After 30 Years, My First Deer

| By Nick McDowell
They found me at the farmer’s market in Saratoga Springs, New York. Matt Ross, the smiling QDMA ambassador, asked if I’d like to try some venison. The samples stuck with toothpicks looked delicious, and having just recently decided this was the year that I was going to finally learn to hunt deer to get back …

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The Do’s and Don’ts of Public Land Deer Hunting

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You’ve probably heard all the talk recently about the decline in hunter numbers, with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reporting approximately two million fewer hunters in 2016 than in 2011. One of the reasons often cited for this loss is lack of access to quality hunting land. And while there is no doubt it …

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Scouting Large Blocks of Land Fast and Effectively

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For me, one of the primary draws to public-land hunting is the freedom it provides to roam large tracts of land at a minimal cost. If one area doesn’t produce, I have seemingly unlimited opportunities to change locations and hunt a fresh spot. As great as it is to have that freedom to roam, approaching …

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Kill Deer More Effectively By Looking Inside This Feral Hog

| By Dr. Tim Lewis
As a young hunter, I often puzzled over the depictions of the chest cavity in diagrams for hunters and on targets that displayed organs, because they were often at odds with my understanding of deer anatomy. The discrepancies I noted most often were the size and position of the lungs and location of the backbone. …

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Turn Oak Ecology Into Backstraps

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Identifying a white oak raining acorns in early bow season is a straightforward approach to putting backstraps on the grill, but this only works a couple short weeks of the year. Learn to play the acorn pattern all season long. The mid-January afternoon was hot, and mosquitos buzzed by my head as I leaned against …

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