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Depending on where you live or hunt, the chances are pretty good that your duck season is just about over. And because it’s late in the season, there’s a good chance that the ducks you are hunting are a bit call shy. After all, they have been called to, good and bad, for hundreds, if not thousands of miles along their annual migration south. If you follow social media, you are seeing photos of successful hunts. So what are those guys doing that you might not be doing? Here are a few late season

Sea duck hunting is a sport of extremes. The action can be hot and prolonged but the temperatures are often cold, as in northern Saskatchewan deer hunting or sub-arctic polar bear hunting cold. Rather than the local marsh or pond, you’re on the open ocean, a proposition that presents its fair share of potential pitfalls even in mild conditions, but especially when winter winds whip waves to a froth. Heavy layers of clothing help fight the cold but significantly restrict movement. It’s a true

Many gamekeepers try to take a holistic approach to our properties, wildlife management and the arrangement of habitats we all strive to improve. In the upper Great Plains that I consider to be “my neck of the woods,” the single most limiting factor is often cover. Since the late 1800s when settlers first homesteaded the great prairie, the horse-drawn moldboard plow and generations of later farming practices all but wiped out what once was a sea of tall and short- prairie grass from central

The more you know about whitetail behavior, the better your odds of reducing one to possession. Included in that behavior is the local whitetails’ social structure, not only how males and females, young and old interact, but also how those interactions change throughout the year. Many a novice hunter sees a bachelor group of bucks feeding on a field edge, and then returns a month later expecting them to waltz past his stand at sunset, only to be sadly disappointed. What follows is a general

If you’ve spent much time chasing ducks near the end of the season, you’ve probably experienced call shy and blind shy birds. Without question, your calling can be an important part of a successful morning, but your setup may actually be more important than the calling. Here’s what you need to know. It doesn’t matter how good a caller you are, if your setup (blind, decoys, motion, etc.) aren’t right, all the good calling in the world won’t help you get ducks in close. You will find that this is

Managing duck Impoundments requires a year-round cycle of monitoring, with the primary goal of growing a food crop and then flooding it. The fastest way to get ready to plant after duck season is to drain all the water from the impoundment, usually beginning on the first day after duck season ends. The process of draining takes time, because the wet ground will also need time to dry out before any kind of equipment can operate in the impoundment. However, anyone watching an impoundment after the

We’ve all heard statements like, “A whitetail ‘lives’ by its nose.” It’s true! To be able to identify another deer or the threat of a human or other predator from just a miniscule, molecular whiff of odor would probably make most humans freak out. The olfactory portion of a whitetail’s brain is said to be approximately 1,000 times larger than a human’s! That’s difficult for most humans to even comprehend. So, knowing that a whitetail's number one guard is its extremely responsive sense of smell

The November rut, the annual breeding season for whitetail deer, is a highly anticipated time for hunters. It's when mature bucks are on the move, actively pursuing does for breeding. Traditionally, most hunters focus their efforts on the golden hours of dawn and dusk. However, a fascinating and often overlooked aspect of this period could be a game-changer for your hunting success. That aspect I am referring to is mature buck activity during the midday hours. During my "rutcation" weekday

Oh, sweet November! For deer hunters, the month of November is what we have spent the entire year waiting for. The month of November is primarily the time in most regions that the whitetail deer have their breeding season or what is more commonly known as the rut. The rut is a particular time of year when deer, more specifically bucks, fall out of their everyday routine. During this time, a buck's travel routes or daily patterns are unpredictable, leaving deer hunters on the edge of their seat

The diverse flora of North American provides land managers with a variety of options for growing hard mast producing species. While often attention is placed on selecting red or white oaks that are appropriate for different sites and soils, it is important to recognize that there are other suitable hardwoods available. Sweet pecan is an important hardwood species that provides unique foraging opportunities for deer, squirrels and other species. Because of the widespread use of pecan in nut crop