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Kenai River fishing guide Mike Evans filmed the video at Harpestead Mountain Kennels, where his friend Jen Harpe trains German shepherds, Border collies, and other working breeds. Evans told reporters that the bear had visited the property before and was about to crash their barbecue when Harpe’s dogs stepped in.

“Intense moment from a couple weeks back,” Evans writes in the video’s description, adding that no dogs or bears were injured in the tussle.

Of the four dogs that confront the bear, one in particular stands out as the dominant fighter in the group. While the other three bark at the intruder and run circles around it, the dominant German shepherd charges the bear, barking in its face and nipping at its throat. The brown bear growls, spinning on its heels as it shakes its head defensively from side to side. The dog only gives up when Harpe calls it off, using the German command “Aus,” which translates to “off” or “let go.”

There are a couple of explanations for why the dogs won the fight so handily. For one, the dominant dog had likely been trained for encounters like this. Harpe’s Instagram page features several videos of German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, and other dogs doing personal protection drills and biting down on would-be attackers. (Harpe did not immediately respond to requests for comment and little is known about her training programs or her dogs.)

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The other obvious factor was the bear itself, which took a defensive stance from the get-go. The young boar looks like a two-year-old, which would help explain its curiosity around the barbecue. It’s also clearly injured and has a large chunk missing from the back of its neck. This was probably the result of a recent fight with a larger, more dominant bear.

If that was the case, then the beat-down bear wouldn’t have wanted to fight and would have been more of a pushover than most Alaska browns. In any other circumstance, the dogs might not have been so lucky.

You’ve probably heard about all the standard deer hunting tips and tactics by now. Target pinch points and funnels during the rut, mind the wind, monitor major food sources, so on and so forth. But what are the secret tactics that real hardcore whitetail hunters are using? You know, those oddball deer hunting tips that don’t typically get covered in articles. Turns out, there are quite a few.

Take for example, my friend Eliot Strommen. When he glasses a whitetail buck crossing a field of alfalfa or wheat, swaggering alone or trailing a doe, he watches where the deer enters the timber, then eases downwind into position as close as he dares. The longbow hunter stands behind a tree, picks up a stick and starts cracking logs and whipping brush. He picks up his right foot and paws one, two, three…then with the left, one, two, three.

“If you watch a buck paw the ground or scrape that’s the sequence they use,” says Strommen, who wraps up his routine by pinching his nose and cutting loose a whiny grunt-snort-wheeze with his voice.

The idea is to sound like an inferior buck in the brush, one that is roaming around a mature deer’s space and getting on his nerves. “After making all that racket, I’ve had bucks run up to within 30 yards of me, wild-eyed and hair raised,” he says. “They stamp and snort, it’s pretty wild.”

His tactic might seem odd to some, but it works. Here are a few more tricks you have probably never tried before, but should this season.

1. Stink Like a Buck

The intruder marched to within 20 yards. I crouched behind the dead deer and shivered. The buck stopped, stared, detected no threat and turned and swaggered away.

It was one of my wildest hunts ever and it taught me something. For a week or so in the late pre-rut, dominant bucks looking to mix it up are drawn to the musk of one another. Play off that and set a mix of buck urine and/or tarsal near your stand. If you can hack the black hocks off a buck your buddy shot earlier in the week, do it.

Hang wicks with buck scent or hocks near your post and be on your toes, especially if you’re hunting on the ground. A crazed, 200-pound buck homing in on the musk of what he perceives to be a rival is one bad dude.

2. Leave Your Stand

You don’t have to wait until gun season to get out of a tree and stalk. One November day bowhunter Don Kisky left his Iowa farmhouse with 5 steps in his pocket and a small lock-on stand on his back. He’d been seeing little deer movement from his best stands the last few days, and it was time to change it up.

“When bucks are locked down with does and breeding them or getting ready to, many of them aren’t in their core areas anymore,” he says. “That’s why the woods seem to go dead and your stands go cold. Many bucks and their does are away from the main timber, out in a grassy ditch, brush pile, cedar clump or other out-of-the-way spot. They won’t move for several days, so find them and go to them. The bucks are so focused on their doe that their guard is down, and if you stalk right you can get super close.”

Kisky climbed an oak tree that day, glassed the CRP ground for an hour and spotted a big 11-point curled beneath a cedar tree across a pasture. The buck, tongue lolling, looked exhausted from chasing and breeding his doe.

Kisky wasted no time bailing out of his makeshift observation post. He got the wind, stalked for nearly an hour, closed to within 20 yards, drew his bow, rose up over a grass patch, and nailed the 162-incher.

Even when Kisky is sitting in one of his best tree stands and spots a buck tending or bedded with a doe, he doesn’t think twice about climbing down if the situation is conducive to a stalk.

“Most bowhunters that spot a buck with a doe like this are reluctant to move,” he says. “They sit there second-guessing and miss out on a golden opportunity. Look things over and make a plan. If the wind, terrain and cover are right for a stalk, don’t be scared to get out of your tree and go make it happen.”

3. Catch Some Air

One season in Illinois I saw a 10-pointer, his rack would go 170 if it was an inch, coming on a trail, moving right to left, upwind, strolling with his head down, the way you want a buck to walk into killing range. He was 60 yards when I stood and clipped the release to the string. It struck me and I smiled, “I am going to kill a Booner with my bow.”

At once the buck stopped, wheeled and leaped into the brush. I got to looking around and wondering when it hit me, “He smelled me at the point where I had walked across that trail 3 hours earlier.”

Ever since, I have never stepped foot on or near a deer trail. I always parallel a trail well on the downwind side of it. When I have to cross one, I take a few steps back, take off and jump as far and high as I can. Sounds silly and a little overboard, but by launching you leave no scent on the trail or several feet off to either side of it. I’ve seen with my own eyes that it makes a big difference.

Read Next: 3 Totally Normal Tactics Deer Hunters Used to Think Were Really Weird

4. Still-Hunt…Backwards

One of my mentors in the 1990s was Jack Atcheson Sr., a renowned hunting consultant and taxidermist who has hunted on 5 continents and shot as many head of game as any man on earth, from Cape buffalo to elk to sheep to all the varieties of North American deer, and some big ones.

One time on a pack-in hunt for mule deer in Wyoming, Jack told me we were going to still-hunt the entire week, and he was going to teach me how to do it.

“I’ve been hunting deer for 20 years,” I reminded him with a smirk.

“Yeah, but this week you’re going to learn how to do it right.”

On day one, we split apart about 200 yards and still-hunted west toward our landmark, a towering crag. I arrived in an hour, sat on a log and waited. Two hours later, in creeped Jack.

“See anything?’ I asked.

“Two bucks, one a big 4-point, and a small herd of elk,” replied. “You?” he asked with a sly grin.

I had jumped one doe, and I got Jack’s message loud and clear.

For the next 5 days we hunted side by side, creeping up mountains and down drainages, stopping often to scan wide with our eyes and glass tighter into the cover. Every 100 yards or so, we’d stop, turn, creep back 50 yards and re-scan the terrain where we had just come from.

On the last day, that is how I found and shot my buck.

“Every person I’ve ever hunted with, and there have been many hundreds, moves way too fast and never looks back,” Atcheson told me. “Still-hunt as slowly as you can for 50 yards, and then slow down some more for the next 50. Stop often, always beside a tree that you can use as a rifle rest if you need it. Every several hundred yards, fishhook back and look where you came from. You’ll see and shoot a lot more bucks that way.”

Read Next: Old School Whitetail Scouting Strategies That Don’t Require a Trailcam

5. Juice a Scrape

Dr. Grant Woods is not only one of the top whitetail biologists in America, he’s also a hard-core bowhunter. That’s why I put so much stock in his research, from the routine to the, well, strange.

The Missouri researcher has captured and analyzed hundreds of thousands of trail-camera images over the years, with many of the best shots coming at scrapes doctored with a variety of scents and lures. So what’s the best scent to attract bucks to scrapes?

Hot doe, tarsal? Nah, human pee!

Woods has found that both mock scrapes created with human urine and pre-existing real scrapes doctored with pee produce the most buck sightings and, get this, the most mature buck sightings.

“It happens more often than random chance can account for,” Woods says. He and other scientists note that mammals like deer and bears are likely drawn to human urine out of curiosity of the smell, as well as the salt therein. Forget that pee bottle you’ve been fiddling with for years.

6. Do Ditch Work

One day I scouted a 50-acre woodlot and found a dry, shallow creek bed running through the length of it. I walked the ditch until I found the spot where several deer trails converged and crossed it. The next morning the deer would be coming back into the woods to bed from alfalfa to the north, and the wind would be out of the west. Perfect!

Before dawn I found a spot on the east side of the pinch point, lay down and dozed until sunrise. I perked up and kicked back against the ditch bank, so just the top of my head was showing. The leaves were down, and I could see well to the north. As the sun got higher, the deer started coming. The first two animals walking on the trail were bucks, a fat 8-pointer followed by a bigger 10.

With the bucks 100 yards out and approaching, I rolled onto to my knees, stayed crouched, nocked an arrow and put pressure on the string. The 8-pointer stepped behind a tree, and I didn’t wait. When he dropped down into the ditch to cross it, I ran an arrow through his lungs. He ran up and out of the ditch, but he didn’t go far.

You don’t find this type setup very often, but when you do, you’ve got one of the best spots ever for an archery ground attack. The ditch or depression should be only about 3 feet deep, so you can lie back, watch, roll onto to your knees and draw your bow and kill a deer when he eases into the ditch or walks parallel to it.

Read Next: Ultra Aggressive Deer Hunting Tactics for the Rut

7. Hammer Down

Illinois hunter Dan Perez hasn’t killed dozens of 150-inch-plus bucks by being shy. When the weather turns brutal and the creeks freeze solid in the Midwest he rolls into his best spots with his bow or gun, pack, tree stand—and a sledgehammer.

“If you crack open some moving water near a crop field, you can have fantastic action,” he says, “especially if it’s been a dry fall and there’s not a lot of standing water around.”

One time a few years back, Perez dropped the hammer and battered a big hole in a frozen creek near a cornfield, then hung a tree stand on the east side of it. When he returned 2 days later on a northwest wind the joint was littered with tracks, rubs and scrapes, and it stank of rutting deer. Between 1 and 3 p.m. 5 different bucks followed does in for a drink. At 4:30 he drew his bow and whacked a 10-pointer coming to the only open water for a mile.

You’d almost forgotten last deer season, hadn’t you? Then a few weeks ago, your buddy got his shoulder mount back from the taxidermist and was texting you trail camera photos of all the good bucks under his stands. Looks like he’s in for another awesome year.

But all of his bragging reopened the old wounds from last November. Now you have flashbacks of bucks snorting in the distance and dreams of arrows stuck in trees. Those haunting words from your cousin—“I don’t see no blood”—are stuck in your head like the lyrics to a bad pop country tune.

Spend more than a weekend in the deer woods and you’re bound to screw up a few opportunities. You can make excuses and then repeat the mistakes this year. Or you can learn from them. We’re going to help you have a season without excuses, because we’re facing them down right here and now.

Excuse 1: I Hit No Man’s Land

I’d lay odds that a hit high in the chest results in more lost deer with a bow than all other marginal hits combined. Contrary to the popular “no man’s land” myth, there is no gap between a whitetail‘s lungs and its spine, but the spine does sit lower in a deer’s chest than many hunters realize. That’s why at first, this hit can look pretty good. But the arrow zips either through the backstraps or the upper edges of the scapulae (which are surprisingly easy to penetrate). The telltale sign of a high hit will be bits of sticky meat on the arrow and a bright-red blood trail that fades quickly. Deer usually survive this type of hit (read our ultimate guide on where to shoot a deer).

Most high hits are the result of nervous, string-jumping whitetails and steep shot angles taken from a high treestand. So, remember this: Bad as a high hit is, a low hit usually means a dead deer. As long as your broadhead penetrates just above the white fur line, it will find vitals, and the shot is usually fatal.

Excuse 2: Dang Neighbors Killed All the Good Ones

I don’t know your neighbors, but I know this: The lengths of BS spun at a buck pole will usually out-measure the inches of antler hung on it. Deer hunters love to tell tales and, dare I say it, stretch the truth. It’s easy to assume that big buck you’ve been watching is dead when you aren’t seeing it anymore.But big bucks get big because they have played this game before. Odds are much higher that the deer isn’t dead. It could be tucked away with a doe or on a walk looking for one. There’s plenty of data highlighting how little some bucks actually move during the rut, but that same research shows that some bucks travel a long, long way from home.

The fact is this: Killing a big buck is hard, and so the odds of your neighbors killing every single one in the area are slim to none. Until you see a dead buck with a neighbor’s tag on it, keep hunting him. —Tony Hansen

Excuse 3: I Didn’t Want to Pressure My Best Spots Until Prime Time

With hunting pressure at ridiculous levels on every neighboring parcel to the ground I hunt, I knew I needed to do what I had written about so many times before: Let the hunting pressure on nearby land push deer into my area. I would only hunt when “prime time” arrived. That thinking made me miss my window of opportunity entirely.

I pulled a trail camera card on October 28, my first foray into the thick of the timber. It was jammed up with daylight photos of three different shooter bucks that had been regular travelers past my favorite stand over the previous 10 days. The last couple of photos recorded the bucks as blurs as they dashed by in hot pursuit of some early-cycling does.

And that was that.

Those bucks spent the next two weeks in various stages of hot doe heaven (known to us sorry saps as “lockdown”), and I never laid eyes on any of them. Gun season opened, hunting pressure tripled, and daylight movement ceased. My season was over before I had even started hunting.

It is sage advice to pick and choose those times when you hunt your very best spots. But I had taken that to an extreme and left myself without enough time to hunt. I’d also ignored an important fact: The very best hunting of the rut happens when the first few does begin to cycle. That can occur any time after the second week of October—especially in areas with a skewed doe-to-buck ratio.

Yes, it makes sense to exercise caution when you’re hunting a mature buck. But to kill the deer you’re after, you have to go hunting. —T.H.

Excuse 4: I Mowed All of My Fields Right Before the Season and Still Didn’t See Any Deer

Mowing those woolly fields so you can shoot across them is standard preseason prep for a lot of hunters. It’s also one of the single worst things you can do for the wildlife habitat on your hunting property. “Daylight deer movement in a field is most consistent when the vegetation structure is 4 to 5 feet tall, and less if the structure is less than 2 feet tall,” says Craig Harper, professor of wildlife management for the University of Tennessee, and a frequent speaker for the Quality Deer Management Association.

In addition to cover, old-field habitat can provide an incredible food source. But that’s only if the right stuff is growing. Repeated mowing stimulates the growth of grasses like tall fescue and brome grass, which are of virtually no use to wildlife. Periodic burning or disking, to maintain early successional growth and keep a field from becoming a young forest, tends to stimulate the growth of forbs. “In most fields, you can almost count on at least 500 pounds of dry matter [forage] per acre,” Harper says. “We have recorded as many as 4,000 pounds of forage per acre. There’s potentially a lot for a deer to eat in an old field throughout the season, including the winter rosettes of various forbs like old field aster and goldenrod, and especially blackberry leaves.”

If you can’t burn or disk and must mow, do it in the winter. In the late summer, mowing a few strategic shooting or travel lanes through your field might not hurt—but you’ll have better hunting if you turn the tractor off and leave the rest of that thicket right where it is. —W.B.

Excuse 5: I Have the Wind Right, But I Keep Getting Busted

You got caught taking a treestand selfie, didn’t you? It seems these days, everyone is trying to film their hunt or update their Instagram feed from the tree. That means they’re not sitting still. “People underestimate how well a deer can see,” says Kerry Wix, a professional videographer who’s filmed hunts for some of the biggest names in outdoor television. “That’s why I think it’s easier to teach a hunter to run a camera than to teach a videographer how to hunt. If you can’t read a deer’s body language, you’re going to screw up and move at the wrong time. I like to follow the 10-foot rule: If a big deer is walking through the timber, you can plan on him going about 10 feet before he stops again to look and listen. That’s when you make your adjustments, because when he’s standing still, you’d better not move a muscle.”

If you just want to kill a buck, leave the camera at home and the phone on silent in your pocket. —W.B.

Excuse 6: It Was Too Dark to See Through the Peep Sight on My Bow

Late one September evening last season, I watched the 10-point I’d been hunting ease through the timber toward my stand. By the time he was 20 yards away, I had eight minutes of legal light left—but it was too dark to see through my peep sight when I drew.

We might practice shooting from long range, while seated, and from treestands, but few of us practice shooting in the low light whitetails prefer. To be clear, I’m not talking about Hail Mary arrows in the dark—but if a big buck is standing in bow range and it’s legal to shoot him, don’t you want every advantage? Try this.

Take a Look: Large-aperture peep sights might give up some long-range precision, but they allow for maximum visibility in low light. That’s what a whitetail hunter wants. As you’re positioning your peep before the season, draw your bow and close your eyes. When you open, you should be staring right through it, at your pins. If you have to move your head at all to see it, keep tweaking its placement—and don’t serve it in until it’s perfect. This way, you can skyline the peep aperture, hit your secondary anchor point (see below), and take the shot, confident you’re lined up, even if the peep itself is tough to see.

Double Anchor: In good light, a peep sight makes shooting easier. But many bowhunters are too dependent on them. It’s perfectly possible to shoot good groups without a peep, especially inside 30 yards. I prefer to establish a couple of consistent anchor points (a kisser button on the string helps) that become instinctive.

Practice Late: Wait until 15 minutes after sunset to begin your evening practice. Move your target out of the open front lawn and into the woods. As it gets darker, check your peep against the skylight and keep on shooting until it’s too dark to see the target. That’s usually about 30 minutes after sunset. Another benefit of this drill is that it trains your eye to pick out detail on a dark target.

What about that 10-point I mentioned? I did just this: raised my bow up to find my peep in the skylight. Then I lowered it slowly, and hit my secondary anchor point. I put my fiber-optic pin, which I could see clearly, behind the buck’s shoulder, which I could also see. I released the arrow and listened to that buck fall dead 75 yards away. —W.B.

Excuse 7: I Walked a Mile Into Public Land and Still Didn’t See a Buck

I’ve got two words for you: Apple watch. Get one and turn it on fitness tracking mode. Then tell me how far you really walked. Odds are it wasn’t a full mile from the road. And even if it was, did all that walking actually put you in an area where there are unpressured deer?

And what route did you take when walking that mile in? Did you stomp through multiple bedding areas on your way? Did you leave early enough that you weren’t pushing deer out as they returned to their bed?

Distance is nothing more than a measurement. Walking a mile in just for the sake of distance doesn’t guarantee that you will be hunting in a spot with more deer. If you really want to kill deer on public land—especially those that see heavy hunting pressure—you must walk with a purpose. You have to be heading to an area that others aren’t pressuring and that deer are utilizing, and you have to get there without alerting the deer that you intend to hunt. That spot might be 50 yards from the truck, near the parking lot, because everyone else has been overlooking it. But more likely, it’s going to be a spot that no other hunters are willing to hike to.

READ NEXT: Inside the Mind of the Big Buck Serial Killer

And it’s not only about distance. A mile stroll through open hardwoods isn’t so bad, but slogging 400 yards through a cattail marsh is more than enough to deter most other hunters. —T.H.

Excuse 8: Nature Called and Ruined My Hunt

I have nothing but contempt for someone who would end a morning’s hunt with a trip back to camp because they are afraid to crap in the leaves. My dad put up with a lot of mistakes when I was young and building my bedrock of hunting skills. But when it came to pooping in the woods, he would accept nothing short of 100 percent mastery. I’m thankful for that because several times now in my hunting career, I’ve climbed out of my stand, walked a hundred yards downwind to answer nature’s call, and then settled right back in to shoot a deer shortly after. If ever you need to take a dump in the woods, there are only three rules to know: Always bring a little more toilet paper than you think you’ll need. Always bring your gun. Avoid garments with hoods. —W.B.

Excuse 9: I Bought a Fancy New Timed Feeder, but the Big Bucks Didn’t Come To It

It’s because that feeder scares the sin out of them, especially if you just plunked it out in a field a month before the season. Even in South Texas, where everyone uses them, feeders aren’t magic. Charles Coker, owner of T/C Outfitters near Hondo, Texas, manages thousands of acres of free-range whitetail habitat and runs dozens of feeders. His clients kill some giant bucks—but they’re rarely standing near the feeders themselves.

“What draws them close is the does,” Coker says. “But we run our feeders year-round. You’re not attracting much the first year you put a feeder up—and really, it takes a generation or two of deer before they really start hitting them. And even then, the big bucks won’t usually hit them until after dark.”

The lesson? If you’re trying to lure in a buck with bait, you’re probably better off pouring it on the ground. —W.B.

Excuse 10: My Neighbor Hung a Stand Facing Right Onto My Property

I’m sure he did, because you’ve killed a few good ones and word travels fast in deer country.

You aren’t alone. It’s happened to me, and to celebrity hunters like Lee Lakosky and Mark Drury too.

My solution? I’ve employed a number of tactics, including stapling 12-foot-high sheets of plastic to close off shooting lanes the trespassers had cut into my property. I think my best work was placing a battery-operated clock radio in a nearby, vacant pop-up blind and setting it to go off at 7 on opening morning.

Others, like Lakosky and Drury, have taken slightly more tactful approaches.

Listen to either of them speak on the topic (or read one of their books) and you’ll find a common theme: They use that pressure to their advantage. Lakosky, for example, almost never hunts the timbered areas of his properties. Instead, he creates food plots in areas well away from overzealous neighbors and leaves the core areas of his properties as pressure-free sanctuaries. Deer will move into these safe havens (and away from the pressured property lines) and visit the secure food plots in daylight. —T.H.

Excuse 11: I’m a Big-Buck Hunter and Only Shoot Mature Animals

I’ve used this excuse myself a time or two. But then I realized something: I didn’t really know what a mature buck was. I also started to understand that if I was waiting for 5-year-olds in Michigan, I might never kill another buck, because fewer than 5 percent of the bucks in the state ever reach that age.

Habitat guru Jeff Sturgis, a former resident of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, learned to deer hunt in an area that not only has a low whitetail density, but also harsh winters and poor nutrition.

“A lot of guys are judging age by antler size. So, if they live in an area like the U.P., they have no idea that a 100-inch 8-point could well be 5 years old,” Sturgis says. “Other guys live in areas with all the ingredients for big, old bucks, but the hunting pressure means very few of them ever see age 4. In both situations, you have to know what you’re hunting in order to set realistic, attainable goals.” The National Deer Association created an excellent video on estimating a buck’s age, which you can watch below. —T.H.

Excuse 12: There Were Too Many (or Not Enough) Acorns Last Year

A bumper crop of acorns does not mean deer will eat them only under cover of darkness. Nor does it mean that they will simply lie down under a single oak and wait for the nuts to fall into their mouths. Deer are browsers, and by nature, they move around while feeding. In years of heavy mast, you need to spend time on the best oak ridge you have access to, play the wind, and learn how deer are using the food source.

READ NEXT: How to Hunt Whitetails on the Acorn Crop This Fall

In years where acorns are scarce, you simply need to remember this one fact: Deer eat lots of things. So, the oaks didn’t produce this year. So what? Does that mean you’ll soon see the decaying remains of whitetails that starved to death? Of course not. The deer will find other food. You should too. —T.H.

Excuse 13: The Insurance Lobby is Killing All the Deer

Here’s a fact: Insurance companies have no sway in deer management. If the insurance companies are part of a Farm Bureau, like the one I work for in Michigan, then sure, their policy staff have regular conversations with state wildlife managers, usually on the issue of disease or crop damage. Is that because they don’t want to pay out premiums for cars damaged in deer collisions? Um, no. And if you don’t believe me, you should learn what it is that an actuary does, how insurance premiums are regulated by law, and why premiums in areas with lots of deer are higher than in areas where there aren’t many deer. —T.H.

Excuse 14: The Rut Sucked. I Sat in a Stand All Day and Didn’t See a Deer

One midmorning in Tennessee a few Novembers ago, my buddy and I jumped a giant buck that was bedded with a doe in a drainage ditch below the pond in the landowner’s front yard. She ran 70 yards and stopped to look at us. He did the same, and would’ve been easy pickings had either of us been holding a gun. Instead, we were in my truck, on our way to pick up a (much smaller) buck that I’d killed that morning with a bow. But the visual memory of that monster stuck with me. Some hunters seem to think bucks disappear to a mythical place after they lock down with does when, frequently, they’re just hiding in the most inconspicuous patches of cover they can find near their usual food sources and bedding areas.

If you’re sitting in a stand and seeing deer, my advice during the rut is always to stay put and be patient. But if you’re holding a gun and tired of watching only squirrels, a single-man drive isn’t a bad plan. I like slipping around those little thickets—fencerows, pond dams, abandoned homesteads—on breezy, drizzly days, when I can keep silent and work the wind. The deer might see you first—but if you’re doing it right, you’ll be close, and there will be some confusion. Often, the does you jump will run a ways and stop—and the bucks they’re dragging behind usually won’t leave them. You just might have time for a quick shot. —W.B.

Excuse 15: I Never Had a Good Shot

My buddy Kyle enjoys hunting big deer in prime locations. He especially loves to do so when I’m stuck at work or hunting an area that’s not exactly, um, prime. He used to send me trail camera images and brag of seeing giant bucks and action-packed sits. But that’s as far as the gloating would go, because he’d never kill anything.

He would have shooter bucks in range but would never release an arrow because he “just didn’t have a shot.” Translation: He was passing on good shots for perfect ones. And in whitetail hunting, that just doesn’t work. I gave Kyle some advice: Stop watching those deer and start shooting them.

Last year, during a dream trip to Iowa, I saw him clear that hurdle. Big time.

On a frosty November morning, the giant buck we’d been hunting showed up, moving quickly on a lane that would pass within bow range of Kyle’s stand (I was also in the tree, running a video camera). There was no time to think. Kyle drew, and when the buck stepped out, it wasn’t quite broadside. He could have waited for the deer to take a few steps and give him an ideal, quartering-away shot. Instead, he bleated, the deer stopped, and Kyle popped both lungs right then and there.

The shot angle may not have been perfect—but that buck was perfectly dead. —T.H.

Read Next: How to Hunt the Right Place at the Right Time

Excuse 16: I Hit a Limb (or the Trunk) of a Giant Tree

The buck was broadside at 18 steps. I could see his third beam sweeping upward, adding a good 30 to 40 inches to what was already an impressive frame. I put the crosshairs of the crossbow scope on the crease behind the buck’s shoulder, took a steady rest against the trunk of the massive oak tree I was perched in, and squeezed the trigger.

A split second later, I watched the buck dash off as a trickle of blood ran down my chin. This isn’t the basic “I missed because my arrow hit a limb” tale. No, I missed because the limb on the crossbow had smashed into the trunk beside me as it fired.

It happens every year. Unseen limbs. Wispy twigs. Even giant, sturdy oaks. We think we have a clear shot and the arrow—or bullet, bow cam, or crossbow limb—hits something unintended on the way. Had I taken just a moment to make sure my limbs would clear, I’d have killed that buck. Instead, I got a little cocky and ended my season with another excuse. —T.H.

Excuse 17: My Food Plots Dried Up

When I first started hunting, I had never heard of a food plot. I hunted deer that were feeding in my neighbor’s hayfield. As I broadened my horizons, I started to hunt public lands in other states, and I’d target oak groves that were dropping acorns, clear-cuts full of greenbrier, and brushy areas that didn’t seem to have a stitch of food but held plenty of deer.

If your food plots tank this season, don’t worry about it. I’d wager that the local deer herd won’t die of starvation just because your purple-top turnips failed to germinate. Get out and scout. Find what deer are feeding on. Hang a stand and kill a deer. Yes, it really is that simple. —T.H.

Excuse 18: My Dead Bucks Keep Shrinking

How is it that every “140” you shoot ends up measuring 115? Probably because social media has skewed our idea of what a big deer looks like because it’s caused us to assign arbitrary minimum scores for social acceptance. A lot of those 140s your buddies are claiming on Facebook are actually 115s too, because a 115-inch 8-point will usually be wider than his ears, sport tall tines, and be tempting to shoot. Many hunters are happy with such a buck, until they measure it. That’s depressing.

Even here in western Kentucky, where the experts say big bucks live behind every tree, I rarely see more than a couple of true 140-plus deer on the hoof in the course of a four-and-a-half-month season.

But when one of them steps out, there’s no mistaking it. —W.B.

Excuse 19: I Never See My Trail-Camera Monsters

If every trail cam pic you have of those big-antlered bucks is taken in the middle of the darkest night, it tells you something. Those deer are nocturnal, and it may be due to the pressure you’re placing on the area—or the overall hunting pressure in general. Truth is, a strictly nocturnal buck can be almost impossible to kill. The rut, combined with an incoming cold front, can sometimes bring the big boys out during daylight hours, but it’s far from a slam-dunk.

If you’re capturing photos just prior to or after daylight, then you’ll need to do a little recon and move closer to the buck’s bedding areas to catch him in daylight. The good news is that you’re onto a buck that’s huntable. The bad news is, now you’ve got to move on that deer without spooking him.

This is an ideal time to hang a stand and hunt it the very same day. Slip in during the day and pick a spot where you don’t have to cut big branches or leave scent across major deer trails. You have a good chance of ambushing him that evening when he leaves his bed. And what if you’ve got daylight pics of your buck but have never seen him while hunting? Might be time to put the cell phone away and pay closer attention. —T.H.

Excuse 20: The Neighbors Fired Up Lynyrd Skynyrd Right at Prime Time

Labor Day weekend is the archery opener in Kentucky. Three seasons ago, my neighbors decided to celebrate America’s workforce with a little Southern rock and a custom sound system. I was amazed at how clearly I could hear it from my treestand, 500 yards away. The big 8-point feeding right toward me at 50 yards heard it too and hauled ass before Ronnie Van Zant could say “big wheels.”

Wasn’t much I could do but laugh—and remember that some of my best hunting spots are close to houses, where the deer are used to hearing the sounds of people. Yeah, my evening was ruined, but the season wasn’t. In fact, I hunted that same stand a week later and killed my best bow buck to date. —W.B.

Excuse 21: The Buck of My Dreams Took Off Before I Could Dial in My Scope Turrets

Being a proficient marksman at long range is an admirable skill, but the long-range craze is changing the way some folks think about hunting-rifle setups—and not always for the better. Most whitetails in the East and Midwest are shot inside 100 yards, and with few exceptions, 300 yards will be a really long shot. For that, your classic old 3–9×40 scope is lighter, faster, and way simpler to use than a long-range tube with turrets. I’d argue that makes it better. —W.B.

Excuse 22: All the Bucks Were Locked Down with Does

This was the exact scenario I faced during my first visit to Kansas a few seasons ago. The half-dozen bucks we’d seen from the truck were standing guard over hot does in the middle of the prairie. It was the peak of lockdown, and we weren’t seeing many deer from our stands. It seemed like the odds of getting a buck to within bow range were impossible. Yet guide Wade Shults offered some straight­forward advice: “If you want to kill a big one, this is the time to do it,” he said. “But you’ll need to be there when the right one walks by.”

Shults was exactly right. I saw very few deer. But when I did see a doe, a giant buck was right on her tail. She pulled him past my stand, and he had absolutely no idea what had happened when I drilled a broadhead behind its shoulder.

Hunting the lockdown phase of the rut means hour upon hour of boredom interrupted by moments of pure chaos. Really, you’re targeting doe movement. When bucks are locked down with does, they are not leaving them. The does might not move for days, but eventually, they will stir. You simply have to be there, and be ready, when they finally arrive. —T.H.

Excuse 23: I Hit a Deer With My AR But Couldn’t Find a Drop of Blood.

I keep a couple AR-15s around the house, ready to answer the call when zombies come staggering up the road or a coyote trots across the pasture. Most of my buddies have ARs too, and at some point, we’ve all taken them deer hunting. I’ve lost count of the number of “I hit him perfect, but he ran 500 yards and didn’t bleed a drop” stories I’ve heard as a result.

Yes, you can get an AR-15 in some effective deer calibers. But the overwhelming majority of casual AR owners have a rifle chambered in 5.56mm/.223 Remington, and so that’s what they use. Will a .223 kill a deer with proper bullet placement? It’s of course been established that it will, and yes, there are better big-game bullets for .22 centerfires than ever before. It’s just that there are so many much better calibers that work fine with an old-school soft point. If you have an AR, you probably have something like a .270 or .30-06 in the safe too. It might not look as cool, but for deer killing, it works one hell of a lot better. —W.B.

Excuse 24: My Broadhead Didn’t Open.

This is a simple excuse to eliminate. Stop shooting mechanical broadheads. Or if you do shoot a mechanical broadhead, make sure you’re going with the best option available. Earlier this year, OL gear editor Scott Einsmann did an in-depth test of the best broadheads for deer. With the help of Cody Greenwood of The TradLab, he tested 23 of the top broadheads on the market for accuracy, durability, sharpness, wound channel, and a push-force measurement. For mechanicals, he found that the G5 Deadmeat V2 and the Sevr 2.0 were standouts. But more and more hunters are switching back to quality fixed blade broadheads to maximize penetration. In that regard, it’s hard to beat the Ironwill S100.

Read Next: Best Broadheads for Deer

Excuse 25: I Can’t Afford an Out-Of-State Hunting Trip

You probably can’t because you have to make that $500 a month truck payment. Or you spent all your “play” money on that brand-new side-by-side. Or maybe you just can’t live without Game of Thrones, so you’re popping about $100 a month into cable.

All of those things are nice. And all of them are choices you’ve made. Me? I drive an F-150 with nearly a quarter of a million miles on it. And I fully intend to see what it looks like when the odometer hits 500,000. I’m hoping it happens while I’m on an out-of-state hunting trip.

I’ve hunted in at least two states every fall for about the last dozen years. I’ve never spent more than $1,500 on any of those outings, and that usually includes tags (the exceptions being Iowa and Kansas, where tag prices top $500). I usually stay in a cheap rental cabin with a kitchen because making meals is cheaper than paying someone else to do it. If you can put aside $1,500 a year, you can enjoy a weeklong hunt in a prime location. I hunt plenty of public land, but I also have had decent luck gaining permission with a simple knock on a door and a handshake. —T.H.

Excuse 26: I Hunt Thick Cover and Don’t Need a Scope on My Slug Gun

Compared to centerfire rifles, shotguns aren’t all that accurate. So why would you make them even less so by using iron sights? A low-magnification scope atop a full rifle slug barrel is perfect for sending slugs precisely through baseball-size holes in the brush. A scope is far superior to open sights in low light, and for most hunters, it’s just as fast. There’s no good reason not to use one. —T.H.

Excuse 27: I’m Old-School and Don’t Have Any of the Food Plots, Trail Cameras, or Other Crap People are Talking About

If you intentionally limit yourself to a recurve bow and hunting from the ground for the added challenge, then props to you. But you probably won’t kill as many deer as the guy using an aluminum treestand and modern compound bow. Equipment and tactics evolve and improve, and the hunters that evolve with them are more successful. Food plots and trail cameras work. Planting a food plot requires a lot of effort, though, and a new stable of trail cameras isn’t cheap. Savvy hunters do what they’re able. Maybe it’s planting a quarter acre of turnips instead of 2 acres of alfalfa, or buying three base-model cameras in lieu of five cellular ones.

Of course, if you really would rather avoid all that newfangled “crap” that makes hunting easier and more enjoyable, go for it. It’s a convenient excuse to have alongside that bowl of tag soup. —T.H.

No Excuses Deer Hunting Gear

These time-tested gear items will help you punch tags and avoid excuses this deer season.

Best Budget Rifle: Mossberg Patriot Predator

The hands-down winner in our test of the best best budget hunting rifles was the Mossberg Patriot Predator. The specific model Tyler Freel evaluated features a Strata camo synthetic stock and an earthy olive-colored Cerakote finish on the bolt, barrel, and receiver. More than just looks, this rifle is feature-rich, well-finished, and somehow can be had for less than $500. Its best groups with factory ammo averaged 1.442 inches, which was the best of the test.

Best Budget Scope for Deer: Hawke Vantage 30 WA IR 2.5-10×50

Bright, affordable, and extremely versatile, this scope won’t win long-distance shooting medals, but it will place bullets in deer country with confidence. Read our review of the best scopes for deer hunting.

Best Budget Cellular Trail Camera: Moultrie Mobile Edge

In our test of the best cellular trail cameras, the Moultrie Mobile Edge was the clear standout. It performs like a high-end camera, pairs with an incredibly powerful app that’s easy to use, and it only costs about $100.

Best Budget Compound Bow: Bear Resurgence

The binary cam system in this compound is a powerful, well-designed engine. It’s also one that’s budget friendly. And speaking of cost, the mid-range price for this bow makes it a solid choice for bowhunters of all levels. The fact that you get decent accessories with it for that price, makes it an even better choice. Read our review of the best compound bows for the money.

Best Budget Crossbow: Centerpoint Wrath 430

Centerpoint and Ravin are sister companies, and you’ll see a lot of Ravin technology in Centerpoints. The Wrath 430 is at the upper end of what I’d call a budget bow at an $800 MSRP—retail prices are lower. It shot a 400-grain bolt at 408 fps in our test of the best crossbows for the money. It averaged 3.27 inch groups at 50 yards.

And the Worst Excuse of All: I’m Too Busy to Take Out a New Deer Hunter

We’re all busy in the fall. But hunter numbers are declining nationally, and it’s going to require veteran hunters taking new adult hunters out into the field to preserve our hunting culture and heritage. And taking someone new doesn’t meant that you have to sacrifice your own hunting. It’s not like you have to give up your planned week of vacation during the rut. Start by finding the right mentee. This should be someone who’s really driven to get into hunting, but isn’t quite sure how to get started. Your prospective mentee should be willing to scout, spend time at the range, and most importantly, have passed hunter safety class. You shouldn’t be holding this new hunter’s hand through the entire process, simply advising them along the way. Then take them along with you to hang treestands or check trail cameras or scout a new piece of public land. Even better, get them to help you out on some food plot or habitat work.

You’ll have a lot more fun mentoring a new hunter than you’d probably expect. Then set aside a weekend to get your mentee on a hunt that has a high success rate. Does and young bucks are ideal for new hunters. In a perfect scenario, you’d hunt a spot that the two of you had scouted together.

If all that still sounds too time intensive, read this list: 21 Ways to Recruit New People Into Hunting and Fishing Even the small things, like giving a new hunter your old riflescope, can help recruit more people into our ranks.

Dan Infalt tells it like it is. He doesn’t sugarcoat things. He shares the ups and the downs. It’s that authenticity that has earned Infalt an almost cult-like following among public-land hunters in the Midwest. Through his book, Extreme Whitetail Tactics: The Big Buck Serial Killers Best Hunting Stories, and his website, thehuntingbeast.com, Infalt has documented a long history of success at tagging mature bucks on heavily pressured public lands in southeastern Wisconsin.

Infalt targets swamps and marshes that many other hunters simply overlook. He analyzes what works, and scraps what doesn’t. Over the years, Infalt has fine-tuned his approach into a reliable strategy. Whether you hunt private land or public ground, you can learn from how Infalt works in close to bedded bucks—and kills them.

Learning the Basics

If you ask Dan Infalt who taught him to hunt, he’ll tell you he learned more from observing deer than he did any human hunter.

“I remember being passionate about hunting my entire life—as long as I can remember,” Infalt says. “My dad didn’t hunt by the time I came around. I had some brothers who hunted. But by the time I was old enough to hunt, they had gone off to Vietnam. I grew up hunting on my own. I learned from the animals.”

“I do most of my scouting in the winter,” Infalt says. “As soon as I’m done hunting, I go in and look at the beds. I really pick them apart. I try to determine the timeframe that buck is there. I find it’s like a two-week period in most bedding areas. If you don’t hit that timing correctly, you generally don’t get the deer.”

There are numerous factors that influence when specific beds are used. According to Infalt, it might be that he’s bedding there based on available cover, food sources, a local doe group, or other factors like avoiding hunting pressure. Still, the common denominator is transitional cover, also known as edge habitat.

“In marshes and swamps, I’m looking for islands and points in remote areas,” Infalt says. “I also focus on places really close to the road. I go anywhere other people don’t go. People leave behind scent that can last 10 to 15 days, perhaps longer than that. A deer can detect they were there. Anywhere people go, deer are going to be leery moving during daylight. So, they’ll find the spots where people don’t go.”

To find these areas quickly, Infalt looks at a map and crosses off anywhere hunters will obviously go. Then, Infalt hunts the remaining 10 percent that also offers quality edge cover.

Getting Ultra Close

Finding deer is difficult. Getting close to bedded deer without alerting them is even harder. Knowing how close you can get without bumping deer is the fine line.

“It differs with the habitat,” Infalt says. “I love the swamps around my home. In the swamps, I can get close. I think I average about 75 to 100 yards from their beds.”

Deer often have more visibility in more mature habitat, which means you should hunt farther from their bedding area.

“When I get up into the hill country, where it tends to be more forest, I get about 200 yards back,” Infalt says.

Moving slowly is important and will help keep you off a buck’s radar. Still, with the right conditions, getting close to beds without bumping deer becomes much easier. Rain, wind, and wet ground help a hunter move stealthily.

“When you’re on wet ground, the leaves don’t crunch, and you can go faster quieter,” Infalt says. “But under normal circumstances, I’m going very slowly for the last 100 yards. It’s to the point where I literally stop and let my system slow down before moving forward, or I tend to catch myself moving too fast. Because all it takes is one broken branch for that deer to catch you.”

Targeting Bucks Through the Season

The phases of deer season influence where you’ll target bucks. Of course, it starts with the early season. The rut is a great time to kill a buck, but the early season is the best time to kill a specific buck.

“I’ve had my greatest success with mature bucks the first couple weeks of the early season,” Infalt says. “Not during the rut. I see more deer during the rut, including 2 ½- and 3 ½-year-old bucks people are happy to shoot. But most of the biggest mature bucks I’ve killed have come from the early season.”

“I think one of the things that gets me onto bucks the quickest—and it isn’t 100 percent—is food. This year, there’s a good acorn crop. In a lot of cases, they’re bedding near acorns. That can kill you in the hills and forests where oaks are everywhere. But in the swamps and marshes, oaks are isolated on the islands. I look for the beds surrounding those.”

Transitioning into the pre-rut, deer really settle into their fall range. When that occurs, bucks ease into newly established patterns. That’s Infalt’s favorite time to hunt.

“I do my best during the rut right before it begins,” he says. “Like the third or fourth week of October. They’re still on a pattern, rather than being random. And they lay down a lot of sign. A guy can scout with a stand on his back in late October, find a fresh rub line coming out of bedding, and follow it back and cut them off.”

It’s important to know when to stop pushing toward a bed, though. This isn’t an easy skill to learn. Infalt says it takes looking at a lot of beds, and some trial and error in the field, to fully develop this ability.

“It’s a hard thing to describe to someone,” he says. “It’s usually right along an edge, and you can see a pocket they’re going to bed in. They aren’t going to be in open cattails, open tag alders, or just anywhere. They’re going to be right on the edge in the perfect spot to bust you if you come in there.”

So, don’t get too deep or close to beds, but don’t set up too far away, either. If you’re occasionally kicking up deer, but not regularly, you’re gauging it about right. If you never spook a deer, you’re probably setting up too far away. Sneaking close ensures that if the buck does leave his bed during legal light, you’ll get a shot at him.

“It’s very rare that I see my target buck and don’t get a shot at him,” Infalt says. “I’m pushing that envelope to right on top of him. If he comes out, I get my shot.”

Once the rut arrives, deer drop their guard, but mature bucks don’t do so nearly as much as most hunters think.

“A lot of the deer chasing are younger deer,” Infalt says. “Mature deer that are six or seven years old rarely run around all day long chasing does through funnels. They’d never get that old [if they did]. It’s the rare mistake when they do that. They might only do so once or twice each year. If you’re lucky enough to be there when that happens, then great. But I don’t think they move very well during the rut.”

Generally when Infalt sees mature bucks during daylight, it’s in bedding cover or adjacent to doe bedding areas. This makes them harder to kill. Even during the rut, Infalt shoots most of his mature bucks in the thick stuff near where deer sleep.

“I will hunt doe bedding areas that harbor bucks, or adjacent bedding areas near there,” he says. “But I still kill most of my bucks in bedding, not in funnels.”

Once the late season arrives, it’s all about the food. During this time of year, deer will be in bigger groups. With the right access, Infalt believes this is the easiest time to find a mature buck. With the right weather, killing on is possible, but it’s not easy.

“They move well during daylight, especially if you wait until it’s cold,” he says. “When it gets bitter cold, I get that good late-season movement.”

Timing the Strike

Dan hunts some private ground with pre-set stands. But he’s tagged most of his best bucks with a mobile hunting approach.

“Of the top 15 [bucks I’ve killed], 11 or 12 of them were the very first time I sat a spot,” he says. “A couple of the others were the first time I sat it for the year. That’s not by coincidence.”

He will hunt the same spots over and over on occasion. But he says the results speak for themselves.

“One thing I see with private land guys is that, a lot of the time, they’ll place stands in the best funnels and traditional spots, such as food plots,” Infalt says. “They’ll rotate through those stands, and the bucks learn where they are. You’ll get on a mature buck’s tracks and watch him go through the whole woods without going past one of those stands. It takes a mobile move to get them.”

Essentially, hunters must catch bucks by surprise. That’s likely the most important factor in shooting mature deer. And keep moving. If a buck learns you’re there, keep hunting fresh spots until he slips up.

Getting Busted

Use Infalt’s tactics with any sort of frequency, and you’re going to bust a buck from its bed. Some hunters do this intentionally, which is commonly referred to as the “bump and dump.” Others do it by accident.

“If I bump a shooter buck, I will hunt that spot the next day,” Infalt says. “Most of the time, I won’t get another crack at him in that spot. But, one out of seven times, he does come back. Those are still pretty good odds. So, I do throw another hunt at him. I want to keep that deer honest. Because if I don’t hunt that spot again, I won’t know if he came back.”

Sometimes, he’ll even hunt it the same day that he spooked the buck from its bed. Thinking you moved on, bucks circle back into their bedding areas. However, it’s important to hunt on the downwind side. Generally, these bucks circle back around to scent check for danger. Set up incorrectly and they’ll pick you off.

Of course, there are different kinds of bumps. A soft bump is where a deer looks around but doesn’t get spooked badly. It doesn’t know what you are, but it walks or trots off. A hard bump is entirely different: a deer snorts and bounds away in a panic. The buck blows out of there and often doesn’t come back. At least, not the same day.

Once you’ve run a deer out for good, start moving from bedding area to bedding area. If a buck goes back to these, they’ll smell your scent, and likely avoid it, moving on to the next one. Infalt calls that method “stacking.”

Maximizing the Odds

The average deer hunter might get discouraged when using his bed-hunting tactic because it takes years to master.

“Most guys struggle for the first two years,” Infalt says. “It seems easy. They go out and scout. They find the big buck’s bed and think they have it made. I have one of those perfect scenarios just about every time I go out hunting. I know where that buck’s bed is. I set up on it, and probably 30 percent of the time, a target buck doesn’t come out of there. Maybe more than that. Usually something comes out of those beds, but it ain’t always the buck I’m after. But doing this repeatedly, eventually you score. Some scenarios have higher success than others.”

Heavy pressure and higher predator populations can lead to increased difficulty. In these instances, consider getting creative. Locate beds that utilize the safety of water.

“Deer really use water as a buffer,” Infalt says. “They bed in thick areas that are wet. They love high spots surrounded by water.”

Islands, oxbows, peninsulas, and coves are good examples of this. Other overlooked areas are good, too.

“Beside the road has been good for me,” Infalt says. “Nobody goes into a parking lot and walks along the road for a mile. They go out a little ways or a long ways, but no one hunts beside the road. I’ve taken some of my biggest bucks along roadsides.”

Regardless of where or how you hunt, learning when to get aggressive and when to be passive is key.

“You must know when to be aggressive, and when to hold back,” he says. “On the outside, I seem to be very aggressive with how I hunt. But I’m only aggressive on kill day. Otherwise, I’m sitting back glassing. I’m not going in there to make sure he’s in there. I’m staying out and back until it’s time to kill.”

Infalt’s Gear

Using hunting gear that’s tuned for this type of mobile hunting is important. Hunting with pre-set stands can work but being mobile increases the odds for numerous reasons. Infalt hunts public 80% of the time. But even on private, he prefers the mobile approach.

“Lightweight mobile gear,” Infalt says. “It’s designed for exactly how I hunt. It’s what I do for a living. I build products and inventions for engineering teams. I’m very familiar with mechanical apparatuses. So, I built what I thought was the perfect treestand and sticks in a combination that goes together. I wear them on my back.”

Interested hunters can find his treestand and sticks at Huntingbeastgear.com.

If you’re a bookworm, particularly of the self-help variety, you likely know that 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most iconic self-help books ever written, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. With 25 millions copies sold, and the first audio book to ever top one million sales, 7 Habits is one of those iconic works that has helped a whole bunch of folks figure things out. The revelations in that book aren’t exactly ground-breaking. But they are, at their core, a solid foundation for success.

That said, I’ve been fortunate to hang around some pretty good deer hunters. I’ve studied their success and analyzed their failures, and noted a few things along the way. Here are 10 things I’ve noticed they all have in common that can help you have a more successful deer-hunting season.

1. Pay Attention to Details

A few years back, I attended a seminar given by whitetail legend Barry Wensel. In his presentation, Wensel talked about hunting over scrapes. I was stunned at the level of detail in his stories and recollections—the guy remembered seemingly every item of varying significance about every deer he’d ever observed working a scrape. And it wasn’t the last time I marveled over the amount of information retained by highly successful deer hunters.

Wensel pays attention to every detail because he’s learned that it’s the meanings behind those details that you have to put together to create answers. Those details are stored away, analyzed, organized and put into practical action.

2. Watch for Patterns

Paying attention to details is critical for consistent hunting success. But the very best deer hunters I’ve spent time around are constantly searching for deer movement patterns they can exploit.

Oklahoma hunter Jeff Danker has made a name for himself in the outdoors TV world with his ability to consistently tag giant whitetails in open country. He does this because he’s a master at patterning whitetails. Danker will invest hours conducting long-distance deer surveillance and sacrificing actual hunting time to decipher a repeatable pattern he can use to his advantage.

Highly successful deer hunters do not see a big buck and consider themselves lucky to have had the experience. Instead, they see a big buck and try to decipher every moment of that encounter to identify a repeatable pattern they can act on when that deer repeats it.

3. Be Prepared

Social media is something I love to hate. I hate that it brings out the worst in people sometimes. But at the same time, I love the insight it provides.

Follow some highly successful deer hunters that have social media chops and you’ll quickly realize that they spend an inordinate amount of time preparing. They scout; they work the land they hunt; they practice shooting; they plan.

Moving in on a trophy or once-in-a-lifetime buck is not unlike a top athlete following a daily training program. Practice and preparation will help you control as many variables in the field that you can control.

4. Don’t Hesitate

I don’t consider myself an ultra-successful deer hunter; though I think my skills for making big buck encounters are above average. I see a fair number of big bucks each fall. But I’m still learning how to close the deal more consistently. The most successful deer hunters are the opposite. They close far more deals than they leave open. Why? Because I hesitate, and they don’t.

I’m not talking about taking skilled shots at critters, either. Yes, there is some of that in play here. Highly successful hunters are very good at taking the first good shot an animal gives them and making it count. But they’re also very good at making the right decision and making that decision in a hurry. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve agonized over whether I should change stand locations only to see a giant buck cruise past the location I was considering before I made up my mind. Highly successful deer hunters don’t hesitate. They’re confident, they’re prepared, and they make decisions and execute on them.

5. Know Your Gear

Find a highly successful deer hunter and you’ll have found someone who is highly proficient and—perhaps most importantly—highly familiar with the equipment they use. Think about some of the big deer you’ve encountered. You know, the proverbial ones that got away. How many of those deer escaped because of some minor malfunction? An instance of bad luck? Highly successful deer hunters do not believe in luck. They work very hard to prevent mishaps, and that begins and ends with proficiency and familiarity. They don’t miss shots because their gun or bow is off. They don’t miss opportunities because they were five minutes late getting on stand because they couldn’t find their bow release. Highly effective deer hunters know the ins and outs of every piece of gear they own and they are proficient with everything they use.

6. Manage Time

Here’s another habit learned from a Wensel—this time it’s coming from Barry’s twin brother, Gene. In his excellent book, Come November, Gene writes about the importance of spending as much time in the woods as possible during the best time of each season. His reasoning involves startlingly simple math. If you hunt eight hours a day, you’re twice as likely to be successful.

Now, expand that concept. If you’re more efficient when scouting, you’ll scout more ground. If you spend less time hunting unproductive areas and more time hunting the best areas, you’ll be more successful. The best deer hunters I know don’t waste time—ever. They perform tasks with a purpose and they do so as efficiently as possible.

7. Focus on learning

Details. Proficiency. Familiarity. Time management. Patterns. Each a habit, a trait of learned behavior, a process honed through trial, error, and learned behavior.

All of the highly successful deer hunters I’ve been blessed to spend time with were unique people. Each hunter has their own theories, preferences, positions, and approach. But they also have some commonalities, not the least of which is this: All were focused on learning as much as they can about the deer they hunted.

Another commonality are three simple words: “I don’t know.” The best deer hunters I’ve encountered aren’t the know-it-all type. Not in the least. In fact, each of them is quick to note that while they may have a lot of knowledge about deer and deer hunting, there is even more that they don’t know. It’s that mystery, that pursuit of more knowledge, and more experience that makes them so successful.

Stop learning and you start assuming. Start assuming and success becomes much harder to find.

8. Make Shots Count

The very best deer hunters I’ve been around seldom miss. Notice I didn’t say “never.” Everyone misses sometimes. But when these guys miss, it’s usually because of something unfortunate (like a small twig deflection). They aren’t missing “gimme” shots and they seldom hit a deer in a place other than where they aim. Why is this? It’s because they don’t take shots they can’t make, or can’t make regularly. This is a subtle distinction but one that makes all the difference. Lots of guys can stand 50 yards from a target and drill arrows into a 5-inch circle. But how many of them can do that in the woods when adrenaline is racing and the target is capable of reacting to the shot? I’d wager not very many of them. The best deer hunters I know don’t have to do that because they take high-percentage shots and set themselves up specifically for those shots.

9. Shoot Deer in the Ribs

There’s a little piece of information that has made a big difference for me as a bowhunter. It’s pretty simple: shoot the deer in the ribs, not “just behind the shoulder” and not “three ribs back when quartering away.” No, the top deer hunters I’ve been around all have strikingly similar responses when I’ve asked them where they aim when shooting a whitetail with a bow. They aren’t trying for heart shots. They’re not trying to tuck an arrow tight behind the shoulder. Nope, instead they want to double-lung every deer they shoot and they do this by aiming for the ribs of the deer. This doesn’t mean they aren’t picking a spot to focus. They are. But what they’re not doing is over-complicating things. Run an arrow through a deer’s rib cage and they will not go far.

Read Next: 10 Myths About Hunting Mature Whitetail Bucks

10. Hunt More

The best deer hunters I’ve been around probably were born with some special gift that helps them understand deer and the environments they live in. But they also have spent a whole lot of time watching deer, hunting deer, studying deer, and learning a deer’s habits. Those hunters spend far more time in the woods than non-successful hunters. The fact that they routinely have success is not a coincidence or an unrelated effect. They’re successful because they make themselves so.

More is more, or so we seem to believe. Just spend a few moments browsing social media and the feeds of Insta influencers. You’ll find plenty of virtual vomit from users who shout, “Look at me and all my stuff!” And you’ll see one comparison after another: John’s buck is bigger than yours. Shane’s camo cost more. Jeff’s truck has bigger tires, and Karen’s bow is newer. That world can get tiresome, and there’s a growing legion of hunters who have but one thing to say about it: Enough.

Minimalism is a devilishly simple concept of redefining what you need versus what you want. For minimalist hunters, the result is a tight collection of specialized gear that weighs less, is simpler, and fosters a hunting style that’s mobile and nimble—and in many cases, more effective and enjoyable.

So read on and go light.

To Be One, Meet One

Missouri hunter Chet Donath got the start in hunting that many dream of. “Yeah, I was pretty fortunate. My dad owned a couple hundred acres. I started hunting at about age 10 with my dad and brother. We did the cameras and all that. We had big deer running around, plenty of ground to hunt them on. It was…almost easy,” he says. “Then I decided I wanted to do something different.”

And different is what he did. Gone were the piles of gear, the plethora of trail cams, and, eventually, his treestand.

Today, Donath spends the bulk of his season on public land and employs a greatly pared-down, spartan setup. “I just started thinking, What do I really need? I like to get back in off the road, and when you do that, you have to pack everything in and out. So you really start to think about what you need and what you don’t,” he says.

“You look around and you just sort of say, ‘Why? Do I really need that?’ ” he says. “I was in the Army for a while, so I was already used to wearing BDUs and ACUs. You can pick those up at a surplus store or Goodwill for $5 or $6. And they work just fine. The way I look at it, if I spend a full day working to buy some new hunting toy, that’s a day I didn’t spend hunting. That seems to defeat the purpose.”

Donath’s most significant savings actually came in the form of weight, when he ditched his treestand. Now, he pays more attention to where deer move than where a suitable tree is located. It’s not a complex system: Find the deer and get among them. The result?

“I killed one of my biggest bucks from behind a tree, on the ground,” he says. “I was wearing Carhartt bibs and a navy-blue sweater.”

Adopting the Philosophy

A typical hunting outing for me used to mean loading up my pack with calls, camera gear, extra clothing, ozone units, a spare trail cam (or two), saws, knives, and accessories wrapped in fancy camo. Then I’d strap on a treestand, a full set of climbing sticks, and whatever else I felt was required to spend a day in the woods—and look legit in my social feed.

I can’t tell you how many gallons of sweat I’ve left across the Midwest hauling that burden of ego across the woods. But then one day last winter, I was reading Everything That Remains, a book by Josh Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the duo best known as the Minimalists. I was inspired. I grabbed a buddy heater and headed for the room off the back of my garage that serves as the catchall for my hunting gear.

I took a quick look around and started making piles. I had 18 jackets. The number didn’t shock me so much as disgust me. And so the purge began.

With the money I made from selling some of the items, I put together a brand-new arsenal of hunting gear. The goal wasn’t to go cheap—it was to get the very best of what I needed, and get rid of everything I didn’t. Some of the individual items were expensive. But the total dollars spent is well under the value of all the stuff I used to have. Now I have an ensemble of gear that’s of higher quality than anything I previously owned, and I carry less than half the weight—literally and figuratively—in the field. (Check out the author’s current gear list at right.)

Saddling Up

Few things are as representative of the minimalist-hunting movement as the tree saddle. Greg Godfrey may not technically be a true OG in the world of saddle hunting—that honor goes to Michigan’s John Eberhart, who first started writing and talking about saddle hunting back in the early 2000s—but he is certainly a player in the current saddle revolution. An active-duty Army member, the Florida native grew up hunting from lock-on stands. Then Uncle Sam “asked” him to move.

“They took me to Colorado. The permanent treestands I was used to just didn’t work out there,” Godfrey says. “So I started researching online and looking into all these different options, and that’s when I discovered John Eberhart and saddle hunting. That kind of sparked a 10-year quest to push things forward.”

And push he did. Godfrey took full advantage of what he credits as the single most important tool in saddle hunting’s rise to near-mainstream status: YouTube.

“That’s been the key. Without the internet, I don’t think it would’ve gotten as big as it has,” he says. “The technology we have now has made saddle hunting much more comfortable and effective. Lightweight climbing sticks have only been available for the past 10 years or so. The internet resources where guys can learn from each other, build off ideas from each other…that wasn’t around like it is now.

There was just no way to really learn about this stuff, especially not from guys like me who don’t really have a voice or an outlet.”

Godfrey started by modifying products to create saddles that were lighter, more nimble, and more comfortable. And then he did what any red-blooded American entrepreneur would do: He decided to see if he could make a business out of it.

“It’s funny because my partner Ernie [Powers] said, ‘Hey, maybe we can sell enough saddles over the next two years to pay for an elk hunt in Colorado,’  ” he says. “We really didn’t have any idea it would turn into this.”

What it’s turned into is a company called Tethrd that produces the Mantis saddle and the Predator hunting platform. With wait times for product shipment being measured in months, it’s safe to say the two have cleared enough for that elk hunt.

To Godfrey, the saddle isn’t an “every hunt” solution, but it’s pretty close.

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“Honestly, there are only a few select situations where I feel a stand is better than a saddle. In heavy evergreens, a saddle wouldn’t be the best choice. But for everything else, I think it beats a treestand,” he says.

The saddle’s ability to adapt to trees that are crooked, have lots of limbs, or are very large (all difficult, if not impossible, obstacles for a traditional treestand), coupled with its extreme portability, are big selling points. The most common concerns for those reluctant to try out a saddle? Safety, comfort, and usability.

To that, Godfrey has a simple response:

“Those are all understandable concerns that are resolved as soon as you hang in a saddle,” he says. “You have to be willing to get out of your head a little bit. They’re not treestands. But once you try one, you realize they are very comfortable. They’re every bit as safe as, if not safer than, a traditional stand. And you can shoot from every possible angle, unlike with a traditional stand.”

Another potential hindrance: cost. While a new treestand hunter can test the waters by choosing from stands that range from $35 to $350 each, saddle hunting has a higher minimum investment. There are really only two brands in the saddle game: Tethrd and AeroHunter. Both feature models that start at about $200.

“That is one downside. There’s a little bit of sticker shock. There’s really no ‘try it’ price level with a saddle,” Godfrey says. “But you won’t lose any money, because if you don’t like it, you can post that saddle on any online forum and get your money back, because it won’t take long to sell it.”

Godfrey doesn’t think saddle hunting is just a trendy trick all the kids are doing either. “If you ask the people who’ve been using them for 30 years, they’ll tell you they’re not a fad,” he says. “I think in three years, people will ask, ‘How do you hunt?’ and the answer will be, from a climber, a lock-on, or a saddle.”

What Matters

When deer hunting starts to become less fun, it’s time to change things up. So that’s exactly what I did, and this fall I plan to hit the woods with only the most necessary of items. The minimalist mentality allows you to focus on what’s truly important about deer hunting: the woods, the critters, and the experience. Even in this world, which is obsessed with comparisons, nothing can compare with that.

The Gear Purge

Here’s just about all the gear I need for a successful deer season.

1. Under Armour Cold Gear
I don’t know what magic is in these compression shirts, but they keep me warm like nothing else.

2. Browning Hell’s Canyon Hellfire-FM Speed pants
These pants are one of the few items to survive the purge. I love the stretch fabric, and they’re weather- and windproof.

3. Sitka Stratus Jacket
It’s the ideal weight, quiet, and well-made. I wear it through most of October and November.

4. Carhartt Rockland coat
This may be the best bowhunting jacket I’ve ever owned. It keeps moisture at bay, blocks the wind, and is lined with Sherpa fleece.

5. Accessories
A down-filled vest can be paired with the Stratus jacket for moderate temps or over the Carhartt for really cold sits. Pair it with Sitka’s fuzzy-lined neck gaiter, and I can handle any weather conditions I might face.

6. The Pack
The Mystery Ranch Pack Mule is a day pack that can transform into a legit meat-hauler—which also makes it ideal for carrying climbing sticks. I load it with a single grunt call, a rattle pack, a trim saw, a small folding knife, a handful of reflective tacks for marking tree locations, a headlamp, a bunch of zip ties (great for securing brush on makeshift blinds), a spare release aid, and two bottles of water. That’s it. If I plan to hunt all day, I’ll throw in a couple of sandwiches as well.

7. The Bow
I use a quality three-pin fixed sight, a 6-inch stabilizer, and a drop-away rest. I make my own wrist slings for my bow from paracord. If I need some cord, I simply remove my sling and whack off a piece. When I’m blood trailing, I’ll also use the brightly colored cord to mark blood locations. A D-loop and peep sight round out the setup. No sidebars. No movable or complicated self-ranging sights. No color-coordinated strings and dongles. It’s a simple rig, with less to fail.

8. The Setup
I hunt away from home a fair bit each fall. In the past, that meant loading my truck with six tree­stands and four sets of climbing sticks. Now I tote a single stand and a tree saddle. I have two sets of climbing sticks: Hawk Heliums and Lone Wolf Custom Gear sticks, plus a rope aider that allows me to use fewer sticks to reach my desired height.

When hunting an area I’m familiar with, my first task is to set up the treestand in a proven location, using my climbing sticks. Once the stand is in place, I take the sticks down with me for mobile use. Now within an hour of arriving, I have a spot set up where I can hunt with confidence. But I’m also off to scout other areas, including new spots, for hot sign. I carry the climbing sticks in my pack at all times, and I wear my saddle. Because of this, if I find a good place, I can hunt it immediately. I’m not only toting around less crap, I’m more efficient and maximizing my time afield.

The Minimalist Ride and Rest

A hefty percentage of my annual hunting expenses used to be tied up in lodging and travel. I had tried every option, from flea-ridden motels to VRBO-type cabins and houses to campers and tents. Some were nice; some were more hassle than the savings were worth. But all cost something, whether it was time, money, or both.

This winter, I made an investment that has already paid me back about five times over. It started when I found (1) a used truck topper to fit my F-150 for $250. Then I spent another $200 on (2) lumber,
hardware, (3) LED lighting, foam padding, and other odds and ends. Over the course of two weekends, I turned those materials into a kick-ass mobile hunting camp in the bed of my truck.

My DIY camp has LED lighting, a full-length elevated bed with a 4-inch memory-foam pad, and (4) a pair of slide-out drawers that house a single-burner Camp Chef stove, utensils, and assorted gear. I have a deep-cycle marine battery paired with an inverter, which allows me to charge my phone, laptop, and camera batteries. It even powers a small fan for warm nights.

Everything I need for a week (or more) of hunting fits easily into the truck. I spent 14 days turkey hunting out of it across the Midwest last spring, and spent exactly $0 on lodging. I simply parked where I was hunting and camped. I saved a ton of back-and-forth driving time, and a quite a bit of money on food too, because I was able to cook most of my own meals right there on the tailgate.

I never require any encouragement to buy a new rifle for an upcoming hunt. But then again, I’m what is technically known as “fiscally irresponsible.” One question I frequently get from hunters going on their first elk hunt is what rifle to bring. As happy as I am to part with my own money, I’m even happier to spend other’s hard-earned lucre. That said, my advice to these folks is often not to buy a rifle specifically for elk and to instead take one they already own and are familiar with.

Internet Elk Experts: .300 or Bust

Experts lurk in every corner of the internet, and elk rifle experts are nearly as common as experts regarding handguns for protection against bears. One common observation from these elk-aficionados is that elk are remarkably tough animals that need to be pursued with cartridges bigger and more powerful than what you’d use on a whitetail or mule deer.

To this crowd, the .30-caliber magnums (and up) are where it is at. The .300 Win. Mag. is the starting point of the conversation. Other cartridges that make the grade include the .300 Weatherby, .300 WSM, .300 Rem. Ultra Mag., .300 PRC, and 30 Nosler.

A typical premium .300 Win. Mag. load is Nosler’s 180-grain Accubond with a muzzle velocity (MV) of 2950 fps and a muzzle energy (ME) of 3477 ft.-lb. In the 30 Nosler, MV jumps up to 3200 fps (4092 ft.-lb. ME), which is right on the heels of the .300 Weatherby and .300 RUM, which list 3250 fps as the MV for the 180 Accubond (4220 ft.-lb. ME).

Old-Time Tough Guys Favorite Elk Rifle: The Big .33s

Going a step further, you have the wonderful .338-caliber bullets available in the .338 Win. Mag., 33 Nosler, .338-378 Weatherby, .338 RUM, .338 Lapua, and the new .338 Weatherby RPM. The .338 Win. Mag. used to hold the title for the best option if you had just one cartridge to hunt the world—and still does in some hunters’ eyes—and even today is a force to be reckoned with in elk country.

Most .338 Win. Mag. ammo loads bullets weighing between 200 and 250 grains, with the 225-grainers being the sweet spot. The 225s typically have a MV of 2800 fps and ME of 3917 ft.-lb. The muzzle velocities and energies only climb from there. The bigger .338s shoot 225-grain bullets but also propel 250- and 300-grain bullets with ease.

All these .30- and .338-caliber thumpers do outstanding work on elk, and the bigger .33s even pack enough punch to take dangerous African game. But do you want a rifle chambered in one for elk, particularly in a rifle where weight is going to be a concern?

The argument for these cartridges is that because elk are so much larger and tougher than deer you need a larger bullet to break through bone better, to handle less-than-ideal shot angles, and to take advantage of the better killing ability of the larger bullet diameters.

While these arguments have some merit, I think they are overstated by their advocates, particularly in light of today’s better hunting bullets. This logic is the product of a bygone era where bullet performance was spotty and to cope with that deficit a bigger cartridge and bullet justified the tradeoffs.

For those too young to remember, bullet failure used to be a legitimate concern. There were plenty of basic cup-and-core designs that didn’t hold together very well and whose terminal ballistics were inconsistent. Some of these bullets would fragment violently on impact with an animal’s shoulder, especially at close ranges when the projectile was still carrying a lot of velocity, leaving a gory surface wound that wasn’t instantly fatal. And some bullets would fail to expand at all, penciling through the animal without damaging enough tissue to kill it outright.

In that context, bumping up to a larger cartridge and bullet in your elk rifle was a reasonable remedy.

The biggest downside to these rifles is the amount of recoil they generate and the difficulty people have shooting them. It’s hard to overstate how significant this can be. I’ve watched and coached countless hunters try to sight-in and shoot their magnum-caliber rifles and most struggle mightily, even those who consider themselves experienced hunters and marksmen—to say nothing of the newbie on their first elk hunt.

These shooters often close their eyes at the shot, flinch with anticipation of the trigger break, hold their rifle in a death-grip, or fail to firmly place the recoil pad in their shoulder—none of which are conducive to good shooting.

A muzzle brake can help mitigate some of this, but the excess muzzle blast can contribute to these issues as well. It certainly isn’t a cure-all.

The Right Answer: Take Your Deer Gun

I’m not going to get into the argument of how low you can go with cartridge selection for elk. There are plenty of places you can read about the 6.5 Creed for elk elsewhere. But you shouldn’t feel hampered in the least by bringing your favorite deer rifle on an elk hunt.

Standards like the .30/06, .308 Win., .270 Win. and the newer 6.5 PRC will all serve you well on elk. Just make sure to use loads with appropriate bullets and you’ll be good to go.

In the .30/06 I’ve killed elk and moose with various 180-grain bullets and I’m a big fan of the Accubond in this weight. At 2750 fps, the 180 AB has 3022 ft.-lb. of ME and even stodgy old-timers would have a hard time arguing that it isn’t enough for a mature 6×6 bull. Other bullets to consider are Federal’s 180-grain Fusion and Remington’s new Core-Lokt tipped.

A remarkably accurate, and effective elk rifle round is the .308 Win. with 165-grain Accubonds. At 2800 fps, this round delivers 2871 ft.-lb. of ME. The 130 ft.-lb. difference from the .30/06 will never be noticed by any elk or other animal.

The .270 Win. has proven itself as a consummate Western big game round over the decades and is more effective than ever with some of today’s premium hunting projectiles. The 136-grain Federal Terminal Ascent is one of these best-in-class bullets and at 3000 fps generates 2718 ft.-lb. of muzzle energy. If the thought of a 136-grain bullet seems a little light, you can step it up with a 150-grain Nosler ABLR at 2850 fps and 2705 ft.-lb. ME. Both bullets will penetrate deeply and expand reliably even on longer shots. And they shoot flat and have very manageable recoil.

The final example I’ll highlight is the 6.5 PRC, which is optimized for .264-in. diameter heavy-for-caliber bullets and during the brief time since its introduction in late 2018 has racked up an impressive track record on Western big game including elk.

The ammo offerings in 6.5 PRC have been rapidly expanding. Hornady’s 143-grain ELD-X at 2960 fps (2783 ft.-lb. ME) was the first hunting load, and I’ve tagged several elk with this bullet. But other manufacturers have jumped into the mix. Federal has their 140-grain Fusion (2925 fps/2659 ft.-lb. ME) and 130-grain Terminal Ascent (3000 fps/2598 ft.-lb. ME). I haven’t killed an elk with the 130-grain TE, but have used it on aoudad, which are reasonably large, and a couple deer with devastating effect and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a bull with it.

Nosler has both their 140-grain Accubond (2900 fps/2614 ft.-lb. ME) and 142-grain Accubond Long Range (2900 fps/2651 ft.-lb. ME) in 6.5 PRC and I’ve had good experience with both bullets in terms of accuracy and terminal performance.

Now these aren’t the only lighter cartridges that will work. There are all the magnificent 7mm to pick from (7mm Rem. Mag., .280 Rem., .280 AI, 7mm SAUM, etc.). And an argument can be made for the quarter-bores too, like the .25/06 and .257 Wby. Mag.

Why Smaller Can Be Better for an Elk Rifle

The advantages of these small cartridges are that you probably already own one, and, secondly, will be able to shoot it better than the big .30s and .33s.

By way of comparison look at the chart above showing the relatively recoil that each cartridge generates in an 8.5-pound rifle. When you consider that a .30/06 is at the upper end of what most hunters can tolerate and shoot well with 25.1 ft.-lb. of recoil, the issues with the magnum rounds becomes apparent. It isn’t that those big boomers are impossible to master. They are with practice. But they require work and effort to do so. And the hunter who brags about shooting the same box of ammo for the past three seasons while shouldering a magnum hasn’t put in that work and doesn’t shoot nearly as well as he thinks he does.

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Speaking of practice, with all that money you’ll be saving by not buying a new rifle, you can invest in a couple hundred rounds of ammo and up your skills. This is where going lighter will really pay dividends.

Not only will you not beat yourself to pieces trying to shoot a heavy gun, but you will arrive in elk camp with an advantage that none of the magnum shooters will have. Namely, you will have mastered your rifle and be able to put a shot on target when it counts most. As long as your bullet is up to snuff, that elk will be yours.

Body camera footage from the incident shows the deputies slowly approaching the bull. The rope swing hangs from a tree on the wooded edge of a grassy field. The bull runs back and forth near the tree, trying to free itself from the rope. The swing, a thick piece of lumber, clunks against the bull’s tines.

“Usually these can require deputies to put the injured animal down, which is not a fun thing to have to do,” PCSD writes in the caption.

The footage cuts to an up-close shot of the elk. It is panting and foaming at the mouth, and is clearly exhausted from running back and forth and fighting against the tree. The deputy stands with the tree between him and the elk as he talks gently to the bull in hopes of calming it. A few more minutes pass before he attempts to cut the rope with a fixed-blade knife, but the bull shuffles around before he can start cutting.

“I’m trying to keep the tree between me and him,” the deputy says. “I just don’t want to get beaned by that friggin’ chunk of lumber.”

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The deputy positions himself on the other side of the tree and attempts to cut the second piece of rope, but the bull lowers its head and charges. It knocks the deputy to the ground, nearly goring him. Footage from the other deputy’s body camera offers a better look at the close call. The deputy jumps up right away, assuring the others he’s okay. But it’s clear the loppers aren’t long enough to chop the rope from a safe distance.

The deputy then grabs a different tool, a serrated knife duct-taped to the handle of a garden rake, and creates a makeshift pole saw. After a few short strokes, the knife breaks through the second piece of rope. The bull bolts into the woods, fragments of rope still tangled between its antlers.

On Tuesday, PCSD posted an update on the bull, which had shown up on a trail camera eating from a feeder. Pieces of rope were still tied around the elk’s antlers but it looked healthy otherwise. As PCSD points out in the caption, the rope will eventually fall off when the bull sheds its antlers.

Pierce County is in western Washington, encompassing Gig Harbor on the northern end and Mount Rainier National Park on the southern end. Despite concerns about human encroachment on wildlife habitat in the area, the North Rainier elk population is considered “at objective” according to the latest population study conducted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Washington is home to 45,000 to 50,000 elk.

“With a delay for other agencies to respond our deputies stepped up to the challenge of freeing this young bull elk,” PCSD wrote. “This is extremely dangerous and we would never want you to try this at home.”

The 6.5 PRC, officially introduced in 2018, has become popular for hunting big game and long-range shooting. The appeal of this short-mag, based on the Ruger .300 RCM, is easy to understand. It strikes a Goldilocks balance between large magnums, like the .300 Win. Mag., .300 Wby. Mag., and 7mm Rem. Mag., and the much maligned—but undeniably capable—6.5 Creedmoor and its peers.

Like many others I was quickly drawn to the 6.5 PRC—which stands for Precision Rifle Cartridge—and made it the basis for my ideal open-country hunting rifle. The 6.5 PRC’s design allows it to propel a host of good heavy-for-caliber 6.5mm bullets at velocities that lend themselves to fine accuracy and decisive terminal performance. It’s an excellent expression of the trends in modern cartridge design.

Now the long-term success of the 6.5 PRC isn’t guaranteed. We’ve had a slew of cartridge introductions over the last 25 years that have fizzled. Among all the short-mags, for instance, only the .300 WSM retains a meaningful following. And who remembers the super-short mags and their brief moment in the spotlight? Plenty of other interesting cartridges likewise started with a flicker of interest, ultimately failing to catch fire with the shooting public at large. A partial list to illustrate the point includes the .338 Federal, .17 Mach II, .17 WSM, .307 Marlin, .450 Marlin, .30 T/C, .30 Remington AR, .338 RCM, the Remington Ultra Mags, and so on.

That said, I think the 6.5 PRC has legs and its prospects for the future seem bright—though the cartridge has some challenges and drawbacks.

6.5 PRC Specs

• Bullet Diameter: 6.5mm/.264 inches
• Case Length: 2.03 inches
• Overall Length: 2.755 to 2.955 inches
• Case head diameter: .532 inches (.540-inch bolt face)
• Parent Case: .300 Ruger Compact Magnum
• Maximum pressure: 65,000 psi
• Twist: 1:8 inches
• Typical bullet weight: 120 to 156 grains
• Typical velocity: 2,900 fps with a 147-grain bullet
• Year introduced: 2018

6.5 PRC History

Though unveiled in 2018, the 6.5 PRC had been in the works since 2013. The driving force behind its development was George Gardner, owner of GA Precision. He wanted to create a hard-hitting long-range round for hunters and competitive shooters, particularly those in the Precision Rifle Series. According to PRS rules, cartridges cannot have muzzle velocities in excess of 3,200 fps. In addition to that restriction, Gardner also wanted to run the cartridge through short-action receivers. These two parameters are why he decided on a 6.5 mm/.264-caliber round. (As a side note it is interesting how no one in the PRS or NRL are shooting cartridges that push the 3,200-fps limit, instead favoring milder 6mm rounds like the 6 Dasher and 6mm GT.)

“I wanted the highest BC bullet you can push at 3,200 in a short action,” Gardner said. “The 6s can be pushed that fast, but they have lower BCs. The 7 mils have higher BCs but can’t be pushed at 3,200 fps in a short action. The lack of bullet selection in the .25 and .270 ruled those out—so that’s why I settled on the 6.5.”

6.5 SAUM Detour

When considering a parent case for a 6.5 short mag, Gardner had three choices. He dismissed the Winchester Short Magnum family right away because its case capacity was larger than was needed. The Ruger Compact Magnum, which is made by Hornady, was his first pick. But back in 2013, when he approached Hornady to make a 6.5 short mag, they passed because they were already making as much brass as they could to satisfy the demand for ammo during those years of panic buying. That left Gardner with the Remington Short Action Ultra Mag. He was able to locate several hundred thousand pieces of 7 mm SAUM brass, and so the 6.5 SAUM/4S was born.

Compared to the 6.5 PRC, the 6.5 SAUM is about 50 fps faster, but the SAUM case has a rebated rim, which adds cost and can make reliable feeding more of a challenge.

And though the 6.5 SAUM developed a following, as soon as Hornady had the bandwidth to produce the case Gardner wanted, he pivoted to the 6.5 PRC. “The PRC was just more commercially viable,” Gardner said. “It works with a greater variety of powders and a broader range of guns and is a little more versatile than the 6.5 SAUM.”

6.5 PRC in the Field

That versatility was evident as soon as people started hunting with it. I got to use the round before it was publicly announced, taking it on a mule deer hunt in Utah that showcased its virtues. The terrain I hunted included everything from open sage flats, to exposed rocky escarpments, to dense timber, to lung-busting mountains.

I don’t recall what my rifle weighed, but it was comfortable to carry over long distances. And once we spotted my buck my guide and I had to cover about a mile and a half as quickly as possible to get set up.

That stalk turned into a prolonged waiting match as the buck bedded down with a handful of other deer about 450 yards from our position, which was among some boulders on a ridge. The ground dipped between us and the deer so we couldn’t stalk any closer without getting busted.

After a short eternity the buck got up and started moving away through the sage. He paused broadside for a moment and my shot with the then brand-new 143-grain ELD-X anchored him.

6.5 PRC Ballistics

While there’s nothing magic about the 6.5 PRC, it is possible to demonstrate the niche it fills with some numbers. Let’s take that 143-grain ELD-X bullet I used. With a muzzle velocity around 2,900 fps and a 100-yard zero, its drop at 400 yards is 23 inches. Comparing that to a couple other high-performance cartridges—a .308 Win. shooting Berger’s 168-grain Hybrid Hunter at 2,680 fps and a 7mm Rem. Mag. shooting a 160-grain Nosler AccuBond at 3,000 fps—we can see how the 6.5 stacks up rather favorably.

On the one hand, it shoots flatter than the .308, while generating about the same felt recoil. On the other, it runs neck-and-neck with the 7mm Rem. Mag. in terms of drop at 400 yards—even though the 7mm generates 32 percent more recoil.

Thanks to the high BC of the 143 ELD-X, it retains more velocity at 400 than the other cartridges and that advantage will only become more significant at longer distances. You can see how it is less affected by a 10-mph crosswind at 400 yards, and how it retains its energy more efficiently downrange.

I used 1000 foot-pounds of retained energy to illustrate the point. The .308 dips below that 1000-foot-pound threshold at 830 yards, and the 7mm Rem. Mag. does so at 985 yards. By contrast, the 6.5 PRC is out at 1085 yards before it drops to 1000 foot-pounds.

Note that all these numbers were generated using the same rifle setup and environmental conditions.

Going Long with the 6.5 PRC

One thing to note with the 6.5 PRC is that as the range to the target increases it quickly leaves its competition in the dust. At 400 yards it is beginning to outpace the 7mm Rem. Mag. When it hits 800 or 1000 yards it has outclassed it and does a better job downrange than other magnum rounds like the .300 Win. Mag. or .300 Wby. Mag.

For example, even when shooting a .300 Win. Mag. with an optimized bullet like the 178-grain ELD-X, the 143-grain ELD-X from the 6.5 PRC has less drop and drift at 1000 yards. Where the 178 has dropped 260 inches at 1000, the 143 has dropped 242 inches at that distance.

And if you swap that 178 ELD-X with more common .300 Win. Mag. hunting bullets in the 150- to 180-grain class that disparity becomes more pronounced.

Where the heavy-hitting .300s shine in ELR applications is with impact signature. A .300 PRC shooting a 220-grain A-Tip (which is one of my preferred ELR loads) will recoil harder than a 6.5 PRC and cause more shooter fatigue, but it is much easier to spot hits and misses at distances of a mile or more than with the 6.5 PRC.

READ NEXT: Best Long Range Calibers

Top Rifles Chambered in 6.5 PRC

I’ve shot quite a few rifles chambered in 6.5 PRC and, as a class, they’ve all shot well. None have been dogs. Some have been exceptional.

Each year the number of manufacturers offering 6.5 PRC rifles has steadily grown. For the time being the cartridge’s prospects look good. Here are some of the best rifles in 6.5 PRC to choose from at the moment:

Seekins Havak HIT

The Havak HIT is a remarkable value and won a couple of awards in our annual gun test in 2022. This modular precision rifle is innovative, ergonomic, and incredibly accurate. The 6.5 PRC Havak HIT I reviewed averaged .542-inch five-shot groups with factory ammo. The chassis stock is minimalistic but functional. It folds for compact carry and adjusts for critical dimensions for a custom fit. The full-length ARCA rail on the fore-end incorporates Seekins’s proprietary attachment system. And the cherry on top is that it can switch barrels and bolt heads in a flash to change calibers.

Seekins Havak Pro Hunter 2

This rifle took top honors in Outdoor Life’s gun test when it was introduced and it remains one of the best values in a high-end technical rifle. One great innovation that Seekins incorporated into the 6.5 PRC model is the 3-round detachable carbon fiber magazine that can accommodate an overall cartridge length of 3.14 inches. This gives the shooter the option to run handloads with longer, heavier bullets and still be able to feed through the rifle’s short-action design.

Proof Research Elevation

This lightweight hunter tips the scales right around 6 pounds and comes with a 24-inch carbon fiber barrel with a 1:7.5 twist in 6.5 PRC. It is built on an excellent Zermatt Arms Origin action, has a TriggerTech trigger, uses a BDL hinged floorplate on the magazine. Like other Proof rifles it has a ½-inch accuracy guarantee. As an all-around premium hunting rifle it is an outstanding choice.

Proof Research Glacier Ti

If you are in need of a true ultralight mountain rifle, the Proof Glacier Ti is a step above the pack—though you’ll pay for the privilege. Editor in chief Alex Robinson has been hunting with the Glacier Ti for the last year and we’ve had a hard time prying the 5.5-pound carbon fiber wonder from his hands.

He put it to its intended use on a Dall sheep hunt, where he used it to take a beautiful ram at 100 yards with Federal’s 130-grain Terminal Ascent. He’s also shot a couple whitetails with it, both using Federal’s 140-grain Fusion.

Browning X-Bolt Mountain Pro

Staff writer Tyler Freel has a lot of trigger time behind this rifle, both in 6.8 Western, which he reviewed at length, and in 6.5 PRC. He carried the 6.5 PRC on a recent hunt in northern Alberta and used it to kill an impressive wolf.

The rifle weighs about 6.25 pounds, so it is portable, and comes with a durable and well-designed carbon fiber stock. The 24-inch barrel is made of spiral fluted stainless steel. It comes with a trigger that can be adjusted from 3 to 5 pounds.

Springfield Armory Waypoint 2020

This rifle, introduced during the pandemic, was Springfield’s first foray into bolt-action rifles. I took it on a deer hunt in Colorado where my buddy Cody Arnold and I both killed fantastic whitetail bucks with it in 6.5 PRC. Both shots were over 500 yards in windy conditions, but that’s where the 6.5 PRC excels.

This rifle is ideally suited to Western hunting. It is accurate and has lots of smart features. It comes with five QD cups on the stock, M-Lok slots on the fore-end, and feeds from AICS pattern magazines. In its lightest trim, with a carbon fiber barrel, it weighs just over 6.5 pounds.

Gunwerks Nexus

This is a fascinating new rifle from Gunwerks that I’ve been shooting for the last few months. It blends high-tech innovation (switch-barrel design, integrated ARCA rail, recessed Picatinny rail section, carbon-fiber barrel) with old-school touches like the leather inserts on the grip and cheek piece and the three-position safety on the bolt shroud.

AllTerra Arms Mountain Shadow Steel

If you want to pull out all the stops and go with a full custom build, take a look at the rifles from AllTerra Arms. I’ve got their Mountain Shadow Steel in 6.5 PRC that I’ve carried on a few hunts, including a grueling two-week hunt for bighorns in Alberta last fall. The rifle has lots of trick touches to enhance performance and accuracy. To appreciate all that this build brings to the party, check out this review.

Nosler Model 21

The Model 21 was an instant hit with the Outdoor Life gun test team. I took an early version chambered in .375 H&H to Africa, where it performed like a champ, but the 6.5 PRC version is a better all-around option for North American hunters. Executive editor Natalie Krebs is a case in point. She’s used her Model 21 in 6.5 PRC on a DIY hunt to kill an elk of a lifetime in Utah and it has become her go-to deer rifle as well.

While the lines of the Model 21 are undeniably traditional, under the hood it has modern elements like tool-less takedown for the bolt, a keyed recoil lug that won’t slip, and other touches.

Christensen Arms Ridgeline

We’ve had good experiences with the Christensen Arms Ridgeline. It is a solid choice in that $2,000-price range. The 6.5 PRC version of the rifle has a 24-inch carbon fiber barrel with a 1:8 twist and comes with a radial muzzle brake with a 5/8-24 thread. The Ridgeline features a TriggerTech trigger in the stainless-steel action. The carbon-fiber stock has bedding pillars for a strong, repeatable connection between action and stock.

Savage 110 Apex Storm

This is a budget-priced package based on Savage’s eternal 110 action. For $820 you get a solid rifle topped with a Vortex 3-9×40 Crossfire II scope that has a BDC holdover reticle. The synthetic stock is durable, functional and adjusts for length of pull. The AccuTrigger system is user adjustable as well. The rifle is designed with a free-floating barrel and free-floating bolt head that both help with accuracy.

6.5 PRC Ammo

In the beginning there were only two factory loads for the 6.5 PRC, Hornady’s 143-grain ELD-X and the 147-grain ELD Match. Both are still great options for hunting and target shooting, respectively. Since then, the variety of 6.5 PRC ammunition has exploded, and depending on your needs (and budget) there are many offerings to choose among.

Hornady

• 147-grain ELD Match (target)
• 143-grain ELD-X (hunting)
• 130-grain CX (non-lead hunting)

Federal

• 130-grain Terminal Ascent (hunting)
• 140-grain Fusion (hunting)
• 130-grain Trophy Copper (non-lead hunting)

Berger

• 156-grain Extreme Outer Limits (EOL) (hunting)
• 140-grain Elite Hunter (hunting)

Remington

• 140-grain Premier Long Range (hunting)

Winchester

• 142-grain ABLR (hunting)
• 140-grain BTHP (target)
• 125-grain Copper Impact (non-lead, hunting)

Norma

• 143-grain Bondstrike (hunting)
• 140-grain Whitetail (hunting)

Browning

• 140-grain Gameking (hunting)
• 140-grain Polymer Tipped (hunting)

Nosler

• 140-grain AccuBond (hunting)
• 140-grain Ballistic Tip (hunting)
• 142-grain AccuBond Long Range (hunting)
• 120-grain E-Tip (non-lead hunting)

Barnes

• 127-grain Vor-TX Long Range (non-lead, hunting)

Black Hills Ammunition

• 143-grain ELD-X (hunting)

Reloading the 6.5 PRC

The 6.5 PRC is a fun and easy cartridge to reload thanks to a wide range of excellent available components. The list of quality .264-inch caliber bullets probably merits an article on its own. And when it comes to brass and powder there’s no shortage there either.

Gittings One and Done

If you want to go the easy route for one load that will work well for hunting and target shooting, follow my friend and shooting partner Chris Gitting’s lead. He’s used this load to shoot numerous elk and to place very well in ELR shooting competitions.

• Bullet: Berger 156-grain EOL
• Brass: Lapua
• Primer: 215M (Gittings opts for magnum primers in the 6.5 PRC)
• Powder: 57.5 grains H1000

With a 26-inch barrel shoot for a target velocity around 2920 fps. Start with a lower powder charge, of course, and work your way up to that speed. Once there, call it good. From a 24-inch barrel, lower your target velocity to 2890 fps or so.

Best 6.5 PRC Bullets

We’ve already touched on a number of the best projectiles to use in the 6.5 PRC. Bullet weights range from 120 to 156 grains for the 6.5 PRC and there’s no reason not to take advantage of the cartridge’s ability to drive long, sleek bullets at speeds around 2900 fps.

For match shooting the Hornady 147-grain ELD-M, Berger 156-grain EOL, Vapor Trail 139-grain BTHP, Nosler 140-grain RDF, Lapua 139-grain Scenar, and Sierra HPBT in 140-, 144- and 150-grain weights, are among the best.

Hunters using traditional lead bullets should look at the Nosler 140-grain AccuBond, Hornady 143-grain ELD-X, Sierra 140-grain Tipped Gameking, Berger 140-grain Hunter, Berger 156-grain EOL, Federal 130-grain Terminal Ascent, Speer 140-grain Polymer Tipped, and Nosler 140-grain Ballistic Tip.

If you want to go non-leaded, the Barnes 127-grain LRX, Hornady 130-grain CX, Nosler 120-grain E-Tip, and Lehigh Defense 130-grain Controlled Chaos are good picks.

Best 6.5 PRC Brass

High-quality brass for loading the 6.5 PRC is available from Lapua, ADG, Peterson Cartridge, and Hornady. You won’t go wrong with any of them.

Best Powders for Reloading the 6.5 PRC

Again, there’s a plethora of options for reloaders when it comes to the 6.5 PRC. Powders like H1000, Retumbo, RL 26, RL 22, Accurate Magpro, Winchester StaBall HD, and IMR 4831 are worth considering. In the Vihtavuori world, look at N170, N565, N570, and even 24N41.

Primers for the 6.5 PRC

Most reloading data suggests using large rifle primers, though you can experiment with magnum primers too. I mostly shoot Federal 210Ms, but Federal 210s, Winchester Large Rifle, CCI No. 200, and Remington 9 ½ primers will all work.

Best 6.5 PRC Reloading Dies

You can get quality die sets from Hornady, RCBS, and Redding. I’ve used them all and like them quite a bit. You can also go the premium route if you want to splurge and pick up a Short Action Customs Modular Sizing Die, which is the cat’s ass.

6.5 PRC Pros and Cons

The pros of the 6.5 PRC are many. It’s modern, efficient design makes it inherently accurate, and it is optimized for long-range work. It can leverage many of the best hunting and match bullets on the market today and is ideal for all non-dangerous game.

As its popularity has grown, so has the availability of rifles and ammunition. Early adopters might have been concerned over the ability to find ammunition, but that is no longer an issue.

The 6.5 PRC is also simple to reload and as the pinch on components continues to diminish, reloaders will find it easy to keep their presses running.

In terms of the cartridge’s cons, the major one has to do with its overall length. Most rifle makers have built their 6.5 PRCs on short-action designs. Many short-action receivers and magazines can only accommodate cartridges up to 2.8 inches in length or just a hair longer. Some stretch that to over 2.9 inches.

So when loading the 6.5 PRC long to take full advantage of the cartridge, it won’t run in some of these shorter actions. That’s why some 6.5 PRCs are built on standard long (.30/06-length) actions. There are also medium-length actions that split the difference. For instance, the action on my Ultimate Open Country Rifle is a Defiance XM medium-length action, which can accept magazines for cartridges measuring 3.25 inches and is perfect for the 6.5 PRC but isn’t very common among factory rifles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the largest grain bullet for 6.5 PRC?

Currently, Berger’s 156-grain EOL bullet is the heaviest bullet that’s in common use with the 6.5 PRC. The sweet spot for the cartridge are bullets weighing 140 grains or more, though there are good options from 120 to 130 grains too.

Why is 6.5 PRC so popular?

The 6.5 PRC takes advantage of today’s best bullets and our understanding of modern cartridge design to deliver long-range performance in a cartridge with moderate recoil. That, coupled with its fine accuracy, has driven its popularity.

What size is a 6.5 PRC?

The overall length of the 6.5 PRC runs from 2.8 to 2.955 inches, though some handloaders load the round a bit longer than that.

Does the 6.5 PRC require a long action?

Since the overall SAAMI length of the 6.5 PRC is 2.955 inches, the cartridge won’t run in every short-action receiver on the market, some of which top out at 2.8 inches. In those cases a long- or medium-length action is called for.

How many rounds will a 6.5 PRC barrel last?

The 6.5 PRC is a high-performance cartridge but not a real barrel burner. Assuming you don’t beat the snot out of your hunting rig you should get at least 2,000 rounds out of a barrel and, with proper care, maybe more. Competition shooters who run their rifles hard, and who need peak performance, will probably look to replace barrels around 1,500 rounds.

How far can a 6.5 PRC shoot accurately?

The 6.5 PRC is effective for ELR applications, meaning it can make hits at 2,000 yards or more. Even regular 6.5 PRC rifles—assuming they are well made—are fully capable on targets beyond 1,200 yards.

Final Thoughts on the 6.5 PRC

When choosing a hunting rifle there’s always going to be a contingent for whom more equals more. These are the folks that happily shoot whitetails with their .300 magnums and would never dream of tackling a larger animal like an elk, moose, or big bear with something that didn’t rock their world when they pulled the trigger. They would probably still feel undergunned with a 6.5 PRC.

But for the rest of us, the 6.5 PRC is among the best choices available. It avoids the stigma associated with its smaller sibling and propels those wonderful high-BC 6.5 bullets about 200 fps faster than the cartridge which shall not be named.

Its recoil is on par with the .308 Winchester, making it manageable for all shooters. And it shoots flat and hits like a sledgehammer—or at least like a 3-pound splitting maul—at distance.

Whereas the interest in most cartridges built on the short-magnum principle soon faded, it seems the 6.5 PRC is destined to join the ranks of those that hang around for the long haul.

But recently, a score sheet for the deer has mysteriously surfaced on social media. It’s unclear if the scores filled out on that sheet are legitimate (more on this later). But what is crystal clear is that there are many folks who still believe the Rompola Buck is real and that it would be a world record if it were ever officially entered into the B&C books. As someone who has covered the story of this buck since it first surfaced, I’m one of the believers.

The score sheet, like the antlers from the whitetail, have been under wraps since the rack was measured by a panel of three men, presumably for entry into state records maintained by Commemorative Bucks of Michigan during late March 1999. All three men were CBM measurers, but Gary Berger also scored big game for Boone & Crockett, Pope & Young and the Longhunter’s Society. Lee Holbrook (one of the other three scorers) was on the list of Pope & Young scorers, too. Al Brown was the third member of the panel.

It was assumed the rack would be a new state record typical and CBM bylaws require panel measuring of any antlers that are a potential record. Rompola already held the state record for typical bow kills with a 12-pointer he arrowed in 1985 that scored 181 ⅞ (that wasn’t the only buck he had in state records). Also, Rompola had been scoring chairman for CBM for many years, so he was well aware of the rules. He had previously been a measurer for Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young, too.

The rack from the massive whitetail that Rompola killed with a bow on November 13, 1998 ended up with a net score of 216 ⅝. That not only set the record for Michigan typicals, but it also set the typical world record. Then, as now, the number one typical whitetail in Boone & Crockett Records was the Hanson buck—a Saskatchewan 12-pointer shot by Milo Hanson that netted 213 ⅝.

The Mitch Rompola Buck’s Score

I knew Rompola personally through my involvement with CBM. I wrote and edited the first editions of the state’s big game record books and was editor of the organization’s quarterly magazine, Buck Fax, for a number of years.

I’ve known Mitch since the early 1980s and considered him a friend. I wrote a number of articles about his big buck success with bow and arrow, including the story behind the state-record buck he tagged in 1985. The monster deer he killed in 1998 generated more articles, and it also generated fallout far beyond what anyone could have imagined. The rack was so big and its shape so unique that many people didn’t believe it was real.

The antlers grew off to the sides of the deer’s head instead of going upward, which contributed to the wide inside spread and long beams. The inside spread of the antlers taped out at 30 ⅜ inches and both antlers were more than 32 inches in length. The right beam measured 32 6⁄8 inches and the left was 32 2⁄8. Even the largest trophy whitetail antlers typically end up with main beam measurements less than 30 inches. For reference, the Hanson buck had main-beam measurements of 28 ⅜ and 28 ⅛.

The DNR aged the buck at 7 ½ years old, well beyond the age that most whitetail bucks reach anywhere in the U.S. The buck’s age made it possible for him to grow the impressive headgear. Circumferences of the antlers at the bases were 5 3⁄8 and 5 5⁄8 inches. All but one of the other circumference measurements were between 4 4⁄8 and 5 inches.

The second and third tines on each side were the longest, ranging from 11 to more than 13 inches long. Brow tines and the last points (G5s) were the shortest, being between 4 and 5 inches in length.

All of the measurements on the right antler totaled 96 3⁄8 inches and came out to 94 inches on the left side. When those two numbers are added to the inside spread of 30 3⁄8, the rack’s gross score was 220 6⁄8. There were only 4 1⁄8 inches of differences (deductions) from one antler to the other, yielding the net score of 216 5⁄8.

A Scoresheet Surfaces

A scoresheet for the Mitch Rompola Buck was recently posted on the Mitch Rompola Fan Club Facebook group, which has more than 3,200 members. The description for the group reads in part: “This group is dedicated to Mitch Rompola and those of us hunters who either know Mitch personally, know of his stature, ethics, morals and credibility as well as his remarkable bowhunting skills, etc. And those of us that believe Mitch isn’t a fake, didn’t fake his legendary bow kill of what would be a record buck as well. Many of us believe that Mitch got a raw deal — his name slandered, disrespected, accused of something that he never falsified or did wrong…”

It’s unlikely that this scoresheet is the original one that was completed by the panel of scorers. As several members of the Facebook group noted, the sheet has a newer design than the score sheets of the late 90s.

I spoke with the administrator of the Facebook group who said he pulled the image from the depths of the Internet and was never able to trace its original publisher. Gary Berger, one of the three original scorers, eventually responded to my requests for comment on the score sheet.

“All I know is that’s not my handwriting,” he said.

Based on what I had reported on the buck previously, I believe that it’s a replica of the original, reprinted on the modern B&C score sheet template.

The Rompola Buck Backstory

Mitch had been hunting this particular buck for three years. He saw it on a number of occasions and took several photos of it during that time. Rompola’s first opportunity to kill the whitetail failed when his arrow was deflected. But 10 days later, he was able to arrow the deer.

Rompola had been sharing the story about the big buck he was after with many of his friends. When he finally tagged the deer, he showed it to as many of them as possible. One of the people who saw and inspected the impressive whitetail was veteran tribal conservation officer Bill Bailey from Honor, Michigan. Bailey is a big buck hunter in his own right and he brought some relatives with him to see the buck. Several other folks were there to see the deer as well.

I spoke to Bailey about the Mitch Rompola Buck and there was no doubt in his mind about the legitimacy of the whitetail and its rack.

“I’m convinced the deer and the antlers are real,” he told me. “I’ve seen them. How can anyone who hasn’t seen the deer claim otherwise?”

In almost any other situation, the word of a law enforcement officer would be enough to verify the authenticity of a deer. On top of that, the trio of experienced measurers who officially scored the antlers, spending hours inspecting and measuring the rack, all vouched for the deer.

The head of the buck was partially mounted when it was measured during late March, but the back of the mount was still open, so the CBM officials could inspect the skull plate and the base of the antlers. Nothing fishy was observed. In spite of the steadfast testimony of those who went over the antlers as meticulously as anyone could, there are still many detractors. Many insist that northern Michigan isn’t capable of producing a whitetail of that caliber. They say the buck must have been shot from behind a high fence, or the deer was shot illegally. They say that the fact that Mitch didn’t enter the deer in any records proves that it is fake.

Big Bucks of Northern Michigan

I think it’s foolish to believe that this area of Michigan simply couldn’t produce a world-record buck. Grand Traverse County may not be the best county in Michigan for record book bucks, but other high scoring whitetails have been grown there besides those Rompola has taken. On Oct. 2, 2022, Tim Bannen nailed a 15-point nontypical with palmated antlers from the county that had a green score of 182 4⁄8. During the 1976 gun season, Jim Thomson shot a 12-point bruiser in the county that netted 174 6⁄8.

If more bucks lived to be 7 ½ years old like the one Mitch tagged in 1998, the county would certainly produce more record-book bucks. Not all portions of Grand Traverse County are open to deer hunting and some whitetails are able to grow old in those sanctuaries. Mitch told me about a buck he was pursuing in 2004 that spent 70 percent of its time in areas that were closed to hunting. He never did kill that whitetail, but the information about that deer confirms that Rompola was targeting some deer along the fringes of sanctuaries that other hunters were avoiding.

The Recovery Video

Besides the supporting testimony of everyone who saw the big buck Mitch shot in 1998, Rompola himself did something to document the authenticity of the kill. After arrowing the deer, he went home to let his girlfriend know what happened, ate something, and got his cameras before recovering the deer. He recorded a 20-minute video of the recovery, starting from the treestand where he shot it and progressing to where the buck fell. I’m one of the few people who has seen that entire video, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the level of excitement in Mitch’s voice was authentic. When he reached the fallen deer it was the culmination of three years of an incredible hunting effort. The arrow was still in the whitetail and the animal was shown from different angles. The footage appeared totally legitimate.

Rompola shared this video with a local news station, which edited it down into a short clip for the outdoors segment of their program. I visited the station and viewed the full, unedited video there in the editing room. But this was nearly 25 years ago, and the full film has since been lost to time.

Why Didn’t Rompola Enter the Buck in the Record Books?

Some hunters have a hard time believing anyone who killed such a massive buck would not enter it in the record books to claim the title of having taken a world-record whitetail. Mitch Rompola is not like everyone else, however. The fact that he consistently puts himself in position to take trophy whitetails with his bow sets him apart. He is also not a people person.

Yes—like most any other hunter would be, he was ecstatic about taking a world-class buck on Nov. 13, 1998. He tried to share his good fortune with the world, starting with family and friends, and then doing numerous interviews for newspapers, magazines, and television shows. He had a hard time understanding why people didn’t believe his story and doubted the authenticity of the buck.

He knew what he accomplished and that was good enough for him. What had been a highlight of his hunting career was turning into a soap opera, with Rompola painted as the villain by those who never saw the deer or the antlers and didn’t know much, if anything, about it. Rompola didn’t feel he had to prove anything to anybody. He got tired of dealing with false claims and negative comments about the deer and his own character, and said, “The hell with it!”

Although the antlers from the Mitch Rompola Buck from 1998 were clearly of world record size, he never referred to the whitetail as a world record. This was because he knew he would have to enter the deer in Boone & Crockett or Pope & Young records to achieve that status. He never planned on doing either. The buck didn’t qualify for Pope & Young Records because he killed the whitetail with a compound bow that had greater than a 65 percent let-off at full draw and the club’s rules prohibited such entries at the time. Their rules have changed since then.

That deer was the third to Rompola’s credit with antlers large enough to qualify for all-time listing in Boone & Crockett. When Rompola was 13, he arrowed a 16-point nontypical that scored 208 6⁄8 in his home state of Missouri. Then in 1985, he tagged the 12-point in Michigan that was a state record for many years and netted 181 7⁄8. Mitch didn’t enter either of those deer in B&C. So he was being consistent by not entering his 1998 buck either. There are, of course, plenty of other hunters who have shot B&C-caliber bucks who have chosen not to enter them.

But why didn’t Rompola enter the whitetail in state records after it was panel scored? All he had to do was sign the score sheet to finalize the entry. He chose not to sign the sheet to avoid bringing CBM into the controversy. If he did enter the rack into CBM records and CBM deemed the Mitch Rompola Buck the official Michigan state record, it would have created an incredible amount of undue controversy and criticism for the relatively small organization.

“People are adamantly insisting that I must do certain things to get the buck entered in the record books,” Rompola wrote in an article in Buck Fax. “Well, I’m not interested in the record books, but I’m still fascinated by the antler measurements for comparison with my personal racks. The record books used to be important to me, but they are not anymore.

“Although I’ve shot a good number of trophy bucks in recent years, I haven’t entered any of them since 1988. For now, don’t expect this one to be treated any differently. It may be entered someday, or it may not.”

Why Did Rompola Sign the Agreement with Hanson?

The fact that Mitch didn’t plan on entering the deer in B&C is the reason he didn’t have any qualms about signing a legal agreement drafted by representatives of Milo Hanson’s existing world record. The agreement stated that Rompola would not enter the deer and would not claim that his deer was a world record. Doing so would devalue the Hanson buck, hence the agreement.

Some people continue to claim that Rompola’s signing of that agreement proves that there was a problem with the deer, but that’s false just like all of the other rumors, speculation, and lies that have been spread about the whitetail and the hunter who killed it.

In reality, the company that took the time, effort, and expense to draft the agreement Mitch signed would not have done so if they didn’t feel the buck was legitimate. The bottom line is that in spite of all of the rumors, myths, and speculation about the Rompola Buck being fake or an illegal kill, no proof to that effect has surfaced over the past 25 years. The obvious reason for that is because the buck is real, so there is no proof of it being a fraud.

Where Did the Rumors Start?

One of the people who started rumors about the Rompola Buck being fake is Craig Calderone from Jackson, Michigan. It’s important to know that Calderone may have had an axe to grind. In the fall of 1986, Calderone killed a 14-point typical with a bow in Jackson County that scored more than the top deer for that category at the time. The current record holder in the category was Rompola, with the buck he bagged the year before.

Not long after Calderone’s buck was entered in state records, a ticket and violation surfaced, which Craig had received years earlier for spotlighting deer. According to CBM bylaws, the Calderone Buck was suspended for three years. It could have been re-entered after that time, but Craig chose not to go through the entry process again. That deer is listed in B&C Records with a score of 193 2⁄8.

Rompola was the previous record holder and a CBM official at the time this all went down. Calderone blamed Rompola for his rack being dropped from state records. But Rompola had nothing to do with the decision about the Calderone Buck. He even excluded himself from deliberations due to potential conflict of interest.

When Rompola killed his giant buck in 1998, Calderone didn’t waste any time calling it fake after seeing photos of the deer. Calderone claimed the coloration of the antlers was typical of fabricated racks and the buck’s droopy ears proved the antlers were altered.

Calderone went so far as to publicly offer to give $10,000 to a charity of Rompola’s choosing if he  would have the antlers X-rayed. He did this knowing Rompola probably wouldn’t take him up on the offer. (To this day, many people mistakenly think Calderone offered to give Rompola $10,000 directly, if he would’ve had the rack X-rayed.)

The Story Continues

Rompola is still alive and well, living in Michigan and keeping to himself. It’s been years since I’ve corresponded with him through letters. Even so, I’m still hopeful that more details and facts about the buck will come to light.

I like to think it was Rompola or one of his friends who finally released those numbers in the score sheet and we might be seeing and hearing more about that deer in the not too distant future.
The Mitch Rompola buck is still being written about and talked about in podcasts today. If you want to read more about Rompola’s big buck success with a bow, refer to books one, three, and four of my series, Great Michigan Deer Tales. There are now eight books in the series, which focuses on the biggest bucks bagged by hunters in the state.

Update: This story has been updated after Gary Berger responded to an interview request.