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Late-season scrapes and rubs
As we transition from the holiday season into the New Year, we deer hunters find ourselves entering the fourth quarter, so to speak, of the 2015/2016 season.[…]
Happy Trails
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Tracking the deer rut
Let’s dissect some ways to best exploit rutting buck movement. Here are six easily identifiable phases or stages. […]
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Analyzing buck movement – Trail cams provide all the information needed
Once again, that totally magic time of year for ardent deer hunters is upon us, when bucks throw caution to the wind and shift into a more-vulnerable state of mind.[…]
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My approach to camera surveillance
Comparing where we are these days regarding surveillance of whitetail deer with where things were back 15 to 20 years ago is somewhat like comparing a WWI biplane to a modern fighter jet.[…]
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Buck watch: How to properly set up a trail cam spread
September is finally here. It still feels like summer outside — and, man, has it been hot and humid over the last couple of months.[…]
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Unauthorized trespass
August is when I typically run through a checklist of things I consider important for all serious hunters to do or prepare for as the hunting season quickly approaches.[…]
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Panthers: Are they for real?
I always enjoy a good, spirited discussion about an interesting topic, and how much more interesting and controversial could a discussion be than one centered around the existence of large cats — panthers, mountain lions or maybe you prefer to call them cougars — in Mississippi and its neighboring states?[…]
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Legless reptiles
I still remember a certain evening bow hunt many years ago at a hunting property in Copiah County that I owned at the time.[…]
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We’ve come a long way
The 2015 spring turkey season was, as of this writing, a total bust for me, as I have been neck-deep in the moving process to a new house that the wife and I have been building and dealing with for some months now.[…]
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Unravelling a blood trail
One recent cold, damp January morning, as I sat in my ground blind watching and hoping for a mature late-season buck, my cell phone in the pocket of my coat vibrated.[…]
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The details make all the difference
As I write this month’s “Happy Trails” column, the 2014-2015 Mississippi deer season here in Central Mississippi has just ended. […]
Columns
‘Drop Tine’ and its brother
Many readers of Happy Trails no doubt also read my additional article last month in the January issue of Mississippi Sportsman titled Hinds County Hunter Bags Monster Buck. Well, there is a little more to that story than what you read on those pages.[…]
Columns
The skinny on scrapes
One of the more fascinating aspects of the whitetail rut revolves around the wonderful phenomenon known as “scraping.”[…]
Columns
Debunking the moon myth
With the whitetail rut fast approaching, I thought it would be perfect timing to revisit and discuss a subject that has been debated for decades in deer camps far and wide.[…]
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Tracking the rut phases
As this month’s title implies, we’re going to spend a few minutes tracking and dissecting the progression and timing of the rut so we can anticipate where to place our trail cameras and stands for best affect this season.[…]
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Early-season camera sites
As we move into the month of October, the transition period between late summer and fall here in the deep-south, let’s examine some of the criteria that can be used to select the best sites for trail camera surveillance.[…]