A Great Missouri Buck - Pick from Buddy - 09 Season

Ok, when it comes to trail cam placement it seems pretty simple – find a deer trail, find a tree to stick your camera to, point it at the trail and you’re done. That’s pretty much it, but I do have a few suggestions that may help you get more than the deer’s behind the next time you check your pics!

Camera distance from trail and camera angle are the only two things you need to think about. Most of us pic up the trail camera that’s on sale and it’s not til we look at about 20 deer butts in a row that we figure out why we got it so cheap – it has a slow shutter speed. To compensate for this put your camera at an angle to the trail, not perpendicular. This allows the camera more time to take the picture as the deer will be within the camera’s shooting range for a longer period of time.

Next thing to consider is distance from trail.  Too close to the trail and you seriously limit your viewing area, and too far away, you seriously limit the quality of the pics.  A good rule of thumb is to place the camera roughly half of it’s max detectible distance away from where you expect to get the best pic, possibly slightly less than half.  This seems to give you the correct balance of a clear pic along with the ablility to catch the whole deer and not just its butt, which is inevitably what you get when you only get part of a deer.

One more thing, try and make sure the camera won’t be facing directly into the sunrise or sunset.  These are some of the best times to get the best pics and it’s a good chance you’ll catch nothing but a big glare if placed facing east or west.

An hour presentation can be done on trail cameras and the correct placement, but these few tips here seem to have been the most helpful ones I’ve experienced to help ensure some good pics of your deer. 

Good luck – send me some of your pics!!  hunterbydesign@gmail.com

Most of you have probably already beat me to this, but if you’re like me and have been going 90 to nuthin this summer, it’s time to start setting boundaries, and get that bow dialed in!  Here in the great state of MO, bow season starts September 15th – it’s hard to believe that it’s less than a month away!

How great would it be to start the season off with the biggest buck of your life??  I believe that you can and in fact, I believe that the first few weeks of the season could be your best chance.  Here’s what we need to be doing in the next few weeks. 

1.  Shoot your bow!  I’ve found that it’s not good to shoot over 10-15 minutes at a time, much over this and your muscles start showing fatigue and you start picking up bad habits.  If you’re only shooting 15 min at a time you can do the math on how many days you need to shoot in order to get back in the groove.  I can think of no worse feeling than to do everything right to get into range of that buck of a lifetime only to watch your arrow miss it’s mark!

2.  Scout scout scout!  I may be a hypocrite on preaching this point this year, but it won’t be for lack of desire, but lack of time that may keep me from doing as much scouting as I’d like.  Bucks are patternable early season as they are still coming to food sources – a soybean field is a great place to sit along and do some glassing.  If you’re short on time, but have a few trail cameras, then by all means, get them out there!

The great thing about this time of year is that most bucks are still in their bachelor groups, meaning if you see one, you’re likely to see five more behind him.  Needless to say, this can keep scouting interesting! 

Best of luck to all of you this year and I look forward to hearing your stories and hopefully I’ll get to share a few of mine!

This last little project I wanted to share with you all was mounting my antlers (from the buck I shot bowhunting this year – scroll down for video!)  on a plaque.  I looked at several online and some were nice, but were either more money than I wanted to spend or just didn’t have the “look” I wanted.  I wanted an arrowhead plaque to let everyone know that this was a bow kill.  So I decided that I would just make it. 

I started with a pattern that I printed out onto a few different sheets of copy paper and taped them together to complete the arrowhead outline.  I then transposed that pattern onto a nice 1″ board that I purchased at Lowes for around $8.  I then cut out the arrowhead with a jig saw.  I would imagine a band saw would be faster, but when you don’t have a band saw you use a jig saw!  I then took my router that I had never used and cut a 45 degree angle about 1/2″  deep giving it that true arrowhead look.  I bought some wire strap from a hardware store for about $2, some 1″ sheet rock screws and some stain for $6.  Of course, I could do several of these plaques with these supplies I’m listing.  I also bought a nice 12″x12″ piece of leather, some decorative tacks, and mounting hardware from Hobby Lobby all for $9. 

After cutting out the plaque and routing the edge I stained the face of the plaque leaving the edges the natural wood color.  Then of course, I simply strapped the antlers to the plaque.  Now this is my first try at this and I needed something to give me some shape for the leather to go over and I used what was handy which happened to be my kid’s play-do.  This may turn out to be a mistake after this stuff dries out, but we’ll have to see.  I used some felt to make myself a pattern to use to cut out the leather with.  I then simply tacked the leather down around the the antlers as you can see. 

This project didn’t take too long and my wife said that she thought it looked great so it must, as she is very honest when it comes to my craftmanship whether it be good or bad   Plus I have that manly, “I made that” feeling and that’s worth quite a bit!!  Below are some pics of the finishing steps to the process. 

I experienced one of those memorable moments a few weeks and there was no problem recognizing it. In Missouri we have an extended doe season shortly following our regular rifle season. My son is 2yrs old now and is constantly asking to go hunting. We had a few warm days so I decided to take him out a few times. He really did great, we’ve now got the whispering thing down and we had lots of fun playing in the dirt behind our makeshift blind. This was good enough for me as it was great to have him out there with me enjoying the woods. But on the last day I had to hunt up in norh MO we went out to hunt just about an hour before dark.

We sat there for roughly 40min when what ended up being a small button buck walked out just 150yds away. It was great, I shot the deer and he was pumped! It felt like I’d shot my first deer all over again! We ran up there and checked the deer out and he thought it was the greatest thing. He was my big helper, he stayed right with me while I field dressed the deer and was very proud to tell momma that we got us a BIG deer as he called it He even made an announcement in church the next day saying we got us a BIG BUCK! Looks like he’s getting started right…already telling big deer stories!

Just wanted to share that with you all and express my feelings that THIS is what hunting is really all about. It’s about teaching responsibility, passing on tradition, and most of all spending time with those we love. Looking forward to many more of such memories and please, if you have like stories with pics feel free to share them with me, I’d love to hear them! – hunterbydesign@gmail.com

You fellow Missourians know what November 14th is, but for the rest of you that is the beginning of rifle season. Unfortunately, it is also the peak of rut here in north Missouri, meaning we have hunters coming in from all over the place! I really don’t mind the hunters for I’m one of them, it’s just the fact that there are many of us native north Missourians that do a lot of deer managing – passing on the young ones etc etc, only to see them same deer killed a few weeks later. A little frustrating, but part of the gig, I understand.

I saw a couple of good bucks really early Sat. morning, but it was just a bit too early to tell enough about them to take a shot – I couldn’t even get good video. I did get some video of a nice 8pt that a hunter on the neighboring property spooked by me. Saturday evening I hunted in the timber and I saw a lot of deer, but all does and a couple small bucks. Needless to say, I have yet to seriously consider pulling the trigger.

Most of my entertainment came from the neighboring hunter who had trouble sitting still. It was just a little after 8am when he decided to start making his rounds and that’s exactly what he did. Kept seeing him move in and around the patch of timber he was hunting. I even got some video of him just for kicks

I guess that’s yet another reason why I love bowhunting, it’s more about reading deer sign and getting right up close. Luck is definately a factor needed on your side, but much less so than stomping through some timber and blasting a deer 200 yrds away. Nothing wrong with that as long as your confident in your shot, it’s just much less intimate of an experience.

The 12th the 13th I hunted with some cousins and did some videoing of them bowhunting. I rattled in a couple of bucks on one evening hunt, one young 10pt and a young 7pt. I got some great vid of the 7pt, but my cousin made a good decision in letting him walk as he was young with some good potential. Saw the young 10 the next morning not 100 yrds from the night before, got some more video, but it still wasn’t what we were looking for.

So far it’s been a great bow season. I’ve been fortunate enough to harvest a doe, a nice buck, and a turkey, all of which I caught on camera! Now that is where the luck comes in, I still can’t believe I got all of these kills on camera! I’m going go out tonight, but this will probably be my last chance up here in north Mo, at least for the rifle season, I’m going to have to be getting back down to south Mo.

Here are some clips of the video I’ve been able to catch here in the past week, mostly while bowhunting. Enjoy!

Great hunt! The video pretty much says it all – especially after I got done rambing! The rut is coming right on. I hunted with a cousin this morning and watched a small buck chasing a doe. You can’t beat deer hunting this time of year!
Very thankful and happy to have harvested such a beautiful deer – Good luck to you all!

Unofficial score done by myself is: 125 3/8″ Gross – 117 6/8″ Net

Wildlife Biologist friend just aged this deer at 4 1/2 years old – great mature whitetail!

I find some stress relief by getting a bit scientific and trying not to leave it all up to chance (as if we really have any control anyway!) The answer of where to hunt changes throughout the season as the deer move from early season feeding patterns, to pre-rut, to rut, to postrut. Of course, when you throw in lunar cycles, temp., and wind direction, there really is a lot to think about!

I don’t want to go in depth on all of this here, but I would like to let you know what I’m focusing on right now. Here in north Missouri the deer are still mostly in the pre-rut stage as they are making scrapes and a few are chasing does a bit, but that’s not the norm as of yet. I’m honing in on the scrapes and particularly the scrapes in high doe traffic areas. In my opinion this is the best time to hunt over a scrape as most bucks are not “with” a doe yet, but are frantically making their rounds to check their scrapes to see if there may be some does coming in. Once the rut hits, scrapes tend to get a bit more neglected as the bucks usually are hot on the trail of a hot doe.

I found this graph on bowsite.com that I found really helpful and at the very least interesting.

*Data Graph by (Kile and Marchinton, 1977)

I realize some of you are old pros, but for others hopefully this information will be helpful. It may be time to go rogue, forget that favorite stand and find you a nice clean scrape to hunt over and just wait to see what comes by – you can bet that’s where I’ll be!

Good luck to you – and by all means, let me know how you do! You can send pics and/or stories of your hunts to hunterbydesign@gmail.com and I’ll see if I can’t get them posted!

I’ve been wanting to write this for some time now, just hadn’t had the chance til now. Ever wondered why deer seemed to like a certain area? Ever wondered what was over on the neighboring property? Ever wonder where the natural funnels are on a newly acquired piece of ground? Well, your wondering is over! The answer to all those questions can be found while sitting in your living room playing with google earth!

I moved to southwest Missouri a few years ago, so I was starting from scratch on finding private hunting ground. You can drive around, but with gas prices and being unfamiliar with the area, that just didn’t seem extremely practical. So I decided to check out my area from a bird’s eye view. I simply got onto google earth and within no time I had picked 6-7 properties that looked like great deer/turkey habitat. I now have permission to hunt 4 of those properties! I’ll do a separate write up someday on how to be successfull in gaining & keeping permission to hunt.

This is not only a great tool for new properties, but it can greatly enhance your knowledge of a property you’ve hunted for years. There are just certain things you don’t see at ground level. I think the most helpful thing google earth does for you on an older property is give you a great look at the neighboring properties. It can greatly enhance your knowledge of the deer movement in your area.

Last but not least, is that google earth is FREE & FUN! It’s so cool to be able to scout while sitting on your couch! Of course, you’ll want to get your boots on the ground and verify what you’re seeing, but it will cut the wasted scouting time in half!

“It’s ok daddy, you’ll get one next time.”  That’s the “consolation” my two year old son has been giving me after returning from the last few hunts empty handed.  Much to the pleasure of my wife I might add!  They’ll all learn someday that bow hunting is not a sport of instant gratification, but when that gratification does come, it’s all the sweeter! 

This afternoon before I left my boy told me good luck and to kill a turkey.  I told him I would, that tonight I would get him a turkey.  God must have smiled, cause these turkeys came in perfect at 25yrds!

I feel so blessed to get another harvest on video.  I should get some kick-back from the gorilla-pod as much as I endorse them, you just can’t beat them for videoing while you’re solo.  These turkeys started yelping about 80yrds away up in the brush, so I just softly yelped back ever so often.  I knew I was in their roosting area, so I figured they’d be heading my way.  Sure enough – the video pretty much tells the rest of the story!

Beautiful evening – fun, fun, hunt in southwest Missouri! 

Thanks for reading!