. If you shoot with mechanical heads, make sure you practice with the practice head that comes with that broadhead. If you shoot fixed-blade heads, make sure you practice with a few of them so you know exactly how they shoot. Being accurate at 60 yards and beyond can take work, but it will also give you the confidence you need to be accurate in the field.
