This past week was characterized by a mid-October cold front that passed through much of the central part of the U.S. Buck activity really spurred up after the two weeks of warm days.
Before you pull the trigger or release an arrow, do you know how to field judge a whitetail deer’s antlers? Those who hunt simply to fill the freezer, this is not really an issue. But for those who are hoping to shoot a buck with antlers that meet or exceed a certain numeric score, more often than not, overestimate the size of the antlers, leading to that common malady known as “ground shrinkage.”
Did this happen to you this past hunting season? Before opening day you found a really good buck using your trail cameras, so you set stands, were all a-twitter—then never saw him again all season. Did you think you did something wrong, and forced him to go nocturnal? Maybe—but probably not.