A complete conversation on how getting your head right is crucial in both the archery and bowhunting disciplines. I’ve screwed up more archery shots and bowhunting opportunities than I care to admit. While I’ve bagged plenty of deer, it’s largely due to persistence than consistent execution. Of course, as I’ve aged, I’ve learned how to perform better in both the archery and bowhunting departments. But early on, my batting average was depressingly poor. And it’s in large part due to misunderstanding the mental aspects of archery and bowhunting. The Challenging Nature of Archery Archery itself ..read more

Chasing spring gobblers with a shotgun is contagiously fun, but nothing beats the thrill of arrowing a gobbler at 10 yards or less. Here’s how to do it. As I scampered toward a small clover field that has produced many gobblers in previous years, I reveled in the perfect conditions: The mid-May temps were nice and warm with no wind, and the chirps and screeches of crickets and spring peepers created the only noise pollution. Dawn was imminent, so I hurried to my predetermined setup location. As I slowly removed my ground blind from its carrying bag, a gobble interrupted the crickets and the fr ..read more

How to Overcome Target Panic in Archery: A Guide to Improve Your Accuracy and Mental Focus The archery rabbit hole is a long and arduous journey. It’s a sport that requires both physical strength and even more mental discipline. It’s a community filled with a passionate group of folks who tend to be hyper focused and suckers for punishment. We all know the bowhunting community can also be pretty divisive at times. One of those things where each sub section seems to think the other is doing something wrong. Compound vs traditional. Longbow vs recurve….etc., etc. However, one thing we all have i ..read more

Use this game plan to make your food plots the best they can be. Food plots are major benefits to deer and deer hunters. But doing food plots for the sake of food plots isn’t a good idea. It’s important to optimize food plots for bowhunting. That involves making a deer feel safe, decreasing travel distance between bedding and food sources, and more. Here are the things you should know. Think About What the Land Already Offers It’s important to know what the land already offers to the local deer herd. Study what food sources are already available. Determine what neighboring properties potential ..read more

With turkey hunting, tenacity usually pays off, and it did. It was only a matter of time before we fired up a mid-mountain gobbler. Following 45 tense minutes of coaxing, he emerged from cover. Breaking from the trees, he immediately noticed our decoys, raced in, and began to strut. Positioned 20-yards apart, each hiding behind a massive pine tree, my wife and I both drew our bows the moment the gobbler fanned and turned to face away. At 18-yards, he was instantly greeted with a broadhead through the living room. Heather’s arrow launched first, and with a single hop, it was lights out as he tu ..read more

The new year is here, and so is the latest crop of compound hunting bows. Some are flagship models, and others are budget bows. But all are incredibly impressive. Each hunter is sure to find the stick slinger for them in this compilation of offerings. I took to the ATA show and shot the newest bows for 2024 – here are my 12 favorite. Best Compound Bow of 2024 & Fastest Compound Bow of 2024: Mathews Lift Series The Mathews Lift 29.5 is one of the hot new market offerings for this year. It hits all the right spots by being lightweight, fast, and very quiet. Of all the bows tested at ATA, th ..read more

Sometimes, you have to pull all of your tricks out of the bag to punch your archery elk tag Finally, after 15 minutes of intermittent coaxing with cow calls, the satellite bull finally fell for my guide’s love song. I spied bits and pieces of tan through the thick oak brush as the bull meandered closer. I was on a management-bull hunt, and viable targets were any older 5×5 or any bull exhibiting a single brow tine on one or both antlers. Through my binos, I confirmed that one of the approaching bull’s antlers had a single brow tine. Realizing that the bull was going to keep coming to within to ..read more

Whether you’re looking to add excitement to your whitetail hunting life or a new way to maximize your success, keep reading, and you’ll discover everything you need to become an on-the-ground whitetail assassin I’d love to write that I pioneered the idea — invented it — and teased it to life. That, though, would be a lie. What isn’t a lie is that I’m a hardcore, seasoned Western bowhunter who loves to get after big-game animals on the ground. Sure, I will post up in a tree or ground blind and play the sit-and-wait game, but if the option is there, I slither across the prairies or inch through ..read more

Hunt long enough, for enough different species and you’ll eventually find your nemesis and it has been no different for me. In fact, mine was doubly bad as it involved not one but two different animals: the mountain goat and the mountain lion or as it is more commonly known, the cougar. While I did manage to break the goat curse early in 2016, it was a curse that spanned five hunts and included lost horses, grizzly bears, golden eagles, foul weather and oh yeah, a broken arm. My cougar curse on the other hand, was not all that bad in the scheme of things. I had hunted cats on four previous occ ..read more

The wind was blowing just enough that it felt like a knife was cutting through any exposed skin, the temperature was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It was around 3 in the afternoon, and I had been in the blind for about an hour. I was sitting over a 2-acre soybean field that I had scouted the past few nights. The forecast was calling for a big snowstorm to roll in around 7 if I remember right around 6 plus inches of snow. As I sat watching the 2 sides of timber, I recall I contemplated my own sanity. In my area of the country, most whitetail hunters have 3 seasons – early season, the rut, and gu ..read more