Hunting and Fishing News Blog Articles

My first priority for a broadhead relates to the the CUT the broadhead produces on the Gobblers I hunt.

A broadhead’s cut is critical. Of course, I want a broadhead that creates a lethal cut. But also, I want a generous cut. I think Big or Very Big is good, and definitely on a wild turkey. A wound from one of those nice flying super small cut broadheads can easily get plugged up with a turkey’s body feathers. if your gobbler flies away you’ll appreciate some blood spots to follow.

How well do your arrows fly with the broadhead on?

You want your arrows to fly smoothly with the broadheads on. Shoot a couple at 10 yards and also at 60-80 yards. Don’t worry about where they hit, you’re looking for smooth arrow flight. Wobbles and pitching up and down are no good. If your arrow wobbles or pitches get a different broadhead.

Then test two arrows, one with your broadhead and one with a field point. And be sure both the broadhead and field point hit alike. Shoot the arrows together and shoot 6 sets. If they fly poorly or do not group tightly get a different broadhead.

How do your arrows group?

Grouping is good. Anything else is unacceptable.

Is the broadhead’s penetration adequate?

Unlike in hunting deer, getting complete penetration isn’t your goal. An accurate shot in the vitals, smooth arrow flight and a big cut are your goals.

By: Tracy Breen

When bowhunting, it is typically the first shot that counts. On rare occasions, hunters might get a second shot or even a third but 99.9% of the time the first shot is the money shot. Unfortunately, many bowhunters practice as if the sixth or seventh shot is the one that counts. How many times have we said to our friends… or have our friends said to us when practicing for the season, “Well, that was a bad shot but I am just getting warmed up?!”

With only days before archery season officially kicks off in many states, I challenge everyone to practice like the only shot that counts is the first one. To increase the odds of my first shot hitting where I am aiming, I do a few things to prepare myself. I weigh all of my arrows that I intend to hunt with and make sure that when they are equipped with a broadhead, they all weigh within a few grains of each other. I spin test every arrow on a Pine Ridge Archery Arrow Inspector to make sure my arrows are flying true.

I don’t want inconsistent arrows in my quiver because they might not all fly the same. I always have a routine that I force myself to go through before taking a shot to make sure everything is in place so I am calm and ready to execute the money shot.

To up the ante when you are about to shoot your first arrow of the day, have a few friends or family members stand around and hassle you. This will get your blood pressure up and force you to concentrate.

Each Winter and Spring of the year is special. I always look forward to it. Alot is going on in terms of deer and wild turkey,. Deer wise the bucks don’t shed their velvet until late March and in April. Our deer season ends on the first Sunday in January. Since I live adjacent to the 1,ooo acre property that myself and 7 friends lease to bowhunt on, and it has good populations of whitetail deer, Rio Grande wild turkeys and wild hogs, it’s perfect for my purposes.

I always look forward to watching and taking pictures of bucks, does and fawns. Plus, since I’m regularly in the woods anyway I scout for Wild Turkeys.

Fencelines are good areas to see wild turkeys, both hens as well as Jakes and Gobblers, particularly during the day when they are on the move foraging for food.

The 2 pictures below are from a nearby 40 acre field. That fenceline I mentioned is that fenceline in the picture and it runs 2 miles straight to the river that borders the lease on portions of the north and west sides of our property. There are several places along the river with mature, tall trees where turkeys frequently roost, so the wild turkeys that want to go east or north just fly down from their roost and follow the fence.

These pictures were taken on two different days.

In the l mid 1990’s I started Bowhunting.net and one of the new people I met was Jay Liechty the founder of Grim Reaper Broadheads. During the years between then and now Jay and I attended some of the same trade shows, bowhunted and attended business meetings at Writers Camps for the archery and bowhunting industries. Jay Liechty is definitely one of the good guys.

I just now finished watching a Youtube video from Lancaster Archery Supply where Josh from Lancaster interviews Jay Liechty. Jay talks about how he got the inspiration for starting up Grim Reaper Broadheads and how it’s grown and become one of the top broadhead companies in the archery industry.

By Allison Jasper of Bowhunting360

Could I actually shoot at a deer? I’ll own it: I was super nervous the first time I went bowhunting.

Out of respect for the animals, I wanted to be sure my one shot would be ethical and accurate. My first bowhunt came several years after I began shooting archery. I was well-practiced and I had also passed my bowhunter education course. But, I still had questions, and was hesitant to ask them.

I wanted to know: what to wear, what to pack, and what to do in the woods. Would I be able to climb a tree? How would I feel being out in the woods with no other humans closeby? Fortunately, my first bowhunts were an amazing experience, and I’m happy to share what I learned.

What Do I Wear?

People wear different things when bowhunting, but let the weather guide your choices. If you feel cold when first stepping outside, you’ll soon freeze while sitting in a ground blind or tree stand. Do yourself a big favor: Shop for boots and clothes that match the climate where you hunt.

A Beginners Guide to Shed Hunting

Pursuit of naturally shed antlers (by antler-bearing animals like elk, moose, caribou, and deer) is known as “shed hunting”. Shed hunting is quickly gaining popularity. It is an excuse to scout new hunting grounds as well as a way to nurture those hunting urges. This pastime hobby dates back to prehistoric times but still remains relevant today — for good reasons.

Some simply enjoy the reward of admiring a fresh antler, while others are strategically tracking their bucks’ behavior and health. Antlers can also be used for decoration, crafts, or dog chew toys. Dedicated bowhunters may use this as an opportunity to find new hunting terrain and become familiar with the bucks in the area. Shed hunting can become a fun as well as a free hobby with a few . Here are some shed hunting tips.

When to Shed Hunt

In early spring, bucks begin to grow velvet antlers that protrude from pedicles. In mid-August to late September, the bucks start shedding the velvet from their antlers due to increased levels of testosterone before mating. In late winter when the harshest weather and rut is over, bucks will shed their antlers. Shed antlers can be considered a renewable resource, and they are good identifiers of the buck’s health.

The window that bucks lose their antlers varies depending on location, environmental conditions, and the age of the animal. Shedding has a direct link to testosterone in the buck, so more dominant bucks will shed earlier than the smaller bucks that don’t expend their testosterone.

Is there a species more exciting to hunt than an ol’ loudmouth gobbler? (Hint: No. There isn’t.)

Harvesting a spring long beard is a thrilling experience and one worthy of passing along to the next generation. It’s also a great way to bond with the young ones in your family and create memories with them that will last a lifetime, not to mention carrying on this tradition ensures the survival and viability of the sport of turkey hunting for years to come.

Here are five helpful tips for passing on turkey hunting to the next generation.

1) Teach Successful Scouting

Scouting before your hunt ensures your young partner will actually see and hear turkeys. Spending hours in the turkey woods without seeing or hearing turkeys can lead to frustration, boredom and discouragement if you’re not used to the hunt. Scouting ensures a more enjoyable and engaging experience for your young hunter.

Grand National Champion Caller Scott Ellis understands Turkey Hunting and is one of the leading turkey callers in the world. In this video Scott explains proper use of the all important Yelp and Cluck calls. You’re just one click away from learning how to be a better turkey caller as well as becoming a more effective wild turkey hunter.

You Will Need The Following:

FIRST

This recipe is excellent for Venison, Wild Turkey and Chicken. Begin by cutting the meat into cubes. Next marinate the venison or wild turkey cube steaks in your refrigerator overnight. Afterward grill the cube steaks on a grill.

Chris Parish begins by showing you how to produce the calls that will entice a gobbler on his morning roost by tweaking its interest and luring him over to your position once he is on the ground. In this instructional, how-to mouth call video, 14x National Turkey Calling Champion Chris Parrish helps turkey hunters understand when and how to call for gobblers in the Spring. Learn from the best and listen as a Knight & Hale expert demonstrates proper calling techniques on a diaphragm (mouth) Call. These are the best turkey calling tips for intermediate turkey hunters.

Every year, millions of hunters, young and old, take to the woods to hunt deer and other wild game. Many of these hunters will hunt from some type of elevated treestand. It should be no surprise that there are hundreds of injuries reported in every state, yearly, from treestand falls. Unfortunately for some these falls are fatal!

During a recent New York hunting season 5 hunters lost their lives due to falling out of their treestands. These reports should make all hunters think twice before they climb into a tree without a safety device. There are some great products out there today that hunters can purchase. Lifelines, Safety Harnesses, and my favorite: The Treestand Wingman!

The first safety device I recommend is a hunting safety harness such as the Hunter Safety System. Many different companies have devoted time and efforts to creating simple, easy to use, comfortable hunter safety harnesses. Hunter Safety System has a variety of harnesses to choose from and they are all easy to use. Many hunters think that falling will never happen to them and they will not spend the money to keep themselves safe. This is a big mistake! Educating hunters about the chances of falling from a stand is paramount. Hunters continue to ignore the simple step of wearing a safety harness. As hunters we could cut the amount of treestand accidents greatly if they would purchase and correctly use the harness.

Many hunters I know do wear a safety harness and I applaud them for thinking about their safety. But just wearing the harness doesn’t guarantee they will be safe. Statistics tell us that the majority of accidents happen while hunters are getting into and out of the stand. If you are wearing a harness but don’t hook it up until you get into your stand you are defeating the purpose of even having it on.

Lifelines are the next safety device I recommend for your safety. Lifelines attach to the tree at the top and at the bottom. Each lifeline comes with a hook-up system so you can easily attach your harness to the lifeline before you begin to climb the tree. If you should happen to slip at any time the lifeline will catch you and save you from hitting the ground. The lifeline and safety harness are a great combination because you are connected to the tree at all times. The only negative side of a lifeline is that you might not be able to get back to your treestand or ladder easily. If this occurs you can suffer from suspension trauma and die! So even a hunter is using both of these safety devices there is still a small chance for serious injury or death.

Our 2022 Wild Turkey hunting seasons are starting up! In the wild turkey woods being prepared is q key factor in any turkey hunter’s success in tagging a gobbler. The checklist below is an important list of items to have in your your turkey vest or backpack.

Let us and your fellow turkey hunters know in the comment section below what else is on your turkey hunting checklist for this spring.

Good luck to all turkey hunters out there!

At a young age my Uncle Russ introduced me to archery. Uncle Russ owned a store in our home town and he made a place in the back of his store where my cousin and I could shoot our recurve bows. My cousin and I spent many hours making our targets out of cardboard boxes and shooting them. I loved shooting bows from the very start.

After many years of struggling to get better with my recurve I finally realized I was left eye dominant and needed to start shooting left handed. It was hard to find a left handed bow so I would just shoot a right handed bow, left handed. I continued to do this until my early 20’s when I found a steal of a deal on a left handed Bear compound bow. When I first got that Bear bow I shot fingers and had to practice every day to gain confidence in my ability to shoot at a small target.

By the fall of 1997, I was confident in my ability to consistently shoot at a target under 20 yards. I hunted a few years with that set up but never had the opportunity to harvest a deer. So in 1999, I purchased a left handed Jennings Buckmaster compound bow and a new release. Right away I noticed the difference on how well I could shoot and how much more accurate I was out to 40 yards. With my confidence at a new high I looked forward to the opening of archery season.

Sponsored by: Grim Reaper Broadheads

Bowhunting Wild Turkeys 2022 | Scouting Deer | Videos |

Wild Turkeys offer a unique hunt that gives you a challenge no other wild game can match.

A wild turkey’s main defenses are its eyesight and their knowledge of the area where they live. So hunting them from the ground with a bow requires you to get really close to them — which begins with finding where they spend their time during the daylight.

Scouting For Gobblers

Researching, planning and pre-hunt scouting are number #1 on your Turkey Hunting To-Do List. Learning what wild turkey gobblers and hens are doing during your State’s Spring Turkey Season is essential, because that’s what helps you find locations where you can position yourself to intercept gobblers.

A bowhunter must find the wild turkeys exact travel routes, and then pick areas that offer concealment, and enough room to draw their bow. That means scouting as much as you can before the season. You want to learn how the wild turkeys in your area move around in your landscape.

Using Game-Cameras can support and supplement your scouting as well as verifying that wild turkeys are in the area. Choose spots with good cover, and plan how you can execute your hunts. Beginning with hunting roost areas in the morning, locating daytime activity areas and lastly finding night time roosts. And always ask yourself how you’ll reach a promising area without spooking turkeys.

I spent the first two hours of this morning (Tuesday, March 1) in below freezing weather, binoculars in hand, watching for whatever might be in the nearby 20 acre field as well as along the field’s wooded edge; a dense group of elm, live oak and cedar trees surrounding the field. Deer season is exactly 2 months gone so you might expect that the bucks have already shed their antlers and there would be nothing but flat heads walking around. But…

As daylight came trickling in the first deer I saw was walking along inside the edge of the woods to the north. It was over 100 yards away so I glassed it … and saw a nice buck with a first year 8-point rack. Just then two mature does strolled into view to my left. The young buck noticed them and immediately trotted toward them. Both does veered off into the woods and the buck followed.

I crouched down and eased over to a place I previously fixed up to watch deer from. And it turned out there was some good watching to be done. A minute later I heard a crash and two bucks loudly came into view in the woods to my left; a nice 8 or 10 pointer was fighting hard to keep from getting beat to heck by a taller, longer and heavier buck. This bigger, more mature buck had it all; body length and weight, long tines, main beam width and he was in full attack mode and ready to fiercely kick some butt. He gouged and slammed the other buck’s head and neck. Wham! The big boy knocked the lesser off his feet. And when the lesser regained his footing he ran for it.

I didn’t have my Sony camera and they were not in good iPhone range and unfortunately I didn’t get pictures.. (I’ll get the Sony charged up this afternoon and be ready to zoom the action when needed. Ok, let’s go back to talking about when bucks shed their antlers.

Frankly, I don’t know if the bucks have shed their 2021 antlers where you live. However I do know the answer to that question … where I live. And that puts the story on the table, “It’s all about the weather and “Location, Location. Location”.  Simply put, in the northern United States bucks shed their antlers during earlier months than the states further south.

Do you know what to do once your big game animal is recovered?

Mistakes Turkey Hunters Make

When a wild turkey gobbler eludes us, it can be because of something we did, knowingly or unknowingly, that gave him the advantage. Here are some turkey hunting goof-ups you want to avoid that will give you a better chance of putting your turkey tag on a gobbler this season!

1. Returning to the Same Gobbler Every Morning
It’s for sure tempting; you know that he’s there, you know he’s probably going to gobble and you know what he’s going to do after he flys down off the roost. The thing is, you’ve been there and watched this show a few days in a row, and you haven’t even been close to getting him in your sights. You need to let this relationship cool for a few days, maybe longer.

Let this wild turkey gobbler and yourself a break (maybe some of his girlfriends will sneak off and leave him). After a week or so, you can show up refreshed and ready to take up the battle one more time. Hunting the same gobbler every day can be a problem and the season is too short for that.

Strikeout and find a new gobbler to talk to. Who knows, you may find a hot two-year-old that comes running in when you cluck one time.

2. Worrying About Your Calling
So you can’t use turkey calls like Ben Lee or Ray Eye, that’s ok. All that’s required to call in a gobbler is the ability to make a reasonable imitation of a hen yelp—that’s it. Sure, it’s nice to make fancy purrs, cackles, and clucks — and they can help for drawing in a stubborn tom—but the fact is, if a gobbler is ready to respond to a call and approach what he thinks is a hen, it doesn’t take calling-contest-level turkey talk to fool him. If he gobbles, answer with a few yelps; if he gobbles back at you, yelp again, then shut up and be ready. Many times this may be all it takes.

A local rancher came into our small town’s cafe and excitedly told his domino playing buddies about his encounter with a mountain lion the night before. His bull was sick and the vet had moved it to a corral near the ranch house so it could be checked on easier.  After dark the rancher heard the bull bellowing loudly and  he walked to the corral to make sure the bull was ok. When he entered the corral and approached the bull he noticed blood and cuts on its neck.

Suddenly a sizeable animal bolted out of the shadows and over the top of the corral and hurried away. It was a mountain lion. And in the morning the bull had been clawed viciously and eaten on … and it was stone dead

Mountain lions are commonly called cougars or pumas. They are one of North America’s most reclusive predators, and they are proverbial killing machines. And in some parts of the U.S. they are are a problem.

Days before leaving for college an Idaho college student was bowhunting whitetails on opening day of  archery season. He’d patterned a nice whitetail buck and was watching it in a field where he was waiting in ambush. Behind him, he heard a noise and thinking it was another deer, he turned; and saw a crouched mountain lion staring straight at him — the lion was only 14 feet away! With the small of the cougar’s back his only target, he quickly aimed and released his arrow. The lion jumped, turned and bounded away and dropped 80 yards away. Idaho Fish and Game cleared the incident as self-defense. The hunter didn’t get to keep the lion, but the event remains a lifetime memory.

Unlike many grizzly attacks where the bear is protecting a kill or its cubs, attacking mountain lions usually have one intention—to kill you. Young cougars, typically hungry males searching to establish a territory, are often the most aggressive. Old, injured, malnourished lions driven by hunger also have been known to become aggressive. Young children or small adults are the most vulnerable to wild animal attacks.

CLICK HERE to go to video and see Tim Wells bowhunt for an Alaskan Black bear and an Inland Grizzly Bear.

It’s your first gobbler! You admire his plumage, spurs, beard and fan. You pick him up, throw him over your shoulder and on the walk back to your truck, it hits you—now what?

You spent the time learning how to use turkey calls, and locating some wild turkeys, and then shooting your first gobbler.

But now you have no idea what to do with him!

You have a number of options once you shoot your wild turkey, including cleaning and preparing him for eating, making a turkey cape or getting him ready for the taxidermist.

“The instructions and tips we’ve collected will help you whether you’re preparing your turkey for the trophy room or the table,” said Rob Keck, CEO of the National Wild Turkey Federation.